C.
STRUCTURAL OUTLINER
The package as
described might usefully be associated with another feature. "Text outliner" is a
term used in word- processing packages to describe the ability to organize complex documents
into nested hierarchies of chapters, sections, paragraphs and sub-elements. These hierarchies
may be optionally "collapsed" to allow the user to focus on those levels of interest and to
navigate around a complex document. Text may be added at any level, but kept from view until
requested. An index to the whole may be prepared from the outline down to whatever level of
detail is required.
The proposed package
in many ways functions as a structural equivalent to the text outliner.
Hence the expression "structural outliner". Users are free to zoom between levels of structural
complexity (as in CAD applications) -- each with text or other information associated with their
structural features.
The package envisaged
suggests the need for a computer- based structural "outliner" to
facilitate a non-linear approach to the creative production of such "conceptual
keystones". The need for a more integrative approach may be seen in the occasional
efforts to group conceptual elements, basic to a strategy, into a table, a pie-chart, a
diagram, or even into a form of mandala. Although currently simplistic, the structure
provides an integrative perspective that links a variety of disparate, but
complementary, elements that together ensure the viability of the larger pattern.
The required package
therefore focuses initially on the design of computer software (possibly
adapting an existing package) for which an appropriate database is then developed in
collaboration with a number of bodies. The intention is then to use these tools to provide a
"catalytic context" from which new patterns of group and institutional action could
emerge.
The principal output would not therefore be any form of "report" but rather a piece of software
(possibly a prototype). It is the dissemination of this software, ultimately through commercial
channels, which would enable many people to explore the tool as a "collaboration enhancing"
device. In this sense the real objective of the package is new forms of collaboration. In
subsequent use the database would be receptive to user- enhancement, notably to patterns of
concepts from non- western cultures.
It is envisaged
that such a PC-based structural outliner would be used in a manner somewhat
similar to the conventional text outliners and mind mapping aids. However the software would
offer many ways of configuring the evolving set of elements within a variety of non-linear
structural frameworks, whether in two or three dimensions. The geometric and symmetric
properties of these would be used to suggest levels of coherence and integration absent from
conventional presentations.
Its claim to originality
would lie in its ability to open up (and mid-wife) new and alternative
patterns of collaboration -- especially across discipline and faction boundaries. In creating this
device, the purpose of inter- institutional collaboration would be to enrich its scope (as
represented by the database) and explore opportunities it opened up (specifically in relation to
institutional arrangements for sustainable development).
In the light of
a number of collaborative international exercises (and notably the design of a
collaborative process culminating in the Inter-Sectoral Dialogue in Rio de Janeiro on the
occasion of the Earth Summit), it is legitimate to consider whether there is not a strategically
more appropriate approach to encourage imaginative, interdisciplinary work of relevance to the
policy
Scaffolding possibilities
Many of the geometric
operations basic to fruitful exploration of such a structural outliner are
detailed in a classic study by Robert Williams: The Geometrical Foundation of Natural
Structure; a source book of design (New York, Dover, 1979). Part 3 of that work details 10
principal methods through which polygons and polyhedra can be generated or have identity
changes. These include: vertex motion, fold, reciprocation, truncation, rotation- translation,
augmentation- deletion, fistulation, distortion, dissection, symmetry integration. It is such
operations which are required to explore transformations between structures whose features
are used to carry the conceptual (and even symbolic) significance basic to any new patterns of
collaboration.
Structurally an
agenda or a conference programme, even a multi-track program, is rather
simple -- even simplistic -- especially when considered in relation to the complex ecology of
problems and organizations which are supposedly to be interrelated effectively through it. Is it
any wonder that conferences are relatively ineffective at coming to grips with complex issues?
What is being attempted is in defiance of Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety.
The issue is therefore
how to enable users to collectively design more complex forms of
conceptual scaffolding to hold in place embryonic or unstable concepts until other concepts can
be fitted into the pattern to lock them into place. Ideally, of course, it is the conferencing
software which should provide such scaffolding. And, like the scaffolding for buildings, it should
be adjustable to different structural configurations as the building grows.
Four forms of scaffolding
are especially interesting: symmetrical structures; tensegrity structures;
resonance hybrids; embedding data in images.
Dynamic scaffolding and structural transformation
The need for conceptual
scaffolding is clear given the kinds of complexity with which society
has to work. The challenge of making the more complex structures comprehensible is also clear
-- those most appropriate to the challenge of sustainable development may be beyond the
ability of any single human mind to grasp. But any form of development implies structural
transformation. Whilst transforming simplistic structures like conference agendas and
organization charts may pose little challenge, the transformation of the complex structures
described earlier are quite another matter.
The process of
conceptual or social transformation appears to call for a form of dynamic
scaffolding which provides some form of continuity -- from stage to stage -- through the
transformation process. What we are looking for is a form of scaffolding onto which the
conference's insights can be mapped at Stage I. The relationships in this mapping would then be
stretched or changed in the transformation to Stage II, which might be some very different kind
of structure -- suggesting new kinds of relationships between the concepts so bound (and
between their proponents in the conference).
There are few examples
of this kind of structure: image transformation or "morphing"; vector
equilibrium.
"Structural outliner" library
Of greater potential
interest is the possibility of building up and maintaining a structural library of
concepts organized into sets. Whether in cultural or spiritual traditions, or in the theories of the
natural and social sciences, there are a multitude of clearly defined sets of concepts. These
range from religion (eg 3-fold trinity, 8- fold way), psychology (eg 4-fold Jungian types), to
chemistry (8- group periodic table), and the principles of many international programmes of
action.
The user would
be able to draw upon a library of such structural templates based on symmetric
or aesthetically balanced designs whether: tables (matrices) in 2D and 3D; polygons;
polyhedra; or tensegrities; traditional forms (mandalas, etc).
In each case there
is merit for a user to be able to scan through a library on the basis of:
The user can then
select the set and/or the form as a basis for the organization of his own data.
Note that it could be fed into some more comprehensive display as a detail that is accessible by
zooming.
An associated thesaurus
would be designed to provide facilities beyond those usually provided
by such a function in a word-processing environment:
-
(a) Complements:
Its main function would be to facilitate selection of complementary
sets of terms, depending on the size of the set with which the user was working. With
respect to a single element set, the synonym function is all that is called for. As usual,
synonyms and antonyms are required for what amounts to two element sets. But what
is also required is the ability to process items in 3-part, 4- part sets.
(b) Broader / Narrower: The thesaurus would also be used to enable identification
of
terms corresponding to broader or narrower terms, especially the contextual terms
appropriate to the set as a whole.
-
(c) Traditional
sets: This feature would enable users to browse relevant traditional
sets of differing numbers of elements corresponding to the size of the set being worked
(tertiaries, quaternaries, etc).
- (d) Academic sets: This feature
would offer access to sets elaborated in contemporary
academic studies.
- (e) User modified: The user would
of course need to be able to amend the thesaurus
in the light of specialized interests and evaluation of the library versions. The user would
build up a library of complementary sets reflecting his/her specialized concerns and
sense of the balance between the elements.
Restructuring
(by rules, by library,
or by indications)
Many features could
be developed in the light of existing packages to restructure displays,
maintaining the relationships to data. They might include:
1. Constraints
