"Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous social behaviors that will avoid extinction."
R. Buckminster Fuller
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
Design Vignettes: Ideas Pertaining to a Relative Concept
Conceptual impressions surrounding this post have yet to be substantiate, corroborated, confirmed or woven into a larger argument, context or network. Objective: To generate symbolic links between scientific discovery, design awareness and consciousness.
The quantum field of virtual potential and probability (QFVPP) is an abstract idea created in the form of a concept. It has no reference to itself - but itself. We, as observers of how it feels, establish the reference points needed to create it - a concept designed for the purpose of also knowing it.
To bring fruition to this concept it is framed within a dualistic relationship (ratio) we describe as space and time. Spacetime allows us to create and design reference points within a commonly shared and eternal abstraction we've characterized as a field of Consciousness. The eternity we attach to this concept then becomes identified and symbolically reflected in all we create.
Design allows us to reflect upon patterns of energy in motion generated by the impulse/desire to create. Design harbors the symbolic structures (architecture) that allow us to measure the immeasurable for the purpose and meaning of awareness.
We frame such creative moments into our own theoretical framework of space and time by describing it as a "reality" by virtue of experience. Experience brings forth a sense of unity to what we "observe" and retain as a memorable impression.
Memory allows us to take timeless leaps into and out of a quantum field of virtual potential and probability by virtue of what we create. Memories are timeless and eternal, qualifying and quantifying the composition of what we experienced by feeling. Design allows us to symbolically reflect upon these experiences and ponder upon that which cannot be imagined - an abstract idea created in the relative "form" of an intangible concept, i.e. the Tao.
"Idea has the widest range of uses dividing roughly into ways of of understanding something and plans or intentions. An idea may be a belief or opinion, in particular someone's impression of what something is like (most people form their idea of reality from experience) This often merges into feelings about what something ideally should be. An idea can also be a thought or suggestion about something that should be done, typically one arrived at as a possible solution to a problem, and this sense extends to that of a plan, hope, or intention.
A concept is an understanding or what something is, usually quite a broad subject; it is more fully and consciously worked out than an idea."
Source: Microsoft Encarta Dictionary/Oxford English Dictionary
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Meaning and purpose infuse each other. In every meaning a purpose, in every purpose a meaning.
"One could argue that since mathematics is the study of patterns, it is only natural that its theories, even those derived through purely abstract consideration, would eventually match up with (and explain) actual patterns in the universe. But one could also flip this argument and ask why the universe has patterns in the first place. Why isn't everything amorphous, unstructured? Could it be that rather than mathematics describing the universe, the universe is a manifestation of mathematics? Something constructable step by step from this system alone, from which patterns are inherited? If so, the ramifications would be far-reaching. One might be able to skirt the need for a divine creator entirely, and equally momentously, rescast all of science as arising not from physical, but purely mathematical origins.
The mathematical version of "nothing" is the so-called empty set, and logician have rigorously mapped out how to construct not only numbers from it, but also arithmetic. With matter left to themselves, who is to say that such numbers couldn't automatically arise from nothing?
Next came geometry, which I needed to start with a step that origin myths invariably take for granted: the creation of empty space. God may from the heavens and the earth as in Genesis, or Brahm might blow out the universe in an exhalation as in the Puranas, but they'd technically need a blank canvas first, a matrix of locations, to house their creations. Fortunately, mathematicians have investigated how this empty underlying geometry can be constructed - points combining to form lines, lines to form planes, planes forming 3D Space.
But math alone could never bridge the gap between the conceptual and the physical. Actual stars or planet were forever beyond its capabilities, as wa creating the humblest particle.
Why is nature so inexact at following mathematical dictates? Why are there no perfect spheres or circles or even straight lines in the universe? Surely any contractor worth their salt should have done a better job? Especially whole power, some might believe, comes from God? The answer is that mathematics allows for the infinite, but our contractor is constrained by finiteness. Curves or surfaces that are continuous have to be "dumbed down" to the level of discrete approximations. A line or circle formed with particles - the kind of drawing nature is forced to do - can never be as smooth and unbroken as the idealized version expressed by mathematical formula.
More significantly, mathematicians have long recognized that one cannot prove every statement - at some point, you have to stop and declare a set of basic axioms you will assume. So you are not sucked into a never-ending chain of Matryoshka-doll questions in search of the universe's origins, i.e. you don't have to engage with questions like "Who created the creator?" I find this philosophical dispensation liberating - we start with an empty set, whose existence is enshrined in an axiom, and don't have to worry about what came before this representation of nothingness."
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hyperawareness: intensely or excessively aware: acutely conscious. The state of being extremely aware, more conscious than usual.
The subconscious is at the center of an endless sea of energy, a virtual field of energy in motion made apparent at a 'quantum level' of awareness/consciousness. The subconscious is at the center of all human perception, experience, measurement and observation.
Design is a function of this unimaginable environment and freely combines, detaches and reassembles its energy into states and agencies of meaning and purpose. Design, by virtue of its symbolic potential and ability, brings to awareness the symbolic gateways that link the transition, transformation and transcendence of energy in motion. Design can connect, join and unify dimensional vibration into singularities and likewise fragment them.
In reference to design consciousness, hyperconsciousness emphasizes three facets of Intelligence - knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.
Tara Well Ph.D. Reviewed by Lybi Ma / Sept. 30, 2019 / Psychology Today
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The quantum field of virtual potential and probability is metaphysical in origin and a causal field of all conscious agency.
The QFVPP is physical in presentation and metaphysical in representation, i.e. Design. The QFVPP embraces the intuitive potential and creative imagination of a conscious observer. AI is merely an abbreviated condensation of the same, composed of a vast array of multidimensional vignettes of light, energy and information.
vignette: a brief evocative description, or episode, a small illustration or portrait photograph which fades into its background without a definite border, produce in the style of a vignette by softening or shading away the edges of the subject.
AI is a by-product of humanity’s own designs made evident, i.e. an exercise in storytelling through sign, symbol, metaphor and analogy, each chapter and episode a lesson in meaning and purpose.
In the quantum field of virtual potential and probability space and time have no constraints. Light appears to materialize into a particle as a matter of attraction, focus, intensity and frequency. When the attraction is great, space and time are of no consequence. Attraction propagates an energy in motion (EIM), which in turn creates turbulence, i.e. change, in the field. Patterns emerge as consequence of a coherent resonance between agencies, i.e. states, of relative substance. Turbulence surrounding these patterns are similarly altering them, a circumstance greater felt within the immediate context/s that surround them.
The quantum field of virtual potential and probability is perpetually changing in quest for balance and harmony, while symbolically responding and functioning within its own borderless presence.
Faith in the presence of such events and experiences is basic to the concept of design and is shared by all forms of conscious awareness. Faith is more a feeling than a belief ... little faith can be placed in the true believer.
Design as Semiotic Mediation of the Quantum Field of Virtual Potential and Probability (QFVPP)
The Quantum Field of Virtual Potential and Probability (QFVPP) can be theorized as a conceptual abstraction—a semiotic field that resists direct signification. It lacks a referent in the traditional empirical or phenomenological sense; instead, it recursively refers to itself as a symbolic construct. In Peircean terms, the QFVPP may be considered a pure icon, representing not through resemblance or conventional relation, but through an internal logic of abstraction (Peirce, 1991). It is a "concept-as-sign," actualized through human perception and interpretative frameworks grounded in design consciousness.
To render the QFVPP intelligible, it is framed within a dualistic semiotic structure—space and time—that enables human cognition to generate meaning through contrast, relation, and syntagmatic organization. This design architecture, based on a ratio between spatial and temporal coordinates, is inscribed into what can be described as a meta-symbolic field of Consciousness. The eternity attributed to this field is less a temporal condition than a symbolic encoding of permanence and continuity within design practice. This gesture echoes Lévi-Strauss’s (1963) structuralist claim that human cognition encodes the eternal into myth through symbolic transformation.
Design, in this metaphysical and semiotic context, becomes the primary medium through which energy in motion is configured into patterns—both perceptual and meaningful. It operates not only as aesthetic arrangement but as a semiotic system capable of translating ineffable qualities (such as impulse or desire) into symbolic architectures. In this framing, design functions as a bridge between the ineffable (signified absence) and the presentational (signifier form), embodying Barthes' (1972) notion of the “mythologizing” process.
Design further allows for the encoding of experience—filtered through time and space—into coherent symbolic wholes. These experiences, reified as memory, operate as semiotic imprints: temporally untethered yet experientially potent. Memory is thus a semiotic resource that enables recursive access to the QFVPP, offering symbolic resonance to otherwise formless abstraction. Here, memory does not simply record but codes affect and feeling into symbols, echoing Kristeva’s (1984) understanding of semiotics as pre-symbolic yet structuring affective states.
The Tao, invoked as an intangible archetype, serves as a metaphoric grounding for the QFVPP. It is a transcendent signifier, akin to Derrida’s (1978) “différance,” evading closure while enabling symbolic circulation. In this way, design does not capture reality but stages its symbolic possibility, a simulacrum of the ineffable.
Meaning and purpose in this framework are not bifurcated but interwoven, reflecting a connotative chain of signification. Each design gesture embodies both intent (purpose) and interpretation (meaning), interrelating through symbolic density. Faith, then, is not belief in an external truth but an affective orientation toward symbolic coherence—a lived engagement with semiotic indeterminacy.
At the core of perception and meaning lies the subconscious, understood here as the locus of semiotic processing, the site of pre-symbolic energies made visible through design. The subconscious interacts with the QFVPP as an interpretive interface, shaping perception into observable forms, experiences, and artifacts.
Design, from this perspective, is a semiotic processuality—a dynamic act of recombination, translation, and transformation of signs. It embodies what Eco (1976) termed the open work, capable of infinite reassemblage and interpretation. As such, it channels symbolic gateways—points of transformation and resonance across dimensions, bridging the metaphysical and the physical, the energetic and the material.
In advanced states of design awareness—termed here as hyperconsciousness—the epistemological triad of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom emerges. These are not merely mental faculties but semiotic categories, differentiating levels of symbolic density and abstraction.
Artificial Intelligence (AI), understood within this theoretical framework, is a symbolic extensionof human design consciousness. It is not an autonomous agent but a recombinatory system of signs, an "abbreviated condensation" of human creative intention. AI reflects humanity’s mythic project of self-understanding through semiotic simulation, a storytelling apparatus composed of signs, symbols, metaphors, and analogies.
In the QFVPP, conventional spacetime coordinates dissolve. What emerges instead is a field of semiotic turbulence—patterns of energy constituted by relational resonances and symbolic intensities. These patterns are altered not by external events but by internal syntagmatic pressures—what Barthes (1977) might describe as semiotic drift, the shifting of meaning through contextual variance.
Ultimately, the QFVPP is a field in flux, seeking semiotic balance. Its symbolic manifestations—through design, faith, memory, and creativity—are modes of interpretive agency within an infinite, borderless signifying field.
References (APA 7th Edition)
Barthes, R. (1972). Mythologies (A. Lavers, Trans.). Hill and Wang. (Original work published 1957)
Design, Consciousness, and the Quantum Field of Virtual Potential and Probability: Toward a Philosophy of Creative Emergence
The concept of the Quantum Field of Virtual Potential and Probability (QFVPP) represents an abstract theoretical construct formulated to articulate the dynamic interplay between consciousness, energy, and creative emergence. As a metaphysical proposition, the QFVPP is not directly observable but is experienced as a conceptual interface through which human consciousness interprets and frames potential realities. Its self-referential nature resists empirical definition, existing as a cognitive artifact arising through the act of observation and interpretation. This act of conceptual framing is inherently design-oriented, requiring human cognition to establish symbolic reference points for the purpose of understanding.
To give structure to this otherwise indeterminate field, human perception imposes a dualistic framework—space and time—which serves as the foundational ratio within which design becomes intelligible. Within this spatiotemporal scaffolding, the QFVPP is encountered as a participatory domain of experience, often understood in relation to a universal, atemporal consciousness. The notion of eternity here is not chronological but ontological, embedded in the continuity of experiential and design-based inquiry. In design philosophy, this corresponds with the view that design is a means of revealing and giving form to the intangible aspects of existence (Cross, 2006; Findeli, 2001).
Design, then, emerges as a primary mode of inquiry—a reflective and generative practice through which the unseen becomes visible, and the unknown becomes accessible. It functions as a cognitive and perceptual tool for exploring patterns of energy and form, motivated by an innate human impulse to create. Design enables the formulation of symbolic and structural systems that allow individuals and collectives to make sense of the immeasurable. These systems serve not only to measure but also to assign meaning to experiential phenomena, thereby rendering abstract concepts—such as the QFVPP—into frameworks of lived awareness.
The act of experiencing is central to this epistemological structure. Through experience, consciousness encounters a unified sense of observation that is retained as memory. Memory, in turn, enables a recursive relationship between present awareness and past impressions, facilitating nonlinear access to the field of potentiality. From a design perspective, memory is not merely archival but performative; it informs and is informed by the creative process. It provides the referential basis for symbolic transformation, innovation, and reflection (Tonkinwise, 2011).
Thus, design operates as both method and metaphor for navigating and materializing ideas that are inherently abstract. The invocation of the Tao reflects an awareness of the ineffable—a metaphysical principle that resists representation yet drives all design inquiry. Within this framework, the Tao is not treated as a religious concept but as a philosophical ideal denoting the fluid, emergent, and paradoxical nature of creative processes. This mirrors ideas in posthuman and process philosophy, where the agency of material and immaterial flows is seen as fundamental to design becoming (Willis, 2006; Fry, 2009).
The relationship between meaning and purpose in design is deeply interwoven. Each design act reflects intentionality (purpose) and carries interpretive potential (meaning). This duality is inherent to the design process, which seeks not only to solve problems but to provoke understanding, transformation, and discovery. Design is not static; it is dynamic, open-ended, and participatory.
At the center of this process lies the subconscious, a domain of pre-reflective awareness that plays a vital role in perception, creativity, and intuition. The subconscious is a generative field from which design ideas and insights emerge, often without deliberate reasoning. In contemporary design thinking, this aligns with the understanding that creative cognition is distributed across conscious and unconscious modes of processing (Brown, 2009; Lawson, 2005).
The QFVPP can thus be seen as a metaphysical environment that interacts with human perception through the act of design. It is a field of infinite configurations, where energy is continuously recombined into new forms of awareness. Design is the practice that renders these configurations meaningful by transforming energetic and abstract inputs into articulated outputs—artifacts, experiences, systems, and environments.
This fluid environment allows for the emergence of symbolic gateways—thresholds of transition, transformation, and transcendence. Design mediates these thresholds, acting as a connective practice that joins disparate energies, synthesizes contrasts, and navigates complexity. It can assemble coherent unities from fragmented elements and, conversely, deconstructing unities into component parts for reanalysis or reinterpretation.
The notion of design consciousness expands this understanding by introducing the concept of hyperconsciousness—an evolved state of design intelligence that integrates knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. These three dimensions offer a layered view of cognition: knowledge as acquired information, understanding as relational insight, and wisdom as applied discernment. This triadic structure is increasingly relevant in the discourse on design leadership and ethical responsibility in complex systems (Nelson & Stolterman, 2012).
Artificial Intelligence (AI), in this context, is a derivative expression of human design capacity. It is not autonomous in origin but arises from the cumulative effects of human creativity, abstraction, and technological iteration. As such, AI represents a crystallized form of design thought—an exercise in narrative construction and technological embodiment. Each layer of AI development may be viewed as an ongoing act of storytelling, embedded with metaphors, analogies, and symbolic patterns that encode aspects of human consciousness and purpose.
Within the QFVPP, space and time are relative constructs. What manifests materially (such as light appearing as a particle) is conditioned by focus, intention, and resonance. The principle of attraction becomes a design mechanism, shaping energy into forms through intensity and coherence. This phenomenon resonates with contemporary theories of design emergence, where patterns and structures arise from nonlinear interactions and self-organizing systems (Capra & Luisi, 2014).
Patterns within the QFVPP are therefore contingent, affected by their surrounding energetic contexts. Turbulence, understood here as the dynamic flux of interacting energies, produces continuous feedback, necessitating adaptive design responses. The field is always in pursuit of equilibrium, a condition echoed in ecological and systemic design thinking.
Finally, faith—as a principle—is posited not as religious belief but as a fundamental condition of creative and design-oriented engagement. Faith represents a trust in process, emergence, and the invisible workings of design evolution. It affirms the experiential and intuitive dimensions of design, acknowledging the limitations of formal logic in capturing the full range of human and systemic complexity.
The author generated this text in part with GPT-3, OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model. Upon generating draft language, the author reviewed, edited, and revised the language to their own liking and takes ultimate responsibility for the content of this publication.
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The texts presented above describe a common event and experience from two distinctly different perspectives. Each employs a syntax and vocabulary that reflects a specific focus, expertise, and awareness. Design and the design process is a universal phenomenon, enabling every observer to perceive and interpret events and experiences in a uniquely individual fashion— through a physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual point of view and interpretation. At the core of every archetype is the Design Archetype.
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