Chapter Eighteen:

Internal and External Perceptions of Cybernetic Systems

When you are navigating a memetic network and moving through associational spaces, each node is related directly to other concepts at one degree of separation. To the hierarchical communication tree of control, the rhizomantic network appears as a clandestine path and a foreign growth, some sort of abstract fungus or viral threat. Yet this ability to freely transmit an effective message across these tangled, messy networks of weak links is vital to building wealth in an attention economy. By moving from related idea to related idea you can connect any two terms. What changes is the number of bridging terms that such movement requires. This navigating of the shamanic cyberspace is an intuitive art, one where mastery involves lateral thinking and symbolic literacy, making connections as quickly as possible and via the shortest routes.

Linear sequence is an associational proximity, as a linear sequence is essentially an address tracing a path taken through associative space. It is a history of one possible choice, but not a necessary sequence. There are many different schemas you can use to map out any given individual's approach to any given situation, but the MBTI and the interpersonal circumplex remain two of our favorites. The MBTI typology is a four-dimensional sixteen-category system, while the personality compass is a two-dimensional four-valued system which can theoretically be expanded to an eight-dimensional model. We've mentioned already that people move around a lot more in Dr. Leary's system since it is explicitly relational, and as a result we feel that the two-dimensional mapping of social interactions is more useful for cybernetic theory than MBTI's quaternary model, which seems more applicable to how individuals process their reality. Still, both are functional for understanding social interactions.