Climbing Elven Stairways

DNA as a macroscopic metaphor of polarized

psychodynamics
-/-
Introduction
Context of clashing cultures
Part A: Existential challenge of "The Other"
-- Contrast with framework of Spiral Dynamics
-- Possibility of an implicit pattern
-- Correspondences and complementarities: "moonshine
connectivity"
-- A "hidden" stairway?
-- Spiral stairway -- threatening and/or broken?
-- Guarding the entrance: the "wisdom keepers"
-- Spiral stairwells and screw conveyors
-- Paradoxical existential dynamics of the spiral stairway
-- Fundamental knower-known relationship
-- Human relationships and "The Other"
Part B: Archetypal otherness: "DNA vs. I Ching"
-- Correspondences and complementarities: steps on the spiral
way
-- Pattern replication
-- Process dynamics
-- "Broken symbols" exacerbating relationship failure?
-- Value polarities as archetypal bonds
-- Bonding: reification and petrification of significance
-- Relationship breakdown and civilizational collapse
References
Introduction
This is an exploration of the possibility that the operating pattern associated with
DNA, so fundamental to microbiological life processes, may be of some relevance
in reframing understanding of the large-scale processes associated with
psychosocial interactions -- with which civilization has as yet proven to be fatally
incompetent.
What follows is a development of aspects of the following earlier explorations:

 Theories of Correspondences -- and potential equivalences

between them in correlative thinking (2007)
 Potential Misuse of the Conveyor Metaphor: recognition of
the circular dynamic essential to its appropriate
operation (2007)
 Walking Elven Pathways: enactivating the pattern that
connects (2006)
 DNA Supercoiling as a Pattern for Understanding Psycho-
social Twistedness (2004)

The central insight is that correspondences offer a form of understanding of

relationships between what may well be both incommensurable and incompatible
within conventional frameworks -- as between science and religion, between
science and art, or between different belief systems. DNA integrates large
quantities of information of qualitative and generative significance, notably
through the nature of the bonding between its two intertwined, complementary
strands. The most challenging bonds in psychosocial dynamics are partially
embodied and understood, if at all, in poiesis of some form (poetry, dance,
music, drama, etc). ***
This exploration takes a quite different approach from that of Spiral Dynamics
based on the work of Clare W. Graves (The Emergent, Cyclical, Double-Helix
Model of the Adult Human Biopsychosocial Systems, 1981). The emphasis is on
the existential challenge of comprehending any relationship with "The Other" and
how such a challenging bond may break down. It focuses closely on what may be
learnt from the complexities associated with DNA, notably in contrast with the
existential dynamics to which the I Ching alludes through metaphor.
The question in what follows is whether, as correspondences, such bonds
between the incommensurable offer a form of ladder -- a cognitive spiral
staircase, in the light of the DNA metaphor, on which it may be possible
lightly to tread between the polarized, "clashing" forces. Might "theories of
correspondences" be more fruitfully understood as "ladders of correspondences"?
More intriguing is whether processes of creativity and schism formation in groups
are usefully patterned by the processes associated with DNA replication and its
role in protein fabrication. In endeavouring to comprehend the integrity of the
"pattern that connects" does this imply that this depends on the ability of that
pattern to engage dynamically in seemingly disintegrative processes through
which the new is engendered? How are such disintegrative processes to be
distinguished from those destructive of that pattern and the quality which it
sustains?

Context of clashing cultures

Many of the challenges to the integrity and viability of civilization are framed in
the simplistic terms of binary logic as a "clash of civilizations":

 Judeo-Christianity vs. the others

 Israel vs. Palestine
 science vs. religion
 art vs. science
 industry vs. environment
 natural sciences vs. social sciences
 left wing vs. right wing
 men vs. women
 young vs. old
 old vs. new
 haves vs. have-nots

Such a framing may also be applied within groups, as argued by Wendell Bell (in:
Richard Slaughter, Looking Towards the Futures Studies
Renaissance: a conversation between Richard A Slaugher and
Wendell Bell, Journal of Futures Studies, August 2007): Within almost every
group or collectivity, there is a struggle between people:

 on one side who wish to deal with members of other groups with peaceful
diplomacy, persuasion, and comprise; who seek justice tempered by
forgiveness and restraint; who have empathy for "the other"; whose self-
interest is moderated by concern for the well-being of others; who have
respect for others; and who have some understanding of the unity of
mankind;
 on the other side of the struggle (within the same group) are people whop
are prone to use violence against "the other"; who seek justice as
retribution and revenge; who demonize their perceived opponents as evil-
 doers; who tend to be punishing, controlling, and domineering; who are
intolerant of other cultures and show scorn for what is foreign to them;
whose narrow self-interest dominates their judgments and actions, and
who have little, if any, sense of themselves as members of a common
worldwide humanity.

The polar terms may in each case be understood as "cultures" or "civilizations"

which are in process of clashing in ways that are poorly contained by the best
insights of the wise and their capacity to offer remedial strategies of any
credibility. For the less than wise, and those without any doubts regarding their
own wisdom, the response is systemically little different from Stone Age
clubmanship, locked into self-righteous, conventional, "in-the-box" thinking --
"Me right / You wrong". Conclusion: "you are either with us or against us", "you
need help", "you need to be eliminated".
Pakistan was recently threatened with being "bombed back to the Stone
Age" if it failed to collaborate with a superpower locked into this Stone Age
mentality. The limitations of this perspective have notably been explored by
Edward de Bono (I Am Right, You Are Wrong: New Renaissance: From Rock
Logic to Water Logic, 1990).
Worse still is what might be caricatured as a mutation of the "Stone Age"
mentality into a structurally violent confidence trick (a "new con"): "I am right.
Follow my advice and be part of the solution. Don't be negative" (cf Being
Positive Avoiding Negativity: management challenge of positive
vs negative, 2005).
The response of those appalled by this dynamic appears to be a desperate search
for magical "common ground" -- enabling all to agree, free from toxic and
potentially fatal differences. This worthy objective has however taken on the
attributes of some Edenic utopia. Little thought is given to the probability that, as
with Eden, it is likely (if achieved) to be resubjected to the unexamined processes
of the tragedy of the commons. (see discussion in In Quest of Uncommon
Ground: beyond impoverished metaphor and the impotence of
words of power, 1997; John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization,
1995).
Although every respect is due to such initiatives, and every hope could be placed
in them by the optimistic, history suggests that there is also a case for exploring in
parallel the possibility of more complex forms of viable rapprochement that are as
respectful of disagreement between opposing belief systems as they are of any
agreement (see: Using Disagreements for Superordinate Frame
Configuration, 1992, prepared in anticipation of the Parliament of the World's
Religions). With respect to the need for such "new thinking", Edward de Bono has
himself promoted the creation of a World Council for New Thinking.

DNA Segment
[Source Wikipedia: Richard
Wheeler (Zephyris) 2006, grants
permission to copy, distribute
and/or modify this document
under the terms of the
GNU Free Documentation License]

Contrast with framework of Spiral Dynamics

It is appropriate to note that the theory of Spiral Dynamics (Don E.
Beck and Chris C. Cowan, Spiral Dynamics: mastering values, leadership,
and change, 1996) was based on the work of Clare W. Graves (Human
Nature Prepares for a Momentous Leap. The Futurist, April 1974; The
Emergent, Cyclical, Double-Helix Model of the Adult Human Biopsychosocial
Systems, 1981), itself rooted in general systems theory and developmental
psychology (cf Caleb Rosado, An Explanation of Spiral Dynamics; A
Mini-Course in Spiral Dynamics). It has notably been promoted by Ken
Wilber and his Integral Institute.
The spiral is said to incorporate a double helix through which "life conditions" at
each level ("what the real world is like") may match with "capacities of the mind"
(the neurobiological equipment and mindsets required to deal with such a reality).
Explanations of Spiral Dynamics do not however appear to make the helical
structure as prominent as is implied; it is not mentioned in the extensive
commentary of the Wikipedia entry, for example. Nor is it mentioned in the
critique by Michel Bauwens (A Critique of Wilber and Beck's SD-
Integral, P/I: Pluralities/Integration, 2005). If the spiral is assumed to imply a
direction of development, as an essentially one-way spiral, it would be subject to
criticisms similar to those made with respect to Ken Wilber's one-way
developmental conveyor (see Potential Misuse of the Conveyor
Metaphor: recognition of the circular dynamic essential to its
appropriate operation, 2007).
The emphases in the exploration of this paper are however on the existential
challenges of comprehension and the degree of correspondence with DNA which
not evident in Spiral Dynamics; it might be argued that the emphasis there is on
matching of various clear-cut psychological and behavioural categories as is
characteristic of various formulaic type coding systems. Don Beck has however
stated:
The real content of Spiral Dynamics, however, is not about the eight or nine
levels, but how human systems emerge from the interaction of people with their
life conditions. Otherwise, one is trapped with a Calvinistic, pre-determined roll
out, maybe like reincarnation. Different developmental theorists will, of course,
see different wrappings, because of who they are, how they do research, who is in
their studies, with what data-gathering technologies. The essence of Spiral
Dynamics is this Double-Helix effect. (Lines of Development and Spiral
Dynamics, 2007)
Following his dissociation from Beck in 1999, the original content of the work of
Graves has been edited by Chris Cowan with Natasha Todorovic (The Never
Ending Quest: Dr. Clare W. Graves Explores Human Nature: A
Treatise on an emergent cyclical conception of adult behavioral
systems and their development, 2005) through a Spiral
Dynamics group distinct from that of Beck's Spiral Dynamics Integral.
The point might be made that one inspiration for the current exploration is to
enable a mode of understanding that responds to the differences associated with
such typical relationship "breakdowns" and the contrasting interpretations to
which they give rise.
Indeed, from the self-referential perspective of the current exploration, what is its
relationship to such "Others"? A primary difference might be expressed as a
concern with how meaning is experienced by those participants in the dynamics of
strongly polarized relationships -- and how it is variously comprehended by them.
Patterns of categories as explanations have proven to be inadequate to the
challenge of such relationships from which many suffer.
The distinction might be caricatured by the agonized words of Jack Nicholson (As
Good As It Gets, 1997) to a friend offering an explanation for a relational
crisis: "I am drowning here and you are describing the water".

Possibility of an implicit pattern

The following exploration is of a radically different nature. Within the
problematic context indicated above any possibility of reframing it merits a degree
of consideration, however speculative -- as a precondition of creative
brainstorming.
The argument here is that the complex processes associated with DNA are so
fundamental to life that they merit consideration for their implications for the
organization of psychosocial dynamics on a larger scale. Arguments for this
include:

 as a robust set of structures and processes, those of DNA may be said to

have been thoroughly "tested" over millions of years to eliminate
fundamental systemic weaknesses -- something that cannot be said for
many "models" of reconciliation currently on offer
 in the light of general systems theory, as a viable system, the
underlying pattern is likely to be applicable to some degree on a larger
scale (cf James Grier Miller, Living Systems, 1978). After all why
should evolution be expected to avoid benefitting from a model that has
proven its efficacy?
 the processes associated with DNA demonstrably integrate a higher
degree of complexity and variety -- presumably (or at least potentially) of
an order commensurate with that requisite for the appropriate governance
of psychosocial systems
 in the light of the technique proposed by Joël de Rosnay (The
Macroscope, 1979) for detecting the patterns of larger systems (by
analogy with the microscope), understanding at the micro-level may offer
guidance to understanding of systems of a larger scale. This approach was
a stimulus to the study of Luc de Brabandère (Le Latéroscope: systèmes
et créativité, 1989; The Forgotten Half of Change: achieving greater
creativity through changes in perception, 2005 ).
Given this context, from a systemic perspective, it is encouraging with respect to
the challenge to human capacity of global governance that at the human cellular
level:

 that the number of bases in the human genome (approx 6 billion), so

recently "discovered", so closely approximates the population of the
planet (approx 6 billion), so recently documented, and that the number of
"base pairs" (approx 3 billion) might naturally be expected to correspond
to the number of gender pairs;
 and, furthermore, that the number of molecular lesions in the human
genome per year (approx 0.6%) is of the same order as that of the global
mortality rate per year (approx 0.8%)

The comparison may be considered flawed in the light of the much lower levels of
the human population in earlier periods -- when the human genome was
essentially the same. However this fails to take into account the cognitive
dimension that it is only recently that humanity acquired the capacity to assess
both the level of its own global population and the global characteristics of its
own genome.
Given that humanity has neither developed the capacity to control its population
levels sustainably, nor to eliminate mortality associated with failure manifesting at
the cellular level, it is clearly peculiarly dependent on catastrophic failure of
relationships (generically understood from the macro to the micro level) for its
own survival. There is therefore a case for assuming that systemically the
correspondence between the above figures may be indicative of some significance
beyond pure coincidence.
The following argument is not however dependent on this assumption although it
is nevertheless curious that the governance capacity to respond to systemic
problems arising from both overpopulation and disease (notably AIDs) is
specifically inhibited by doctrines of the Abrahamic religions. These are all highly
challenged both in their relationship to each other, and with regard to that between
men and women -- as well as dependent on ensuring an early total catastrophic
failure of relationships in order to engender a prophesied global resolution of
these difficulties. Faith-based governance, cultivating demonisation and evoking
terrorism, is promoted to that end (cf Spontaneous Initiation of
Armageddon: a heartfelt response to systemic negligence, 2004).
The argument is not intended to question the good intentions of those whose
understandings of psychosocial dynamics enable them to respond with some
degree of viability (at least to their satisfaction) to the various manifestations of
the "clash of civilizations" -- whether on the larger social scale or at the
interpersonal level. Rather, given the high level of fatality that these dynamics
continue to engender, the question is whether more radical framings may in the
future offer yet more appropriate approaches to these clashes.
In particular this exploration acknowledges, as fundamental to the dynamics that
call for elucidation, the self-reflexive challenge of any approach -- however self-
righteously offered by the wisest or most spiritual. Any such approach (perhaps
necessarily) engenders an opposing approach by which it will in all probability be
"demonised". This dimension is especially relevant in the light of the optimistic
global efforts to promote global governance and consensus through particular (and
largely self-selected) institutions (cf discussion in Emergence of a Global
Misleadership Council: misleading as vital to governance of the
future? 2007 ).
In the current context, new approaches are as likely as any to offer relevant
insights, especially if they are grounded in million year old patterns.
The question here is whether DNA offers special insight into the "pattern that
connects" the "clashing" elements of psychosocial dynamics to which the best and
the brightest have little meaningful response in practice -- except possibly to
bomb "back to the Stone Age" (if only metaphorically) those who disagree with
their prescription. That there could well be such a relationship between DNA and
the "pattern that connects" might be construed as implied by the contextual
argument in which that phrase was famously first presented by Gregory
Bateson (Mind and Nature: a necessary unity, 1979).
How then might DNA offer a dynamic "holding pattern" as it does in
microbiological life processes? As a metaphor, does it offer a new way of
framing polarized psychosocial dynamics? Is that better than what is currently
on offer?
It is also appropriate to note that the following exploration is in harmony with
insights of some indigenous cultures, as documented by Jeremy Narby (The
Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the origins of knowledge, 1999). This
might itself be seen as consistent with the Biblical adage that "The first shall be
last and the last shall be first". As Narby notes, the insight is echoed in the
Biblical account of Jacob's Ladder -- common to the Abrahamic religions. The
question is what are the "steps" on such a ladder and why might "the first" on it be
so closely associated with "the last"?
It is indeed possible that the Edenic harmony is to be found in comprehension
of the nature of the harmonies of correspondences between clashing forces,
rather than in the elimination of the incommensurable qualities that
distinguish them.
Correspondences and complementarities:
"moonshine connectivity"
In an earlier exploration (Theories of Correspondences -- and potential
equivalences between them in correlative thinking, 2007) attention
was drawn to the co-existence of two distinct sets of theories of correspondences,
those associated with traditional symbolist thinking and those associated with
algebraic thinking. The point was made there that no studies have endeavoured to
relate these two modes despite curious similarities and the possibility that the
second endeavoured to supplant the first -- without being able to acknowledge its
significance.
Both sets of correspondences do however bridge credibly across a cognitive
chasm in ways that are not readily comprehensible or explicable to conventional
thinking. That exploration in fact arose from a study of a major discovery in
mathematics that was triggered by what was termed by mathematicians
"moonshine" correspondences, in that they had qualities that were suspiciously
inexplicable (cf discussion in Potential Psychosocial Significance of
Monstrous Moonshine: an exceptional form of symmetry as a
Rosetta stone for cognitive frameworks, 2007).
Rather than seek here to highlight the many aspects of correspondences that may
be of relevance to this exploration, an initial example can be given in terms of
aesthetics and poiesis. In its simplest terms cognitive significance is attached to
associations established in poetry, music or song based on rhyme or rhythm,
consonance and counterpoint. This may be such as to evoke "beating time to the
music" or even dancing to it. Poiesis may be a necessary precursor
of autopoiesis ***.
More complex correspondences may be expressed on a larger scale through drama
and opera, notably highlighting the process of enantiodromia through which one
mode is transformed into its opposite (Psychosocial Energy from
Polarization -- within a Cyclic Pattern of Enantiodromia, 2007).
Psychosocial processes on the largest scale may be understood as drama and may
offer instances of such enantiodromia -- as with the development of the policies of
the USA from the Cold War period in supposedly dramatic contrast to those of
totalitarianism.
Correspondences may be recognized in the complementarity between contrasting
individuals or groups, whether in the form of affinities that "work" (however
inexplicable to others), through antipathies significant to both parties, or through
some profound sense of "rapport". This phenomenon may be described using
metaphors of mirroring -- where one is understood to be a (possibly transformed
or distorted) image of the other. According to some psychotherapeutic
frameworks, any such problematic mirroring may be described in terms of a
"shadow" and the challenge of encountering "The Other" (cf Connie Zweig and
Jeremiah Abrams (Eds). Meeting the Shadow: the hidden power of the dark side
of human nature, 1991; "Human Intercourse": "Intercourse with
Nature" and "Intercourse with the Other", 2007).
In purely aesthetic terms it is possible to incorporate a variety of correspondences
into a design. This may be deliberately done in order to raise the spirit of the
observer in some way. This approach was central to the Renaissance concerns of
Marsilio Ficino and variously described as natural magic or sympathetic magic
(Sutton Pub and D. P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic: from Ficino to
Campanella, 2000). Chinese culture has notably continued to recognize related
sensitivity through the discipline and practice of feng shui. Variants are
characteristic of contemporary concerns with fashion, decor and creating
ambiance. More challenging are the traditional uses of rhyming "spells" to induce
effects by "magic" -- usefully construed to include advertising jingles (that also
"work").
The argument here is that greater awareness of complementaries and
correspondences allows them to be used as viable stepping stones through
which to walk in domains outside -- or more specifically between -- the
frameworks provided by various conventions and forms of conventional
thinking. The credibility of this is readily recognized when an unusual gesture is
made that, although seeming to break the rules of convention, is nevertheless
understood (and especially "felt") to be appropriate.
The question is whether these steps may be understood to be configured in any
way. A stepping stone may be an isolated stone in a river or accompanied by
others. In creating ambiance an interplay is sought between a variety of
complementarities. This is specifically the case within a piece of music or poetry.
How are these to be understood as offering a means to uplift the spirit? Are they
then better understood as steps on some form of staircase or ladder to a condition
of higher potential --- or possibly even to one of lower potential? How many steps
may be associated with such a raising out of the mundane condition?
Should the sequence of metaphors associated with the learning process of
progressive initiation into more fundamental comprehension be understood
as forming such a stairway of correspondences -- notably as cultivated in
degrees of initiation? (cf Metaphors as Transdisciplinary Vehicles of
the Future, 1991).
Curiously environments where a set of complementaries are in play are not
normally distinguished by the degree of qualitative enhancement that they enable.
Efforts to do so are constrained by limitations on the superlatives that can be used
and the interpretations that can be given to them. The context may be
appreciatively described as "magical" or even "sacred".
The question raised here is whether, understood in this way, correspondences
offer a means of stepping lightly between the poles of binary thinking. Is it then
somehow possible to walk between clashing opposites through recognition of
the cognitive support that a complementarity offers? In particular, through
recognition of a set of such correspondences, is it possible to use them as a form
of staircase? In that case does DNA, for the reasons indicated above, offer
insights into the structure of that staircase and the psychodynamics that may
be associated with it?

A "hidden" stairway?
Clearly recognizing the possibility of such movement -- "slipping between the
walls" -- is relatively easy for those with aesthetic sensibilities, if only to music.
Such "hidden" possibilities may also evoke the kinds of worldwide excitement
associated with rumours of secret codes (as with the Da Vinci Code and
imitations thereof). For those locked into conventional thinking, the possibility
may be as problematic as the threatening chaos that the autistic may experience --
challenged to understand the rules for such behaviour.
But whilst one may or may not have experience of how such an "unconventional"
movement "works", it is interesting to note various forms of recognition of it in
mythology and legend:

 the challenge of navigating Scylla and Charybdis is one classical

example
 the Vedic insight regarding Neti Neti (not this, not that) is another
 the two pillars, Boaz and Jachin, of Solomon's Temple, the
first Temple in Jerusalem (1 Kings 7:21; 2 Kings 11:14; 23:3) of
significance to the ritual of freemasonry and other esoteric groups, and
common features of their symbolic architecture.
 as noted elsewhere (The Isdom of the Wisdom Society:
Embodying time as the heartland of humanity, 2003), mytho-
poetic folk legends, and modern fictional explorations, serve to sustain
and echo the archetypal insights in many cultures relating to elder
"ancestral" races who "withdrew into the stones" -- or to those that may
have been "trapped" therein, like Merlin and the proverbial geni in the
bottle. Most curiously, one of the most popular and best known Christian
 hymns has as its opening lines: Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide
myself in Thee [more | more].
 as an extension of the last point, a number of theological studies refer to
the necessarily "broken symbols" through which people are reminded of
the broken world in which they live and which appropriate insight may
heal as a dwelling place "for eternity" (cf Barry L. Davis, Broken
Symbols, 2006; Robert Cummings Neville, The Truth of Broken
Symbols, 1996). Whenever reference is made to something through
symbols, this is an indication that it is representative of something else -
generally much greater than the symbol itself.
 in Theravada Buddhism, the Middle Way is understood as a description
of a Nirvana-bound path of moderation -- between the extremes of
sensual indulgence and self-mortification through the practice of wisdom,
morality and mental cultivation. In Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism,
the Middle Way refers to transcendental ways of approaching seemingly
antithetical claims about reality.
 the decorative art of China, including temples and traditional folk dances,
focuses extensively on the theme of two dragons, typically depicted
facing one another in the air in eager pursuit of a spinning pearl floating
like an iridescent bubble between them. This theme was a mark of books
issued under imperial auspices. For Taoists, the complex associations of
that pearl include wisdom, yang energy, truth and life -- even the
everlasting life of those who perceive the truth and attain enlightenment.
Elsewhere (Psycho-social Significance of the Mandelbrot Set:
a sustainable boundary between chaos and order, 2005), it
was suggested that the two dragons can readily be associated with the two
sides of the standard rendering of the Mandelbrot set -- in pursuit of the
circular 2-period ball.
 as with the Chinese dragons, complementary (magical) beasts, "counter-
rampant" are a common feature of heraldic devices symbolic of the
identity of dynasties and nations
 numerous political groups have endeavoured to articulate a "third way",
to avoid the polarizing extremes of left and right-wing politics (Anthony
Giddens, The Third Way: the renewal of social democracy, 1998 ; The
Third Way And Its Critics, 2000)

To the extent that the intermediary passage is an open secret, it is seemingly only
"hidden" by fixation on the attraction or repulsion of the twin guardians --
however symbolized -- of the way between them. Correspondences subtly
introduce what is effectively a "spacer beam", holding the opposing forces
apart in order to provide a viable cognitive pathway. Such a beam might be
understood in terms of the best of counter-intuitive lateral thinking.
The degree of "openness" of the "secret" is perhaps best exemplified by what has
been ambiguously translated as the Gateless Gate -- echoed in a very common
symbolic portal in China and Japan -- whose paradoxical cognitive nature is
indicated through a classic collection of 48 Zen koans (Mumonkan; Wumenguan)
and their many commentaries. Its comprehension resists description in logical
terms, as this quotation from the preface by the compiler Mumon (or Wumen)
indicates:
The great path has no gates,
Yet thousands of roads enter it.
When one passes through this gateless gate,
He walks freely between heaven and hell.

Spiral stairway -- threatening and/or broken?

Curiously freemasonry, as described by Albert G. Mackey (The Symbolism of
Freemasonry, 1882), has also cultivated The Legend of the Winding
Stairs associated with access to the so-called Middle Chamber:
Although the legend of the Winding Stairs forms an important tradition of Ancient
Craft Masonry, the only allusion to it in Scripture is to be found in a single verse
in the sixth chapter of the First Book of Kings, and is in these words: "The door
for the middle chamber was in the right side of the house; and they went up with
winding stairs into the middle chamber, and out of the middle into the third." Out
of this slender material has been constructed an allegory, which, if properly
considered in its symbolical relations, will be found to be of surpassing beauty.
But it is only as a symbol that we can regard this whole tradition; for the historical
facts and the architectural details alike forbid us for a moment to suppose that the
legend, as it is rehearsed in the second degree of Masonry, is anything more than a
magnificent philosophical myth.
A further study has been made by Homer L. Zurrrwalt (A Study of the
Winding Staircase, 1989) since it is a key feature in the design of King
Solomon's Temple that is central to the symbolism of freemasonry. He notes it has
been made a central feature of the Second Degree which every Fellowcraft Mason
must symbolically ascend in order to make his advancement in the degree. This is
explained in more detail elsewhere (Charles A. Sankey, The Winding Stair to
the Middle Chamber, 1968). The focus in masonic use is on the value-related
symbolism of a succession of steps in the winding stairs (The Winding
Stairs, Short Talk Bulletin, January 1932, 1):
There actually was a winding stair in Solomon's Temple, but of the three, five and
seven steps the scriptures are silent. Only in this country have the Winding Stairs
but fifteen steps. In older days the stairs had but five, sometimes seven
steps. Preston had thirty-six steps in his Winding Stairs; in series of one, three,
five, seven, nine and eleven. The English system later eliminated the number
eleven from Preston's thirty-six, making but twenty-five in all. The Stairs as a
whole are a representation of life; not the physical life of eating, drinking,
sleeping and working, but the mental and spiritual life, of both the lodge and the
world without; of learning, studying, enlarging mental horizons and increasing the
spiritual outlook.
If the pattern, exemplified in DNA, holds more generally -- as suggested here --
then it is to be expected that it holds whether one believes in it or not, and to
whatever degree. The cognitive dynamics of "believing in it" (or not) may well be
fundamental to the operation of the pattern. It may well hold in some way at a
range of scales, from the personal to the global (as discussed below). The question
for the moment (and especially in the moment) is how such a stairway may be
experienced -- if it is only partially experienced -- and what are the pathological
forms of partial experience?
Suggestive clues may be obtained by comparing how stairways are experienced as
unsafe with current understanding of how DNA may be damaged (and repaired) --
bearing in mind that the systems of the human body necessarily have a
comprehensive understanding of the latter:

 Potentially unsafe stairways (and their associated dangers): This is a

common experience for those personally familiar with ruins, but it has
been widely explored in movie scenes. Possibilities include:
o fragility of steps however solid they may appear (wood rot, etc) -
- especially if they appear to be made of unusual materials
o invisibility of steps (due to inadequate lighting or to optical
illusions) calling for an act of faith in both their presence and
solidity
o special, and possibly unfamiliar, requirements for walking --
possibly to avoid inducing destructive vibrations (as with
ropeways)
o absence (or invisibility) of any supporting far wall and the
consequent danger of falling off
o any counter-intuitive need to avoid the prudence of clinging to
the proximate side of the stairway
o the presence of unforeseeable others, of unimaginable nature and
motivation, on the strange stairway -- especially if it is not clear
where it goes or the identity of those who may make use of it
 Damage to DNA: This occurs at a rate of 1,000 to 1,000,000 molecular
lesions per cell per day due to environmental (exogenous) factors and
normal metabolic (endogenous) processes inside the cell. It corrupts the
integrity and accessibility of essential information, notably altering the
spatial configuration of the helix.

The replication of damaged DNA before cell division can lead to the
incorporation of wrong bases opposite damaged ones. Daughter cells that
inherit these wrong bases carry mutations from which the original DNA
sequence is typically unrecoverable. Accumulation of extensive DNA
damage by a cell, or its inability to continue DNA repair to damage
incurred, results in its entering one of three possible states:
 an irreversible state of dormancy, known as senescence
 cell suicide, also known as apoptosis or programmed
cell death
 unregulated cell division, which can lead to the
formation of a tumor that is cancerous

Table 1: Indicative patterns of DNA damage and

repair
to be interpreted as a comprehensive guide to the
challenge of relating to a complementary "Other"
(further information is available from the
extensive Wikipedia entry and its links)

DNA damage by a range of mutagens can be

subdivided into two main types:

 endogenous damage to DNA due to endogenous

cellular processes:
o oxidation of bases from reactive oxygen
species produce multiple forms of
damage, including base modifications, as
well as double-strand breaks
o alkylation of bases (usually methylation),
such as formation of 7-methylguanine
o hydrolysis of bases, such as deamination,
depurination and depyrimidination.
o mismatch of bases, due to errors in DNA
replication, in which the wrong DNA base
is stitched into place in a newly forming
 DNA strand, or a DNA base is skipped
over or mistakenly inserted.
 exogenous damage caused by external agents
such as
o ultraviolet radiation from the sun causing
crosslinking between adjacent cytosine
and thymine bases creating pyrimidine
dimers in a DNA strand
o ionizing radiation such as that created by
radioactive decay or in cosmic rays
causes breaks in DNA strands.
o thermal disruption at elevated
temperature increases the rate of
depurination, and notably hydrolytic
depurination
o certain plant toxins
o human-made mutagenic chemicals,
especially aromatic compounds that act
as DNA intercalating agents resulting in
insertion into the space between two
adjacent base pairs; intercalators are
mostly aromatic and planar molecules
distorting the DNA strands by unwinding
of the double helix thereby inhibiting
both transcription and DNA replication,
causing toxicity and mutations.
o cancer chemotherapy and radiotherapy

DNA repair mechanisms: Depending on the type of

damage inflicted on the DNA's double helical structure,
a variety of repair strategies have evolved to restore
lost information. If possible, cells use the unmodified
complementary strand of the DNA or the sister
chromatid as a template to losslessly recover the
original information. Without access to a template,
cells use an error-prone recovery mechanism known as
translesion synthesis as a last resort

 direct reversal is achieved by three types of

chemical process
  single strand damage to one of the two strands
of a double helix may be repaired by using the
other strand as a template to guide the
correction of the damaged strand.
 double-strand breaks are particularly hazardous
to the cell because they can lead to genome
rearrangements; two mechanisms exist to
repair them
 translesion synthesis involves the use of
specialized translesion DNA polymerases that
can insert bases at the site of damage but with
some risk of mutation.

Understood in terms of a stairwell, it is vital to recognize the cognitive challenge

of the unfamiliar, if one's primary association is with one pole of the binary --
whether or not it is understood to be purportedly bridged by a sense of
correspondence and complementarity. The other side may be existentially
terrifying whatever may be hypothesised about its complementarity.
The terror of such unfamiliarity may be readily associated with the demonic -- as
is only too evident in the tendency to demonize those who hold unfamiliar views
evoking disagreement. In this sense any such supposed step on the stairway
beyond doctrinal convention may be quite appropriately framed as encountering
"Satan on one's doorstep". It is understandable why some belief systems are
totally opposed to forms of aesthetics that may suggest correspondences and
complementarities that relate them to other belief systems with which they have
no conventional (doctrinal) affinity.
I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
'Upon the star that marks the hidden
pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the
soul?
(from W B Yeats, A Dialogue of Self and
Soul)
Guarding the entrance: the "wisdom keepers"
Perhaps the most curious feature of the open secret is the manner in which it is
guarded. Given the above selection of examples from different cultures and
traditions, a fundamental question might be how "jealously" it is guarded and to
what end? In the case of the twin dragons, the "secret" is widely and frequently
publicized in dragon dance ceremonies -- notably in rural communities. Symbolic
twin columns, with appropriately symbolic beasts as guardians, are admired as
characteristic of many temple-like designs. As noted above, such columns are a
characteristic feature of masonic temples and initiation ceremonies -- and of
common heraldic devices.
It would seem that there are various possibilities:

 that the knowledge of meaningful access to any intermediary way is

effectively lost
 that the architectural and symbolic representations are accepted as having
ceased to perform any genuine role as psychoactive reminders or catalysts
of insight and merely serve decorative ceremonial purposes -- echoing
(nostalgically) what might have been and what (longingly) might come to
be (cf Connie Zweig, The Holy Longing: the hidden power of spiritual
yearning, 2003).
 that claims to the knowledge (whether real or illusory) are indeed
jealously guarded as secret because of the power that so doing is held to
offer, if only with respect to those seeking to acquire access
 that the nature of the secret, to the extent that it is understood, is
mistakenly understood in some way
 that the very nature of the secret lies in the difficulty in communicating
such subtly intimate knowledge, whatever the motivation to do so

One interesting, if tragic, example is that of the traditional "wisdom keepers" of

indigenous cultures. In addition to their values having been well-disparaged by the
currently dominant world culture, well-meaning efforts to position and promote
their insights might themselves be seen to be counterproductive. Sadly it might be
said of the Wisdom Keepers assembled on the occasion of the Earth Summit (Rio
de Janeiro, 1992) that they were indeed the most effective of those gathered there
in achieving their apparent objectives. Not a trace of their wisdom emerged. Or is
that the very nature of wisdom -- that its expression should leave no "traces"? Or
is it that its nature lies in how it is comprehended by others -- if at all?
A quite different example is that of freemasonry, given the degree to which the
eminent and powerful are in some way secretly complicit in its processes at the
highest level of leadership (cf Global Strategic Implications of the
"Unsaid", 2003) . To the extent that freemasonry, as noted above, indeed holds
and enables such profound insights amongst its members, it might be asked how
(or why) such insights have failed to imbue global leadership with greater wisdom
-- whether through intergovernmental institutions or the various world councils of
the wise (see discussion in Emergence of a Global Misleadership
Council: misleading as vital to governance of the future? 2007) . Or
is it the case that the problematic nature of the dysfunctional dynamics of the
times are in some way integral to the sustainability of the holding pattern that the
wise consider appropriate? What is it that they are allowing (not) to happen and
why? (cf The Deafening Silence of Those Who Know Nothing, 1998).
As with the purported ideal of classic imperial China, is it the case that the secret
of governance at the highest level is a form of inaction -- however mysterious?
(cf The Quest for the Socio-Economics of Non-Action, 1993; The Art
of Non-Decision-Making and the manipulation of categories, 1997).
Is this how the wise view their relationship to what the Club of Rome has named
as the problematique -- without being able to give significant content to the
corresponding resolutique? (Council of the Club of Rome, The First Global
Revolution, 1991, edited by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider).
Is it this secret:

 that is held to absolve those at the very highest level of being called to
account for problematic initiatives for which they have been responsible,
or with which they have been complicit -- including those triggering calls
for their indictment?
 that is the basis for the "creative accounting" of which they are so often
accused -- perhaps justified by a correspondingly dubious "creative
ethic"?
 that offers those "in the know" the necessary "wiggle room" to navigate
these problematic times with effective impunity -- however criminal their
actions may appear to others?

How many "in the know" have indeed been complicit in the Iraq debacle, and are
complicit (at the time of writing) in the build-up to a nuclear strike on Iran -- in
preference to providing effective aid to those in dire straits (Dafur, etc) ?
On the other hand, it might presumably be imagined that those "in the know"
consider the level of tragic fatalities and suffering in today's civilization to be
necessary and appropriate (despite their skillfully publicized "sincere" regrets) to
sustaining the psychodynamics of the system. They may even consider it
appropriate occasionally to fine tune the level of fatalities with any of the
instruments of the Four Horsemen -- as a means of "assisting God's work".
The logic of such a perspective was explored in the notorious Report from
Iron Mountain -- possibly to be considered a precursor to that of the UN's
Global Compact and that of the European Economic Forum
(cf "Globalization": the UN's "Safe Haven" for the World's
Marginalized -- the Global Compact with Multinational
Corporations as the UN's "Final Solution", 2001)

Spiral stairwells and screw conveyors

If the DNA pattern holds, however, why the spiral? How may the spiral and twist
be of psychosocial significance in development of understanding -- in contrast
with other intuitions, such as those regarding a simple, linear "Jacob's
Ladder"?
A previous exploration (Potential Misuse of the Conveyor Metaphor:
recognition of the circular dynamic essential to its appropriate
operation, 2007) reviewed insights into the significance of the conveyor as a
metaphor of development and notably of spiritual development, as specifically
advocated by Ken Wilber (The Conveyor Belt. Ch. 9 of Integral Spirituality:
a startling new role for religion in the modern and postmodern
world, Shambhala, 2006). The section in that exploration on spiral staircases
and screw conveyors (omitted from an abridged version of the paper
published in the Journal of Futures Studies) is reproduced in this and the
following section.
The process of "return" is seemingly absent from this form of conveyor.
Interestingly the spiral staircase is one favoured adaptation of the mythical
"ladder" of "spiritual development" to "heaven", notably as used by Karen
Armstrong (The Spiral Staircase: my climb out of darkness, 2004) -- inspired by
T S Eliot's poem Ash Wednesday (1930) and by Dante Alighieri 's Divine
Comedy, especially the Purgatorio.
At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who
wears
The deceitful face of hope and of despair.
(from T S Eliot, Ash Wednesday)
In both the spiral staircase and the screw conveyor it is the "material" that moves,
either of its own accord (as on the staircase) or as an effect on "static" material of
a rotating screw. In this sense the conveyor rotates on its axis; its ends do not meet
in any "tail-biting". In effect the conveyor then acts as a form of "timeless"
standing wave; it is only the material that has a temporal experience. Curiously
the spiral staircase is often used as an example of an architectural design that
cannot be adequately communicated with words -- making the use of images
(even gestures) essential to comprehension.
However Armstrong explores the challenging experience of a spiral staircase in
her development "out of darkness" over time:
I am trying to describe an experience that has nothing whatever to do with words
or ideas and is not amenable to the logic of grammar and neat sentences that put
things into an order that makes sense... It is as though a comforting veil of illusion
has been ripped away and you see the world without form, without significance,
purposeless, blind, trivial, spiteful and ugly to the core. T S Eliot describes
something similar in the third poem of Ash Wednesday. He is climbing a spiral
staircase, a mythical image of the 'ascent' of the mind and heart to spiritual
enlightenment. But At the first turning of the second stair he sees a shape twisted
into the bannister, surrounded by vaporous, foetid air, and he is forced to struggle
with the devil of the stairs. He leaves these convoluted forms behind, and at the
next turning finds only darkness: Damp, jagged, like an old man's mouth
drivelling, beyond repair. Or the toothed gullet of an aged shark, the underbelly
of consciousness that lurks in the basement of our minds. (p. 75)
The figure on any such spiral staircase (given the parallel to the screw conveyor)
is of course appropriately named as Screwtape by C S Lewis (The Screwtape
Letters, 1942). As Armstrong later notes with regard to Eliot's poem:
There was a complete and satisfying 'fit' between my inner and outer worlds. The
poem, with its quiet, haunting accuracy, perfectly expressed my own state, and
endorsed it, showing that I had... somehow stumbled upon a truth about the human
consciousness and the way men and women work.... In the very first poem of the
sequence... the verse constantly turns upon itself in repetition of word, image and
sound. Repeatedly the poet tells us, I do not hope to turn again, and yet
throughout the poem, he is doing just that, slowly ascending to one insight after
another. And even though he insists that he has abandoned hope, I felt
paradoxically encouraged. (p 164-5)

Paradoxical existential dynamics of the spiral

stairway
Whilst this is an admirable experiential account, it somehow seeks to design out
the significance of what Armstrong elsewhere describes as the "ghost" on that
spiral staircase. Emphasis is placed on overcoming the illusion of despair through
discovery of appropriate hope -- however paradoxical (and illusory in its own
right?).
The challenge may however lie in an overly simplistic understanding of the
essentially "static" staircase metaphor -- as partially indicated by the challenge of
understanding the "dynamics" of the screw conveyor and how it "works".
Understanding it simplistically may indeed evoke encounters with "traffic" in the
opposite direction -- "going downstairs". Any "ascent" of the mind and heart to
spiritual enlightenment is then necessarily matched by the "descent" of forms of
attachment variously imagined.
Armstrong herself equates the segregation she chose to undergo through her
novitiate in a convent as a type of isolation central to rituals of initiation practiced
in many cultures:
It is a process of death and resurrection: initiates die to their childhood and rise
again to an entirely different life as mature human beings... The idea is that in
these extreme circumstances, the young discover inner resources that will enable
them to serve their people as fully functioning adults. The purpose... is thus to
transform dependent children into responsible self-reliant adults... and if necessary
to die in order to protect their people. (p 45)
Again the error may lie in focusing inappropriately on the nature of
"enlightenment" when a more appropriate understanding is only achieved,
paradoxically, "in the light" of "endarkenment" (Enlightening
Endarkenment selected web resources on the challenge to
comprehension, 2005). In relying on simplistic understanding of the spiral
staircase metaphor to communicate the fundamental means of conveyance to
greater insight, the nature of this "error" may best be highlighted by contrasting
this pattern with that of the uncontestably fundamental pattern of DNA (DNA
Supercoiling as a Pattern for Understanding Psycho-social
Twistedness, 2004 -- annex to Engaging with Questions of Higher
Order: cognitive vigilance required for higher degrees of
twistedness, 2004).
The features missing from the metaphor of the spiral staircase, or of the screw
conveyor, are then more likely to be found in the structure and dynamics of the
supercoiling of DNA as the conveyor par excellence of information across
generations. The existentially challenging illusions may then be understood in
terms of a misplaced "impossible fusion" of the two right spiralling strands of the
DNA double-helix or its conformations.
Consistent with the complex spiraling of DNA is the double spiral
staircase which might offer more appropriate "staircase" metaphors for spiritual
development. A second helical staircase can indeed be interwoven with the first
(as with DNA) -- as explored by both Leonardo da Vinci and M C Escher. It is a
notable feature in the Vatican Museum, and at Chambord, allowing one
person to ascend and another to descend without encountering (or even seeing)
each other. It also features in one old English country house -- to ensure that
residents and guests did not need to encounter servants. Perhaps more significant
is the fact that fire escapes, though built with landings and straight runs of stairs,
are often functionally double helixes, with two separate stairs intertwined.
The cognitively twisted nature of any illusions arising from inappropriate
conflation would of course be even more appropriately represented by a
combination of right- and left-spiraling "stairs" -- only possible in a space of more
than three dimensions. It is perhaps such a pattern, fundamental to yoga and
tantra, that characterizes the spiraling channels (ida and pingala) entwined around
the spinal sushumna, with their particular points of intersection, or by
the caduceus of western tradition -- an example of the double spiral symbol
common to many cultures.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and
everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the
worst
Are full of passionate intensity
(from W B Yeats, The Second Coming)

Fundamental knower-known relationship

If the pattern, as suggested here, is indeed of relevance to a way of reframing
sterile and unfruitful polarized dynamics, it is to be suspected that it would be of
relevance (recursively and self-reflexively) to the very relationship between
knower and known. This is the "conventional" relationship between "the observer"
and "reality" with which people are faced in their daily lives -- even moment by
moment. The self-reflexive challenge has been extensively documented
by Douglas Hofstadter (Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden
Braid: a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit
of Lewis Carroll, 1979; I Am a Strange Loop, 2007) and variously by
others (George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: the embodied
mind and its challenge to western thought, 1999; Henryk
Skolimowski, Participatory Mind: a new theory of knowledge and of the universe,
1994).
There are many traces of the recognition that there is a degree of mirroring of
"knower" and "known" (Mirroring and Mixing Metaphors, 2006; My
Reflecting Mirror World: making my World Summit on
Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, 2002) worthwhile,
2002).
Contrasting understandings of enlightenment in Chinese Buddhism have been
expressed through contrasting understandings of a mirror metaphor.
Philosophically both perspectives are based on a belief in the intrinsic purity of
mind, which, while pure in its self-nature, is soiled by adventitious passions (cf
Paul Demiéville. The Mirror of the Mind. In: Peter N Gregory (Ed) Sudden and
Gradual; approaches to enlightenment in Chinese Thought, 1991):

 the gradualist approach, insists that effort is necessary to rid the mind of
these foreign impurities, expressed through the metaphor of wiping and
polishing a mirror;
 the sudden approach to awakening considers only its essential purity,
hence the refusal to recognize the existence of any impurity needing to be
removed.

The corresponding, mutually challenging, verses are:

 The body is the tree of the awakening; The mind is like a clear mirror. Be
unceasingly diligent in wiping it and polishing it, So that it will be
without dust.
 Awakening entails no tree at all, Nor does the clear mirror entail any
material frame. The Buddha-nature is eternally pure; Where could there
be any dust?

Curiously no reference is made to the fact that these "opposing" views --

fundamental to two "opposing" belief systems -- might themselves be seen as
mirror images of each other. As correspondences, it is between them that one is
called to step.
The mirror metaphor, with its optical associations, also offers a way of reframing
speculations about "speculative freemasonry" -- especially given its embodiment
in the title Masonic Mirror and Keystone (an early periodical). In the year in
which the first play (Love's Labour's Lost, 1598) bearing the name of W.
Shakespeare was published, an anonymous translation of Guillaume de la
Perrière's Le miroir politique was published by Adam Islip as the The Mirror of
Policie -- in which a freemason with square and compasses is depicted (cf Ron
Heisler, The Impact of Freemasonry on Elizabethan Literature, The
Hermetic Journal, 1990). As noted by Peter Dawkins (Shakespeare and
Freemasonry, Francis Bacon Research Trust, 1997), the masonic references in
the Shakespeare plays are numerous, "some fairly obvious and others extremely
subtle, but all woven into the text in such a way that they form a natural part of
the magical garment".
Norman D. Livergood (The Perennial Tradition, 2003) notes the commentary
on a text of Plotinus by Marsilio Ficino (De vita coelitus comparanda) with
respect to mirroring of a fundamental kind:
I think . . . that those ancient sages, who sought to secure the presence of divine
beings by the erection of shrines and statues, showed insight into the nature of the
All; they perceived that, though this Soul (of the world) is everywhere tractable,
its presence will be secured all the more readily when an appropriate receptacle is
elaborated, a place especially capable of receiving some portion or phase of it,
something reproducing it and serving like a mirror to catch an image of it.
Also of relevance to understandings of mirroring, Livergood comments with
respect to the title of Ficino's opus, that it might be variously translated as: On
Capturing The Life of the Stars, On Obtaining Life From the Heavens, or On
Instituting One's Life Celestially but that -- in light of Ficino's fondness for puns --
his title probably means all three and more. Some of these implications have been
recently explored by Thomas Moore (Planets Within: the astrological
psychology of Marsilio Ficino, 1990). Contemporary variants of this traditional
understanding were a theme of a conference of the Scientific and Medical
Network at the Pari Center for New Learning (Towards a New
Renaissance, 2007).
Disciplines of meditation frequently allude to the possibility of reframing the
relationship between knower and known in ways that might be understood in
terms of offering access to other, and wiser, modes of understanding. However
typically this reframing is described in terms implying a degree of fusion of
knower and known -- although the "levels" of insight into the nature of such
fusion, as articulated in Buddhism for example, might be said to evoke those of
the staircase metaphor, as with the "degrees" of initiation of various esoteric
traditions, as noted above (cf Navigating Alternative Conceptual
Realities: clues to the dynamics of enacting new paradigms
through movement, 2002).
Given the preoccupation of this exploration, it is appropriate to note the number of
web sites of schools of meditation specifically addressing the issue of meditation
in relation to DNA, based on certain research (Grazyna Fosar and Franz
Bludorf. Spiritual Science: DNA is influenced by words and
frequencies. In: Vernetzte Intelligenz). These explorations have presumably
been considerably encouraged by direct personal experience of fatal illnesses such
as cancer and AIDs -- and irrespective of conventional judgements as to their
meaninglessness, in comparison with death itself.
It is appropriate to stress that the sense of any correspondence, affinity or
rapport, seemingly calls for ways of knowing beyond any intellectual
description thereof. It implies a deeper form of (self-)understanding on the part
of the knower as much as a degree of cognitive engagement with "the other"
constituting an existential challenge (cf Creative Cognitive Engagement:
beyond the limitations of descriptive patterning, 2006; "Human
Intercourse": "Intercourse with Nature" and "Intercourse with
the Other", 2007).
From such a perspective, especially intriguing at this point in time are the
immense resources devoted by humanity to two fundamental explorations of the
known that depend for their success on unconventional understandings of the
relationship between knower and known:

 the Large Hadron Collider, constructed by the CERN particle physics

laboratory outside Geneva, that will commence operations in 2007 with
the purpose of detecting the Higgs boson, the most elusive speck of
matter in the universe. Also termed the God particle, it is supposed to be
the key to explaining why matter has mass (Richard Martin, The God
Particle and the Grid, Wired, April 2004). A second and larger
variant, the International Linear Collider, has been announced
(Frederic Garlan, Dark matter and 'God particle' within
reach, Cosmos, 15 February 2007)
 an international tokamak (magnetic confinement fusion)
research/engineering project, ITER (under construction in France),
intended to investigate the application of insights into plasma physics into
future electricity-producing fusion power plants

Both, but notably the latter, suggest the possibility that as complex cognitive
templates (like DNA), they may offer special insight into the relationship between
knower and known and the nature of processes associated with their "union" or
"fusion" (Enactivating a Cognitive Fusion Reactor: Imaginal
Transformation of Energy Resourcing (ITER-8), 2006).
Human relationships and "The Other"
The challenge of correspondences, complementarities and affinities has long been
recognized as being well reflected in that between man and woman. Much is made
of "family values" as fundamental to society. Fundamentalists of every persuasion
deplore unconventional and broken relationships -- possibly even to the point of
criminalizing them and making them punishable by death. And yet the patterns of
complexities and subtleties of such relationships remain a prime focus of
interpersonal preoccupation -- and of the media in consequence.
The conventional attitudes, regulated by doctrine and law, are quite distinct from
the knowledge of such relationships as experienced by those challenged by
affinities (notably by those with the opposite gender) -- experiences for which
people have long been prepared to die. The nature of these relationships -- as the
essence of "being human" -- has long been a focal challenge for those of aesthetic
bent. They have evoked poetry and song in every culture. Archetypal variants
were, for example, associated with the Medieval culture of courtly love through
which efforts were made to ennoble that relationship.
Most curiously it has typically been men who have endeavoured to circumscribe,
regulate and institutionalize such relationships. Even more curious, it has been
men -- as in priesthoods specifically required to abstain from such relationships --
who have been empowered to define them for society. Typically they have
endeavoured to divert the unconventional experiential ways of knowing associated
with such relationships such as to reinforce the more conventional ways of
knowing of which they have positioned themselves as gatekeepers and
interpreters.
It might be argued, as they have always done, that there is every justification for
doing so if it enables more fruitful relationships within society. However it is
precisely the total inability of those empowered in this way to relate to others of
their own kind, holding different doctrinal positions on the matter, that has
resulted in the level of interreligious conflict that has been fatal to millions -- and
continues to be so. Their various approaches to appropriating the understanding of
subtle relationships and correspondences would seem to have been a historic
disaster for which they notably consider themselves free from all responsibility.
The situation might be considered more curious in the case of the craft of
freemasonry or of other secret societies -- as supposedly holding subtler insights
of "higher degree". It is especially curious in the case of freemasonry because of
the manner in which it has been traditionally instituted as a male-only group
committed to restricting its insights to its membership -- expected to conform to a
code of morality (which, like its code of ethics, is seemingly open to creative
interpretation in practice). This would appear to preclude any shared
understanding in practice of the nature of such subtle relationships with any
"Other", most especially of opposite gender. This might even be considered to be
a prime example of enantiodromia whereby, through instituting a system to
cultivate subtler forms of knowing, it in fact resulted in a system which precluded
such knowing in effective practice -- however it may be celebrated in theory,
ritual and symbol.
It is within this context that other approaches to understanding subtle
relationships, involving those of both genders, have been set. As an extreme
example, it is understandable how threatening is perceived to be the challenge of
"witchcraft" for the Christian and other religions. More intriguing is the perceived
justification in traditional societies for the separate secret societies of men and
women and whether, through this separation, subtler understandings of
relationship are cultivated that are meaningful to sustaining their culture in
practice (cf A. P. Elkin, Aboriginal Men of High Degree: initiation and sorcery in
the world's oldest tradition, 1993; Darrell A. Posey, Cultural and Spiritual Values
of Biodiversity, 1999).
Not only do religions continue to exacerbate bloody conflict, through their
inability to exhibit understanding of the practice of subtler relationships with those
of other ways of knowing -- whether other religions, science or the arts. They
have also effectively exposed society to an increasing pattern of unfruitful and
broken relationships -- as reflected in divorce and HIV statistics. In effect each
religion is in the invidious position of claiming to have a solution to unfruitful
relationships -- within its own doctrinal framework -- whilst simultaneously
exacerbating bloody conflict (especially destructive of human relationships) with
those of a different framework. More curious still, as with freemasonry, are the
curious dynamics regarding access to roles within priesthoods of those of the
opposite gender.
It is appropriate to argue that the quality of understanding of relationships offered
by religion is therefore totally inadequate to the challenge of the psychodynamics
of 21st century society. By extension it might be argued that religion, as with
many other current belief systems, continues to reinforce inadequate (if not
primitive) understanding of the challenging relationship with any "Other" --
namely with those who are different or who disagree. This is currently
exemplified by the simplistic, Stone Age, response to those selectively framed and
labelled as "terrorists".
It is therefore interesting to explore whether richer insights into such subtle
relationships are to be found in the structure and dynamics of DNA -- especially
given the manner in which they are at the root of the reproductive capacity of the
human race. Do the challenges of "DNA damage" and "DNA repair" (noted
above) offer insights into those of damaged human relationships and the
possibilities of repairing them? Note however, as stressed above, that any such
insights relate to the subtle, hidden, experiential nature of such relationships -- to
which the arts can but allude. The doctrinal account, especially as elaborated
authoritatively by men, is but one mode of knowing that typically --- if not
necessarily -- misrepresents or deforms understanding of another. As emphasized
above, it is in the complementarity between these modes of knowing that lies
the stairwell of affinities offering access to subtler patterns of relationship.
It is ironic that in this period of crisis for humanity the knowledge and opportunity
of genetic engineering and "biotech" have been recognized:

 Is it possible that the knowledge will offer relevant insight into a vital and
more appropriate "science of human relationships"?
 Beyond the self-interested psyops of the superpowers and the
advertising industry, is it possible that an analogue to genetic engineering
will offer new approaches to repairing the kinds relationships that are
otherwise recognized as likely to engender ever more bloody conflicts?
 That new understandings of the nature of possible "union" may be
possible? (cf Dynamic Reframing of "Union": implications for
the coherence of knowledge, social organization and
personal identity, 2007)

Such a "prefigurative" capacity has been well argued by Jacques Attali (Noise:
the political economy of music, 1977/1985) in relation to music. He suggests that
the patterns of psychosocial organization characteristic of the 20th century were
prefigured and sustained by those of the music of the 19th century. This suggested
that the patterns of organization characteristic of the music of the 20th century
would be fundamental to the psychosocial organization of the 21st century
(Consciously Self-reflexive Global Initiatives: Renaissance zones,
complex adaptive systems, and third order organizations, 2007).
From this perspective there is a fatal irony to the use of Beethoven's Ode to Joy as
the anthem of an institutional Europe. This has been deliberately institutionalized
(at the time of writing) without democratic consultation, in a period when
the Eurovision Song Contest was won through a democratic process, by a
demonically garbed heavy metal rock group (cf A Singable Earth Charter,
EU Constitution or Global Ethic? 2006).

Correspondences and complementarities: steps

on the spiral way
The earlier exploration (Theories of Correspondences -- and potential
equivalences between them in correlative thinking, 2007) did not
immediately highlight the nature of different correspondences. It is therefore
appropriate to explore the extremely well-researched nature of the base pairs to
which it is suggested here that the correspondences may be in some way
analogous. The exploration is guided by the recognition that, whether in terms of
microbiological processes or with respect to psychodynamic relationships, both
are essential to life as it is experienced -- and that therefore, as argued above,
some degree of similarity is to be tentatively hypothesized between them.
As noted in the helpful Wikipedia entry, in molecular biology a base pair is the
connection via hydrogen bonds of two nucleotides on the
opposite/complementary helical DNA (or RNA) strands. The base pairs are of two
kinds in DNA, through which four nucleotides are connected as indicated in Table
1 (with the letters that conventionally denote them).

Table 2: Bonding between nucleotide pairs

(linking the separate helical strands)
purines pyrimidines
hydrogen
. (double- (single-
bonding
ringed) ringed)
AT pairing via thymine (T)
replaced by
adenine (A) 2 hydrogen uracil (U) in
Stable bonds RNA
nucleotide
base pairs GC pairing via
cytosine
guanine (G) 3 hydrogen
(C)
bonds

mismatch: the
pattern of
hydrogen donors cytosine
adenine (A)
and acceptors do (C)
not correspond in
Nonviable an AC pair.
nucleotide
base pairs mismatch: the
pattern of
hydrogen donors
guanine (G) thymine (T)
and acceptors do
not correspond in
a GT pair.
 purine-purine
pairings are
energetically
unfavorable
. because the .
molecules are too
close, leading to
electrostatic
repulsion.
pyrimidine-
pyrimidine
pairings are
energetically
unfavorable
. .
because the
molecules are too
far apart for
hydrogen bonding
to be established
As a template, the two types of viable base pairing will be related below to the
systematic metaphorical representation of psychodynamics developed by the I
Ching coding system. The "steps" on the spiral stairway are the two-fold or three-
fold bonds which in that system would be equivalent to the yin and yang line
coding.
The number of base pairs is therefore equal to the number of nucleotides on a
single strand. The human genome is estimated to be about 3 billion base pairs in
length and to contain 20,000-25,000 distinct genes. Distinctiveness, and
information carrying capacity, arise from the sequencing of the four different
nucleotides along one strand (complemented by the sequencing of the
corresponding nucleotides on the other). A gene may then be described as a
union of genomic sequences of nucleotides encoding a coherent set of potentially
overlapping functional products.
The genetic code is the set of rules by which information encoded in genetic
material (DNA or RNA sequences) is translated into proteins (amino acid
sequences) by living cells. Specifically, the code defines a mapping between tri-
nucleotide sequences (called codons) and amino acids; every such triplet of
nucleotides in a nucleic acid sequence then corresponds to a single amino acid as
indicated in Table 3.
 Table 3: 20 different amino acids used by living cells to
encode proteins
that are directly encoded for protein synthesis by the
standard genetic code
(originally hypothesized because 3 is the smallest n such that 4n is at least 20)
[Source: table on Gene expression and biochemistry in Wikipedia. Notes omitted]
Codon(s) in
RNA Occurrence Essential (X) /
[triplets of 3 Conditionally
Amino Acid Abbreviations nucleotides from in proteins (C)
Table 2, (%) in humans
using U instead of
T]
GCU, GCC,
Alanine A Ala 7.8 -
GCA, GCG
Cysteine C Cys UGU, UGC 1.9 C
Aspartic acid D Asp GAU, GAC 5.3 -
Glutamate E Glu GAA, GAG 6.3 -
Phenylalanine F Phe UUU, UUC 3.9 X
GGU, GGC,
Glycine G Gly 7.2 C
GGA, GGG
Histidine H His CAU, CAC 2.3 -
AUU, AUC,
Isoleucine I Ile 5.3 X
AUA
Lysine K Lys AAA, AAG 5.9 X
UUA, UUG,
Leucine L Leu CUU, CUC, 9.1 X
CUA, CUG
Methionine M Met AUG 2.3 X
Asparagine N Asn AAU, AAC 4.3 -
CCU, CCC,
Proline P Pro 5.2 -
CCA, CCG
Glutamine Q Gln CAA, CAG 4.2 C
CGU, CGC,
Arginine R Arg CGA, CGG, 5.1 C
AGA, AGG
UCU, UCC,
Serine S Ser UCA, UCG, 6.8 -
AGU, AGC
ACU, ACC,
Threonine T Thr 5.9 X
ACA, ACG
Selenocysteine U Sec
UGA - -
GUU, GUC,
Valine V Val 6.6 X
GUA, GUG
Tryptophan W Trp UGG 1.4 X
Tyrosine Y Tyr UAU, UAC 3.2 C
UAA, UAG,
Stop codon - Term - -
UGA
The above table may be represented in inverse form in Table 4. It is useful to
recognize that each codon triplet in Table 3 or 4 is the representation on one
strand of the ends of three base pairs. Implied by the nucleotides UAC, for
example, is the existence of the corresponding nucleotides AUG with which they
are bonded on the other strand -- thereby constituting three base pairs.

Table 4: 64 codons and the amino acid for which each

codon codes (direction is 5' to 3')
[Inverse of Table 3. Source RNA Codon table in Wikipedia. Notes omitted ]
2nd base in codon triplet
U C A G
UCU
UGU
UUU (Ser/S) Serine UAU
(Cys/C) Cysteine
(Phe/F) Phenylalanine UCC (Ser/S) (Tyr/Y) Tyrosine
UGC (Cys/C)
UUC (Phe/F) Serine UAC (Tyr/Y)
U Phenylalanine Cysteine
UCA (Ser/S) Tyrosine
UGA Opal (Stop)
UUA (Leu/L) Leucine Serine UAA Ochre (Stop)
UGG
UUG (Leu/L) Leucine UCG (Ser/S) UAG Amber (Stop)
(Trp/W) Tryptophan
Serine

CCU CAU CGU

(Pro/P) Proline (His/H) Histidine (Arg/R) Arginine
CUU (Leu/L) Leucine CCC (Pro/P) CAC (His/H) CGC (Arg/R)
CUC (Leu/L) Leucine Proline Histidine Arginine
C CUA (Leu/L) Leucine CCA (Pro/P) CAA CGA (Arg/R)
1st CUG (Leu/L) Leucine Proline (Gln/Q) Glutamine Arginine
base CCG (Pro/P) CAG (Gln/Q) CGG (Arg/R)
(in Proline Glutamine Arginine
codon
triplet)
ACU
(Thr/T) Threonine AAU AGU (Ser/S) Serine
AUU (Ile/I) Isoleucine
ACC (Thr/T) (Asn/N) Asparagine AGC (Ser/S) Serine
AUC (Ile/I) Isoleucine
Threonine AAC (Asn/N) AGA (Arg/R)
A AUA (Ile/I) Isoleucine ACA (Thr/T) Asparagine Arginine
AUG
Threonine AAA (Lys/K) Lysine AGG (Arg/R)
(Met/M) Methionine, Start
ACG (Thr/T) AAG (Lys/K) Lysine Arginine
Threonine

GUU (Val/V) Valine GCU GAU GGU

GUC (Val/V) Valine (Ala/A) Alanine (Asp/D) Aspartic (Gly/G) Glycine
G GUA (Val/V) Valine
GCC (Ala/A) acid GGC (Gly/G)
GUG (Val/V) Valine Alanine GAC (Asp/D) Glycine
 GCA (Ala/A) Aspartic acid GGA (Gly/G)
Alanine GAA Glycine
GCG (Ala/A) (Glu/E) Glutamic GGG (Gly/G)
Alanine acid Glycine
GAG (Glu/E)
Glutamic acid

This representation corresponds in a number of respects to that of the 64

hexagrams of the I Ching, as has been noted by several authors (Katya
Walter, Tao of Chaos: merging East and West, 1996; Johnson F. Yan, DNA and
the I Ching: the Tao of life, 1993; Martin Schonberger, The I Ching and the
Genetic Code: the hidden key to life, 1979). Katya Walter has shown that the Fu
Xi Earlier Heaven Ho Tu arrangement of the 64 hexagrams can represent
the DNA genetic code:

Table 5: Relationship between I Ching hexagrams

and amino acids
[Source: Katya Walter, Tao of Chaos: merging East and West, 1996]
The relationship of the codon triplets to the conventional hexagrams of the I
Ching may be made in Table 6 by recognizing the implied corresponding half of
the three base pairs represented in Table 4, and the 2 and 3-fold hydrogen bonding
that distinguishes them. A single codon triplet (of three base pairs) in Table 4 is
then equivalent as a code to a single I Ching hexagram. Note that conventionally
the yin and yang elements are associated with the even and odd numbers, 2 and 3 -
- matched here with the 2 and 3-fold base pair bonding.

Table 6: Possible equivalence of RNA/DNA base

pairs with I Ching digram coding
Representation of base pairs Conventional I
constituting codons Ching coding
Nucleotide Nucleotide
bases hydrogen bases Component of
(explicit in bonds (implicit in Table hexagram
Table 4) 4: other strand)
nucleotide
structure code number code digram name
structure
double- U (or single- young
A 2
ringed T) ringed yin
U
single- double- old
(or 2 A
ringed ringed yin
T)
double- single- young
G 3 C
ringed ringed yang
single- double- old
C 3 G
ringed ringed yang
[In this respect note discussion in Conditions of Objective, Subjective
and Embodied Cognition: mnemonic systems for memetic coding
of complexity, 2007].
In the light of the above correspondences, Chris Lofting (The Book of
Structures: wholes, aspects, and the genetic code, 2005) treats the I
Ching as a metaphor for the brain's way of dealing with objects (wholes,
parts) and relationships (static, dynamic). H notes:
What this leads to is a model of thought based on strings of hexagrams, just as a
coding sequence for a protein is based on strings of codons... Using the
DNA/RNA pattern, there is a suggestion that we can produce strings that map to
thoughts... Using the normal generation of a hexagram, we find that a hexagram
links to a specific codon and so we use hexagrams to map strings of codons.
Pattern replication
The correspondences of the previous section point to the importance of
understanding that whatever the elusive "pattern that connects", those
correspondences associated with modern understanding of DNA and those
associated with traditional understanding of the I Ching are most fruitfully
recognized as particular instances of it -- accessible to current human cognitive
frameworks. This is succinctly articulated by Tony Smith as follows:

 since the DNA genetic code can be represented by 4 things taken 3 at a

time, or (2x2) x (2x2) x (2x2) = 64, and
 since the I Ching (which is based on 6 bars, each of which can be in 2
states - broken or unbroken) can be represented by 2 things taken 6 at a
time, or 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64, and
 since pairs of octonionic half-spinors of the Spin(0,8) Clifford algebra
Cl(0,8) on which the D4-D5-E6-E7 physics model is based can be
represented by 8 things taken 2 at a time, or (2x2x2) x (2x2x2) = 64,
 the genetic code, the I Ching, and the D4-D5-E6-E7 physics model are all
just different representations of the same fundamental structure.

The nature of this underlying template is further clarified by Chris Lofting (I

Ching Plus, 1997-2001) arguing that whenever maps are made of reality there is
typically a failurel to recognize that the maps are metaphors for how "in here"
interprets "out there" -- whether in the case of esoteric maps (e.g. I Ching,
astrology) or for scientific maps (e.g. mathematics, physics):
underneath all of these maps is a neurologically-determined template which
allows one to easily make analogies and create metaphors; it is a template of
meaning that appears to be shared by all of these categorisation systems. Simply
put, all maps of reality are metaphors for the way the brain categorises objects
(wholes, parts) and relationships (static, dynamic), and the template emerges from
this process.
Both the DNA and the I Ching instances are distinguished not so much by their
static structure but by the dynamics associated with those patterns. In the case of
DNA, this is the process of replication through which information is passed down
the generations -- in biological terms. In the case of the I Ching (or Book of
Changes), it is specifically claimed to be a means of holding the pattern of
changes -- notably the psychodynamic changes that are the preoccupation here
and which were the preoccupation of governance in imperial China. The question
is how the former may offer new insights into the latter of value to the
contemporary challenges of governance at all levels of society.
Considerable detail is available on the mechanisms of DNA replication at the
cellular level. Many extensive commentaries are available on the manner in which
the I Ching encodes the processes of change (cf Documents relating to
Patterns of I Ching / Tao te Ching). Clearly extensive work could be
undertaken in determining the extent of the match between them and isolating
difficulties for further investigation.
Prior to any such investigation, it is important to clarify some of the issues in any
such comparative process in the light of the preoccupation here regarding the
psychodynamics of challenging relationships:

 precision vs allusion:
o the clarity of detail in the DNA case derives from the objectivity
with which the matter is examined through the scientific method,
as favoured especially by the currently dominant western
mindset and culture. This is very different from the dynamics
through which the body "understands", controls and sustains
such processes. There is a sense in which a principle of
uncertainty applies in that the more precise the description that
science provides the less the capacity to enable and sustain that
process -- otherwise artificial life and immortality would be
much more feasible

o the complex set of metaphors used to engage with the processes

of change in the case of the I Ching is alien to the western
mindset. In contrast with descriptions of DNA however, these
are designed to enable comprehension and decision-making
under conditions of uncertainty -- and by non-specialists. There
is therefore a sense in which challenges to comprehension and
appropriate use (and the dissemination of such insights) are
designed into the I Ching, whereas these are very much external
to the preoccupations of the scientific method -- as the socio-
political controversies over genetic engineering indicate.

 subjective subtleties: the contrast between the previous points is an

indication of the extent to which the I Ching might be said to encompass,
if only by allusion, the subjective subtleties of challenging relationships
with any "Other". It might be understood as offering the degree, or mode,
of description that is cognitively possible regarding the experiential
challenge on the steps of the stairwell that was the subject of earlier
discussion. Insights into DNA offer far greater precision regarding the
structure and dynamics associated with the stairwell -- but dissociated
from the subjective experience that is the essential challenge of
 relationships, especially at this time.

 appropriate change: both the DNA pattern and that of the I Ching have
a preoccupation with appropriate change:
o in the case of DNA, this is reflected in the need to respond
continually to endogenous and exogenous damage, as noted
earlier. In the case of the I Ching, this takes the form of a
preoccupation with appropriate decisions and appropriate
actions, in response to emergent circumstances, whether or not
these are primarily conditioned by external circumstances. The
language commonly used in the I Ching to describe the
consequences of such action might be suggestively compared
with the challenge at the DNA level: "misfortune" as a form of
lesion; "fortune" as successful repair.

o given the psychodynamic focus of the I Ching, precisely where

there is currently a concern (at all levels of society) with the need
to elicit more appropriate patterns of behaviour (patterns of
consumption, etc), a key question is the extent to which the
understanding now being applied to genetic engineering and
biotech is indicative of possibly viable approaches. Clearly such
insights might be abused (as current controversies indicate), but
the focus here is on whether they offer opportunities for
reframing psychodynamic clashes rather than denaturing either
party as a means of ensuring the dominance of the other.

 values: whereas the structure and dynamics of DNA may be considered

value free, the challenge of psychodynamic clashes is essentially value
driven, in the sense of arising in part from (mis)comprehension of values
however they are formally articulated:
o the appropriate comprehension of values might however be
considered fundamental to the I Ching. This is evident in the
manner in which many of the metaphors, through which
decision-making in dynamic situations are explicated, make
direct reference to family roles (if only to facilitate
comprehension). Indeed, in this sense, it might be understood as
enabling understanding of the dynamics of the range of "family
values" -- as a basis for more appropriate understanding of the
psychodynamics on a larger scale.

o of particular interest with respect to values is the sense in which

the I Ching goes "behind" the pseudo-objectivity whereby values
are conventionally so readily invoked ("family values", "national
 values", "Christian values", "western values", "universal values",
etc) to provide a sense of values as an emergent dynamic.
Ironically, despite repeated reference to "values", modern society
has neither clear definitions of what they are nor clear lists of the
various sets of values (see comments on Human Values
Project). Elsewhere this has been explained in terms of the
insights of the subtler dynamic insights of the complexity
sciences (Human Values as Strange Attractors:
coevolution of classes of governance principles,
1993). In this sense values might be understood as the peculiar,
counter-intuitive dynamics associated with the stairwell
described earlier. More interesting is the possibility that the set
of core psychodynamic values might correspond in some way to
the "essential" amino acids characteristic of DNA ***

 inversion: in both the case of DNA and the I Ching a form of "inversion"
of coding -- reminiscent of mirroring (as discussed earlier) -- is
fundamental to the process of change:
o in the DNA case, this is evident both in the complementary
nature of the coding sequence of the nucleotide bases in the two
helical strands and in the manner in which RNA encodes
information from DNA

o in the I Ching case, this is evident in understanding of how any

lines in a hexagram, representing one condition, may "move"
such as then to represent another complementary condition. The
hexagram as a whole, or a component trigram, may also reverse
in this way. The psychodynamics of such reversal is fruitful in
the representation of enantiodromia

Process dynamics
Curiously both DNA and the I Ching can be readily misunderstood, in ways that
are somewhat similar:

 in the case of the I Ching, it has become widely known (notably in the
West) because of the predictive value attributed to it by those seeking
counsel. The misunderstanding arises from the degree to which
predictions are extracted from it by what are effectively mechanical
processes reinforcing a mechanical mindset. The structure is designed to
guard against this by the pattern of metaphors it produces in response and
the manner in which these engage and necessitate non-mechanical
 interpretive processes. Its complexity is such that the total pattern eludes
conventional cognitive "grasping" other than by a focus on the coding
system in preference to its significance..

 in the case of DNA, the misunderstanding is best highlighted by the

considerable embarrassment of biologists following the recent completion
of coding of the human genome -- discovered to have only slightly more
genes than a tiny worm that lacks a proper brain. It had previously been
assumed that the structure of the genetic code was sufficient to explain
and distinguish the complexity of different species. Genes were thought
of as repositories of information about how to build proteins. As noted
in The Economist (Briefing RNA: Really New Advances, 16 June
2007), "this account of the cell was so satisfying to biologists that few
bothered to look beyond it." Consequently biology is now undergoing a
major paradigm shift that only now takes into account the previously
neglected dynamic functions of RNA in controlling cell operations.
Genes for proteins are now believed to be in the minority as opposed to
their role as RNA factories.

The point to be made in both cases is with regard to the unfortunate

predisposition of the human mind to seek premature collective closure on
oversimplistic explanations. With regard to one "clash of civilizations", this has
recently been seen in the case of the consensus formed, at the highest level and by
the best and the brightest, regarding the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
(cf Groupthink: the Search for Archaeoraptor as a Metaphoric
Tale missing the link between "freedom fighters" and "terrorists",
2002).
The question to be asked, adapting the above words of The Economist, is whether
the current "account" of psychodynamic relationships is "so satisfying" to the
relevant disciplines and belief systems "that few bother to look beyond it". How ill
advised was the assertion made by Bill Clinton, as President of the USA, that "no
stone has been left unturned" in the search for solutions to the Middle East crisis?
Even more to the point is whether questions should be raised about the nature of
any descriptive "account" as it might be sought within the dominant mindsets.
Might it not be specifically inappropriate to the dynamic challenge posed by
psychodynamic relationships -- as proved to be the case in nuclear physics?
Does such an "account" effectively denature the existential reality of those
relationships and obscure understanding of how they fail so catastrophically? Is it
with understanding of this quality that the dramatic "clashes of civilizations" are
currently being addressed -- with an arrogance matching that of biologists in their
earlier expectation of grasping the human genome as a kind of Theory of
Everything? How was that misunderstanding nurtured and by whom? With what
arrogant misunderstanding will genetic engineering now be undertaken for the
benefit of humanity?
From RNA's previous assumed role as a passive carrier of genetic information
(from DNA in the cell nucleus to the places in the cell where proteins are made,
assembling the appropriate amino-acid units), it's role has now been dramatically
promoted -- possibly even to the status of operating system (in computer terms).
In the words of the The Economist leader article on the matter:
If RNA is controlling the complexity of the whole organism, that suggests the
operating system of each cell is not only running the cell in question, but it is
linking up with those of the other cells when a creature is developing. To push the
analogy, organs such as the brain are the result of a biological internet. If that is
right, the search for the essence of humanity has been looking in the wrong
genetic direction.
The radical shift in understanding might be compared to that:

 from an assumption that biological diversity could be adequately defined

by the number of keys on a musical instrument -- that for humans would
be distinguished from that for the simple worm as an organ is from the
simplest flute

 to the recognition that all species were designed on approximately the

same musical scale or range of notes (ca 20,000 genes), but it was how
they were "played", namely the range of chordal harmonies and melodies
evoked from that same scale which distinguished the more complex
species such as humans -- a distinction between symphonies and simple
tunes

Any such comparison does of course raise the question of what it would take for
humanity to play "better" music? (cf Authentic Grokking: emergence of
Homo conjugens, 2003)
Necessarily The Economist focuses on the business opportunities relating to new
classes of drugs that exploit the previously unsuspected varieties of RNA. Does
this reflect a "silver bullet" mindset that is specifically a characteristic of the
misunderstanding that delayed recognition of the role of RNA? How might this be
completely inappropriate to the leader article's recognition that:
Many of the big problems facing humanity are biological, or are susceptible to
biological intervention....At the moment, policymakers have inadequate
technological tools to deal with these questions. But it is not hard to imagine such
tools. Ageing is directly biological...knowing how cells work -- really knowing --
will allow the process to be transformed for the better...
Is thinking regarding breakdown in psychodynamic relationships -- in dealing
with "big problems facing humanity" such as "terrorism" for example -- similarly
conditioned by such "silver bullet" expectations? Have policymakers been looking
in the "wrong psychodynamic direction"?
The leader article compares the paradigm shift in biology with the "neutron
moment" of nuclear physics in 1932 -- enabling development of the atomic bomb:
But physics gave the 20th century a more subtle boon than mere power. It also
brought an understanding of the vastness of the universe and humanity's
insignificant place in it. It allowed people, in William Blake's phrase, to hold
infinity in the palm of a hand, and eternity in an hour.
Is there not a case for expecting a "neutron moment", analogous to those described
for physics and biology, in relation to psychodynamics? What, or who, is
inhibiting recognition of such a moment -- despite appeals at the highest level for
"new thinking"? How may it be inappropriately distorted by the
misunderstandings of faith-based intuitions whose claims have so dramatically
and consistently undermined relationships between faiths down the centuries?
However limited the understanding of it through instances such as DNA or the I
Ching, can the psychodynamic dimension of the "pattern that connects" be
appropriately comprehended and embodied through such instances in ways that
enable more meaningful engagement with catastrophic relationship failure? Do
the emerging characteristics of the dynamic complexities of the RNA "operating
system" offer insights into the possibilities and requirements of governance?

"Broken symbols" exacerbating relationship

failure?
Symbols have always offered a powerful means of "repairing" relationship
damage, notably through their capacity to "re-mind" and to enable "re-
membering":

 in the short-term by evoking the significance of a relationship, at the most

evident through photographs or "playing our tune"
 through psychoactive symbols, as discussed earlier, notably those
triggering a sense of group identity (flags, etc)
 of particular interest is their more complex technical role in their
traditional use in relation to memory, as discussed elsewhere (Societal
 Learning and the Erosion of Collective Memory, 1980),
notably in the light of the study of Frances Yates (The Art of Memory,
1966)
 of related interest is the function of circlets of beads in sustaining the
integrity of a complex set of subtle insights (Designing Cultural
Rosaries and Meaning Malas to Sustain Associations within
the Pattern that Connects, 2000). Their structure suggests a fruitful
comparison with DNA.

As noted earlier there is necessarily a real challenge to symbolizing the larger

integrating whole of the "pattern that connects".
As specifically argued in the case of religion by Robert Cummings Neville (The
Truth of Broken Symbols, 1996), it is the challenge of the limitations of the finite
being used to symbolize the infinite. As he shows through a cross-cultural
analysis, religious symbols can be true in various qualified senses. There is
however the curious necessity that they must be "broken" specifically in order not
to be perceived as idolatrous or demonic. His treatment of reference, meaning, and
interpretation, offers insights into the challenge of properly understanding
symbols in order to engage transcendental realities while internally exhibiting
semiotic structures of reference, meaning, and interpretation.
For religions the representation of the integrating unity of the divine is therefore
necessarily poorly represented through symbols -- readily to be rejected as
distortions and idolatrous. The "design challenge", addressed by Barry L. Davis
(Broken Symbols, 2006) is deliberately to incorporate a sense of brokenness
into the religious symbol itself. It is in this sense that it is useful to look at both
helical DNA and the I Ching, both of which incorporate different forms of
brokenness -- the former in the separation of the helical strands (and the incidence
of "lesions") and the latter in the contrasting unbroken and broken lines (and the
incidence of "misfortune"). Arguably it is this feature that allows both to encode
to a greater degree the dynamics of a larger whole capable of engendering the
new.
Nancy K Frankenberry (On the Very Idea of Symbolic
Meaning In: Interpreting Neville, 1999 by J Harley Chapman and Nancy
Frankenberry, 1999) offers a contrasting view to that put forward by Neville:
For us postmoderns, broken religious symbols are so many shards whose jagged
edges trace the shape of the absent complement, itself another symbol. We study
the shape and pattern of each jagged edge to find the direction or "sense" in which
to hold the symbols so as to "read" their complement. We conjure an image of
broken symbols and, when joined, able to form a seamless whole, rather than
"fitting with" or "corresponding to" some (undescribed) reality. The meshing of
our meanings is holistic, leaving no referential edges, and thus suggesting an
alternative to conventional extensionalist semantics. The "meaning" of the broken
religious symbols that litter the postmodern landscape cannot be equated with
"reference".
As the previous section highlighted, it is clear that the ability of religions to
recognize the merit of "broken" symbols, as indicative of the partiality of the
representation of higher order, has its limitations in practice. Religions have been
significantly unable to bridge the broken relationships which separate them -- or
to recognize them as a reminder of a higher unity. Token wisdom -- such as "a
thousand ways to the top of a hill, but the view of the top is the same" -- has
proven to be of very little significance to relationships between the Abrahamic
faiths, for example.
It may also be asked to what extent the masonic symbolism of the winding stairs--
presumably significant for the male leadership of western society -- is really
understood in ways that address the issues of relationship failure. In all such cases
the question is to what extent the symbol is inactive or "dead", namely without
any meaningful psychoactive function.

Value polarities as archetypal bonds

Reference was made above to the Human Values Project.with respect to the
possibility that values might necessarily be related to the peculiar, counter-
intuitive dynamics associated with the cognitive steps on the spiral stairway --
especially in the light of insights from the complexity sciences (Human Values
as Strange Attractors: coevolution of classes of governance
principles, 1993).
That project identified 987 "constructive" (examples), and 1992 "destructive"
(examples), value words. It then used their antonymic relationship to cluster
them as 225 "value polarities": Pleasantness-Unpleasantness; Resolution-
Irresolution; etc. These included: Goodness-Badness; Truth-Error; Love-Hate; etc.
In the light of the argument above, it is such polarities that constitute a dynamic
cognitive challenge in any relationship. One is "positive" and the other "negative",
and much token commitment is given to eliminating the latter. The existential
challenge in reality is how to navigate the middle way between them --
representing as they do a form of "broken symbol". The set of constructive values
is then understood as associated with one strand (in DNA terms) and the
destructive values with the other -- its "shadow". Any examination of the
destructive values clarifies how problematic it would be to live in a world without
them -- in the light of humanity's current understanding.
The question that then arose in that project was how to configure the value
polarities in a more meaningful way. The approach taken then was to cluster them
tentatively into a (5x9) matrix of 45 "value types":

 columns: focus in context; certainty; intrinsic constraint; necessity;

external constraint
 rows: order; change; form; quantity; significance; initiative; achievement;
consequence; readaptation

Formally, as a matrix, this bears some resemblance to the 8x8 matrix of Levels of
Existence of Clare W. Graves (Human Nature Prepares for a
Momentous Leap. The Futurist, April 1974). However it should be stressed
that the associated database of of the Human Values Project was integrated, to
reflect the dilemmas the polarities constituted, in terms of the words underlying
the "value types" and "value polarities", with two other databases profiling and
linking:

 over 56,564 "world problems" that were the preoccupation of various

international constituencies; problems were identified by names which
necessarily incorporated "destructive" value words (see World
Problems Project)
 over 32,547 "strategies" that were variously undertaken or envisaged by
international constituencies; strategies were identified by names which
necessarily incorporated "constructive" value words (see Global
Strategies Project)

Without getting locked into particular numbers and levels (or any justification for
them), the question that might now be asked is how such "psychoactive"
information about incommensurables might be designed into some form of
helical structure -- as suggested by DNA -- that would give greater coherence
to challenging relationship dynamics.
Interesting questions for brainstorming purposes might then include:

 is there some sense in which "essential values" (resonant with various

common checklists) might correspond in some way in such a structure to
the essential amino acids characteristic of DNA?
 is a spiral formation appropriate in part because of cognitive limitations
necessitating some form of memory reinforcement to ensure coherence --
which would be lacking on a linear Jacob's ladder? Various aspects of this
are discussed elsewhere (Representation, Comprehension and
Communication of Sets: the role of number, 1978; DNA
 Supercoiling as a Pattern for Understanding Psycho-social
Twistedness, 2004), notably in the light of the study by George
Miller (The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two:
some limits on our capacity for processing
information, Psychological Review, 1956). In this respect it is
appropriate to note that in a relaxed double-helical segment of DNA, the
two strands twist around the helical axis once every 10.6 base pairs of
sequence. There is a Heptad Repeat of the Coiled-coil
Structure.
 how does the complex structure and dynamics associated with DNA
reframe any assumptions as to the "elitist" nature of any such schema (a
typical criticism made of Spiral Dynamics) -- notably to respect the
intuition that "the first shall be last and the last shall be first"?

Creation of Man by Michelangelo (Sistine Chapel)

as an indicative representation of the subtlest relationship bond
(as discussed below with respect to base-pair hydrogen bonding
and the "kiss touch")
Bonding: reification and petrification of
significance
It is important to reiterate the earlier argument that polarization of relationships,
whether value polarities (as described above), strategic dilemmas, or
"disagreement" necessarily implies the impossibility of containing that dynamic
within a framework based on compatibility and commensurability -- on "common
ground" (cf Documents relating to Polarization, Dilemmas and
Duality). The nature of the dynamic makes the ground distinctly "uncommon"
and characterized by paradox and counter-intuitive insight -- as exemplifed
cognitively by the Zen koan. Such is the challenge of "bonding".
Indeed, if (as argued above) a "spiral staircase" (modelled by DNA) is to be
understood as a powerful symbol of the challenge of psychodynamic relations,
how might one expect to engage with it:

 in contrast with the linear experience of a ladder?

 in the uncertainty associated experientially with movement up or down a
spiraling stairway?
 given the questionable solidity of the steps -- and the "faith" required for
their enactivation?

It is not with ordinary vision that the "steps" can can be rendered visible. This is
the challenge of the "visions" elaborated by policymakers. The steps are only to be
enactivated and sensed otherwise -- through subtler modalities of all the senses
together (Walking Elven Pathways: enactivating the pattern that
connects, 2006). It is in this that is to be recognized the challenge of the
traditionally unfortunate relationships between the wise (Epistemological
Challenge of Cognitive Body Odour: exploring the underside of
dialogue, 2006)
How helpful are the paradoxical allusions of metaphorical articulation in the I
Ching in giving experiential meaning to this engagement? How well do the
lesions of DNA reflect the varieties of relationship failure -- and the potential for
repair? What might the emerging insights regarding RNA evoke in this regard?
Are these echoed in the I Ching in some way?
Curiously the terms "bond" and "bonding" are fundamental to both the molecular
bonding associated with DNA and to the psychodynamics of relationships. It is
these bonds which in each case enable complex structures to be built and which
may be damaged, possibly beyond repair.
In both cases, however, they are readily misrepresented in a simplistic manner
which obscures their subtle nature:

 in the DNA case, molecular bonds are typically represented as sold lines,
even by solid rods, as was the case in the first representations of DNA in
three dimensions. The nature of such bonds is commonly explained with
such "ball and stick" models, for which molecular "constructor sets" are
widely available. This simplistic representation completely avoids the
challenge to understanding molecular bonding, notably the hydrogen
bonding linking the base pairs between the two DNA strands.

As is evident from the image at the beginning of this paper, the delicate
bonding between the strands is not appropriately represented by rod-like
elements. The bond might be appropriately compared to what R
Buckminster Fuller has described as a "kiss touch" in the architecture
of a geodesic dome. The underlying tensegrity principles have notably
been used to describe cellular architecture (Donald E. Ingber, The
Architecture of Life, Scientific American, 278, January 1998).

As noted in the Wikipedia entry on such chemical bonds: A chemical

bond is the physical process responsible for the attractive interactions
between atoms and molecules, and that which confers stability to
diatomic and polyatomic chemical compounds. The explanation of the
attractive forces is a complex area that is described by the laws
of quantum electrodynamics. In practice, however, chemists
usually rely on quantum theory or qualitative descriptions that are
less rigorous but more easily explained to describe chemical bonding. In
general, strong chemical bonding is associated with the sharing or
transfer of electrons between the participating atoms.

Hydrogen bonding in DNA is well recognized as playing an

important role in determining the three-dimensional structures adopted by
proteins and nucleic bases -- bonding between parts of the same
macromolecule cause it to fold into a specific shape, which helps
determine the molecule's physiological or biochemical role. The nature of
such bonding is currently described by molecular orbital theory .

In macromolecular chemistry, as in the case of DNA, bonding is

described in terms of "stacking". This occurs where two relatively non-
polar rings have overlapping pi orbitals. The exact nature of such
interactions (electrostatic or nonelectrostatic) is currently a matter of
debate. As noted in the Wikipedia entry on molecular orbitals: These
 are introduced in qualitative and pictorial models of bonding in
molecules, and specify the spatial distribution and energy of one (or a
pair) of electrons. More precisely, they are found quantitatively as wave
functions, mathematical solutions to the Schrödinger wave
equation for a molecule, using an approximation known as the Hartree-
Fock or Self-Consistent Field method.

 in the case of psychosocial relationships, any "bond" is readily

represented linearly, typically depicted by a solid line -- as in
organization charts, kinship diagrams and genealogical trees, or more
generally in social networks. In the language of the complexity sciences,
such relationships are to be understood as non-linear -- if they are to be
understood at all. Curiously, for those in the relationship, a marriage bond
may be represented by an exchange of rings; other bonds may even be
represented by an exchange of blood. In all such cases the complexity of
the actual psychodynamics, as experienced, is very poorly represented by
such symbols. Attempts to do so are the domain of psychoanalysis,
psychotherapy, anthropology, and similar social science disciplines,
including theology -- or that of poets, artists and musicians. These also
fail to encompass the existential subtleties of loyalty, love and giri, for
example.

A seemingly quite different interpretation of Fuller's architectural

tensegrity has been made by anthropologist Carlos Castaneda as a
way of understanding traditional " magical passes" as the interplay of
tensing and relaxing in a way that contributes to the overall integrity of
the body as a physical and an energetic unit. Tensegrity is then seen as an
art: "the art of adapting to one's own energy, and to each other's energy in
a way that contributes to the integrity of the community that we are".
[more]
Such misrepresentation is completely inappropriate to the experiential "ethereal"
quality of complementarity and psychodynamic relationships -- and of how they
"work", sustain and support. Here lies the challenge of "climbing" such "elven"
stairways -- and of comprehending the nature of their breakdown.
There is therefore a strong case for accepting that the uncertainties of meaningful
psychodynamic relationships are as complex and challenging to comprehension as
is the hydrogen bonding "described" by quantum electrodynamics. Their
reification into depictions as mechanical "bonds" clearly obscures what those
involved experience as most essential to any human relationship -- or even to that
with animals and nature. There is therefore a case for learning from the
complexity and subtlety considered completely credible in the case of DNA
hydrogen bonding. It is the very subtlety of such bonding that is the basis for the
cognitive spiral stairway essential to the development of human understanding --
hence the "elven" sensitivity required for climbing it.

Symbolic curiosities?
Is the Tower of Babel to be understood as an indication
of the consequences of the petrification of significance,
namely of inattentiveness to the subtler understanding
regarding relationships (consistent with the argument
above regarding DNA)? Is the Tower of Babel then an
inappropriate representation of DNA -- "destroyed by
God" as an inappropriate representation of the "means
for mankind to reach Heaven"?
Given the earlier argument regarding the importance
in the masonic tradition of the "winding stair" in King
Solomon's Temple, it is curious to note that the
"challenging" (Spiral) Tower card in the Tarot deck is
traditionally associated with the Tower of Babel (The
History of the Tower (Fire) Card). And, given that the
steps on the masonic "winding stair" (mentioned
earlier) number 3, 5 and 7, as the Tarot card
numbered XVI, is the inappropriateness symbolically
indicated by the association of the first prime number
with that sequence pointing in the "wrong" direction?
Curiously, given that the arrangement of DNA strands
is termed antiparallel, the asymmetric ends of DNA
strands are referred to as the 5′ (five prime) and 3′
(three prime) ends. As noted above, the two strands
twist around the helical axis once every 10.6 base
pairs of sequence. There is a Heptad Repeat of the
Coiled-coil Structure. Proceeding beyond 3, 5, and 7,
the next prime is 11 (included in one version of the
masonic stair), totalling then to 26, thereby offering
some interesting resonances with fundamental
patterns (cf Patterns of N-foldness: comparison of
integrated multi-set concept schemes as forms of
presentation, 1980):
  catastrophe theory:
o 3: the number of types of umbilic
elementary catastrophe (hyperbolic,
elliptic and parabolic)
o 5: the number of elementary
catastrophes in systems governed by 3
control factors
o 7: the number of elementary
catastrophes in systems involving 3
dimensions of space and one of time
o 11: the number of catastrophes
associated with systems governed by 5
control factors
 string theory: the number of dimensions
hypothesized is 10, 11, or 26, depending on the
specific theory and point of view.
 monster group: in group theory the
comprehensive classification of finite simple
groups includes 26 sporadic groups that do not
follow the systematic pattern of the others; the
largest, termed the Monster Group contains all
but six of the other sporadic groups; its
existence was proven using string theory. As
the most complex symmetrical form known, it
has been described as being of order
approximating 8x1053 or as a giant snowflake in
196,884 dimensions (cf Potential Psychosocial
Significance of Monstrous Moonshine: an
exceptional form of symmetry as a Rosetta
stone for cognitive frameworks, 2007).

The relationship between the set of amino acids and

the Tarot trump cards has also been the subject of a
range of explorations [more; more; more].

Relationship breakdown and civilizational

collapse
An indication was provided earlier as to the nature of "DNA damage", whether of
an endogenous or exogenous variety. It was described in terms of the failure of
certain bonds, whose severity (and challenge to repair) might be roughly ordered
as follows:

 in the hydrogen bonding between helical strands,

 in the break of a single strand, or
 in the breaking of both strands, to which might be added
 any dysfunctionality in the newly recognized dynamic association with
RNA

The most severe damage is associated with diseases such as cancer and their
progressively fatal systemic consequences as in metastasis. Ageing might itself be
considered one such "disease".
The challenge to comprehension and remedial action in the case of DNA might be
usefully recognized as analogous to that in psychodynamic relationships:

 in the (temporary) reversible failure of a relationship bond, characteristic

of domestic quarrels and "tiffs" between friends
 in the one-sided break in a relationship, that may be reparable by using
the integrity of the "other half" as a basis for reassembling the
corresponding pattern with which it resonated, reconstituting the basis of
affinity
 in the double break-up of a relationship, essentially irreversible in that
there is no longer any dynamic for its remedial reconstitution

Whilst these different degrees of relationship are more readily recognizable in the
case of individuals, and by them with respect to their experience, equivalent
patterns are also evident between groups. On a larger scale they are also evident in
the breakdown of relationships between much larger groups -- whether schools of
thought (notably academic disciplines), ideological movements or religious belief
systems (heresies and schisms).
Contrasting examples of relationship breakdown and repair are provided by the
following:

 breakdown: experienced as breach of faith in some way:

o "broken promises" and "broken commitments", whether at the
interpersonal level, between groups, between leadership and
electorate, or relating to product and/or service delivery
o at the international level, and in relations between countries, this
is most evident in:
  the failure to fulfill strategic commitments (UN
Millennium Goals, G8 commitments to developing
countries, UN Global Compact, "Health for All by the
Year 2000", etc)
 breach of treaty commitments, notably through military
invasion or failure to respect Geneva Conventions
o denial of equivalence:
 notably as promoted under the Kirkpatrick Doctrine
(Jeane Kirkpatrick, The Myth of Moral
Equivalence, Imprimis, 15, January 1986,
1; Madeleine Albright, We Think the Price is
Worth It, Fair, 2001) precluding any meaningful
comparison between the divinely inspired morality of
atrocities engendered by American foreign policy and
those for which opponents of such policy are responsible
(possibly in the light of their own divine inspiration).
 rejection as meaningless by the USA of any equivalence
between US objections to installation of
USSR missiles in Cuba in 1962 and Russian
objections to installation of US missiles in the Czech
Republic in 2007.

 repair: experienced as recognition (or recollection) of compatibility and

affinity:
o evident at the interpersonal level in the action of family and
group therapists, as well as marriage counsellors
o evident on a larger scale in the approach of mediators, as in
industrial relations or conflict resolution (eg Transcend: a
peace and development network for conflict
resolution by peaceful means; Nonviolent
Peaceforce)
o the preoccupation of diplomacy at the international level
o evident in the efforts by general systems research ***to establish
relationships between disciplines in the light of correspondences
and isomorphisms
o currently strikingly evident in interfaith relations in the form of a
unique set of proposals from the Islamic world (A Common
Word Between Us and You, 2007) which identifies a set of
scriptural correspondences between the Qur'an and the Bible,
effectively to match and repair "strands" (in DNA terms)
Of special interest is the possible relevance of this approach to understanding the
kinds of processes which bring about civilizational collapse as explored by Jared
Diamond (Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed, 2005).
But of course part of the capacity to "break down" is intimately associated with
pattern replication and renewal -- through reproduction. The challenge is how to
distinguish fruitful from unfruitful breakdown.

Contrasting "genetic" exacerbation of societal

relationships
Wherever modern humans, living outside the narrow
social mores of the clan, are allowed to pursue their
genetic interests without constraint, they will hurt
other people. They will grab other people's resources,
they will dump their waste in other people's habitats,
they will cheat, lie, steal and kill. And if they have
power and weapons, no one will be able to stop them
except those with more power and better weapons.
Our genetic inheritance makes us smart enough to see
that when the old society breaks down, we should
appease those who are more powerful than ourselves
and exploit those who are less powerful.
The survival strategies that once ensured cooperation
among equals now ensure subservience to those who
have broken the social contract. (George
Monbiot, Governments aren't perfect, but it's the
liberatrians who bleed us dry. Guardian, 23 October
2007)

If you've never heard of synbio, you will hear plenty in

the next decade.... In this brave new world, they talk
of a future in which synthetic biologists will work much
like graphic designers, building new organisms on their
laptops and emailing them off to the gene foundry for
construction....
So beware of how we are being sold this scientific
revolution with pledges to help Africa's poor and ease
global warming.... creating fantastic bacteria in a
contained laboratory is one thing, but what happens
when they get out and cross with their wild cousins,
mutating into organisms we had never foreseen?
The whole point of this science is the development of
 large-scale use outside a lab, but can we predict what
consequences releasing these new organisms could
have? The answer is a resounding no....
We might have a "new, improved nature" which is
more efficient in meeting our needs and ensuring the
survival of future generations: is that a threat or a
promise of salvation? And who are we going to trust to
make that judgment call? (Madeleine
Bunting, Scientists have a new way to reshape nature,
but none can predict the cost, Guardian, 22 October
2007)
What do these together imply regarding the
corresponding psychodynamic insights necessary
for any adequate response?

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