Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor

Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8)

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Summary

Virtually unprecedented research resources are about to be committed to the construction of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor by an intergovernmental coalition of countries -- with significant funding via the European Union. It constitutes a major research and technological challenge designed to benefit from national experiments over the past 30 years. It is hoped to be a key step in the resolution of the foreseeable energy challenges of the planet.

The initiative described here is complementary to this project and quite distinct, although it is designed to benefit symbiotically from the creative challenges and breakthroughs in research on controlled nuclear fusion. It is focused on the challenge of engendering psychocultural energy, notably as a response to the increasing popular apathy with regard to major social projects such as the European Union. The initiative is seen as vital to sustaining the creativity, excitement, collective purpose and fun without which unlimited supplies of conventional energy are effectively meaningless to any higher quality of life. The initiative involves the enactivation of a "cognitive fusion reactor" through which individual and collective energy can be engendered. It is a coherent act of will, creativity and imagination designed to serve as an attractor for those who can engage in its processes or benefit therefrom. It builds on the integrative approaches developed over 30 years through the experimental online databases of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential -- most recently with extensive funding from the European Union.

The following outline first clarifies the challenges of controlled nuclear fusion in contrast with those of controlled cognitive fusion. Their complementarity is then highlighted notably with respect to the toroidal dynamics considered as essential to the stability of both their respective processes -- especially to the degree that they mirror each other. The challenges of nuclear fusion are reviewed as a template of requisite variety by which the challenges of cognitive fusion can be modelled. The unconventional nature of the cognitive fusion initiative is then clarified as a higher dimensional construct -- considered as fundamental to psychosocial processes of the 21st century. The nature of the conformal, coactive "non-relationship" to other projects, institutions and people is then briefly noted.

Background

The ITER-8 initiative described here is inspired by the allocation of resources to the design and experimental development of ITER. Conceived at an international summit in 1985, it was originally named the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (also known as the International Thermonuclear Energy Reactor) -- as a way of harnessing nuclear fusion as a peaceful power source. It has since taken the form of a Joint Undertaking under the Euratom Treaty (the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community) and has been given the name ITER International Fusion Energy Organisation (IIFEO). The experimental tokamak fusion reactor is to be constructed at Cadarache (France) with the ITER headquarters located in Barcelona (Spain). Participating countries include: China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, the USA-- and the counties of the European Union,

ITER: The ITER initiative is significant in that it represents one of the world's major research hopes for new sources of energy at a time when the probability of energy shortage is becoming increasingly evident. As a potentially safe, environmentally friendly and economically competitive energy source fusion has the potential to provide practically inexhaustible energy with greatly reduced levels of radioactive waste compared with fission. It is also significant because of the fundamental nature of the research required to render it viable. Such factors have justified the allocation of unprecedented research funds (only exceeded by the funding of the International Space Station). It is thereby hoped to ensure "business as usual" for the foreseeable future. The construction cost between 2006 and 2013 is expected to be up to $12 billion (10-billion-euro). If ITER is successful, a demonstration fusion power plant would be built in the mid-2030s, with the prospect of the first commercial fusion plant being created mid-century to assess economic feasibility.

ITER-8: In the spirit of complementarity basic to fundamental physics, the ITER-8 initiative outlined here is framed as a complementary approach to ITER. It seeks to benefit from every cognitive and design advance made in the construction and operation of ITER as the best of what humanity is capable in the sustainable generation and management of energy. These are understood for ITER-8 as cognitive patterns that may be of relevance as design metaphors in its elaboration of a cognitive fusion reactor and in the sustainable management of the psychosocial energies that would be thereby engendered.

In contrast to the needs for the kinds of energy available from nuclear fusion (or nuclear fission and other familiar energy sources), the following initiative relates to the fundamental need of society and individuals for another form of energy. This may be variously described as the "energy" associated with imagination, creativity, hope, fun and a sense of coherent, collective purpose -- even "the political will to change" (cf Reframing Sustainable Sources of Energy for the Future: the vital role of psychosocial variants, 2005) . This "energy" is to be contrasted with the psychosocial apathy and despair which is increasingly widespread and undermines the coherence of any other initiatives -- whether or not they benefit from the "unlimited" energy that ITER may help to provide.

What follows is the outline design of the "cognitive fusion reactor" named here as "ITER-8". This acronym stands for: Imaginal Transformation of Energy Resourcing -- Alternation Technology Enactivation. The figure 8 is appended as a reminder of:

• the configuration of precepts traditionally advocated to engender psychosocial energy sustainably (and in contrast with that used by ITER in defining the requisite temperature for nuclear fusion, namely 10⁸ degrees centigrade)
• the counter-intuitive "twistedness" required for fusion (as exemplified in the case of nuclear fusion by the figure-of-eight shape into which plasma must be twisted -- whether physically in a stellarator or magnetically in a tokamak)

As the name implies, ITER-8 specifically engages with the challenges of:

• Imagination, and the need to elicit and sustain it, as is recognized by many
• Transformation, as the need for psychosocial and paradigmatic transformation in response to conditions recognized as increasingly problematic
• Energy, as the psychosocial energy that sustains the desire and will to live and innovate in response to turbulent social conditions and shortage
• Resourcing, in recognition of the need for sources of energy that are currently inadequately acknowledged
  
  
• Alternation, as the fundamental pragmatic need for switching between alternatives as appropriate rather than promoting particular alternatives as unquestionably preferable
• Technology, as the need for the development of a new range of disciplines, know-how and "techne" to ensure sustainability
• Enactivation, as the radical independence of its initiation from conventional institutional project logic and its supporting financial mechanisms

ITER-8 is a coherent act of will, creativity and imagination designed to serve as an attractor for those who can engage in its processes. It is expected that some of its processes will be supportive of the creativity required in the experimental development of the ITER fusion reactor at Cadarache (France).

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that ITER is considered an extremely ambitious experiment which may indeed give rise to energy at the levels hoped -- and without engendering disastrously unmanageable problems, whether envisaged or unforeseen. As an experiment it is an initiative in the face of what might prove impossible -- justified by a sense of potential. Similarly, ITER-8 is an initiative in response to what may be impossible but may indeed have enormous potential.

EXPERIMENTAL CHALLENGES

Experimental challenge of fusion for ITER

The technical issues presented here regarding controlled nuclear fusion may be initially omitted in preference to the subsequent discussion of controlled cognitive fusion or even of the comparison between the two forms of fusion.

Three energy sources are potentially capable of reducing the world's fossil fuel dependence: nuclear fission, nuclear fusion and solar energy:

• Nuclear fission: a neutron strikes the nucleus of a heavy element, such as uranium -- splitting to form lighter elements and releasing heat energy, and leaving problematic amounts of radioactive waste.
• Nuclear fusion: nuclei of light elements, such as hydrogen are fused to make heavier elements. Fusion releases about four times more energy for a given mass of fuel than does fission. To make fusion happen, the atoms of hydrogen must be heated to very high temperatures (100 million degrees) so they are ionized (forming plasma) and have sufficiently high energy to fuse, and then held together i.e. confined long enough for fusion occur.
• Solar: currently this is considered the least viable in terms of the amounts of energy required.

The Joint European Torus (JET) is currently the world's largest nuclear fusion research facility and has clarified many of the challenges of fusion reactors [see other experimental sites].

The acronym ITER previously referred to International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor or International Tokamak Experimental Reactor. The ITER Legal Entity (ILE) is now officially known as the ITER International Fusion Energy Organisation (IIFEO) which holds the license for construction of ITER. IIFEO will subsequently be responsible for the safe operation of ITER. IIFEO will be established soon after the signature/ratification of the Joint Implementation Agreement between the ITER Parties, probably late in 2006. Before then, the ITER project will continue with its International Team supported by host organizations (Max Planck IPP, JAERI, and CEA at Garching, Naka, and Cadarache respectively), and with Participant Teams provided by each negotiation participant. [more]. ITER is scheduled to power up in 2016 and will be the penultimate step towards commercial fusion power -- possibly from 2050 at the earliest.

Fusion: There is a wide variety of information explaining the fusion process (cf Fusion Power Associates; Internet Plasma Physics Education Experience - IPPEX). Theoretically this is a simple physical process: the binding of the nuclei of two similar atoms, whether it occurs in stars or in a fusion reactor:

• Stars: The fusion reaction occurs in stars, like the Sun, and is the source of their power. In the centre of the sun, fusion takes place at a temperature of 15 million degrees and a pressure of 100,000 atmospheres. Energy is released through a chain of reactions that begins with the fusion of two protons into a deuteron (a deuterium nucleus containing one proton and one neutron). The deuteron then combines with another proton to produce a nucleus of helium-3, which, in turn, fuses with another helium-3 nucleus to form a nucleus of helium-4 (an alpha particle). This process takes hundreds of millions of years, ensuring the long-term heating permitting life on the planets. Such protonic fusion cannot therefore be used as a viable source of terrestrial fusion energy.
  
  
• Fusion reactors: Since stellar conditions are not reproducible on Earth, fusion reactors use lesser pressures and greater temperatures (in the region of 100 million degrees centigrade, namely 10⁸ degrees) to achieve a more rapid result. In a fusion reactor energy is produced in a similar manner when light atoms in a plasma are fused together to form heavier ones. The atoms used are deuterium (one proton and one neutron) and tritium (one proton and two neutrons). Both are isotopes of hydrogen and very abundant in nature. The result of forcing them together is to split them into a neutron and a helium-4 nucleus (with two neutrons and two protons) -- otherwise known as an alpha particle -- plus another particle that does not carry much energy. Because this reaction involves only the rearrangement of protons and neutrons, rather than the transformation of a proton into a neutron, it proceeds much more rapidly than protonic fusion. The mass of the two incoming nuclei is greater than the mass of the product. This loss of mass is converted into energy (as predicted by Einstein’s formula, E=mc²), less than in protonic fusion. But, provided the deuterium and tritium nuclei can be made to collide with one another indefinitely at energies of between 10 and 100 keV, the reactions proceed at a useful rate for power production.

Self-heating: For power production, the challenge is to produce a “burning plasma” where enough ions are confined at sufficient density and temperature such that the heat from the alpha particles can maintain the plasma without significant auxiliary heating power. The burning plasma is a nearly fully-ionized gas in which the fusion power captured by the plasma keeps the plasma hot. A burning plasma is dominated by this self-heating. This condition has not yet however been achieved in a laboratory for any useful period of time.

The plasma -- the ionized gas of deuterium and tritium nuclei -- will be heated by an external source to a temperature of at least 100 million degrees centigrade. At this temperature, the deuterium and tritium nuclei begin to fuse, forming helium nuclei and neutrons. These magnetically-confined helium nuclei will then collide with deuterium nuclei in the gas, transferring some of their energy to the deuterium nuclei and heating the gas further -- the burning plasma mode. The plasma becomes self-heating -- as with a star -- and a strong external energy source is no longer necessary.

The dynamics of the self-heating are a fundamentally new and key feature studied in ITER. It would be the first magnetic confinement fusion experiment to produce burning plasma. The reaction would produce ten times the amount of external power injected into it. If successful, ITER would produce 500 megawatts of fusion power for 500 seconds or longer during each "shot" of the fusion experiment, with a repetition period of roughly 2000 seconds. In contrast, the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, one of ITER's predecessors that shut down in 1997, produced a maximum of 11 megawatts for only one-third of a second. The goal of ITER is to obtain an energy gain (Q) of 10, namely to operate in a regime where the plasma heating from alpha-particles has twice the value of auxiliary heating.

Containment: In stars, as natural fusion reactors, it is the non-material gravity field that confines the plasma in a stable and long-lived configuration permitting the reactions to take place. Under the conditions required, a human-scale fusion reactor must also use a non-material container. To make the reactor small enough, it must use a much stronger force than gravity, namely the force of a magnetic field. ITER is to be an experimental magnetic confinement device of the type called a tokamak. This has a toroidal (doughnut-shaped) configuration and a strong, confining magnetic field. The tokamak configuration has been under study by fusion plasma scientists since the 1960s [more] [more]. It has proven to have the best confinement of all the configurations so far envisioned [see alternative confinement concepts: stellarator, reversed-field pinch (RFP), field reversed configuration (FRC), spheromak, levitated dipole]. In the tokamak, poloidal magnetic fields (in the direction of the doughnut's cross-section) are created primarily by a toroidal current inside the plasma itself. This combination of toroidal and poloidal magnetic fields generates an overall nested helical structure which is necessary to keep the plasma stable [image].

Tokamak: Toroidal and Poloidal Fields

Research challenges: Progress to practical fusion energy is currently determined by the evolution of scientific understanding of hot plasmas and by advances in certain critical technologies. Plasmas are gases in which ions and electrons are not attached as atoms or molecules, but rather move freely. Knowledge of toroidal plasma confinement is still far from being complete. The key scientific questions in fusion research concern the remaining uncertainties in the development of fusion as a source of energy. These relate to the understanding, control, and predictability of burning plasma. They include:

• What limits the pressure of high-temperature plasmas?
• What causes the deterioration in confinement that is observed near the density limit in tokamaks -- which could drastically limit the power of a tokamak fusion reactor?
• How do very energetic particles heat and sustain plasmas?
• What are the precise causes of the loss of plasma thermal energy - especially that of electrons?
• How does heat escape from plasmas?
• What is the danger of those instabilities that theory predicts to be triggered by alpha-particles.

These questions are critical because plasma pressure compared to magnetic field pressure (termed beta) is what ensures the energy released for fusion power, and so it must be maximized. The energetic particles created by the fusion process must sustain the temperature of a fusion plasma, so the heating process must be understood and controlled. If heat escapes too quickly from a fusion plasma it will cool to too low a temperature, so the understanding of turbulence and heat transport is a critical element of fusion energy science.

The plasma must also be maintained long enough for the reactions to occur. The achievement of sufficiently good confinement of the plasma to permit useful release of energy has turned out to be far more difficult than the first fusion researchers hoped. Many important optimizations have been discovered and developed. One unavoidable way to obtain sufficient confinement is to make the plasma large. The existing large tokamak experiments typically have plasma radii of three meters. Fueled with the most reactive isotopes of hydrogen, those tokamaks demonstrated substantial release of fusion energy. For example, the world's largest tokamak, JET (Joint European Torus), obtained up to 16 megawatts of fusion reactions for just under a second. But, to sustain the plasma in these devices required additional heating that was larger. ITER will develop the technologies required for larger installations, such as large superconducting magnets, diagnostic systems, plasma control tools, and high heat flux materials.

These questions are not only scientific challenges to comprehension -- a "cognitive challenge" for humanity. Their solutions must be integrated successfully in a fusion plasma system. Thus there is an important integrative and innovative element of fusion research. The sustainable, self-consistent solution to these questions lies in a plasma whose heat content is largely sustained by its own fusion reactions, i.e., a “burning plasma”. The most important technological issues for fusion are then:

• development of techniques to handle high heat fluxes from plasmas
• development of structural materials to withstand high fusion neutron fluxes while incurring low radioactivity
• development of large-scale superconducting magnets to produce the fields needed to contain plasmas

These development needs stem from the high heat and neutron fluxes that emerge from fusion plasmas, and from the need to sustain the magnetic container with a minimum of power, as is made possible by superconducting magnets. [more]

The reactor design in the case of ITER is based on tokamak as confirmed by much research [more | more]. The plasma is heated in a ring-shaped vessel (or torus) and kept away from the vessel walls by applied magnetic fields. The basic components of the tokamak's magnetic confinement system (see diagram above) are:

• toroidal field: the field produced around the torus. This is maintained by magnetic field coils surrounding the vacuum vessel. The toroidal field provide the primary mechanism of confinement of the plasma particles.

• poloidal field; the field produced around the plasma cross section. It pinches the plasma away from the walls and maintains the plasma's shape and stability. The poloidal field is induced both internally, by the current driven in the plasma (one of the plasma heating mechanisms), and externally, by coils that are positioned around the perimeter of the vessel.

Reservations: A range of reservations and criticisms have been formulated (cf E. Mazzucato, Why build ITER? 2003; David Montgomery, Possible Gaps in ITER's Foundations, Physics Today, February 2006; Raymond Sené, Iter, techniquement c'est que du bluff! Gazette Nucléaire 211/212, janvier 2004; Mark Peplow, Fusion power gets slammed, March 2006; Warren D. Smith, Why "The Dream of Unlimited Cheap Fusion Power" is a Load of Horseshit, Oct 2000):

• the economic viability of fusion energy could be seriously impaired due to:
  • rapid deterioration in plasma confinement at relatively high plasma densities, far beyond what was, and remains, the density limit of tokamaks;
  • raising to acceptable levels the assumed value of the safety factor against the onset of macroscopic instabilities. At the safety factor envisaged, the plasma macroscopic stability (at the plasma pressure needed for producing the desired fusion power) has been called into question. Such instabilities would caused the abrupt termination of the discharge with disastrous consequences for the vacuum vessel and other machine components.
• the current design of ITER (ITER-FEAT) is associated with large costs (~$5 billion for construction and at least the same amount for operation) and an extremely long time schedule (10 years for construction and 20 years for research and decommissioning).
• the construction of ITER will absorb a great fraction of available resources -- both human and financial -- slowing down the investigation of tokamak physics and the development of alternative concepts.
• it could be at least 50 years before a commercially viable reactor is built, if at all.
• one estimate gives a 50:50 chance of success, notably because of the difficulties of the engineering
• the lack of a manageable mathematical framework for calculating the state of the plasma in a confinement device in a way that relates the calculation globally and convincingly to what actually happens in the machine. This becomes apparent when theoretical claims are set alongside the experiments being contemplated. Description sliding freely back and forth between ideal and non-ideal descriptions, are not supportable in fluid mechanics, nor is there reason to expect it to be in plasma physics
• the risk of experimentation based on an essentially secondary role for theory, is not necessarily problematic, but is greater if discussion of the conceptual gap between theory and device building is essentially not taking place
• the unproven claim that an energy gain (Q) of 10 can be reached; ITER is based on a very optimistic extrapolation of existing data, where a small deterioration in plasma confinement would be sufficient to degrade substantially the achieved energy gain.
• the claim that another objective of ITER, namely the development of the engineering of fusion reactors, is totally unjustified since ITER will have little or nothing to contribute to the two major technological problems of a fusion reactor -- the development of materials that can withstand 14 MeV neutrons and the breeding of tritium.
• incomplete knowledge of what to expect in the thermonuclear regime, makes ITER a risky project that could cause irreparable harm to the credibility of nuclear fusion.
• the fusion reactor will in fact constitute a significant radioactive risk possibly equivalent to current fission reactors [more]:
  • the use of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of 12.26 years, will need to be manufactured and stored in large quantities. 15-20 kg will be necessary for 2-3000 hours of operation (20 kg of tritium represent radioactivity of 200 millions curies). Tritium, like hydrogen, will pass readily through the metals of the installation and constitutes a danger to health, contrary to what is occasionally claimed [more]
  • netrons will have to traverse the combustion chamber if energy is to be recovered. This flux will render the materials radioactive with significant half-lives as with fission reactors. Since elements of the installation will need to be replaced, notably those on the inner surface, these will constitute a significant amount of highly radioactive waste requiring disposal.
• tritium is used to boost nuclear weapons and concerned have been expressed that the expected annual shipments of tritium to the ITER reactor will pose certain nuclear proliferation risks, notably of theft or hijack [more | more]
• dependence on a difficult-to-manage group of bureaucratic institutions from a range of countries and cultures (powerfully caricatured by Leonid E. Zakharov, Thermodynamics, Science and Religion in Fusion, 2006)
• concerns expressed regarding the advantages of alternative confinement/containment designs [see alternative confinement concepts: stellarator, reversed-field pinch (RFP), field reversed configuration (FRC), spheromak, levitated dipole]

As argued by Jo Lister & Henri Weisen (What will we learn from ITER? Europhysics News March/April 2005):

ITER is nonetheless a noble cause, even though its main motivation stems from our increasingly urgent quest for sustainable energy. The nobility resides equally in the physical understanding to be acquired of the complexity of plasmas and in the technical challenges to be met. The requirements for controlled nuclear fusion are potent drivers for advances in physics and technology. This quest has also brought a harvest of fundamental knowledge in physics, in such complex areas as turbulence, magnetohydrodynamics and even material sciences, with implications for apparently unrelated areas such as astrophysics, space physics and industrial plasmas, spawning applications ranging from plasma processing to space propulsion systems, the development of novel materials and superconductors.

Experimental challenge of "cognitive fusion" for ITER-8

What meaning can be associated with any notion of "cognitive fusion"?

Cognitive fusion in practice: It is appropriate to note a range of situations under which some form of "cognitive fusion" might be said to take place:

• scientific laboratory: certain types of laboratory, perhaps framed as "centres of excellence", in which large teams are engaged in research and development, may be recognized as developing an intensive "hot house" atmosphere of exciting, creative work in which insights from all present are fruitfully interwoven in a form of cognitive fusion
• newsroom: for a newspaper or broadcast media, the high pressure atmosphere in a newsroom under rigid deadlines may correspond to a form of cognitive fusion
• creative design laboratory: in contrast to a scientific laboratory, but with a corresponding form of cognitive fusion, design teams of whatever size may also develop a "hot house" atmosphere in which the "cross-fertilization" of ideas is an important factor
• think tank: such environments often correspond to a social (or policy) science variant of the scientific and creative design laboratories and may need to develop policy positions in urgent response to emerging political crises -- at the request of their funding institutions
• hospital emergency room: teams of people in response to a variety of urgent life-or-death cases in a hospital emergency care unit, or intensive care unit, may be functioning under a conditions indicative of a degree of cognitive fusion
• military situation room: in response to military challenges, whether in defence or attack, the patterns of communication in the command and control centres are typically indicative of some aspects of cognitive fusion
• plenary emergency meeting: whether in the form of a parliament, an executive board room, a summit, or a roundtable, the dynamics of the debate in response to urgency may be associated with a form of cognitive fusion
• roundtable dialogue: in contrast with meetings of decision-makers in emergency conditions, gatherings of a more reflective nature ("wisdom keepers", councils of the wise, interfaith dialogues, etc) may be associated with transformative moments resulting from a degree of cognitive fusion
• aerospace situation room: similar in many respects to a military situation room, the challenge for a team of controlling aerospace missions, especially under emergency conditions, may involve degrees of cognitive fusion
• disaster emergency room: as indicated by the challenge of responding to the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, the coordination of humanitarian relief and reconstruction teams under emergency conditions with inadequate (or poorly channelled) resources may also be understood in terms of cognitive fusion
• technical control centre: the conditions, operations, urgencies and pressures of control centres for power distribution (notably in time of black out), air traffic control (emergencies), nuclear power station control, etc
• communities: intentional communities may be deliberately envisaged as contexts in which to enhance the possibility of some form of cognitive fusion, whether through their work, their rituals or their meditation. More generally, community development may seek to achieve a low key level of cognitive fusion.
• collective meditation: whether practiced regularly (as in intentional communities, monasteries, etc) or in occasional ritual gatherings, the associated spiritual attunement may be understood to be associated with a level of cognitive fusion. For example, the Transcendental Meditation group promotes such activity to alleviate problematic psychosocial conditions.
• team: under certain conditions a sporting team, a business team, or a team of volunteers may function at a surprisingly high level of integration -- as with their military analogues (SWAT teams, etc). In training such groups, the aim may be to "fuse" people into a team.
• internet gaming: multi-user internet games, calling for strategy and tactics, typically involve a degree of cognitive fusion analogous to that required of fighter pilots in battlefield scenarios (see below). For example: "Cyworld is threatening to swallow South Korea. Less than four years after its launch, 15 million people, or almost a third of the country's population, are members" (BusinessWeek online, September 2005).

A variety of initiatives have endeavoured to gather together the best and the brightest, under perfect conditions, in order to elicit creative collective responses -- possibly to the conditions of the planet. Examples include: Mensa International, Collective Wisdom Initiative, Project Mind Foundation, collective intelligence (Collective Intelligence, Community Intelligence, swarm intelligence, etc), indigenous "wisdom keepers", interfaith dialogues, etc

Contemporary research: As might be expected, the focus of contemporary research is on two totally contrasting, if not mutually contradictory, understandings of "cognitive fusion":

• Psychopathology: Experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion are considered to underlie most forms of psychopathology. In a review of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) as a reframed variant of classical cognitive behaviour therapy, Michael J Dougher notes:
  

  In some contexts, the bidirectional nature of verbal relations is such that verbal stimuli and their referents fuse together or become functionally inseparable. These contexts are called contexts of literality, and the effect is called cognitive fusion. .... Paradox is an important component of ACT because it is believed that it helps to break down the literality of language, loosens the cognitive fusion in verbal relations, and weakens rule governance when it is not useful. (see also Steven C. Hayes, et al Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change, 2003).

  Within this framework, therapeutic emphasis is on achieving "cognitive defusion". Steven C. Hayes & Chad Shenk (Operationalizing Mindfulness Without Unnecessary Attachments, Clinical Psychology: Science & Practice, 11, 2004, pp 249–254, 2004] note, in the case of "cognitive fusion", that for therapists its "excesses are what mindfulness helps rein in". They argue:

  There are scientific advantages to defining mindfulness in terms of the psychological processes involved. Doing so, however, necessarily uncouples mindfulness from any given technology, including meditation. Defining mindfulness in terms of the self-regulation of attention and a posture of acceptance seems progressive, but there are underlying philosophical attachments in the proposed definition that might limit its applicability if they are treated too rigidly.

  This understanding of mindfulness is clarified elsewhere by Lindsay Fletcher & Steven C. Hayes (Relational Frame Theory, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and a Functional Analytic Definition of Mindfulness, Journal of Rational Emotive and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy):
  

  Relational Frame Theory is described to show how human suffering is created by entanglement with the cognitive networks made possible by language. Mindfulness can be understood as a collection of related processes that function to undermine the dominance of verbal networks, especially involving temporal and evaluative relations. These processes include acceptance, defusion, contact with the present moment, and the transcendent sense of self.... Thoughts are often experienced indirectly – in the form of the change in the functions of the world they produce – rather than as a process occurring in the moment. This is termed “cognitive fusion”. It has three important side effects relevant to the topic at hand.
  
  First, temporal and evaluative relations become attached to internal events, and people begin to predict, fear, and attempt to regulate and avoid their own thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations even when that process is harmful. This is termed “experiential avoidance” (Hayes et al., 1996).
  
  Second, people become attached to their own self-descriptions and seek to maintain them and to be right about them.
  
  Third, the present moment disappears into a cacophony of human thinking and its reasons, explanations, and justifications for behavior. The effect of these processes is “psychological inflexibility” which is the inability to persist or change behavior in the service of chosen values.

• Enhanced decision-making: As a development of preoccupation with "data fusion" and "information fusion", "cognitive fusion" is used to describe the dynamic analysis of data combined from multiple sources in order to recognize complex dynamic situation patterns, construct models or hypotheses of unfolding situations, and take action in response to situations (cf G. Jakobson, et al. An Approach to Integrated Cognitive Fusion, 2004). The authors are concerned with:
  

  ... situations such as those encountered in the management of a battlespace, surveillance of complex technological systems, and mobilization of countermeasures in real-time emergency situations in health care and homeland security applications. These applications