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Freedom, Democracy, Justice: Isolated Nouns or Interwoven Verbs? (Part #16)

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Values as verbs: The intention and main conclusion of the above argument is that there is a case for at least investigating the possibility of more effective embodiment of values as verbs in the dynamics of psychosocial organization. The approach would seem potentially to offer other fruitful possibilities. Assumptions regarding values as nouns would seem to constitute an unfortunate cognitive trap with institutional implications.

However, as noted above, the curious effort to trademark "democracy is a verb" within the USA is indicative of the potential for highly dysfunctional interweavings of values through introducing such legal constraints in relation to any consideration of "freedom" and "justice" as verbs. Adapting the much translated and interpreted Chinese insight from the Tao Te Ching (175+ Translations of Chapter 1):

The Value which can be named is not the eternal Value.
The quality which can be named is not its true nature.

The argument has been well made by the surrealist painter René Magritte in his much-commented image "This is not a pipe" (on the left). A corresponding image could be made (on the right) regarding "Democracy is a verb" (and legal constraints on its use).

Images of comparable significance ?

Meta-pattern that connects: The argument drew attention to the merit, variously upheld, of insights consistent with the approach advocated. Expressed in terms of individual or collective learning, this may be understood as the progressive, integrative interlocking of accumulated patterns into nested meta-patterns -- as a solution to human processing capacity limitations. There seems to be a form of directed convergence onto a progressively clarified ultimate meta-pattern, towards which learning tends asymptotically. Final (en)closure is never achieved (except possibly as an essentially transient, private, transcendental experience).  Is the connectivity of a meta-pattern to be understood dynamically like a standing wave?

Gregory Bateson (Mind and Nature; a necessary unity, 1979 describes this ultimate pattern as:

The pattern which connects (all living creatures) is a meta-pattern. It is a pattern of patterns. It is that meta-pattern which defines the vast generalization that, indeed, it is patterns which connect. (p. 11)

Cognitive capacity: It is in this sense that human cognitive capacity necessarily plays a key role, given its constraints in imagining any such pattern, whether in the case of the universe, the human brain, or the internet -- potentially to be understood as a global brain. By-passing the constraint to a degree may be a matter of enactivating richer metaphors -- relevant in their turn to more integrative approaches to governance, as previously argued (Innovative Global Management through Metaphor, 1989). Each of these comprehensive patterns (universe, brain, internet, deity) may serve as metaphors for the other -- possibly together forming a mysterious "resonance hybrid" through which to engage with the incomprehensible (Engaging with the Inexplicable, the Incomprehensible and the Unexpected, 2010).

There is a self-reflexive aspect to that exploration as pointed out by Gregory Bateson to a conference on the effects of conscious purpose on human adaptation -- in explaining why "we are our own metaphor":

One reason why poetry is important for finding out about the world is because in poetry a set of relationships get mapped onto a level of diversity in us that we don't ordinarily have access to. We bring it out in poetry. We can give to each other in poetry the access to a set of relationships in the other person and in the world that we're not usually conscious of in ourselves. So we need poetry as knowledge about the world and about ourselves, because of this mapping from complexity to complexity. (Mary Catherine Bateson, Our Own Metaphor, 1972, pp. 288-289)

Bateson is thus pointing to the advantages of poetry in providing access to a level of complexity in people of which they are not normally aware. This could well be of significance for the governance of social processes characterized by patterns of relationships normally too complex for the mind to grasp. As with the "weaving" metaphor, it is the process of "poetry-making" that is they key -- rather then the completed product (Poetry-making and Policy-making: arranging a marriage between Beauty and the Beast, 1993). As a key to value-based encounters, this would be relevant to its consideration in relation to current conflicts (Poetic Engagement with Afghanistan, Caucasus and Iran: an unexplored strategic opportunity?, 2009; Strategic Jousting through Poetic Wrestling, 2009).

Of special interest in comprehending non-linear cyclic processes in relation to linear thinking, are the potential insights arising from the relation of rhythm to metre in poetry. In this sense the current "spastic" development of society, as a victim of economic cycles, may be seen as resulting from an a-rhythmic approach to governance.

God as a verb? With respect to the one "meta-pattern" to which most reference is made, and in the spirit of the introductory quote regarding deity and the "Word", it is therefore intriguing to note (if only in English) the variety of authors choosing to argue that "God is a verb":

Being a verb? Matching this insight is that of individuals advocating some sense of themselves "being a verb" (as cited above), including:

  • R. Buckminster Fuller: I Seem to be a Verb, 1970
  • Thomas A. Sebeok: I Think I Am a Verb: more contributions to the doctrine of signs, 1986

The implications for comprehension of a meta-pattern may be taken further by the arguments of Peter Russell, who so fruitfully framed recognition of the emergence, via the internet, of a "global brain" and "planetary consciousness" (The Global Brain Awakens: our next evolutionary leap, 1995). But with respect to the above argument, Russell also makes the point that There's No Such Thing as Ego (Spirit of Now, 22 November 2010):

Our exploration of ego would be more fruitful if we stopped using the word as a noun, which immediately implies some "thing", and instead thought of ego as a mental processes that can occupy our attention. For this a verb is a more appropriate part of speech. I am "ego-ing".

The difference is subtle, but very important. If I see the ego as a separate self, some thing, then it is easy to fall into the belief -- common in many spiritual circles -- that I must get rid of my ego, transcend it, or overcome it in some way. But seeing ego as a mental process, a system of thinking that I get caught in, suggests that I need to step out of that mode of thinking -- to look at the world through a different lens, one less tainted by fear, insecurity and attachment.

God as a global brain? Whilst Russell's argument is consistent with an insight from flow psychology that life is a verb -- and so too the human brain -- his involvement with the internet-enabled global brain suggests that the internet itself is best understood as a verb. Few would deny that it is the dynamics of the internet which are so significant. Already references are appearing to the effect that the "internet is a verb" or to thinking of the "web as a verb" -- suggesting that any global brain is itself better understood as a verb.

The argument here for a dynamic perspective -- poorly reflected in the imagery above -- is ironically reinforced at the time of writing by a discussion thread of a list of the Global Brain Group with respect to the theme "God as a Global Brain". As might be expected, arguments are now made for perceiving the universe as a verb -- since everything in the universe is effectively in motion, poorly articulated by the divisions of language into nouns and verbs.

Discoursing globally? How are these different kinds of "verb" to be distinguished -- especially in the light of any implied corollaries between the above insights?

These examples of human thinking endeavouring to engage with all-encompassing systemic patterns -- a meta-pattern -- highlight the tragedy of the current static trap of global discourse. This is exemplified by the conventional focus on nation "states" -- effectively precluding "sustainable development" -- which the future will probably find as laughable as efforts to reassert a flat-Earth metaphor (Irresponsible Dependence on a Flat Earth Mentality -- in response to global governance challenges, 2008).

How can people even imagine engaging cognitively with a meta-pattern necessarily beyond their comprehension -- least controversially, with the internet? Of some relevance are the efforts to define the latter in terms of a metaverse, intimately related to the dynamics of online game playing and virtual worlds, suggestive of possibilities relevant to global governance (Playfully Changing the Prevailing Climate of Opinion: climate change as focal metaphor of effective global governance, 2005). Potentially exciting for the young is the sense of a new cognitive frontier, perhaps as articulated in the synthesis of Vasily Nalimov (In the Labyrinths of Language: a mathematician's journey, 1981; Realms of the Unconscious: the enchanted frontier, 1982), summarized elsewhere (Pattern learning: probabilistic vision of the world). In that spirit, within the framing of a multiverse -- the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes -- the "verse" of "universe" -- might well be understood like the "verse" of a poem (as "potential embodied"?). Of more personal significance is the speculative possibility of People as Stargates (1996) -- an alternative perspective on human relations in space-time.

The challenge of the times -- despite and because of the explosion of communication possibilities -- is that essentially the knowledge society is developing to a point at which nothing can be effectively communicated "globally" (Emerging Memetic Singularity in the Global Knowledge Society, 2009; Dynamically Gated Conceptual Communities, 2004). One fruitful approach to understanding the challenge and the scope for communication is that of mathematician Ron Atkin (Multidimensional Man; can man live in 3-dimensional space?, 1981). As previously discussed, he offers a way of thinking about the dynamics of communication "around" that which cannot be effectively encompassed cognitively (Comprehension: Social organization determined by incommunicability of insights, 1995).

This is an understanding consistent with various religious traditions. It also relates to the above-cited statement of Sabelli (1995), regarding non-linear dynamics as a dialectic logic, to the effect that: Standard logic neglects actions by reducing all verbs to the copula "to be", and further, interpreting "to be" in a static sense. Such concerns -- and confusions regarding "to be" -- form part of the discourse on the "map-territory relation". These were central to the preoccupations of Alfred Korzybski (Science and Sanity: an introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics, 1933) and of Gregory Bateson (Angels Fear: towards an epistemology of the sacred, 1987). As an assertion of incontrovertible fact, "is" is a source of potential diaster -- especially when it excludes emergence of other possibilities.

In a period of global discourse in which conflicts frequently arise over issues of "territory" and how they relate to "maps", affirmations that anything "is a verb" are themselves problematic in the light of any recognition that "the map is not the territory". This can also be said with regard to "God as a global brain". Exploiting metaphor however, the reverse may be the case in the light of a necessary fruitful cognitive engagement with the environment (The Territory Construed as the Map: in search of radical design innovations in the representation of human activities and their relationships, 1979; Existential Embodiment of Externalities: radical cognitive engagement with environmental categories and disciplines, 2009).

Cognitive super-fluency? A "box" may well be unable to contain the integrative qualities of the new thinking required regarding the essentially dynamic nature of values. Hence the merit of exploring the design insights enabling the magnetic containment of nuclear plasma in toroidal fusion reactors, considered so vital as a future energy source. Is an analogous form required to contain interwoven value dynamics (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor, 2006; Enabling Governance through the Dynamics of Nature: exemplified by cognitive implication of vortices and helicoidal flow, 2010)?  As with plasma, are the dynamics to be best understood in terms of a high order of cognitive "fluidity" enabling some valuable form of "fusion"? How might this respond to the challenge of universal information overload (Hyperaction through Hypercomprehension and Hyperdrive: necessary complement to hypertext proliferation in hypersociety, 2006)?

Toroidal universe -- of value dynamics?
Toroidal universe -- of value dynamics?
(Reproduced from Toroidal Universe, Alchemy Meditations, 22 April 2010, commenting on Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok, A Cyclic Model of the Universe, Science, 24 May 2002, vol. 296 no. 5572, pp. 1436-1439)

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