INTELLIGENCE OF BEAUTY

The creation of new meanings by people - which is usually simply called thinking - is more of an art than a science. Attempts to systematise this result in formulae that can inhibit creativity as much as they enable people to take some steps forward.

Art is passionate and sensuous. Science tends to be detached and abstract. However, both often involve a sense of beauty, though in different forms. They can marry together for optimum resuts.

Beauty involves a sense of wholeness and a pattern of detail within the whole. This is badly served by systemic models that reduce life and complexity to rigid formats.

The pattern of detail within the whole is highlighted when we turn information into visual configurations. In 'making a picture', we are able to see what we previously had only in words. Another part of the brain is involved. We can become conscious of structure in a more immediate sense than through words alone.

A main component of structure of wholeness is symmetry. This arises from our innate sense of the body, which situates us in a world of right and left, up and down, forward and back and inside and outside. We want to find a balance between these polarities, which relates to our search for balance in life. For everythng on the 'right' we want to have something equivalent but complementary on the 'left'.

In LVT, use is made of the basic polarities in space (and some of polarities in time such as between 'past' and 'future'), which are projected into the way that MMs are positioned and related in display space - as pictures of structure. Making the display exhibit high degrees of symmetry contributes towards seeing beyond what is presently known or actualised into a way in which a higher level of organisation might be possible. Translated into terms of practical tasks, this is really what is involved in 'problem-solving', 'strategic vision', 'design' and so on. It is towards seeing an ideality that is nevertheless rooted in where we are now and what we know.

The simple forms of symmetry are based on triangle, square and circle. These forms often crop up in management models but can be used in combination by people to form their own 'compositions' to meet their particular needs.

BASIC FORM
DIVIDED
VECTORIAL
COMBINED

The task is to find a fit between symmetrical form and the real factors that are important in the work.

The aesethetic sense of beauty in form guides thinking to envisage idealities that can be rooted in fact. It is the basis of most models, but is free of their rigid nature.

When we understand we design a form to understand, which provides far more than any selection process ever can. This brings into play the intelligence of beauty - as elegance, simplicity, balance, harmony - that stem from our core sense of meaning. The design of thinking is an art and a science.

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