We can’t handle the new attribute pairs in the same way we did with Structure Quadrants. Instead of having four equivalent elements, we have two distinctive pairs. Consistency and impermanence are unique enough to be the target of accentuation, but balance and imbalance are status conditions and should always be available. So, we can have the elements of the first pair separated, but the second pair is indivisible—not in the sense of being conceptually fused, but in the sense that the potential of both must always be preserved.
The issue of higher instability in second order attribute pairs was raised before. This brings out a question:
- What would happen if the required availability of balance and imbalance is broken?
If their relation is no longer symmetrical, it would result on a detrimental interstitial status. Knowing this, we can try to represent a state in which those elements are in symmetry and another state in which they are not. Luckily for us, we already have an operator that represent this last state, but we didn’t have a use for until now: the Asymmetry (≢) operator.
- Available Status: Imbalance ≡ Balance
- Detrimental Status: Imbalance ≢ Balance
Now that we have these interstitial status, we can concatenate them to the accentuations of Consistency and Impermanence. This concatenation creates status dichotomies:
| STATUS DICHOTOMIES | SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION |
|---|---|
| (Consistency ← Impermanence) ^ (Imbalance ≡ Balance) = Functionality | (C ← I) ^ (b ≡ B) = C≡ |
| (Consistency ← Impermanence) ^ (Imbalance ≢ Balance) = Dysfunctionality | (C ← I) ^ (b ≢ B) = C≢ |
| (Impermanence ← Consistency) ^ (Imbalance ≡ Balance) = Imperdurability | (I ← C) ^ (b ≡ B) = I≡ |
| (Impermanence ← Consistency) ^ (Imbalance ≢ Balance) = Perdurability | (I ← C) ^ (b ≢ B) = I≢ |
Symbolic Note: In each status dichotomy symbol, the letter represents the primary accentuated attribute (e.g. C for Consistency, I for Impermanence), while the symbol to the right (≡ or ≢) reflects the interstitial status (symmetrical or asymmetrical). These are not equations, but concise tokens: {C≡} signals a functional state of Consistency within a symmetrical balance. These tokens will allow us to express more complex philosophical equations.
These are so far the first Conciliatorics’ elements that have a clear value judgement attached to them. Functionality, being the interstitial child of a symmetrical status, is desirable—as opposed to dysfunctionality, which is harmful. While this is fairly intuitive, the desirability connotation of imperdurability will be strange to many of us. Even more odd is presenting perdurability as detrimental, which usually has a positive association rooted in our biological instincts to perdure.
This counterintuitive association will be the focus of our next topic, since this desire for functionality and perdurability is the root of our biggest obstacles for systemic reconciliation.