Changing Patterns using Transformation Pathways (Part #8)
For Peter Ping Li (Toward Research-Practice Balancing in Management: the Yin-Yang method for open-ended and open-minded research (Catherine L. Wang, et al., West Meets East: building theoretical bridges, 2012):
We need to understand the underlying reasons why the ancient Chinese chose to emphasize the holistic and dynamic nature of complex phenomena or issues by embracing contrary and contradictory elements as the opposites-in-unity, in contrast to the selection by the Greeks to emphasize the reductionistic and static features of simplified phenomena or issues by accepting compatible elements... In other words, the Chinese epistemological frame of Yin-Yang Balancing integrates "completeness" with "consistency" with the bigger emphasis on the former than the latter, by the Western either/or logic advocates "consistency" exclusively at the excpense of "completeness". The critical distinction is rooted in the Gödel Thorems, which posit that consistency and completeness constitute a real paradox, so a complete statement must be inconsustent, and a consistent statement must be complete... However, completeness and consistency can be both achieved at the same time and in the same aspect when we reframe the two as partially compatible and partially conflicting, thus a shift from paradox to duality as opposites-in-unity according to the frame of Yin-Yang Balancing... so the inevitably and desirability of ambiguity will be taken as the key implications of Gödel Theorems. (p. 100-101)
Universal standard of alienation? The editors of the New Scientist, in which the above-mentioned review of the Kazakh discovery appeared, make frequent use of the term "fruitloopery" to deprecate arguments from beyond the "camp-us" modality (Towards a universal crackpot standard, New Scientist, 28 April 2010). As noted within the review, concerns had been expressed as to whether the pattern detection was significant, rather than a feature of numerology -- notably given the SETI implications. Clearly the review closely escaped being excluded as an example of "fruitloopery".
As a caricature, the term is especially useful to the development of this argument. It raises the question as to how the "camp-us" modality might be caricatured from any "alien" perspective. Such an exercise had been previously undertaken with respect to deprecatory use of "greenies" (Burnies versus Greenies? Refocusing the communication challenge for the Greens, 2013). A possible complement to "fruitloopery" -- in this spirit -- might then be "mechanolinearity". Any counter argument citing quantum mechanics could even justify the attribution, especially since electromagnetic patterns play so little part in the organization and processes of science -- except in terms of the most simplistic understanding of polarity and the use of negative campaigning.
Use of "crackpot" is a further invitation to the imagination. What might be imagined to be the "pot", and how might it be "cracked"? As noted above, why the focus on "cracking" problems -- as with the genetic code? Is the pot to be understood as the container within which imaginative reflection occurs? Given the importance attached to the container metaphor by cognitive psychology, what insights might be offered from that perspective? There is some irony to use of the metaphor in that modern representations of decision trees may be related to patterns of cracking, as discussed separately in relation to observation of cracking in early divination (Dynamic structure of events within event-space, 2010). There it was noted in the light of Japanese research that:
In the domain of physics, cracks and creases are phenomena by means of which a discontinuity or a localization of energy may spontaneously be produced in an apparently uniform field, with homogenous distribution of matter and energy, in other words, something is produced out of nothing.
As mechano-linearity, the fundamental problem for the methodology of science is that it cannot legitimately conceive of imagination, despite arguments to the contrary regarding the creative process. Imagination is the essence of fruitful loopery. Science, in its present "pot" is in urgent need of "repotting" -- as suggested by the pressures for open science and Science 2.0 -- if indeed it is to be fruitful for humanity (Larry Hodgson, Steps for Fool-Proof Repotting).
Fruitful loopery: Given the unfruitful characteristics of "mechanolinearity" in practice, use of "fruit" is especially significant in the light of the desperate quest of many for fruitful lives in an increasingly mechanized society -- as systematically reinforced by the "camp-us" modality, and as argued by such as Paul Feyerabend (The Tyranny of Science, 2011; Conquest of Abundance: a tale of abstraction versus the richness of being, 1999).
Use of "loopery" is of potentially greater relevance to this argument by contrast with "camp-us" "linearity". It is indeed appropriate that an "alien" modality should be seen as embodying loops to a high degree. This is consistent with the embodiment in practice of cybernetics, as espoused in principle (if at all) by the "camp-us" modality. The argument is even more pertinent to the extent that an "alien" modality should embody not only first-order cybernetics (evident to a degree in "camp-us" processes) but also second-, third-, and even fourth-order cybernetics, as may be variously recognized (Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones, complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007; Maurice Yolles***). A focus on loops is of course fundamental to current strategic preoccupation with the challenges of recycling and waste disposal. .
However, rather than engage in reinforcing fruitless polarization of the argument, it may be reframed by the kinds of arguments presented by Douglas Hofstadter (G**del, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, 1979; I Am a Strange Loop, 2007). With respect to loops, further possibilities may be envisaged (Sustaining a Community of Strange Loops: comprehension and engagement through aesthetic ring transformation, 2010; Encycling Problematic Wickedness for Potential Humanity, 2014). As admirably argued by Hofstadter, the fruitfulness of loops derives from insight into self-reflexivity -- usefully associated with higher orders of cybernetics.
Rather than simply seeking permanent certainty and closure, the preoccupation of "loopery" is with how to encompass uncertainty fruitfully in the moment. Following Hofstadter's earlier work on Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies(1995) the approach is framed in his most recent work with a colleague, Emmanuel Sander, as being dependent on analogy (Surfaces and Essences: analogy as the fuel and fire of thinking, 2012).
Self-reference: The difficulty for both semiotics and the life sciences is perhaps usefully summarized in the words of Abir Igamberdiev (Semiosis and reflectivity in life and consciousness. Semiotica 123, 1999): Biological systems are characterized by the presence of a semiotic structure in the absence of a subject, ie, of the language's owner separated from the language itself.
Given the argument of Deacon (2012), the core issue is that the subjective locus and dynamics of the experiencer of life is missing from descriptive models. These then resemble shells in the absence of the inhabitant by which such frameworks may have been engendered. Explaining life inthose terms is then essentially both fruitless and meaningless. It is from such a perspective that the recent magnum opus by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi (The Systems View of Life: a unifying vision, 2014) may be fruitfully questioned (Transcending an Asystemic View of Life, 2014).
As discussed previously (Representation, Comprehension and Communication of Sets: the Role of Number, 1978), the result of the formal exercise of George Spencer-Brown (Laws of Form, 1969) to separate what are known as algebras of logic from the subject of logic, and to re-align them with mathematics, is the explicit, and extremely elegant logical re-integration of the observer. His final chapter, entitled "reentry into the form" commences with: The conception of the form lies in the desire to distinguish. Granted this desire, we cannot escape the form, although we can see it any way we please (p. 69). It ends with:
An observer, since he distinguishes the space he occupies, is also a mark . . . In this conception a distinction drawn in any space is a mark distinguishing the space. Equally and conversely, any mark in a space draws a distinction. We see now that the first distinction, the mark, and the observer are not only interchangeable, but, in the form, identical. (p. 76)
For Francisco Varela, in his own extended calculus based on a 3-valued system: self-reference, time, and re-entry (into form) are seen as aspects of the same third value arising autonomously in the form of distinction (A Calculus for Self-reference, International Journal of General Systems, 1975). Use of a third value enables the system to explore self-referential situations which are the basis for the limitations examined by Kurt G**del. In his conclusion Varela describes his achievement as follows:
The starting point of this calculus, following the key line of the calculus of indications. is the act of indication. In this primordial act we separate forms which appear to us as the world itself. From this starting point, we thus assert the primacy of the role of the observer who draws distinctions wherever he pleases. Thus the distinctions made which engender our world reveal precisely that: the distinctions we make and these distinctions pertain more to a revelation of where the observer stands than to an intrinsic constitution of the world which appears, by this very mechanism of separation between observer and observed, always elusive. In finding the world as we do, we forget all we did to find it as such, and when we are reminded of it in retracing our steps back to indication, we find little more than a mirror-to mirror image of ourselves and the world. In contrast with what is commonly assumed, a description, when carefully inspected, reveals the properties of the observer. We, observers, distinguish ourselves precisely by distinguishing what we apparently are not, the world. (p. 21) [emphasis added]
Experiential psychological functions: With respect to decoding the 4-fold pattern of the I Ching, as associated with the 4 bigrams (old yin, young yin, old yang, young yang), the issue is their distinctive, experiential cognitive significance. How then to enable a psychological feel for the 4-fold pattern as a whole -- and for its elements separately? The issue was fruitfully evoked in 1921 by Carl Gustav Jung (Psychological Types, 1971) in distinguishing four primary types of psychological function, namely 4 main functions of consciousness -- and recognizing the possibility of their integration through the individuation process:
These functions were held to be modified by 2 main attitude types: extraversion and introversion. Jung theorized that the dominant function characterizes consciousness, while its opposite is repressed and characterizes unconscious behavior. Consequently the 8 psychological types are as follows:
| Extraverted sensation | Extraverted intuition |
Extraverted thinking
| Extraverted feeling |
| Introverted sensation |
Introverted intuition
| Introverted thinking | Introverted feeling |
These modality biases were extrapolated by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers to form the Myers**oBriggs Type Indicator (MBTI) consisting of four opposite pairs, or dichotomies, namely a pattern of 16 possible psychological types. Although Jung wrote an extensive foreword to the standard translation of the I Ching, he did not endeavour to associate 4-fold or 8-fold types with the pattern of hexagrams. Various commentators have however speculated on the possibility of similar correspondences between MBTI and that pattern.
Clearly the danger of conventional psychological typing is potential entrapment in mechano-linearity by which subjective dynamics are effectively designed out. The implications may be explored more generally (Beware of Legality, Accountability, Marketability, Security! Be where the Four Hoarsemen of the Apocalypse are not? 2012)
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