GEOMETRY, TOPOLOGY AND DYNAMICS OF IDENTITY

COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 13 Dec 2009

Anthony Judge - Laetus in Praesens

Cognitive Implication in Fundamental Strategic Questions and Dilemmas

Introduction

The concern here is with the interplay between a sense of identity and the forms through which identity is expressed and patterned by psychological processes of identification. The focus is on how the range of simpler forms identified by geometry and topology function in support of articulation of individual or group identity — in the moment and dynamically over time. In particular the concern is with implicit forms serving this function and the degree to which they are rendered conscious and explicit, notably through their use in guiding, key and generative metaphors (Guiding Metaphors and Configuring Choices, 1991).

The collective emphasis follows from arguments in a set of papers (Metaphorical Geometry: in quest of globality in response to global governance challenges, 2009; Geometry of Thinking for Sustainable Global Governance, 2009). The individual emphasis follows from exploration of the challenges of embodiment, especially their dynamic implication (Existential Embodiment of Externalities: radical cognitive engagement with environmental categories and disciplines, 2009; Emergence of Cyclical Psycho-social Identity: sustainability as "psyclically" defined, 2007).

A range of authors and disciplines have explored aspects of the possibilities highlighted here. A primary concern is however to show the intuited cognitive importance of geometrical forms as accessible to all — independently of the sophisticated descriptions offered by such studies. These arguments follow from those of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (Metaphors We Live By, 1980) and of George Lakoff and Rafael Núñez (Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being, 2000).

Of particular interest here is how people (or groups of any size) may variously comprehend such forms and the support they offer for identity and cognition — whether or not any more sophisticated explanations are experienced as being of assistance in this process (or a source of confusion). Identity is understood as highly dependent on the construct with which, or through which, that identity is patterned by a process of identification and embodiment.

The approach has notably been inspired by the arguments of Ron Atkin with respect to comprehension of the geometry through which communication and comprehension take place (Multidimensional Man: can man live in three dimensions? 1981; Combinatorial Connectivities in Social Systems; an application of simplicial complex structures to the study of large organizations, 1977). Their implications have been summarized with respect to Social organization determined by incommunicability of insight (1995).

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