Global Insight from Crown Chakra Dynamics in 3D?

Strategic viability through interrelating 1,000 perspectives in virtual reality

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Introduction

The argument for imaginative exploration in 3D of the so-called "1,000-petalled lotus" -- the Crown Chakra or Sahasrara -- was developed in an earlier exercise (Satellite Constellation and Crown Chakra as Complementary Global Metaphors? Experimental representation of crown chakra in virtual reality, 2020). Various models were presented as animations in 3D, illustrated by video and accessible interactively according to the X3D protocol.

Subsequent experiment has resulted in the direct presentation of a series of such 3D models in web pages, as indicated separately (Eliciting Insight from Mandala-style Logos in 3D: interactive engagement with mandalas and yantras in virtual reality, 2020). Distinct from the earlier approach, the models were directly interactive rather than requiring plugins or separate operations.

The focus there on logos was inspired by the tendency of many organizations, and notably international institutions, to frame their identity through symbolic, mandala-like, imagery in 2D. This is consistent with traditional use of heraldic imagery -- notably emblazoned on banners through which followers were led into battle. Many make use of a centro-symmetric image, most obviously a representation of the globe (World Guide to Logotypes, Emblems and Trademarks of International Organizations, 1997). Despite their static nature, enabling them to be reproduced in printed form, this is readily held to be indicative by inference of a sense of strategic coherence and integration. The most controversial example is obviously the swastika.

The purpose here is to note further possibilities in 3D, building on the models previously presented -- and offering interactive access to them over the web. The various design metaphors explored here frame the question as to how global integration might be comprehended in dynamic terms in virtual reality -- especially given other possibilities that such models might suggest.

Understood in terms of pattern language, and depicted as composed of 20 rings of 50 "petals", the "1,000-petalled lotus" offers a challenge. It is potentially indicative of the most complex pattern whose coherence is susceptible to comprehension and communication. The question is whether it can be represented in ways which reconcile these constraints, thereby facilitating the cognitive embodiment with which that pattern has been traditionally associated.

As a comprehensible pattern, the "1,000-petalled lotus" could be contrasted with that celebrated in the mathematics of group theory as the so-called "monster group". The group is regarded by many mathematicians as a mysteriously beautiful object -- intriguingly framed by the monstrous moonshine conjecture.

As seemingly beyond normal human comprehension, it might then be asked how that "mathematical object" relates to the significance otherwise attributed to the "1,000-petalled lotus" (Potential Psychosocial Significance of Monstrous Moonshine: an exceptional form of symmetry as a Rosetta stone for cognitive frameworks, 2007; Dynamics of Symmetry Group Theorizing: comprehension of psycho-social implication, 2008). However comprehensible, is the "1,000-petalled lotus" to be understood as another form of "monstrous moonshine"? Are both suggestive of the illusory nature of global governance as optimistically imagined?

With respect to both such complex patterns, Is the challenge one of recognizing the complementarity of pattern languages, namely some kind of meta-pattern -- even one of which the self-reflexive aesthetics of meta-poesis is indicative? Is it indeed a meta-pattern which defines the vast generalization that it is patterns which connect, as argued by Gregory Bateson (Mind and Nature: a necessary unity, 1979)? Noteworthy, from that perspective he then warned that: Break the pattern which connects the items of learning and you necessarily destroy all quality.

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