Conceptual Dipoles in Scybernethics
Conceptual dipoles are a key element of the scybernethics framework, serving as a tool for analysis and understanding, and playing a practical role in the scybernethics methodological inquiry.
Definition and Nature
- Conceptual dipoles are pairs of linguistic terms (notions or concepts) that are either complementary or in opposition to each other. Examples include “linearity/circularity,” “form/process,” “inside/outside,” “logic/analogic,” “localized/distributed,” and “intentionality/agency”. They also include “third person / first person point of views” and “natural sciences / humanities and social sciences”.
- These dipoles are not merely abstract ideas, but are recognized as structuring disciplinary theories and cognitive domains.
- A fundamental phenomenological characteristic of conceptual dipoles is their asymmetrical nature. One term is typically easier to define and formalize, while the other is more elusive, “soapy”, and difficult to grasp. For instance, in the “explanation/understanding” dipole, explanation is more readily formalized, while understanding is more difficult to pin down.

Practical Role in Scybernethics Methodology
- Highlighting Tensions and Complexities: Conceptual dipoles are used to explore tensions and complexities in thought. They help to reveal the limitations and blind spots of each perspective by showing that each side of the dipole highlights a different approach to understanding a concept.
- Focus on the “Weaker” Side: Scybernethics emphasizes an ethical self-imperative to focus attention on the “weaker” side of the dipole. This is the side that is more difficult to grasp and formalize. By focusing on the “weaker” side, a deeper understanding is achieved by pushing on one’s cognitive limits and attending to what is not easily formalized. This approach helps to counteract bias toward simpler, more easily formalized concepts.
- Exploratory Dialectical Dialogic: This is a systematic method of exploring conceptual dipoles by understanding the two concepts distinctly, their complementarity, and their contexts. It involves understanding each term separately, seeing how they complement each other, and examining the contexts in which they appear.

- Suspension of Judgement: Rather than forcing a synthesis, the tension between the two poles of the dipole is temporarily held in suspension. This allows for a more nuanced understanding to emerge over time.
- “Weighing”: The two elements of a dipole are evaluated by an internalized gesture of “weighing,” as if the semantic values of each pole were assimilated to a mass held in each internal “hand”. This allows one to indicate a difference or preference. It’s a form of real “com-putation” in scybernethics, which is an analogic and situated meaning-making transformative operation.
- Iterative Process: The exploration of conceptual dipoles is part of an iterative process in scybernethics, which involves cycles between theory and practice, knowledge and self-reflection, and computer simulations and phenomenological inquiry.
- Hermeneutic/heuristic circulation: This iterative process of exploration leads in time to the enaction of a co-determining circular and recursive comprehensive 1P-3P logic exemplified by the second-order Logic² where distinctions are both mono-dimensional AND hierarchical (second-order distinctions²).
N.B.: This last point is a tool to understand the important relation between the objectivist natural sciences epistemology (3P-Only) and the observer-actor integrated one of human and social sciences, phenomenology and techno-philosophy playing here a bridging transjective role.

Relations to Key Scybernethics Concepts:
- Second-Order Thinking: Conceptual dipoles are explored using second-order thinking, which involves reflecting on the concept itself, the process of conceptualization, and the conceptualizer (the self). By applying second-order thinking, scybernethics avoids reducing the dipole to a one-dimensional perspective.
- Ambijective Gesture: Conceptual dipoles are related to the ambijective gesture, which is a cyclical process between cultural objectification and phenomenological subjectification. The exploration of conceptual dipoles through the ambijective gesture allows for a deeper integration of subjective experience and objective understanding.

- Processual DimenTion: The emphasis on the “weaker” side of the dipole aligns with the scybernethics focus on the “processual dimenTion,” which is what remains when form is subtracted (it is a non-defining negative operation). The processual dimenTion is unobjectifiable, dynamic like an existential flux, and vital for generating meaning and allowing its vital and crucial circulation (“meaning and sense-making must flow”). Conceptual dipoles are a tool that can help to bring attention to this unobjectifiable “processual dimenTion” by providing a contrasting “formal” element.

- Quasi-bidimensionality: Conceptual dipoles are also connected to the idea of quasi-bidimensionality and the dia-gram. The form/process dipole is a key conceptual dipole and a major theme of scybernethics, relating to the hermeneutical and heuristical circulation between 1st and 3rd person perspectives. This is represented in a dia-gram, which is a second-order spatialized/formalized double conceptual dipole: the form/process 1st/3d PP matrix.

- Critique of Western Rationality: The use of conceptual dipoles and the emphasis on the “weaker” side is part of a larger critique of Western rationality. Scybernethics critiques the tendency of Western thought to prioritize the “easy” to formalize side of the dipole, leading to an “objectification fallacy” that ignores the observer-actor.
In summary, conceptual dipoles are a central tool in scybernethics that facilitates a deeper, more nuanced understanding of complex concepts. They are used to explore the interplay between different perspectives and to resist the tendency towards oversimplification. They also encourage a shift from purely objective or subjective approaches towards a more integrated view of knowledge, understanding that both are necessary for an accurate understanding of the world. By using conceptual dipoles, scybernethics seeks to push the boundaries of traditional thought and explore new possibilities for understanding.
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