diamond, brilliant, reflection, facets, insights, dialogue, gemstones, traditions, dynamics.

Two basic approaches are taken: explore idealized understandings of the dynamics of psycho-social perfection as a self-contained, sustainable experience.

Phrases such as "living happily ever after", or references to life in Heaven or in Eden -- or metaphorically at the End of the Rainbow -- offer few clues as to how people would survive the kind of boredom that sets in after a few weeks on an ideal holiday -- or the rejection by young people of life in an idyllic rural community.

The intentional communities that endeavour to put such utopian ideals into practice are only attractive to a small minority -- and generally have problems surviving several generations due to rejection by the younger generation (cf communes, kibbutzim, etc).

Tragically their main "interest" to any audience comes from the psycho-dynamics of their tensions, dysfunctionalities and breakdown.

Few games exemplifying the dynamics of peace have been successfully designed or attracted dedicated, skilled players.

Groupings of people: Coherence from this perspective may usefully be discussed under a variety of headings: Community: Much has been made of various forms of community as an ideal -- and currently in the international promotion of sustainable community.

The major religions, in their different traditions, have long developed the model whether in the monasteries of Christianity, Buddhist sanghas (monasteries), Hindu ashrams, or Muslim communities.

In various ways any such intentional community seeks to sustain the psycho-social life of the individual within the whole -- notably through the dynamics of interaction with the diversity of those living within such a framework.

Some non-intentional Christian communities in the looser sense (as in the case of the Mormons) focus very heavily on cultivating a pattern of interaction and support within their communities.

The extensive exploration over recent decades of sensitivity groups, and various forms of group dynamics, taking such extremes as meditation groups and dialogue groups, offer other variants on the sense of coherence possible.

As with "community", but possibly more closely defined, the set of members may provide an array of psychic mirrors for each other as carriers of each others sub-personalities and their dynamics.

Web: Internet enthusiasts reject any reservations about its positive implications, as voiced by Talbott (1995), and Roszack (1994).

For some, it is the exemplification of global consciousness.

Recent moves towards a "semantic web" and the possibility of a "global brain" offer other ways of exploring this metaphor of coherence (Judge, 2001) **Cell: Living cell / Conception / Ontogenesis Gemstones as an accessible metaphoric exemplar of the dynamics of coherence Cut gemstones, in the form of jewels, provide a symbolic focus for a number of dimensions highlighted in the disparate examples above.

Some traditions (as noted below) with a form of practice or discipline use gemstones, especially diamond, to suggest qualities and patterns of focusing insight.

Collection and refraction of light: Light entering a gem will always bend toward the normal.

The most brilliant gemstones are those whose pavilion facets (at the bottom of the stone) act like mirrors, reflecting light back up through the table and crown (top of stone) to the eye.

Whether light leaving a gemstone is internally reflected or passed through a facet is determined by the angle at which it strikes the facet and the refractive index of the gemstone.

lustre is the quantity and quality of light reflecting from the surfaces, namely the brilliancy of a stone by reflected light, determined by the amount of incident light reflected from its surface.

Forms of lustre are: (1) adamantine, as in diamond and some zircons, having a high refractive index; (2) vitreous, glass-like as in quartz and most gemstones (quartz, ruby, sapphire); (3) resinous, as in amber and certain garnets; (4) waxy, as in turquoise; (5) pearly, as in moonstone; (6) silky, as in tiger's eye quartz and satin-spar; and (7) metallic, as in pyrite and gold.

Degrees or intensity of lustre that are distinguished are: splendent, the surface reflects light as in a mirror; shining, objects are reflected indistinctly; glistening or glimmering, denotes a still more feeble lustre; dull, little or no lustre.

refraction: reflection within the stone of the greater part of the light ray, which bends as it enters the denser medium of the gem to a degree dependent upon refractive index.

Total reflection is the phenomenon occurring when a ray of light travelling through a denser medium to a rarer medium at an angle greater than the critical angle suffers complete reflection back through the denser medium.

The amount being measured by the difference between the maximum and minimum refractive indices in an anisotopic mineral.

Notably seen in zircon, rutile, and sphene and in a variety of calcite.

dispersion or "fire" (also called refraction): the separation of light into its separate colours with the highest dispersion rates associated with with the highest light refraction (rutile, sphene, diamond, zircon).

Dispersion is the amount of rainbow colors (multi-coloured flashes) returned to the eye from within the diamond.

Good fire can only be achieved with very good to excellent proportions.

Along with life, scintillation, refraction and dispersion, a word used to describe the ability of a diamond to "sparkle" in response to the introduction of light.

Brilliance should not be confused with fire, which is the multicolored flashes you see coming out of diamonds and some other gems.

pleochroism: colour changes evident from different angles in gemstones (iolite, alexandrite, andalusite), provided it is cut appropriately to show off the different colours.

When light passes through a doubly refractive gemstone, the light is split into two rays which are polarized at right angles to each other and travel at differing velocities through the gemstone.

circular polarization: a peculiar property of quartz, among gemstones, of rotating the plane of polarization of a ray of light passing parallel to the optic axis, and showing an interference figure in convergent Polaris light, in which the arms do not meet at the centre, the four arms stopping at the innermost ring.

asterism (also diasterism and epiasterism): a reflection from fibres or fibrous cavities in a stone, cut en-cabochon with its base parallel to the basal plane of the crystal, in a similar manner to chatoyant stones but having three sets of fibres crossing at angles of 60 (hence a six-rayed star), or at 90 (a four-rayed star).

Asterias stones exhibiting a four, six or twelve-rayed star of light when cut en-cabochon in the correct crystallographic direction.

Degrees of transparency are classed according to the amount of light which penetrates the substance **Glossary of Defect Terminology [more] Cut / Make: How well a diamond is cut determines its brilliance.

The skill of the cutter unlocks the natural beauty of a diamond, revealing all of its hidden fire and brilliance.

Some 70 percent of the world's gem-quality diamonds are shaped using the full 58 facets [see diagram] of the Round Brilliant Cut.

It is important that these are cut to precise angles.

In 1919 Marcel Tolkowsky published a doctoral dissertation presenting a theory about the exact cutting angles which would create the most proportionate balance of brilliance and dispersion in a gem-quality diamond.

A backlash against these standards of the Ideal Cut in the 1950s was based on the argument that the proportions of his Ideal Cut created an inherent over-abundance of dispersion, or "fire," which distracted from the diamond's brilliance.

The study is claimed to confirm scientifically what good jewelers and diamond cutters had always known: a diamond does not have to be cut to a few rigid parameters to achieve superior brilliance [more].

Summary of gemstone faceting and crystals An Annex (http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/diamondx.php) is used to explore typical gemstone cuts and faceting, as well as providing a tabular presentation of the relationship of many common gemstones to crystal systems and classes.

Current metaphoric applications of gemstones Major use is made of the diamond, notably in Buddhist traditions, as a metaphor of a particular emergent order of the mind and the understanding of that order as a "vehicle", or "body", for the spirit.

Curiously, however, this ultimate development of human consciousness is preceded in such traditions by intermediary stages of lesser complexity associated to some degree with the Indian system of chakras shared by Buddhism and Hinduism.

The diamond is notably associated with the seventh chakra, and other gemstones are associated with other chakras -- but not explicitly with any associated forms of awareness, except with respect to healing.

It would be encouraging to believe that the traditional role of of the bejewelled crowns of royalty pointed to a form of enlightened governance in which the crowning some way facilitated a diamond mind in the integration of disparate insights and the engendering of coherence in society.

Ring kissing: Rings, bearing gemstones, have long been a symbol of secular or spiritual authority -- notably in western secret societies, including the Mafia.

Enlightening dialogue dynamics The various themes explored above are used here to highlight the possibility of new ways in which dialogue within communities can be enhanced to new levels.

Typically conceptual models are based on a 2 x 2 matrix, through which four disparate dimensions are held in relationship -- echoing strangely the traditional integrative challenge expressed metaphorically in terms of earth, water, air and fire.

Such models may have an inherent bias positioning one cell as exemplifying a totally unsatisfactory situation, two others as less unsatisfactory efforts at correcting the condition in contrasting ways, and a fourth that is indicative of the satisfactory goal.

The cells may be seen as facets of a discourse -- facets that may well be reflected in facet-based document classification systems as originated by S R Ranganathan [more; more; more] and offering retrieval of information from facet spaces [more].

under the "girdle", and invisible from above the "table" of the diamond, are the 16 "lower girdle facets", associated with a further 8 "pavillion facets"; the "lower girdle facets" might be considered to the back-room support team in any summit dialogue, or those otherwise "below the salt".

A feminist would probably argue that in a masculine world, the 8 spouses (the "women behind the men") correspond to the 8 "pavillion facets".

It is from these that the light is reflected back through the table.

More symbolically the facets below the girdle might be considered to correspond to the unconscious, or even the "negative" counterpart to the "positive" above the girdle.

the "culet" (from the French cul) as the very small flat face at the base of a gem, cut parallel to the table to prevent splintering (and deriving from personal armour plating designed to protect the "bum"), again invites, in the case of a "roundtable", various realistic comparisons (of which the least pejoratively euphemistic might be "spin doctor").

The structure of a Round Brilliant Cut diamond of 58 facets may also be reviewed in the light of the chakra system in which each chakra is associated with a circular mandala.

Thus the part above "the girdle" of the diamond is known as the "crown", just as the seventh chakra is known as the "crown chakra" -- and traditionally it would be those of royal or noble attribute that would wear a bejewelled "crown".

The "culet" might well be seen as corresponding to the first chakra, at the base of the spine.

In fact taking horizontal slices through the diamond effectively gives a series of mandala shapes whose component parts are strikingly equivalent to those traditionally associated with each of the other chakras.

Similar correspondences of potential significance may emerge from consideration of the Radiant Cut with 62-70 facets or of the Princess Cut of 76 facets.

Each such polyhedral combination could be unfolded, as for the conceptual models (discussed earlier), into a characteristic 2D polyhedral net.

These could be explored as potentially ideal options for the design of a dialogue or negotiating table.

Note also the distinction from the topological net of the dimaond as a crystral lattice structure [more; more] Providing a container for the dynamics of coherence: Whilst using a particular diamond cut may provide an interesting metaphor for the configuration of participants in a dialogue, the challenge is to find ways to use it to explore the dynamics of dialogue that the configuration makes possible.

Two examples increase the credibility of such an investigation: Interactive human motion acquisition from video sequences: Human motion modelling for animation and virtual reality has reached a level of capturing live motion data from people using various visual and non-visual sensors [more].

The "movement of the ball between players" in football games can now be converted for dynamic analysis, notably to improve game strategy.

Tracking user movement within websites: This is an important aspect of finding ways to ensure that a website retain users attention -- maximizing "stickiness".

Another is provided by fitting test subjects with gear that follows eyeballs from webpage to webpage.

Computer mediated discourse: Computer-mediated discourse is the communication produced when human beings interact with one another by transmitting messages via networked computers.

The study of computer-mediated discourse (henceforth CMD) is a specialization within the broader interdisciplinary study of computer-mediated communication (CMC), distinguished by its focus on language and language use in computer networked environments, and by its use of methods of discourse analysis to address that focus.

Issues that might be considered include: significance of subjective evaluations that there is "lots of energy around" or "good vibrations" how the nature, direction and quality of the sources of insight feeding into the dialogue through its facets may be understood in terms of light incident on a diamond how insights reflected from one facet of the topic to another may be understood in terms of light reflected between facets in a diamond how insights incident on one facet in a particular way may simply pass out of the dialogue environment, just as light may pass through a diamond without being enhanced how insights are enhanced through refraction, drawing them together, just as light enhancement results from light being subject to non-linear refraction towards the normal within a diamond -- to a greater degree than within other substances (because of its high refractive index) how experience of dialogue dynamics as "seductive" may be understood in terms of the seductive qualities of a diamond how insights incident on the group through the array of participants "at the table", bounced around by the "back room" support teams ("smoke filled rooms"), then emerging enhanced through the table may be usefully compared to the movement of light incident on the crown facets and reflected back from the pavillion facets through the table the conditions under which greater complexity in the organization of the facets of a dialogue may lead to its greater enhancement and "brilliance" in contrast with simpler organization -- as suggested by differences in enhancement of light in diamonds of simpler or more complex cuts how might a community of the wise understand its process of "holding the light" when such light, unlike proprietary insights, is denatured by being grasped and held; is the "holding" a process of reflecting it back amongst the participants -- somewhat akin to the movement of a frisbee (and as opposed to tennis)?

Would exploration of such questions improve the quality of global summits and their final communiqués?

How would this contrast with a facetted structure of mirrored surfaces, that glittered in reflecting back much-hyped external insights, but in no way performed any other insight enhancing function?

What does this imply for any metaphoric equivalent -- or for the achievement of any form of diamond mind or body?

Perfect lies: Furthermore the sparkle of diamond is essentially lifeless -- although metaphorically a distinction can be made between dead perfection and the "cold fire" that may disguise compassion.

For a jewel to work its magic it has to be associated with a person whom it enhances, or who enhances it.

"Withdrawing into the stones": The lie highlights the value of reflecting on the occasional legend, notably amongst the Celts, of earlier "ancestral" races that have "withdrawn into the stones" -- or of those that may have been trapped therein, like Merlin and the proverbial geni in the bottle.

In some ways these echo testimonies of many rural folk in Ireland who distinguish between the "sidhe" who are seen walking on the ground after sunset, and the "Sluagh Sidhe", the fairy host who travel through the air at night, and are known to "take" mortals with them on their journeys.

This pattern of 4-fold distinction, between those on "high" and those "below", is reminiscent of the traditional distinction amongst the sidhe with their "high" and "low" courts, whether "unseely" (selfish and wrathful) or "seely" (unselfish and peaceful).

Also worth careful consideration in this connection is the nature of the withdrawal of the ever-present ("Dreamtime") ancestors of the aboriginal peoples of Australia "into the landscape".

Traces of this mytho-poetic understanding remain in many indigenous cultures (see Darrell Posey (Ed.): Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity, 2000) and amongst those people described as "fey" -- notably amongst Celtic peoples imbued by the remnants of the cultural influence of the Tuatha De Danaan.

Psycho-physics: Access to such realms, in the light of the diamond metaphor, may be associated with analogues within the psyche [more] to light effects such as opalescence (a common descriptor of the Sidhe) and polarization -- "turning a corner and disappearing", partly recalled by such wiccan terms as "going widdershins".

The identities sustained by the dynamics within process reality are then effectively "aliens" -- unrecognizable from a static perspective to which they are not "linked".

The picture frame does not describe or help understand the contents of the picture.

It is appropriate to note the manner in which Japanese management language is currently influenced by such classical texts as The Book of Five Rings (Miyamoto Musashi, 1982 tr) which is a treatise on swordsmanship expressed in poetic metaphor [more].

Tinkering: Exploring artifacts, how they work, how they can be taken apart, how the broken can be repaired, how disparate parts may be used to create something unforeseen -- an invention.

They are often recognized as providing the most salutary learnings for those who have unknowingly framed their identities in particular ways that they subsequently discover to have been fruitfully challenged by alternative perspectives.

Why is there a tendency to fall back into the most mechanical framings of any such relationship?

But whilst somewhat meaningful in relation to the material world, it is necessary to look elsewhere for their equivalents in the flow and other worlds.

A particularly interesting possibility is offered, ironically, by the patterns of vices and virtues traditionally articulated by different religions from West and East.

One approach is to use them as templates through which to identify the "virtues" and "vices" of particular movements in sports like those named above -- just as there are virtues and vices in driving an automobile or successfully piloting a helicopter.

These points raise the question of a (mind) experiment in identifying the generic range of conceptual skills that might be required to navigate alternative reality of any kind.

Discipline in dialogue: The diamond metaphor points to a degree of discipline in the movement of light that is echoed in the disciplined practice of attention in Diamond Way Buddhism, itself framed by the Eightfold Way -- namely one of the several Buddhist framings of an appropriate set of virtues to avoid certain "hindrances".

The "eye-gaze pattern" [more] in viewing features of the environment is a concern in learning, and in disciplines calling for attention and learning, as well as in virtual environments [more].

The associations reflect or resonate with each other like light bouncing between facets -- with the final meaning emerging as with light through the "table" of a diamond.

Enlightening dialogue: How attention is enhanced through such dialogue may be usefully compared to the function of a particle accelerator.

The need for reflection is avoided by the use of magnets to bend the particle beam continuously -- to avoid "quenching" by contact with the wall.

In considering this, it is worth exploring the faceting process through which polyhedra are constructed, and their representation in virtual reality [more].

As R Buckminister Fuller stated, every such polyhedra is a system -- in this case a system for the movement of insight to enlighten the dialogue, whether internal (in meditation), within a group, or between groups.

The challenge will be to distinguish between the useful learnings of those who have traditionally used variants of such configurations (notably in magical rituals [more]) and the illusory distractions and abuses to which they may lend themselves.

It is here that there is merit in following the work of Francisco Varela (see references below) on "embodied mind".

There is also a case for recognizing a degree of isomorphism between any inner dialogue and any outer dialogue within a group -- each may be considered a kind of reflection or constraint on the other and its development.