Challenge of Re-membering Fundamental Unifying Patterns

Cognitive clarification enabled by ChatGPT in eliciting strategic coherence

Part 2 of Artificial Intelligence as an Aid to Thinking Otherwise -- but to what End? (2023)

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Introduction

As noted above, there is a seeming desperate preoccupation with unity and consensus -- on the assumption that they can be readily comprehended -- despite strong evidence to the contrary (The Consensus Delusion: mysterious attractor undermining global civilization as currently imagined, 2011). In psychology, the false consensus effect, also known as consensus bias, is a pervasive cognitive bias that causes people to "see their own behavioral choices and judgments as relatively common and appropriate to existing circumstances". This calls into question any sense of a consensus reality as the generally agreed-upon version of reality within a community or society, shaped by shared experiences and understandings (Paradoxes of Durable Peace, Heaven and a Sustainable Lifestyle, 2023).

The cognitive challenge is compounded, if not compensated (or "managed"), by the preoccupation with binary dynamics, as noted above -- again questionably framed as comprehensible, irrespective of the violence they may engender in the quest for unity and singularity (Emerging Memetic Singularity in the Global Knowledge Society, 2009). The preoccupation is curiously complemented by increasingly explicit framings of otherness as "wrong", if not "evil" (Existence of evil as authoritatively claimed to be an overriding strategic concern, 2016; Needing Evil Elsewhere, 2001).

Despite the noted neglect of 3-fold and 4-fold cognitive patterns, of particular interest is therefore the focus given to them in the extraordinary collaboration between Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli in relation to the number 137, as documented by Arthur I. Miller (When Pauli Met Jung â-- the Path from "Three" to "Four", 2009; 137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession, 2010). This was aimed to be the explication of a unifying or connecting principle bridging the gap between mind and matter (Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli, The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche, 1955).

The preoccupation has been usefully clarified by Charlene Burns in terms of the quest for an elusive methodology of "transdisciplinarity" (Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Jung, and the Acausal Connecting Principle: a case study in transdisciplinarity, Metanexus, 1 September 2011). Other comments include (Victoria Perpetua, The Evolution of Three to Four, The Wilderness Road, 21 December 2014; Bill Chan, What is the mysterious relationship between 3 and 4 as written by Carl Jung? Quora).

As summarized by Perpetua:

Carl Jung spent his final years fascinated by the evolution of consciousness, and more specifically by the number three moving to four. To him, the number three represented a consciousness that was time-dominated, and devoted to acting, doing, processing and accomplishing... The number four, on the other hand, denotes being, eternity, peace, and contemplation. It was Jungâ-'s belief that we live in an age where the collective unconscious is devoted to the evolution from three to four.

Burns notes the controversy evoked by their concerns::

Jung and Pauli were convinced that synchronistic events reveal an underlying unity of mind and matter, subjective and objective realities. Synchronicity was (and continues to be) a prime target for criticism of Jung that for decades bordered on outright dismissal by many in the scientific and academic communities. For example, historian of science Suzanne Gieser writes that she finds Pauliâ-'s interest in Jung â-"e;unusualâ-" because â-"e;most of those with an academic or scientific background dismiss Jung totally.â-"

One relatively suggestive approach to the relation between 3-fold and 4-fold patterns is offered by the 4-fold pattern of genetic codons and their organization into "triplets", as summarized by the image on the left.

Question to ChatGPT: One standard circular display of genetic codons has three concentric rings in which GCUA are variously configured -- offering rings of 4, 16 and 64 possibilities. The inner ring could be presented with the 4 combinations of broken/unbroken lines, the middle with 16 tetragrams, and the outer with 64 hexagrams. Is it possible to present such a configuration with DALL-E

Genetic Codon Circle
Standard presentation	Meaningless experimental construction by DALL-E	Meaningless experimental construction by DALL-E
Mouagip, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Curiously the possibility of representing the pattern in 3D rather than 2D, in the light of spherical geometry, is not a focus of attention. One version in 3D however takes a tabular form which can be rotated (John Denker, Genetic Code in 3D, 2017).

A question to be explored is the extent to which a 3D configuration reinforces cognitive coherence (with its strategic implications) to a far greater degree than a 2D configuration.

Question to ChatGPT: Could you comment on the possibility of a 3D "spherical" configuration of the genetic codons which might be more cognitively suggestive and engaging -- to the extent that the configuration might resonate with cognitive organization to a higher degree. This could reflect the transition from the 4 cognitive functions of Jung, through the 16 of Myers-Briggs, potentially extending to the 64 implied by the I Ching hexagrams.