A Deeper Pattern, Part II- The Arena

Enter the Arena

Adam Anthony’s Architecture Argument: An Advantageous Abductive Assessment that the Agent in the Arena exercises their Agency with Affordances, Artifacts, and Assemblages; through Attention, Appreciation, and Action, all of which Aggregate nonlinearly into Attunement, ultimately Augmenting their Agility, Adaptability, Acumen, Alignment, Acceptance, and optimizing Arousal, Appraisal, Awakening, Altruism, Awe, Aesthetics, and Authenticity, in an Age of Arduous Actuality; defined as preparation for the Apocalypse, while properly balancing Attachment, Aversion, and Affect to mitigate Ambiguity, Alienation, Anxiety, and Animosity.

Source: Midjourney

This is part two of a three part series. Part one is located here.

Arena

Let’s look at the Arena, wrap our heads around what is going on in the world— the field on which the game is played. There are many ways to slice up reality into understandable portions. This is but one way— to divide differing contexts into Coherent, Complex, and Chaotic. What comes along for the ride with this framing are the concepts of Linearity and Nonlinearity.

Coherent things are amazing.  Linear processes live in this Coherent realm (and here I am combining David Snowden’s Clear and Complicated domains into one for simplicity). Things in this place can be reliably scaled up or down. Things that take place in this realm are responsible for much of the wonders of the modern world. Coherent things are simple and consistent. But Linearity and Coherence aren’t the only thing going on, not the only place humans hang out. The Nonlinear is afoot as well — within the Complex and the Chaotic.  It’s the stuff of virality, of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts — like the combination of chocolate and peanut butter. We can speak about the difference between Complicated and Complex here— the former lives in Linear/Coherent, while the latter lives in Nonlinear/Complex.

Nonlinearity is a property of complex and chaotic systems, characterized by emergence, approximation, random behavior, and unpredictability. It is the feature of natural (real world) or other systems which cannot be decomposed into parts (additivity) and reassembled into the same thing (replicability), or do not change in proportion to a change in an input (proportionality). You can take an airplane apart and put it back together again. That is a Linear/Coherent thing. You cannot take a human being apart and put it back together again. That is a Nonlinear/Complex thing. I defined many of the terms associated with Nonlinearity in an earlier essay here.

I wish I’d learned about Nonlinearity earlier in my career. I wish I’d had the language to understand it—since my job was figuratively and literally swimming in Nonlinearity.

Source: Midjourney

Nonlinear Complex and Chaotic contexts have always been around— humans have navigated them from the beginning. But our interconnected age has sped up the tempo and importance of the these domains. We are very much in a Nonlinear age, because of the power of our technology to spread information quickly. Information, mind you— not necessarily knowledge, let alone wisdom. Those two are like little flecks of gold carried by a torrent of informational water. The trick is to understand when we’re in a Linear place and when we’re in a Nonlinear one, and to manage our expectations/conduct accordingly. Humans love to try to drag processes and things into the Linear/Coherent category, even if they can’t really fit there. It seems to be a common theme—we want a context full of Nonlinearity to act in a Linear fashion, and we get frustrated when it doesn’t. According to Iain McGilchrist, this is due to the primacy of the Left (“The Emissary”) Hemisphere of our brains— our desire to exploit and to apprehend the world, rather than explore and comprehend it with the Right (“The Master”) Hemisphere. John Vervaeke refers to “Propositional Tyranny”— his assertion that western, modernist societies have overweighted learning rote, disconnected, reductionist facts about the world, rather than a gestalt, holistic perspective or participatory form of knowing.¹

Another important point about these domains is that just because something is the Coherent category right now, doesn’t mean it will stay there. Most things hold the promise to go “Nonlinear” and shift into the other domain based on the introduction of a new variable. In addition, what appears to be a Chaotic domain to one inexperienced Agent, may be the Complex or even Coherent domain to another. Your Perspectival Knowing is key here. In a physical altercation, what may seem totally Chaotic to an human untrained in martial arts, can be Complex or Coherent to an MMA fighter.

So, understanding where you as an Agent are in a given context is critical. In the model I will lay out, this will help you understand where (and how much) to focus on Attention, Appreciation, and Action. Some of the characteristics on the table below have to do with the Arena itself. Others describe a prescriptive posture for an Agent exercising Agency in the Arena. The metaphor of H2O is especially applicable here, as it’s the same chemical compound, moving between three states as local conditions change.

One end of the spectrum can be likened to ice— frozen stasis, order, tyranny. This is where processes can be reliably scaled. We should be scientists primarily in this domain, taking things apart and optimizing them. It’s fashionable today to throw shade/derision at Frederick Winslow Taylor, who did much to improve efficiency in the industrial age. There is a time and place for his methods — just not most of the time, particularly when navigating the messy dynamics of human relationships.

The other end is steam — capricious and wild, anarchic. We should be primarily artists in this domain, riding the VUCA or BANI currents (VUCA — Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous. BANI — Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, Incomprehensible). I think surfing is the right metaphor here, or kayaking class V rapids. Much more Embodied Cognition/Participatory Knowing in this domain. You have to just send it, get sendy, full send into the wild.

In the middle, where Goldilocks’ porridge is just right, lies the watery domain of Complexity. This is where most of the game of life is played, with the freedom for new things and ways of being to emerge. Here we have to be craftsman/craftswoman, which I am defining as the nexus point between scientist and artist. Design thinking lives here, creative, unconventional questioning of foundational assumptions lives here.

This H20 metaphor gets more interesting to me for two reasons. One, because of the importance that Taoism places on water as the mother and source of all things. Two, the connection of Earth to the “Goldilocks Zone,” — defined as the range of a celestial sphere from a star where water can exist in liquid form. Water is life, Complexity is life (just as Dani Rojas says about football).

Brief digression to take a courageous public stand— my wife and I were very late to the Ted Lasso party, but we enjoyed the final season. It seems like it’s getting crushed by critics (and here), but I like that each character has their own story arc, and the show isn’t going on forever (We think….) like The Walking Dead. End digression.

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The following is my attempt to depict what the domains look like in spherical form. Most of reality is Complex, but our left hemisphere dominant culture (A la McGilchrist) wants us pull everything into the Coherent sphere. “Seeing Like a State” by James Scott and “Seeing Like Google” by Matthew Crawford are great articulations of this concept.

Summary

In this essay, we’ve talked about the Arena— the ground or context in which the Agent exercises their Agency. We have broken the Arena into three domains— Coherent, Complex, and Chaotic, but also noted that events can slide between the three within the same corner of time and space, depending upon the introduction or new variables and the particular Agent located there. We talked about the differences between Linearity and Nonlinearity. I’ve strayed a little into the Agency section by recommending that we act like scientists, craftspeople, and artists in the Coherent, Complex, and Chaotic domains, respectively. And we’ve talked about how humans really like to Linearize/make things Coherent, (to make them “legible” in Scott’s phrasing from Seeing Like a State) in order to master and exploit them with our Left Hemisphere (McGilchrist) and “Propositional Tyranny” (Vervaeke).

Next stop: Agency!

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Glossary of Terms

Architecture— Unifying or coherent form or structure.

Argument— Coherent series of reasons, statements, or facts intended to support or establish a viewpoint.

Advantageous— Favorable; beneficial; profitable.

Abductive— Forming a conclusion from the information that is known.

Assessment— Act of judging or deciding the value, quality, important, or amount of something.

Affordances— Action defined in the relation between the Agent and the object.

Artifacts— Characteristic of and or resulting from particular human institution, period, trend, or individual.

Assemblages–- Combination or pattern of elements that produce effects in the world.

Agent— One that acts or has the power or authority to act.

Arena— Place or scene where forces contend, or events unfold.

Agency— Mode of exerting power; means of producing effects.

Attention— Act of close or careful observing or listening; ability or power to keep the mind on something.

Appreciation— Recognition of quality, value, significance, understanding, or magnitude of people/things.

Action— State or process of acting or doing; something that is done or accomplished; deed.

Aggregate— Collect or gather into a mass or whole.

Attunement— Bring into harmony or accord, related to Merleau-Ponty’s concept of Optimal Grip.

Augment— Make greater, more numerous, larger, or more intense.

Agility– Moving quickly/easily; nimbleness; Ability to think/draw conclusions quickly; intellectual acuity.

Adaptability— The ability to change (or be changed) to fit changed circumstances; suitability; fittedness.

Acumen— Exceptional discernment and judgment, especially in practical matters.

Alignment— Arrangement of groups or forces in relation to one another.

Acceptance—Non-judgmental awareness and embracing of thoughts, feelings, and sensations as they occur.

Arousal— State of physiological alertness and readiness for action.

Appraisal– Act of estimating or judging the nature or value of something or someone.

Awakening— Coming into awareness.

Altruism— Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.

Awe— Emotion combining veneration and wonder that is inspired by the sacred or sublime.

Aesthetics— Dealing with the nature, expression, and perception of beauty, as in the fine arts.

Authenticity— Fidelity to one's own personality, spirit, or character

Age— Period of time dominated by a central figure or prominent feature.

Arduous— Hard to accomplish or achieve; marked by great labor or effort; strenuous.

Actuality— Fact; reality.

Apocalypse— Revelation, disclosure; uncover, disclose, reveal; insight, vision; hallucination.

Attachment– Feeling that binds one to a person, thing, cause, ideal, or the like; devotion; regard.

Aversion— Avoidance of thing, situation, or behavior due to association with unpleasant/painful stimulus.

Affect– Produce an emotional response in (someone).

Ambiguity— Doubtfulness or uncertainty; capable of being understood in multiple senses or ways.

Alienation— Emotional isolation or dissociation; estrangement.

Anxiety— Uncertainty/fear resulting from anticipation of a real or imaginary threatening event/situation. 

Animosity— Bitter hostility or open enmity.

1. Many indigenous forms of knowing and interacting with the world are much more holistic in their posture, but I am not going to delve into them here.