Hidden Source of Social Ills

What's in a Name?

This analysis identified 7 distinct depiction paradigms.

The paradigms are biologically-based conceptual intermediaries between ourselves and the realities that have to be handled, managed, modified or otherwise dealt with. Reality in this case is referred to abstractly as an entity or more concretely as a situation.

The properties of the entity-situation are determined by the paradigm in use.

The approach duality, found via diagonals on a TET, are not complete opposites, but rather distinct and complementary. Paradigms on the lower-left to upper-right diagonal view entity-situations as bounded structures. The conventional scientific term here is "system", and the 4 paradigms produce recognizable varieties.
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The remaining 3 paradigms on the lower-right to upper-left diagonal view entity-situations as unbounded and unstructured.

Q: What conventional label is available for such phenomena?
A: There is none.

ClosedInappropriate labels

Terms like "aggregate" or "collection" were viewed as opposite to systems because they are unstructured, not goal seeking, and elements are unrelated. However, the complementary paradigms while they unstructured, are goal-seeking, and the elements are not necessarily unrelated.

More philosophical terms like "plenum, "field', 'manifold","matrix" are more like contexts for systems (meta-systems) and the labels seem quite unsuitable.

A Serious Omission

Each of the three paradigms—unitary, dualistic, causal—are readily recognizable and each has often been described in one way or another. However, combining the depictions as a class of "unbounded, unstructured wholes" does not appear to have been formalized, and so the class has no name.
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The Western intellectual tradition has a bias toward finitude and structure. Anything that resists structure or boundary is labeled vague, indeterminate, non-scientific, mystical. Those labels then exclude the phenomena from respectable theory.

It seems that the absence of a term is not a mistake—it’s a symptom of this historical and philosophical bias.

The notion of an unbounded unstructured entity is not unknown but it seems to have led thinkers to singular all-pervasive notions like: God (indivisible, absolute unity), the unconscious (formless irrational realm), Tao (undefinable flowing reality), the quantum field (infinite permeating potential).

My taxonomic studies involve observing and ordering phenomena linked to personal functioning. There is nothing new or obscure in such phenomena, which have been noticed and documented by thinkers, practitioners and scientists over the millennia. However there is something new in the absence of label.

I have a rule against creating neologisms because my focus is on ordering and I seek to depend on observations and names used by others. It is a puzzle that the present inquiry has turned up something which has not been previously noticed and labelled.

Scientists commonly dislike and avoid system thinking, without being aware that they are using the Causal depiction method. They do not seem to be aware of depiction as the unavoidable precursor to inquiry. So there is no urge to provide a label for that class of phenomena. Social scientists are particularly aware of political ideologies, polarized social conflicts, and the use of power, but do not penetrate to grasp the depiction methods that underpin these.

The identification of the depiction methods and their TET analysis has forcibly formalized representational freedom in a way that epistemology, systems theory, and philosophy have mostly elided.

Consequences for Social Discourse

If something is not named, then it cannot be manipulated in thought and that means it cannot be managed effectively in practice ... only suffered. Looking around at societies and civilizations, the persistence of repetitive cycles of unnecessary violence and widespread suffering must be a concern for all of us.

Why have thinkers and scientists failed to develop solutions? The proposition that not all depictions are system-like is a current blind-spot for them. Could this blind-spot be contributing to that failure?

It is impossible to avoid noticing that the three unbounded unstructured paradigms are all distinguished and defined by domination and the urge for power rather than efficacy. They avoid the genuine complexity of social life. These paradigms serve totalizing functions. Their manifestations revel in control, coercion, polarization, rebellion, conformity, herd-mentality, even mindlessness.

Since these paradigms are used without awareness of their underlying nature, discourse is weakened or even hijacked—either producing rigid views masquerading as reason or impeding a proper account of horrors that are being justified.

Conclusion

Standard system science is not equipped to recognize the dual architecture of awareness because it assumes that everything is a system, while conventional science steers away from reflection on its own approach.

The Taxonomy has now made explicit what others have either:

  • avoided because it lacks precision

  • missed because of lack of awareness of depiction

  • used intuitively without formalizing

The result is a failure to recognize and master intrinsically dominating ways of engaging with reality.

Originally posted: 20-Jul-2025.