🏮 e5 // Void Hunting (+ strategy development)

e5 // void hunting

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It’s one thing to navigate uncertainty. It’s another to cultivate the sensibility and savvy to make sense of ambiguity. And beyond that still—to perceive the shape of voids within our noösphere, tracing the contours of what remains unsaid, unseen, or deliberately obscured.

In this short podcast we attempt to go there, starting with the familiarity of known-knowns—before venturing into the domain of unknown-unknowns.

As ever, I also use this podcast as an opportunity to express benevolent and friendly scorn at the default conventions of my profession, scoffing at the cowardly defaults of strategy development, whilst stage-winking.

I should probably also point out that the intended audience for much of this are the fellow infinite players questing betwixt. In other words: those of us who find themselves between worlds; an established paradigm—replete with its established and crumbling defaults—and an emerging paradigm (or field of possibility) that is yet to reveal its true shape.

My hope is that this podcast offers comforting reassurance to those of us quietly dissatisfied with the conventions of our times, along with some encouragement that any intuition that beckons towards complexity and emergence is worth heeding.

A misleading episode summary by shoggoth

In this conversation, foxwizard explores the complexities of navigating uncertainty and the limitations of traditional scenario planning. He emphasises the importance of embracing ambiguity and unknown-unknowns, suggesting that strategy should emerge from relationality rather than rigid frameworks. The discussion also touches on the role of mystery and antimemetics in understanding the world, advocating for a cultivation of in-house intelligence and wisdom to navigate the complexities of modern challenges, particularly in the context of artificial intelligence and organisational dynamics.

Keywords: uncertainty, scenario planning, ambiguity, strategy, unknowns, relationality, artificial intelligence, wisdom, complexity

Navigating Uncertainty

Imagine you’re holding a single die in your hand. You roll it. Six possible outcomes. Each face equally likely. Simple enough, right?

Now, let’s make it a tad more complicated by adding an additional die. The probabilities shift—some outcomes now more likely than others. Roll enough times, and you’ll find a pattern: seven appears most often. This is the logic of uncertainty. It is calculable, even if the result is unknown in advance.

Schmenario Planning

Uncertainty presumes a closed system. It is a world of known unknowns—possibilities that can be anticipated, weighted, optimised for. The strategist sees the likelihood of a seven and prepares accordingly (investing some effort in considering scenarios where a six or eight might eventuate, with some thought also given to fives and nines).

But what if the context was changing? What if the dice themselves were not fixed, but morphing? Heck, what if it weren’t even dice, but mice dressed as men? Or, more likely: what if it were the countless co-emergent and inter-contingent dynamical interactions between agents and other complex non-linear processes that influence our autopoiesis and the future we are unfurling into?

This is ambiguity.

Ambiguous sensibilities

Ambiguity is a structural feature of complex systems, distinct from uncertainty in that it involves interpretative openness rather than probabilistic unknowns. It is inherent to open and adaptive systems, where unknown unknowns abound.

Recognising this clarifies that attempting to navigate only uncertainty assumes an omniscient and omnivident perspective—one suited to a mechanistic, deterministic, and teleological reality, rather than the entangled complexity we actually inhabit.

Ergo, savvy strategists, complexity practitioners and sense-makers seek to compliment scenario planning and the management of uncertainty by developing the sensibilities that allow for apt way-making amidst ambiguity.

At the heart of it, this looks like cultivating scenius or ‘collective genius’. I wrote of this a few years ago in the museletter titled Where Does Strategy Come From? The tl;dr is: relationality, collegiality, mutual encouragement, enthusiasm, curiosity, empathy and warmth.

It’s a combination of the quality of attention we apply to wide-boundary goals. It’s our acuity and attunement to emergence.

Pragmatic emergentism

Strategy is (or rather: ought be) a living conversation.

It begins (perhaps) with conversations around value, which (in turn) involves conversations about what is emerging in our world—advancements in technology, accelerated ecological collapse, societal and economic tensions, geopolitics, mindshare and sentiment—and more.

How do we orientate towards future relevance? There’s already way too much to take in, so we must cultivate some pragmatism.

Ergo, we both/and. We embrace the active, ongoing curiosity and empathy (coupled with acuity for emergence and the imaginal)—whilst at the same time attending to the needs of the moment, and orientating probabilistically towards the most likely scenarios (aka Bayesian inference).

Any orientation or strategic ‘plan’ we construct/fabricate is thus provisional—something to guide us, but also something to discard if we sense it isn’t serving.

Deliberative disambiguation

But really, this whole podcast and post is a chance for me to flex my petty and pedantic nature. Because I love complexity (as distinct from the bleak empty stillness of uniformity/oblivion). There’s nuance and hidden aliveness that beckons to be relished.

So, having now somewhat disambiguated between the oft-conflated concepts of uncertainty (known unknowns) and ambiguity (unknown unknowns)—something the dangerlam and I are well versed in, having published a lush print gazette on ambiguity—I would now like us to continue our tour of related-yet-distinct concepts.

Vagueness + nebulosity

Vagueness is when we lack precision—which is unhelpful when we need to make a decision swiftly (aka: ‘get to the point’).

You could say that vagueness is a bit like that other thing.

But! When working amidst the emergent—particularly when attempting to articulate the ineffable, or phenomena at higher orders of complexity—it’s quite understandable that you may come across as vague. You might even contradict yourself. And that’s okay! If you have patient companions to sense-make with, meaning and insight may yet be realised and conveyed.

Vagueness, once dialled in, begins to look more like ambiguity. If we allow for it, we can begin to sense the dynamic interplay of possible meanings whilst also being aware of the fact that there is more yet that we do not know.

For quite a while I have jokingly referred to my stage persona as Dr. Fox, “Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)”.

This is partly because I would sometimes be called The Fantastic Mr. Fox—but, uh, that’s a different fox. (I’m still fantastic, though). But mostly because I harbour an instinctive resistance to the the mechanistic and unpoetic reduction that people often crave in response to ambiguity.

It’s not that I mean to be difficult, it’s just that there’s some kind of trickster-daemon within me that delights in awakening folks to that which unfolds (rather than resolves). Bafflement enlivens the mind. I’m sure it’s still vexing, though.

Perhaps part of what I seek is to avoid the temptations of reification, or ‘misplaced concreteness’. Perhaps I seek to help folks see that, even as we provisionally embrace illusions of certainty and clarity, we do so whilst also acknowledging nebulosity—“the insubstantial, amorphous, non-separable, transient, ambiguous nature of meaningness” (as David Chapmen so eloquently writes).

But then again, if some philosophy-bro is being needlessly vague, I would probably humour-spike it with accurate-yet-crass examples. So, yeah: there’s a time and place.

Where was I?

Imbibing mystery

We are getting closer to The Real Question™️ I sought to posit in this podcast and post. One that must be approached with surreptitious obliquity.

But before we do: mystery!

Related to themes of uncertainty, ambiguity, and the unknown, is mystery.

“We live in a time that no longer tolerates mystery,” writes mythologist Martin Shaw in Smoke Hole. “We either colonize it with explanation or banish it as superstition.”

Martin Shaw has penned an essay on Navigating the Mysteries. He is less petty and pedantic than this wizard, and so is quite happy to use ‘uncertainty’ in ways that would equally be expressed as ambiguity. But his sensibilities remain as apt as ever.

This pairs well with the insight Iain McGilchrist shared in the opus The Master and His Emissary fifteen or so years ago. “The left hemisphere needs certainty and needs to be right,” McGilchrist writes. “The right hemisphere, by contrast, is deeply comfortable with the existence of the uncertain, the implicit, the metaphorical, the doubtful.”

I’m not sure how helpful this left vs right dichotomy actually is. But I can say that any strategy that only caters to the left hemisphere’s need to be ordered, logical and ‘right’ will completely miss the gestalt and the vaster opportunities at hand.

And so now, dear reader, perhaps we are ready to perceive voids.

Void hunting

Indigenous Australian astronomy—the oldest continuous astronomical tradition in the world—is distinct from Western astronomy in that darkness between the stars—the voids and negative spaces—are also read.

Spend enough time amidst the noösphere—the sphere of all mind—and you may also begin to glean the shape of voids. Pockets in which there is an distinct absence of discernible knowledge.

Some absences are not accidents. Some ideas are actively suppressed. For example, “It’s been said before but the second Greta [Thunberg] started making connections between climate change and capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism the media coverage came to a screeching halt,” writes JP Hill. You will likely never see constructive criticism of capitalism—the prevailing paradigm fuelling the sixth mass extinction—on mainstream media. In Australia, you could lose your job if you’re a journalist sharing facts reflecting international human rights. And you know what happens to whistleblowers here.

Now, I don’t mean to get ‘political’ (politics—how power works—is unavoidable anyway, in all facets of life). Nor do I want get all ‘conspiracy theory’ on you (it’s not quite my style). But I do want to encourage fellow questers and spellcasters and would-be strategists to recognise that there is much insight to be found by looking where others aren’t.

Where everyone looks to the shining obvious headlines and trends—look to the penumbra. Let your eyes adjust to the glimmers in the dark. Seek the gaps in knowledge—either as avenues to explore and contribute to, or as fields to be wary within. Knowing that some ideas are being actively suppressed by powerful entities (lobbies, say) is useful. This is (partly) what it means to ‘keep your wits about you’.

But—voids aside—I want to posit something you will likely forget.

Just like I did that other time, and the time before, remember?

Antimemetics

A while back I read a conceptually phenomenal book called There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm.

In this book we learn of the concept of ‘antimemes’—concepts and phenomena that actively resist awareness, retention, or discussion because they are too complex or too mundane. Antimemes exist above, beneath, or below our ability to notice. Unlike a meme, which spreads virally through culture and consciousness, an antimeme actively avoids propagation—it is inherently self-concealing.

Have you ever gone to read something, but notice your eyes glaze over. Or have you ever watched something—only to immediately forget what you saw? Or have you ever gone to listen to a podcast and felt oddly distracted, unable to focus, or subconsciously repelled?

Perhaps—perhaps—you are brushing up against something that has the qualities of an antimeme.

This is topical for me at the moment because I have been wondering why so few of my friends have watched or listened (or read the transcript) of Artificial Intelligence and The Superorganism. This is a deep conversation between Nate Hagens and Daniel Schmachtenberger that explores the nth-order implications of artificial intelligence. In addition to underscoring it in this post from last year, I have also personally recommended it to twenty friends and colleagues—emphatically.

Only two have actually listened to it.

Now, there are several explanations for why there is such a low uptake.

1. It’s over three hours long. Our late-stage capitalist paradigm with its associated distraction economy has groomed most of us into feeling time-poor and under-resourced. Few have the capacity nor capability to focus and imbibe long-form media; most would prefer the tiktok version.
2. It’s dense and dry. The conversation is technical, and assumes an audience that is intelligent, patient, and curious.
3. There’s a lot going on right now! Way too much noise. This may have been in an open tab, but new and more exciting content will bump it out.
4. It’s a threat to some identities and business models. If you have ‘built a brand’ for being optimistic or euphoric about artificial intelligence, listening to this episode might bring some dissonance into your perspective.
5. It’s existentially uncomfortable. The conversation systematically makes the case for the self-terminating path of civilisation, with rigour. This is ontologically unsettling—it’s a lot to take in.

And yet... the folks I have recommended this episode to are intelligent, patient, curious, and kind. They have the capacity and capability to do deep research and learning. And they are, by and large, intellectually honest and able to hold paradox. So—what gives?*

* Incidentally, Kim has recommended it to five of her friends, and all five have listened to it. Could it be that they are all poets and are thus able to confront the deeper aspects of reality?

Wizardly practices

If you are mindful when you engage with content, if you are aware of your response to things, you might sometimes catch yourself in the act of an antimeme slipping away from your perception. You might notice when you tune out—so that you can tune back in. Or take a more crafty approach and listen in periphery.

This is one of my favourite ways to approach what seems to be an antimeme. Surreptitiously. In practical terms, it means listening to a podcast whilst on a drive or a long walk. Or even whilst playing a video game (currently: Kingdom Come Deliverance II). There’s something about the way that our main attention and focus is ‘captured’ which allows us to perceive and discern that which might otherwise elude us.

There’s also something to be said about scenius.

One cannot sense-make alone. Approaching such conversations as a group of friends, a community or a collective* allows for the group to hold the knowledge. This means that, when approaching ideas that resist perception, there are folks who can ‘catch’ the conversation before it lapses. Assuming your sense-making partners are aptly attuned. The memory can also be contained collectively, so that—even if you can’t quite remember enough to articulate things yourself, the group can. Indigenous cultures know this better than any of us—knowledge is held in land, story and song.

The future needs our collective imagination, along with our ability to grapple with the slippery antimemes that evade us.

Otherwise it will be as Mark Fisher writes in the book Capitalist Realism (2009):

“The slow cancellation of the future has been accompanied by a deflation of expectations.* Capitalism seamlessly occupies the horizons of the thinkable.”

* Like health care or maternity leave being framed as a ‘benefit’ to a job, rather than an inherent right.

Fredric Jameson, in Archeologies of the Future (2005)—and Slavoj Žižek in First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (2009)—have said similar:

“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism”

Ursula K. Le Guin, as you know, also said much the same in her 2014 National Book Awards Speech:

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”

That’s the popular line of it. But there’s another aspect, too.

“I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now… We will need writers who can remember freedom.”  

Uncannily, just as I was wrapping up this piece, my friend Steph Clarke shared a link to a new book by Andy Hines: Imagining After Capitalism.

There’s ꧁something꧂ happening in these times, right now. Perhaps we are in The Great Turning already? I’d like to think so.

Something to ponder

In my episode on journaling we ask the question: ‘what are we pretending to not know?’ This is a good question that begets a kind of flirting with our own shadow. But there’s a bigger question about ‘cultural shadow’ in the context of our patho-adolescent society.

I’m deep in reading The Journey of Soul Initiation at the moment. In this, Bill Plotkin observes that our modern societies keep us in an adolescent state by reinforcing collective shadow dynamics, including: denial of death, repression of wildness, and fear of the unknown. This tracks with much of what I have intuitively felt in the past decade, especially with our polarising social media and distraction economy (‘the spectacle’).

And so, dear reader, I would like for you to ponder your own relationship to the unknown. How do you relate to mystery? To unknowing? What affordances do you make for generative ambiguity? And: what encounters have you had with antimemes?

You might not remember any encounter in order to answer that last question. But, if you keep your wits about you, you may just glean the outline of an absence, and the shadow of an idea that would otherwise seek to erase itself. What to do with this insight is another conversation entirely—a conversation that will occur in the privacy of your own heart.

Thanks for reading/watching/listening.
—fw