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Sharing and Changing Realities
with Extra Degrees of Freedom of Movement
 

Heiner Benking
1997

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(1998 update memorandum)                   

The 1997 paper was invited in 1998 to the Computation for Metaphors, Analogy and Agents: An International Workshop at University of Aizu, Aizu-Wakamatsu City, Japan, 6-10 April 1998, which focussed on: Metaphors, Life-Like Agents, Imitation & Embodiment, Analogies.

The workshop and its proceedings are highly recommended. Nevertheless, the author has refused to contribute to the invited Springer Verlag publication as the subject matter was and is still not "complete" and ready for publication in a mayor book publication. It needs to be considered for the time being a "living document".   As many questions a about the co-existence of image schemata, identities and identification in pan-cultural worlds, we feel it is best to add another chapter to this paper and let the idea of sharing, merging and morphing realities and imagery/metaphors grow! Please have a look and comment in aprticular on the work recently added.

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"The only really new paradigm
would be to find the level of consciousness
where every known paradigm originates."
               Georg Kuehlewind

 

What realities can be 1. Change the optic: lenses and perspectives 2. Change the maps, models, and paradigms 3. Change positions and purpose 4. A Navigation and Orientation Space 5. Bridging and Sharing Positions and Identities  6. Inhabited Extra Dimensions 7. What for? Why take the trouble? 8. Plessner & Shared Realities     Epilogue

 

What realities can be

        First of all, realities can be real or abstract, synthetic or imagined. The moment we embody realities and are able to share them, they become real for us. The critical step is accepting or resisting them, for their existence is unquestionable, as we realize form and content, functions, positions, proportions and consequences. This article is designed to bring such realities of Life and Society into awareness by plotting and editing them in old forms and new, the combined and sharable spaces which we can call : situation or problem-learning-solution spaces. It is important to accept, address and focus them, instead of dismissing them as flat facsimiles or imaginary, not sharable, subjective shadows. Such a merging, modifying and playing instead of fighting realities, as we do and can not fight the ugly nightmare or dream of a child by trying to discuss it away with words and hollow arguments.
        What we are talking about here is mental mobility, as the most natural and cheapest form of healing. We are talking about creating and editing categories and boundaries, and bridging cultures, mind-sets and forms of representations. Changing focus, subjects and objects of attention.

Additional degrees of freedom (mental mobility). How do we gain them?

• First, change the optic: lenses, views, pictures, perspectives,...
• Second, play with maps, models, paradigms and world-views (I would like to call it Views of Life&Nature) and accept co-existent and coherent representations (going beyond dualistic right or wrong and hierarchical orders as the only possible model)
• Third, change positions and integrate/orchestrate even incompatible views, perspectives, and models.
• Finally, imagine and design a continuum or Navigation and Orientation Space consisting of each three dimensions in three connected spaces - Cognitive Panorama (3Space/Time).

1. Change the optic:   lenses and perspectives

        For any possible model there is an important potential of applying optical laws, since we know that physical references hold equally as well for the abstract and conceptual worlds.  First the spaces have to be deep or nested three-dimensional, spaces we can approach from different angles. We can pan and zoom to get to deeper levels or other 'planes'.   As the integration of eyes, worms-eye, fish-eye, human's eye, bird's eye, public eye and mind's eye has been covered elsewhere we can use the analogy of optics to augment the human intellect and realise that the angles and perspectives, beside the way we record our 'pictures', decide if we can create stereoscopic or even holographic models. Seeing with new eyes and sharing our 'impressions' is definitely a new way to construct 'realities'.
        It should be mentioned that reflecting on representations reminds us that realities are cast quite differently and very subjectively, sometimes seemingly unconnected and alien, forming totally different opposing pictures -  pictures which can cause totally different emotions, attitudes we experience when looking at pictures taken from one object with different objectives or wave-lengths.
 
 
TWO POSSIBLE VIEWS OF THE SAME OBJECT:

                                        Complexity:                                             Transparency:
                             Hostile to any participation               Ready for exchange and participation

                     

Fig. 1: Positions and Perspective, not only models, guide perception and create transparency or anxiety. Morellet Sphere, Rive Gauche Gallery, Brussel, photo: A.J.N. Judge - Many further examples can be found in the study of body language. Poses and gestures are seen and interpreted quite differently when seen other perspectives.

 
2. Change the maps, models, and paradigms

        Central dilemmas include the lack of global or wholistic pictures, and oversimplistic flat paradigms.   No doubt, reductionistic, materialistic and hierarchical approaches have their merits and help for many processes, but they can be easily misused and cause much harm when combined with overclaims used in applications beyond their scope and validity. Western Industrial Society for example seems to be lost in  fixation on hierarchical representations and nominalism. Complexity and Ideas and Images are screened out and everything is put into the straightjacket of monontone hierachical and unimaginate 'orders'.
        Representations like paradigms are given paths. We typically use them in one domain to have a guideline to achieve something or go somewhere. The knowledge tree and bibliographic classification systems are only one example of how we avoid complexity by moulding it into linear and sometimes oversimplistic orders. Such representations support a simple and easy to remember structure, especially if computers are used to handle large volumes of data.
        Typically they are easy to understand and are even practical when used inside their known (often not consciously reflected) boundaries or limitations.   It would be silly to blame a map, model or paradigm for being wrong but it is our linear and dualistic education and View-of-Life, which makes us blame others when it encourages us to cultivate oversimplifications and overclaims, instead of paying attention to underlying rules, ranges and limitations.

   
  
Fig. 2: Alternative presentations of the periodic table or layout of chemical elements

The above is a selection of pictures from Functional Classification, Appendix 4 pp.1763, Vol. 3 Yearbook of International Organisations as reproduced in part from J.W. van Spronsen, The Periodic System of Chemical Elements, a history of the fist 100 years, Elsevier 1969, and the display, the 'Magic Square' form a recently conceived and published design based on number theory as published in: Michael Stelzner, Die Weltformel der Unsterblichkeit " Vom Sinn der Zahlen " Die Einheit von Naturwissenschaft und Religion VAP Wiesbaden, 1996, ISBN 3-922367-70-4. In chapter 3: The Third Dimension, p 369-370.

        The last model, the 'magic square' matrix,  is not typically known, or 'accepted', it might be even called arbitrary by some scholars. Nevertheless, this new design is highlighted here to show that there is an ongoing search for new models which are simple and complete and insightful!  AND which make sense for certain, given purposes or quests for knowledge, open to being amended, improved or even discarded by further developments or insights, earning acceptance in some eyes .. one day.
         All these displays are arbitrary and have their own validity and perspective/purpose, being coherent and fulfilling of those purposes.    They show the extent of knowledge, perspective or detail called for at a given time, and in given frames, display a true picture according to the objectives or course of discovery of what we know or how we master the art of mapping and modeling of Nature.  Most of the stages in finding a model of reality were faithful and helped us to ask new questions and see new connections, in retrospect is the epistemology of what and how we know something, even if we can not always appreciate in the moment what is most exciting or revealing or important.

        The matrix or a three-dimension scaffolding can hold many different schema or orders. The work of Anthony Judge and I. Dahlberg are covered to great depth in other publications, so we invite you to visit the site of the authors and go to 'source' the original works (see in particular http://www.uia.org/webints/aaintmat.htm and the overview and historical orientation article 'Functional Classification' by A. J. N. Judge).   These backgrounds indicate that we can design or construct deeper logical and coherent orders. The agreement on such anticipatory schema to map items allows us to switch between schemata and gives rise to much hope for bridging cultural repositories and making available sources which now are hard to locate and access. This gives much hope for further projects in the field of archiving and cultural navigation.  See in particular: Veltmann, K.H.: Frontiers in Conceptual Navigation, ISKO Conference on multimedia applications, to appear in 'Knowledge Organization' early 1998.

 

3. Change positions and purpose to relate/integrate/orchestrate
                'incompatible'views, perspectives, and models.

        The integration of such different views of reality or nature is seen as an important step towards tolerance.  It is simplistic to make us aware that we only see different pictures of a reality, like entering a village from different directions or looking from above or just out of a certain window or door (frame).  To create a complete framework of views, bridging all the scales, perspectives and intentions under which pictures were recorded, will never be possible.   Yet it is possible through education and experience to create a picture of the whole, keeping in mind the resolution and purpose of the 'frame-construction', and the open willingness to question the construction, since different time or wave-lengths or -widths might lead to different models and re-imaginations.

        As there seems to be some misconception about maps or matrixes (some considered widely authoritative or final),   we will show below -- or give reference to -- approaches to order and see in one image a coherent layout of indexes of data or knowledge under a given perspective. The difference between any scaffolding, matrix or layout to the following two classification schemes can be assessed by the following criteria:

              1) Is the layout simple, easy to remember, logical, coherent and complete?, or,
              2) is it far from any organized higher order only a mess or chaos of data?

        Figure 4 is a matrix proposed 15 years ago for providing an index for knowledge ideally suited for library access, even in different languages, allowing to switch between or link other classification schemes. Figure 4 is a system conceived to keep the inner and higher order as far as possible in mind, but compromising for the sake of specific applications and purposes.  Functional Classification,  Figure 3b was developed to index and update large volumes of data from International Organizations. We refer you to example literature like the overview articles of A.J.N. Judge on Functional Classification, and the work of this author in multilingual, meta-databases, terminology and harmonization projects: link <**>.  Please note that other representations, besides the well established hierarchical tree-structures, are readily available and feasible for data storage and retrieval, notably in multilingual, multi-cultural, and interdisciplinary areas of applications.

		Matrix columns	Matrix levels			Matrix columns	Matrix levels
	9	Culture	Distribution and Synthesis		9	Condition of the whole	Experiential (modes of awareness)
	8	Science & Information	Application and Determination		8	Environmental manipulation	Experiential values
	7	Economic & Technology	Technology and Production		7	Resource redistribution	Innovative change (context strategies)
	6	Socio	Institution or Content		6	Communication reinforcement	Innovative change (structure)
	5	Human	Persons or Content		5	Controlled movement	Concept formation (context)
	4	Bio	Property Attribute		4	Contextual renewal	Concept formation (structure)
	3	Cosmo & Geo	Activity, Process		3	Differentiated order	Social action (context)
	2	Energy & Matter	Object, Component		2	Organized relations	Social action (structure)
	1	Form & Structure	Theories, Principles		1	Domain definition	Biosphere
	0	Subject Areas	General Form Concepts		0	Formal pre-conditions	Cosmosphere/Geosphere

                          Fig. 3a                                                                Fig. 3b
    Information Coding Classification                             Functional Classification
                    I. Dahlberg (c)                                                         A.Judge

        The above are only two from many possible ways to structure knowledge in a coherent and meaningful way. It is important to realize that many further matrixes or maps are possible and feasible. What we learn from these exercises into ways of structuring information is, that 1.)  we have to look for coherent, transparent, simple and easy to remember layouts, 2.)  they solve real needs, get applied and make data available, 3.) they create, logical unique locations for entries for the sake of reducing the volume of redundant information, and 4.) they help people to understand connections, make sense, and see the whole.

        It is important to understand that 1.) regarding depth of information, a coding up to 5 or more digits helps to structure with a much finer 'granularity', that 2.) ontologically- based general concept systems allow to implement a 'Systematifier' principle (Dahlberg), what Judge calls a 'Structural Outliner', that 3.) such systems can be implemented as 'switching systems' which enable re-coding and translation between other, typically hierarchical and proprietary classification schemes, which are typically found in different libraries, and 4.) that there is a possibility to use such schemata as the backbone for multi-lingual information and classification systems, as languages can be considered to be just another 'level' (see more about this in Figure 5).  All these features can help build conceptual bridges in order to roughly identify something in other cultures and languages, enabling translation, when appropriate.

        The first matrix, the ICC, was developed for library sciences and has another unique quality: inner or higher order. The second matrix (FC) is more of an experimental nature, subject to changes, as application and production requirements suggest. When looking closer, we see that the realm of the second matrix is much wider, but both like many possible others, have their purposes and find their place.

        We show the partial detail these two scaffoldings to make aware the potential for outlining themes in a holistical or complete and coherent sense. This is a compromise but it has distinct advantages over the traditional hierarchical 'knowledge-tree' structure because they provide knowledge-spaces, which can be outlined, visualized, and embodied.   Behind this is a quite different handling of words, taking words into space as the Australian Linguist proposes or as the father of holism, Jan C. Smuts has proposed by considering and manipulating words like fields in space.

For more, see ISSS Primer WHOLENESS Seminar:  http://www.newciv.org/ISSS_Primer/asem09js.html
 

Fig. 4:   A matrix organisation of subject fields called the ICC, Information Coding Classification system.      A survey of subject groups or a new universal ordering system for disciplines and phenomena.  The schemata conveys not only the sense that a holistic organization is possible - with broad categories in which to organize and relate diverse integrated systems - but that given sub-systems can be members of several cross referenced categories (as described in vernacular in J N 's  "Understanding the Integral Universe"- Introduction (1992)).

        Please note, we do not show the content of each cell, or how they are coded, merely samples given.  You can find more about this grid and about ongoing research projects in this field here [ webmaster note: link temporarily inactive].  More importantly, this scheme is there to help you look for yourself, ask new questions and  find new structures and relations, which is essential for creativity.   For the purpose of this paper we only show that we can tune our thinking to look for coherence and connectedness. This is mandatory in order to avoid the redundancies we are confronted with today -- in an era of confusion and overload of messages with dubious value.

        I  see such a grid as one possible way of making sense for a given purpose or certain aspect, then we can show connections and identify not only a cell, but columns or area consisting of a couple of small parcels of 'land'.  In this way we can outline and search for subjects and issues more coherently! We will find out that some cells have relations with only few or, as in the case of the term ecology for example, we could define relations with nearly every other cell and can in this way detail it in a meaningful way.  The following are only some examples in the broader 'area 49' of ecology and environment: 4951:348 air pollution, 4925:428 marine microbiology, 4938 garden and parks architecture,....

  

4. A Navigation and Orientation Space

Finally, a Navigation and Orientation Space to embody Situations consisting of each of the three dimensions in three connected spaces: This can be understood as the Japanese bio-holistic 'ba' concept for inter-spaces. There is a need to index and find real and conceptual entities and to find ways to present such in coherent layouts.

Fig. 5: The Cognitive Panorama, in its limitations, is one of many possible candidates. There is also a need for the coexistence of different forms of representation and an easy transformation and translation between the different models, foci, and forms. By combining and overlaying such representations annotations new connections and insight might come up and canyons between objects and subjects will be bridged.   see details about the Cognitive Panorama Bridge at

    http://newciv.org/cob/members/benking/benking.html   and  http://www.newciv.org/ISSS_Primer/asem09js.html

        There is a definite need for simple, coherent and open models acting as common frames of reference, in order to accommodate diverse perspectives and teach tolerance, coherence and harmony. In particular the Western Societies, seem to be fixed or blocked in their way of seeing the world. They neglect the issue of the need for models to aid our thinking and sharing references. Instead modern societies opt for having no model or WORLD -VIEW at all!   As this is the result of 30 years of education into 'Subjectivity', every thing is seen as relative and vague. We should not wonder that this resulted in the cultivation of 'self-esteem' and ego-develoment, instead of building society on confident children having and changing directions and orientations.

        One final remark is in order.  In the "Cartographer of Consciousness" by Brian Van Der Horst, .."Ron Siegel probes the hallucinating brain to chart hidden features of our mental landscape" Omni, Sept. 1980, the author uses Heinrich "Kluver"  to present a geometric recursion. There is much research going on in this field (which will be covered elsewhere). For this little journey along maps and representations it can at least give us the idea of connectedness of physical and mental realms. The only problem is our problem of believing in one 'authoritative' map or matrix, the one and only school or 'dogma'. The presentation of the chemical elements proved that there are many views and schemata possible and even they all together are just maps, not the territory, as Alfred Korzybski wrote.
 

                                         
                        Fig.6: Form constants as mapped by the 'cartographer of consciousness'

 

 

5. Bridging and Sharing Positions and Identities

As many question arouse about the variety of basic representations and which ones are "right" or "wrong" we feel it is necessary to show that these way to present are to be found in many cultures. As words do not suffice here another pan-cultural schema, the "Four Shields" which was developed by Steven Foster and Meredith Little form the School of Lost Borders, Box 55, Big Pine, Ca 93513, as based on various sources they have selected and combined over the years in order to provide even for our generations and societies coherent and meaningful ways to find oneself, as an individual or in and as groups.
 
 

Fig.7: Vision Quest - The Four Shields

We can see that such representations are deep, you can zoom in for more detail and meaning,  just as the "symbolic tree" of system sciences. So what we need to be aware of is that we have here a general overview or context, and that there are connections between the different forms and structures. If like in the Indian "shield" we can see that forms change in time, when we can establish a flow from one form to the other, and if we can position ourselves, creating places for a me and the various forms of we, than we have been arriving at another level. The possibility to look for change and exchange.

Such "wind-s" or systems of "basic elements" can be found in many cultures, the flow of action or change is sometimes clock-wise, like above, or follows a rhythm or sequence like in the enneagram, or is "just" happening between potential partners in any sector, like in the SYNCON's "Wheel of Transformation" where different partners or potentials can find to each other, or the Shadowy Round Tables of Anthony Judge, where we realize that there are not only positions and polarities, but that they can keep themselves in "Checks and Balances", that element belong to each other and only when all aspects are there we have a whole and can change the aspect, focus, priority,.... we can hope to get a little closer to the challenges of comprehension.  

6. Inhabited Extra Dimensions
For presenting change in a vortex or any other form we have to add another dimension, an extra dimension. In this case the "wheel" or "shield" can be seen on different levels or for different persons at the same time.
One very special application is the possibility to group items or issues on the surface of a "ball", a platonic solid, or on a "tensegrity surface" as is shown by Anthony Judge a "A Complementary Perspective". To further detail we see  in Patterning Problems, chapter 5 that we can for example configure patterns of problems in (a) Grid representations, (b) Other two-dimensional projections, (c) Spherical projections, and (d) Unconventional surfaces representations. This can help us to go deeper into issues and share how things are related.

The problem is clear:  As some Indian tribes say "we all share one skin", we all have something in common, we are suddenly confronted with realities, we can not readily touch and feel, but have direct impact on our living situations. I have repeatedly presented that we now "not only share on skin, but many skies", and that there are dangers in getting lost when we live in different "realities" and even more are liable to fight as we think we know and are right.
As so much work is done already to show us how to go beyond the over simplistic dialectic or dualistic representations and how they are interwoven and need "embodiment" (see only as a starter from Anthony Judge: "Liberation of Integration, Universality and Concord through pattern, oscillation, harmony and embodiment" or "The Territory Construed as the Map - In search of radical design innovations in the representation of human activities and their relationships") we want to subscribe to the need to find new ways of showing functions and relations, patterns, proportions and consequences.
Buckminster Fuller's and Judge's tensegrity structures are extraordinary and have received much interest lately but what we need to remember is that we have to find ways to represent in ways which are simple and easy to remember. Thinks we can recreate and generate ourselves, make scribble and explain to ourselves and others. So what we have presented in chapter 1-5 of this article was the design of a "conceptual architecture" like the Viennese Architect Adolf Loos (1870-1933) saw that design has to follow social needs and that we can think in 3 dimensions to better accommodate the relations and neighborhoods, create better living environments. So what this paper is about is showing that we are not restricted to the "flat" 2-dimensional grids as in (a) of Patterning Problems of Judge above, but that these grids are good and stable and easy to remember and we just have to add other levels, stories, ceilings, floors, whatever you want to call it in the "House without Walls", in order to create also "sound conceptual living environments.
 

7. What for? Why take the trouble?
Adding other levels and immersing into an "extra dimensions" has a lot of advantages, if the representations like the "Wheel" above do not suffice. Again, if we can manage with a simple and flat schemas, like the "Vision Quest" or other "wheels" are doing to help people find themselves or help them to gather answers to steer their life, that that is great and sufficient, we should not bother any longer. But unfortunately there might be a need to accommodate checks and balances also when paradox, and different times, different cultures and technologies are involved. In this case we might need to widen the platform of discourse, the space we can negotiate.

It was necessary that the ways we construct images are connected, that there are basic "form constants", that they can be found in many places, and that we do not restrict ourselves to grids or spheres or vortexes.
The issues is and was: What is the most convenient and easy to remember? Does it provide overview and orientation, is it possible to "re-member"?, without a device"?, is it simple, open, coherent, and complete?, is it close to our thinking, along with our "human potentials to imagine a scene and to move in artificial "themescapes"?
As we can see the extensional directions, right-left, up-down, forward-backwards are basic for orientation, and feeling, gripping and grasping as closely connected we feel it is important to make sure that we do not loose ground and touch, even when reasoning.
It is so common place to be abstract and pointlessness in our times, that we have lost much of the capabilities to share and have em-pathy. We therefore point as often as possible to locations or work where these fundamental  "capabilities" are focussed on.
To begin with here three "locations" which focus on the basic capabilities we are referring to: 1. MetaSelf as a course book to study spacial-placial awareness, as created by an artist, 2. an "e-book" electronic book available freely on the web done by an engineer who used to build robots, but has taken up this leanings to reflect about communication, senses, and reasoning. It about how to re-learn and re-discover how basic thinking processes work and how taking on another perspective helps to see things in different new light.
A General Learner. As thinking has much to with having a body and a position (from which to think) we cannot stop without making a last, 3rd recommendation. It is a link to a Foundation for Sensory Awareness. We have found it through the work of Elsa Gindler and Heinrich Jacoby, body therapists and educators, who have made clear how much we are rooted in our body and that we do not understand and can not share meaning when it is abstract, when it is not "touching".
All this is written to make us aware that when we speak about body, field, area, or range  when we actually try to re-create and imagine as authentic as possible a body, field, area, or range of any issue, entity, situation, or pattern. This does not mean that we see all details volumetrically at once. But it is good to have a floor-plan or a scribble. We still might not be able to create all sections - but it is good to know that we could create sections, as there is a known - agreed upon - design.

We have shown above that spacial and placial metaphors can help us to share meaning. But this is not enough. The moment we agree on locations and places, we gain positions, directions, identities. And it is good to be able to mark where we are and where we want to go....
 

8. The "excentric positionality" (Plessner)    and
                                   Shared Realities and Imagination
The moment we are willing to agree on a map or design we can relate positions, see how they are different and how we can change our views by standing somewhere else. The basic stumbling block has always been to be fixed or locked into something, to be "framed" into someone else's "grid", "cell", "territory", or "category". To avoid this - being flexible - the ultimate goal is to extend one's mobility, to move along and across "scales" as we say in ecology, even map flows and energies.
Such an ability to position and map allows us to see things in perspective, be able to step back and be able to merge and morph views as has been pointed out before at 1. (metaphors) and 2. (house or conceptual superstructure).

We arrive at the human potential not only to move, but to move with our ideas. Move in two worlds, not only the material, but the "ideal" and conceptual. This unique capability to identify, outline, and move beyond areas and boundaries is the unique capacity of humans: We do not know if and how far the capacity is available also in the animal kingdom, but we know that one of the most eminent and deep philosophers, Hellmuth Plessner, has exactly focussed and expressed this capacity to outline and transcend, not to be fixed in one position, but to relate the various possible levels of being, move beyond duality.

Creating and Living in Space is the basic step to go beyond duality and over simplistic hierarchies. Space allows us step out of the plane, to step out of the dilemma of being forced to say yes or no, by stepping out we gain distance and perspective and can even realize that the different views are just different angles under which we might even see the same object. This is all very easy the moment we map meaning in space, locate actors, scenes and issues...
What we have shown here is that it makes sense to think in space, give meaning a place , and walk around it. The author has embodied Plessner's "excentric positionality" as we need to model and embody such things in order to share it with others. In this way we can come to broader basis, better understanding as we do not get entangled in abstract words with out shared meaning. We propose to look at the schemas of being-feeling-thinking-healing, how we extend our realms of activity and imagination.
This has much to do with our way of reasoning - how we use metaphors and paradigms - how they mold our given pathos. We have show elsewhere that paradigm is just way ot thinking in a given framework, let us call it domain or culture. If we map these ways, then we see which fields of expertise we make use of and which concepts we employ. If we have a  grid of concepts or functions, then we can suddenly see how we always re-invent the wheel instead of being creative. So let us call a paradigm a "fixed" way of thinking or reasoning". This is helpful to make some distance, but this is also boring and non-creative. By mapping the different paradigms on the same map, we see where they are comming from, what their base or expertise is, and where there are heading to.
this context or background of data or information is called meta-data or meta-information. So we called the background of a paradigm a meta-paradigm, a framework or model of being and sharing. The moment we can map and position we can compare and relate. This is often done unconsciously, we call it creativity when we oscillate between different modes and compare and match "patterns that connect" (G. Bateson), it was also called lateral thinking (deBono) and it was called "diagonal thinking" as it is done across planes and levels and it is actually a typical German word querdenken, or as a known Querkopf. Always implying that you leave the given mold and try something, new be inventive and creative, and are up for trouble in order to overcome and learn from it.
 

Epilogue

We hope to have shown that there is no single and right or wrong schema, map, or model. We might be right or wrong by choosing a particular one, just as Anaïs Nin wrote: "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."

We also tried to show in this paper that there are good reason to have ego-centric, eco-centric antropocentric or whatever views. They are good and helpful, depending on what we need them for, what values, motives, assumption are behind them and to be able to speak and reflect about them more easily.

The work presented here is the work we did with children, so the credit belongs to them: We did ME&WE models in order to map where we are, in which world view, what something is about and in it, ... to the result to have more understanding and humility the more we gaze. Another result was tolerance and tolerance towards intolerance: no need to fight other peoples opinions or statements. Instead sharing with them where they stand, what they see and feel..., where they are in the cycles of being and becoming (see figure 7 - the 4 shields) and that it is a matter of the times or where one wants to be!

We have called it peacemaking in our dialogue processes (in German we call it Gespräch, Erörterung, and Mediation) Going with someone to the "Ort" (thematical place=topic), negotiating with him/her the conceptual terrain and finding solutions, beyond dilemma, paradox, checks, and balances, by just visiting the "conceptual "Ort"-locus or place and negotiating alternative ways. Tactics, and strategies.
 

Final musing:
The central problem of our Society is our ruling one-dimensionality (duality) of our thinking and acting and the apathy or aggression resulting from feeling 'lost in space' instead of resorting to our original capabilities of path-finding, bridge-building and barriers-editing.... As we do not question representations and look behind words (nominalistic instead of conceptualistic thinking) we do not switch codes, translate or transform meanings. We are fixed into one perspective, instead of looking into sharing and questioning. Only when we dare to tell and show our Children,  that 1.)  we also do not know and that there are things which are 'unknowable', when we 2.) take them by our hands and explore with them the INTER-SPACES, the terrain in-between the pictures or landscapes,  and when we 3.) jump and edit 'fences' and explore new levels, we will reach new shores of social and ecological consciousness by bridging meaning,sharing understanding, in what we called a meta-paradigm, a framework of being and sharing.  <http://newciv.org/cob/members/benking/benking.html>.

Acknowledgements: It is clear that without the work of Dahlberg, Judge and Veltman this work and progress from harmonization of environmental information, to meta-databases, education and and policy making would not have been possible. As there is a strong relation and much material is used, in particular from Judge, the question of integrating and providing a collage of the work of others is the right thing to do. The author felt it is not only important to link and make known this work but combine it and and create through the 'umbrella' of the panorama something new, maybe a step towards more synthesis and synoptics.

The work of Mrs Dahlberg is only available through ISKO and its publishing house INDEKS, Frankfurt and the Journal Knowledge Organization - KO. For visitors the author can recommend not the introductionary article of Anthony Judge on Functional Classification and the work of Kim Veltman from the Perspective Unit of the McLuhan Institute in Toronto.

END                                                            

Whoever imagines mental barriers which actually do not exist
and then thinks them away, has understood the world.
As space is entrapped in geometry's network of lines,
thought is caught in its (own) inherent laws.
Maps make the world comprehensible to us;
we are still waiting for the star-maps of the spirit.
In the same way that ambling through fields
we risk getting lost, the spirit negotiates its terrain.

                        Friedrich Rückert , "Wisdom of the Brahmins"

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