Changing Patterns using Transformation Pathways (Part #7)

The articulation of patterns with respect to either codons or hexagrams, or both, obscures a radical dimension. Following the argument of Terrence Deacon(Incomplete Nature: how mind emerged from matter, 2012; The Symbolic Species: the co-evolution of language and the brain, 1997), this may be framed in terms of the fundamental role of "what is missing". As he expresses it:

Iironically and enigmatically, something missing is missing... The problem is this: Such concepts as information, function, purpose, meaning, intention, significance, consciousness, and value are intrinsically defined by their fundamental incompleteness. They exist only in relation to something they are not.... So what is shared in common between all these phenomena? In a word, nothing -- or rather, something not present. (p. 1 and 23, emphasis in original)

The recent exploration of the codon pattern is inspired by the possibility of "a code within the genetic code" implanted by aliens. It has been used here as a metaphor through which to explore the encounter with otherness (***) -- possibly offering unexpected insights. However such otherness might extend to assumptions made in elaborating the argument itself. These might be associated with:

• use of key as a metaphor in relation to understanding of life: This anticipates use of the key, as in opening locks and doors. What is it assumed that humanity would do with such a key -- especially in the light of the disaster that is currently being engendered through degradation of the natural environment, extinction of species, and the unknown consequences of genetically modified organisms? Is much of relevance to be learned from "grasping" any key, as an associated metaphor (Beyond Harassment of Reality and Grasping Future Possibilities: learnings from sexual harassment as a metaphor, 1996) ?
  
• use of cracking code as a metaphor: As with "key", the common use of this metaphor in relation to the genetic code is consistent with a mechanical approach to life -- reminiscent of depictions of the first use of tools by primates in order to crack nuts. As illustrated by the movie Avatar (2009), this is a highly questionable way of relating to alien otherness.
  
• focus on explanation and answers: The conventional framing of the quest for answers obscures the oft-cited insight of Albert Einstein: The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Does the mode in which science is undertaken and reported inhibit recognition of the transformation of language appropriate to comprehension of the otherness potentially represented by alien insight?
  
• existential relevance: If insight discovery relating to life is to be of relevance to the experience of living -- as so presumptuously claimed -- how does description of the insight move beyond the challenge framed by Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets (1997): I am drowning here, and you're describing the water.
  
• surprise: There is a sense in which answers and explanations acceptable to a conventional "camp-us" framework obscure recognition of the impact of surprise, as extensively argued by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan: the impact of the highly improbable, 2007; Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, 2012). What is the surprise characterized by the encounter with otherness, whether terrestrial or extraterrestrial? How is this discontinuity encompassed by the conventional language of explanation and answers?
  
• challenging question: Any conventional answer or explanation typically implies or evokes new questions. Again, however, is the nature of the surprise such that the very nature of any conventional "question" becomes questionable? Does the encounter with the insight of otherness call into question the questioning process -- as explored by Zen use of the koan?

Together these challenge the argument above, perhaps most specifically with respect to:

• objectivity vs subjectivity, as systematically reinforced by science and challenged by religion and the arts (Conditions of Objective, Subjective and Embodied Cognition: mnemonic systems for memetic coding of complexity, 2007).
• belief and identity of the living person in relation to explanations and their comprehension -- in contrast with the objectivity implied by the semiotic triangle
• recognition of the degree to which the "other" constitutes a mirror highlighting attributes which otherwise go unrecognized or are denied -- recalling the significance attached to the mirror self-recognition test, as discussed separately in relation to aliens (Self-reflective Embodiment of Transdisciplinary Integration (SETI): the universal criterion of species maturity? 2008).
• acknowledgement of a "deadly" question fatal to superficial assumptions of integrity from a "camp-us" perspective. Use of "deadly" usefully focuses attention on the "hole" in that integrity with which the "missing" of Deacon (2012) may be associated, as separately discussed (Cognitive mystery of holes, lacunae and incompleteness, 2014; Cognitive and experiential black holes, 2014).

For Peter Ping Li (Toward Research-Practice Balancing in Management: the Yin-Yang method for open-ended and open-minded research. In : Catherine L. Wang, et al., West Meets East: building theoretical bridges, 2012):

In particular, the either/or logic (i.e. the epistemology of dualism or dichotomy) in the West has generated the hyper-specialist knowledge that has become increasingly impermeable boundaries between disciplines..., which forces management research to confine itself to the narrow domain where the old light of the Western methodology can reach rather than where the key to the relevant and complex knowledge is lost. The inherently and increasingly holistic dynamic reality is forcing us to look for our "lost key" in the right place with new light away from the wrong place under the old light from the West. The right place is where the East and West meet, while the new light is a geocentric (the West-East balancing) meta-paradigm. (p. 93)

In the light of these challenges to cognitive business-as-usual, the 4-fold pattern explored above could be extended to recognize the radical challenge of otherness to a "camp-us" framework:

• a conventional answer as reinforcing the "camp-us" perspective
• a conventional question framed at the boundary of the "camp-us" perspective -- boundary testing -- notably in an effort to pick holes in any alternative
• a condition of uncertainty oscillating between question and answer
• a condition in which neither question nor answer is experienced as appropriate

A form of this "quadrilemma" figures in study by Kinhide Mushakoji (Global Issues and Interparadigmatic Dialogue; essays on multipolar politics, 1988).