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Experiential paradoxes of attraction (or repulsion)
Local Reality of Overcrowding -- Global Unreality of Overpopulation (Part #9)
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Paradoxical conflation of local-global distinctions: A diagram of this kind helps to frame the sense in which the local-global relation is usefully explored as a form of dipole -- each extreme being essential to the other. The familiarity of degrees of closeness in relation to taste and touch in local physical terms -- as one pole of potentially overwhelming experience -- is then understood as matched by a degree of all-encompassing comprehension of the closeness associated with a global abstraction.
The senses then frame the experience metaphorically -- as global sense-making. "Global" is then itself experienced three-dimensionally as an all-encompassing form of integration.
The distinction offered by the inverse cube law versus the inverse square law merit careful consideration in terms of how the extremes of local and the extremes of global might be understood (as ruled by the inverse cube law):
- Local: There is clearly a sense in which "local" in its most extreme form offers a sense of "global". Well-documented examples include the meaning which may be attributed to sexual consummation. Use of psychotropic drugs may engender an oceanic experience. Arguably, as conceived, global is then echoed or mirrored in some manner -- whether as an intuition or a mirage. The insight offered may then frame a life-long personal quest. Especially intriguing is the intensity of the drive for that experience, pre-figured by that of "falling in love".
- Global: At the other extreme, the most provocative example is offered by the mysterious nature of the black hole of astrophysics, now borrowed as a metaphor to describe the dynamics of financial disaster and collapse. Curiously, given any case for conflation, the metaphor is also used for the most extreme forms of personal depression -- one in which the "universe" is felt to be collapsing.
There is then a sense in which the inverse square law is indeed descriptive of milder forms of attraction, but far from adequate to any modelling of what is experienced when "falling in love" or by what is imagined to be the experience of "falling into a black hole".
The spermatozoon offers other clues in that it achieves its drive toward the ovum through the spiralling motion of the motilla. At the other extreme, a black hole is understood to be characterized by a spiralling dynamic -- a strange attractor which it is impossible for matter to resist. Spiral models are typically cited with respect to the cycles of depression, if not to the process of falling in love which may brook little resistance. Vagrants amy be experienced, or deliberately engendered, with respect to the attraction of a consumer product prior to obsessive spiralling into its acquisition. From the perspective of the spermatozoon these are suggestive processes of comprehension and reframing through which "possession of the universe" is achieved.
Also of some relevance is the manner in which matter is reframed under the extremely intense compressive forces of the black hole of astrophysics. A degree of correspondence, equivalence or complementarity is to be found in the compression of the senses in sexual consummation or psychotropic drug consumption. This can be explored in terms of synaesthesia (R. E. Cytowic, Synesthesia: a union of the senses, 1989; J. Simner and E. M. Hubbard, Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia, 2013). This is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway (Janina Nielsen,et al, Synaesthesia and sexuality: the influence of synaesthetic perceptions on sexual experience, Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 2013).
Paradoxical complementarity: understanding "global" and "local" generically: The relationship between unequals is clearly highly challenging if not extremely vexatious, whether between individuals or between nations. Concern with inequality offers a multitude of unresolved dilemmas. It is perhaps not so curious that the small may aspire to become "big", and in the case of nations to "become great" (again). The big may fear collapse, to becoming small, or to fragmenting into the small through schism and secession.
More intriguing with respect to any such dynamic is the sense in which one extreme may be experienced or recognized as transforming into another, as in the paradoxical process of enantiodromia. This raises the question as to whether polarities, most notably "value polarities", may have such a potentially dynamic relationship (Value polarities as archetypal bonds, 2007; Responding to Conceptual and Value Polarities: learnings from sexuality, 1998). The transition from childhood to adulthood, and on to a second childhood can be seen and experienced in this light.
Other examples might include:
| Contrasting the incommensurable? | |
| "Small" (aspiring to be big negentropic impulse -- "fulfillment") | "Big" (fearing fragmentation/collapse, and entropy -- "emptiness") |
| nations | powerful nations |
| small corporations | powerful corporation |
| teams (sports, etc) | highly ranked teams |
| individuals (aspiring to importance and recognition) | fearing loss of respect and being forgotten |
| spermatozoon | ovum |
Local and global in the light of spermatozoon and ovum: The last example could be considered a significant archetype, provocatively framing the dynamic between the two extremes in some mysterious manner, since it embodies the "cognitive drivers" which play out so uncontrollably in other contexts -- offering a strange form of reconciliation between "small" and "big".
There is a case for using that dynamic as a means of exploring the potentially provocative relation between local and global, both in a planetary sense and with respect to the locus of Earth within the Universe. The latter is evident in aspirations of humanity to "reach the stars" and to "conquer the universe" -- to give meaning to its various efforts to frame universality (Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Hypothetical ETs would have every reason to perceive this as extremely presumptuous.
The human egg cell (or ovum, or oocyte) is the largest human cell, measuring 0.15 to 0.2 mm, and therefore just visible to the naked eye. It is almost perfectly round, and therefore has the largest volume in relation to its surface. Given the aspirations it evokes -- notably of "being great again" -- it is appropriately symbolic of "global".
A human sperm cell is some 10,000 times smaller with a tail which flagellates, propelling the sperm cell by whipping in an elliptical cone -- guided by an olfactory mechanism. The sperm cell is also one of the most complex (Ella Davies, The largest, and smallest, sex cells on the planet Sperm and eggs can be unbelievably tiny, far smaller than those made by people, or they can be unexpectedly enormous BBC, 20 April 2017). Given the multiplicity of such cells, it is appropriately symbolic of "local".
Arguably, to borrow from military strategy, every sperm cell seeks "full spectrum dominance" through uniting with the ovum. It is not difficult to see the formulation of every fundamental insight as similarly striving for "full spectrum dominance" -- whether the insight be that of a religion, of philosophy, of technology (a "killer app"), or of science (notably as a Theory of Everything). Absent from that overriding drive is any sense of a context in which each might expect to have its "full day in the sun". Taking turns is not seemingly well-framed by that dynamic.
For conception one ovum (per menstrual cycle) is required, with some 250 million sperm per ejaculation -- barrenness being indicated by less than 20-40 million sperm since most sperm do not reach the ovum.
With respect to this argument, it is intriguing to note possible symbolism to be recognized in relation to a helical structure of the sperm:
The researchers named the helical structure a "tail axoneme intra-lumenal spiral," or TAILS. It's still unclear exactly what TAILS does, what it's made out of and how important it is... We believe that this spiral may act as a cork inside the microtubules, preventing them from growing and shrinking as they would normally do, and instead allowing the sperm's energy to be fully focused on swimming quickly towards the egg,... Just last year, researchers found that human sperm cells get an extra oomph when they swim, largely because of interconnected elastic springs in their tails that communicate with other regions of the tail (Mysterious Spiral Found in the Tail of Human Sperm, LiveScience, 21 February 2018)
Furthermore researchers have found:
Intriguingly, they saw that movement beginning near the sperm's head led to an opposite-direction bend at the tip of the tail -- an occurrence known as a counterbend phenomenon. (The Secret to Sperm's Sexy Swimming, LiveScience, 1 June 2017)
Higher order derivatives of time: Given the distinction made with respect to processes governed by the inverse cube versus those governed by the inverse square, a further question might be asked with respect to the role of any higher order derivatives -- less evident and potentially of greater subtlety. These could be associated with radical experience of the extreme present as higher order derivatives of time (Cognitive Implication of Globality via Temporal Inversion: embodying the future through higher derivatives of time, 2018; Waiting as an Experience of Fundamental Significance, 2018). The former discussed this possibility with respect to:
Unity within a quantum framework: Physics and technology are now challenging conventional binary thinking from a quantum perspective. For physics this is an aspect of the quest for a unified Theory of Everything -- "heaven" as it might be comprehended by a physicist The relevance to governance has been remarkably articulated by an eminent scholar of international relations (Alexander Wendt, Quantum Mind and Social Science: unifying physical and social ontology, 2015). As noted separately, Wendt specifically calls into question the very nature of nations states and other global entities. As discussed separately, Wendt provocatively indicates that people are usefully to be recognized as "walking wave functions" (On being "walking wave functions" in terms of quantum consciousness? 2017). Rather than "walking", their recognition in that light might be understood in terms of "standing waves".
The above-mentioned discussion by John Baez (The Inverse Cube Force Law, Azimuth, 30 August 2015) includes an extensive argument with respect to the relevance of the inverse cube law to insights from quantum mechanics.
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