The Scope of this research

A method based on topology – what kind?

Topology is a geometric discipline of mathematics. It studies small distortions that do not change the properties of a geometric figure and involves geometric dimensions (e.g. 2D, 3D…), but it has come to primarily be used to describe patterns and complex shapes, or large transformations.

Here, the topology used remains quite simple, refers to shaping (change process) rather than shapes, and is non-algorithmic. This kind of modelling is useful in health: for example, subtle alterations of physiology can be felt but are not detected by instruments or external observation. Yet they can be used as indicators of need, even before ‘early’ signs of disease, just as large deformations are symptoms of established disease or lost organic integrity.

This modelling is also a dimensional logic of shifting states, or stages of deployment in a situation. This can be used to understand how it shapes up, whether progressively, simultaneously, or suddenly, and therefore to know the whence and wither of the situation. For example, it helps understand conflicts of general perspectives on life and the current difficulty in changing human behaviour on the planet.

Modelling what other methods cannot explain

This research addresses generically a domain that other methods of knowledge, specific and general, leave mostly unexplained, such as idiopathic medical conditions, theoretical anomalies, paradoxical deployment of opposites, and some enigmas of human behaviour still considered mysterious or with controversial explanations.

For example, it sheds new light on the societal dissonance, sensitivity, and unusual needs of individuals who are neurologically non-typical. This impacts why organised society has difficulty accommodating them, or even taking this into account. Applied as a topologic ecology of health, for a person or the planet, the method offers new options at various scales.

This research responded to a call, in the 1990s, by some theorists for a new way of looking at things, when the 1980s somehow did not solve the problems expected to be soon solved (e.g. pollution, overpopulation), but created new problems. Complex systems have since been used to model crises themselves, how we manage or seek to learn to live with them (in particular in medical sub-clinical syndromes), and to adapt to critical conditions by transforming, or returning to a previous state.

‘Gauging’ crisis and limits to resorb them early, rather than describing them after the fact

The Animated Geometry presented on this website enables to model the arising of crisis states (manifest in early signs) and reveals that they could rather be altogether resorbed. This method can serve to ‘gauge’ situations that are still only near-critical, and enables action before crisis or catastrophe looms or transformation becomes necessary.

Given the generic scope of this work, the website offers varied ways of approaching several implications of the research findings.

Various ways to use the understanding of why new solutions keep creating more problems, and of  ‘not separating’

The current global situation is problematic at several scales: climate change, the general drift in human health and sanity, the role of economic development in poverty and education, social polarisations, the impact of society on human intelligence (rising and falling, in different populations), the effects of AI and other technologies, biodiversity, and dwindling resources needed for biological life itself. The acceleration and spiraling out of hand of the gaps increase the urgency to have a way of understanding why all this is, without separating scales, biosphere from humans, or local from global situations.

To make significant change collaboratively, we must account for both our human or conscious differences and our human-being sameness, but also bring out their common operational ground with other animals and biological life. The trend towards de-fragmentaion is usually understood as a need to reintegrate parts, or integrate into new ‘wholes’, or to make complex connections, for example between research fields. This is useful, certainly, but this website is an opportunity to explore a new way of understanding this.

Doing, not just talking

The Foraging Station Experiment is one way to show by doing rather than just talking about theories, philosophies or numbers, in order to quickly initiate the collaboration between scales and actually begin working together.

If, like me, you wish to help break down barriers to acting effectively at all levels for and actions by everyone, you are warmly welcome to support this research and field experiment through sharing it to your network, offering the gift of your specialised expertise, or giving resources for the station.