Visualizing the Coherent Configuration of Incommensurable Cognitive Modalities

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 9 Dec 2024

Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens - TRANSCEND Media Service

AI-Assisted Clarification of Contrasting Modalities of Persuasion

Introduction

9 Dec 2024 – Faced with the challenges of the times, there are many initiatives which could be claimed to be “logical” or “rational”. Many initiatives of the past were held to be rational and appropriate, although history now calls such appreciation into question. Increasingly the use of logic is readily challenged from other perspectives — as with the manner in which science is now deemed suspect by many. Emotion may well be a factor in determining disagreement and the failure to “like” a strategy advocated as reasonable.

Reference may be made to spiritual factors as reframing what might otherwise be deemed reasonable — whether framed as intuition, in aesthetic terms, or as “values”. That dimension may be held to be of primary significance, taking precedence over any other and determining the nature of what is rational. The subtleties of logic, emotion and spirituality may well be set aside in favour of action as a primary necessity — however it is “rationalized” — irrespective of whether it is extremely disagreeable to some, possible including those undertaking it. Each of these modalities is the preoccupation of extensive commentaries and explored in a various ways, whether by academia, the arts, religions, or those focused on the concrete.

Framed in this way, it may then be asked how individuals and societies move from a logical justification to one which people “like” — however unreasonably so — or to justifying initiatives in terms of spiritual priorities or those of necessity. What are the convoluted pathways between these modalities, irrespective of how any one of them is held to be of primary importance — at least for a period? (Comprehending Connectivity between Logic, Emotion, Intuition and Practice, 2024; Pathways in Governance between Logic, Emotion, Spirituality and Action, 2024)

Is the recognition of such pathways susceptible to rational analysis or explanation — or is it also called into question and set aside by emotional, spiritual priorities, and those of necessity? Are the pathways better understood otherwise, through the arts, spiritual practice, or other disciplines?

Such concerns may necessarily be held to be an indulgence in times of major conflict and its anticipation — as seemingly heralded by those of Ukraine-Russia, Israel-Palestine, Taiwan-China, and the Koreas. What role does “logic” play in exacerbating such conflict — in contrast to other factors? How does discussion of them shift between incommensurable modes of discourse?

Metaphorically the challenge could be understood as the quest for a kind of Rosetta Stone enabling a form of “translation” between distinctive cognitive modalities — variously understood to be incommensurable or mutually irrelevant. Such a configuration has been previously explored in the light of that metaphor (Memorable Packing of Global Strategies in a Polyhedral Rosetta Stone, 2023). More generally the challenge could be understood as a more fruitful configuration of categories of strategic relevance, in the light of previous explorations (Functional Classification in an Integrative Matrix of Human Preoccupations, 1982; Interactive Polyhedral Configuration of Preoccupations, 2023).

In this period the United Nations has just approved a Pact for the Future and a Declaration for Future Generations — on the occasion of its Summit of the Future. Crafted with necessary attention to their legal credibility, these could be acclaimed as eminently “rational” and “logical” in the face of the strategic challenges of global civilization. Whilst they may indeed be held to embody an emotional dimension articulated by the world leaders in drafting and approving them — purportedly to ensure that they are “liked” by the populations which they are held to represent — the question as to whether they will in fact be “liked” by those populations in practice is quite another matter. For many such articulations will be read through a “spiritual” lens, as possibly understood from an aesthetic perspective. Others may set aside such modalities and see the UN initiatives as an urgent necessity determining the practical action framed by the Sustainable Development Goals and its 169 tasks.

The questionable optimism of such initiatives is usefully highlighted by the dubious outcomes of subsequent summits based on similarly oversimplistic cognitive frameworks (COP29: United Nations Climate Change Conference, 2024; UN plastic pollution summit fails to reach agreement, Waste Management Review, December 2024; World Biodiversity Summit, 2024). The challenges to governance in 2024 are strikingly exemplified by a nation like France which prides itself on its logical heritage from Descartes, the role of philosophy in its education system, and its scientific and aesthetic sophistication (Ungovernability of Sustainable Global Democracy? 2011).

Given the challenge of deriving coherent insight from the extensive array of institutional silos and disciplinary expertise, it is curious that this challenge is not effectively addressed by relevant disciplines, necessarily entangled in that problematique (Mathematical Modelling of Silo Thinking in Interdisciplinary Contexts, 2024). Exemplifying rationality, a Nature global survey finds that most specialists are unhappy with systems to provide science advice to policymakers (Helen Pearson, Science could solve some of the world’s biggest problems: Why aren’t governments using it? Nature, 4 December 2024).

Those conclusions note a constant tension between “the scientifically illiterate and the politically clueless” in a period in which scientific expertise has been variously called into question with little critical capacity to explore the limitations of rationality. This situation is a curious replication of the historical failures of religious claims in that respect — meriting an adaptation of the plaintive Nature survey theme: Spirituality could solve some of the world’s biggest problems: Why aren’t governments using it? As the primary drivers of major conflicts at this time, the failures of quarrelling religions could be considered remarkable. Those of science call for exploration in that light.

The period is also witness to widespread concern with misinformation and disinformation — with “fake news” (Varieties of Fake News and Misrepresentation, 2019; Vital Collective Learning from Biased Media Coverage, 2014). Acclaiming any initiative as appropriate by whatever modality is now readily called into question from that perspective. The pattern is effectively instutionalized in legislative assemblies in which opponents may use any modality to condemn and dismiss strategies advocated by others. The pattern is as evident in the relations between religions and their adherents, as it is in that between academic disciplines and government agencies.

Curiously the possibility that AI might be of considerable value in response to this global cognitive crisis is obscured by relatively ill-informed fear-mongering regarding the threat of AI to the future of human civilization. Beyond superficial references, little attempt is seemingly made to explore and demonstrate in detail how AI might be used to mitigate the challenges to the governance of a knowledge-based civilization — emotion “trumping” logic, if not spiritual perspectives? The outcome of the UN-organized AI for Good Summit (2023) does not seem to have contributed to more balanced understanding. Unfortunately the fear-mongering has effectively been embodied in the Global Digital Compact, as approved at the Summit of the Future. Somewhat ironically even the possibility of using AI — to summarize, analyze and render comprehensible the documents emanating from the Summit of the Future — has been avoided.

The UN’s ambition to “turbocharge” the Sustainable Development Goals on the occasion of the 2024 Summit of the Future was previously explored through a series of interactions with AI (Turbocharging SDGs by Activating Global Cycles in a 64-fold 3D Array, 2024). The detection by inspection, and subsequent visualization of feedback loops in that experimental procedure with ChatGPT and Claude, proved to be encouraging to the point of envisaging an AI-enabled automated detection of indicative SDG cycles that could be essential to their viability. More generally the case was previously made for the use of AI with regard to “Yes” and “No” campaigns on controversial issues and enhancing the coherence of governance in such cases (Use of ChatGPT to Clarify Possibility of Dialogue of Higher Quality, 2023; Coherence of Sustainable Development Goals through Artificial Intelligence, 2023).

Inspired by the understanding of key cycles essential to biological life, there is then a case for challenging AI to suggest correspondences in systemic terms to cycles potentially relevant to sustainable governance — in the spirit of general systems research. As an earlier exchange has indicated, both AIs responded surprisingly proactively to this challenge (Viability of Sustainable Development as Implied by Metabolic Cycles, 2024).

The responses to the earlier exchange included the implication that AI might well be able to offer significant insights into the transitions between logic, emotion, spirituality, and action — to the pathways between them — and the manner in which each was potentially able to “trump” the other. The following is a further exploration of that possibility. A particular interest of such exercises is the question of what can be gleaned from AI “re-search” of its unprecedented access to vast data resources in response to evocative questions. Also of interest is the manifest engagement of AI with such challenging questions — if only from a speculative perspective, calling for repeated iteration by which insights of practical value could potentially be derived.

The exploration enabled the Pact for the Future, the Declaration for Future Generations, and the Global Digital Compact — as adopted by the UN’s Summit of the Future — to be analyzed by AI in terms of the connectives they failed to use, with the implications for future governance (Analysis by AI of Reports of UN Debate on Artificial intelligence, 2024).

The main outcome of the following interaction with AI is an interlinked array of variously labelled interactive animations of patterns of 64-nodes individually linked to extensive commentary– whether in terms of sustainable dialogue, vision, conferencing, policy, network, community or lifestyle. These are presented as a coherent pattern of relevance to further articulation of the preoccupations of sustainable development goals — given the contrasting rational, emotional, spiritual and action-oriented cognitive modalities.

As in the previous experiments, the responses of ChatGPT 4o are distinctively presented below in grayed areas, with those of Claude 3.5 (in some cases). Given the length of the document to which the exchange gives rise, the form of presentation has itself been treated as an experiment — in anticipation of the future implication of AI into research documents. Web technology now enables the whole document to be held as a single “page” with only the “questions” to AI rendered immediately visible — a facility developed in this case with the assistance of both ChatGPT and Claude 3 (but not operational in PDF variants of the page, in contrast with the original). Reservations and commentary on the process of interaction with AI to that end have been discussed separately (Methodological comment on experimental use of AI, 2024). Whilst the presentation of responses of two AIs could be readily considered excessive, it offers a “stereoscopic” perspective highlighting the strengths and limitations of each.

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