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Phase I (1965) Document 3 COMPREHENSIVE THINKING

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Phase I (1965) Document 3 COMPREHENSIVE THINKING WORLD DESIGN SCIENCE DECADE / 1965 - 197 5 FIVE TWO YEAR PHASES OF A WORLD RETOOLING DESIGN PROPOSED TO THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF ARCHITECTS FOR ADOPTION BY WORLD ARCHITECTURAL SCHOOLS Phase I (1965) Document 3 COMPREHENSIVE THINKING World Resources Inventory Southern lllinois University Carbondale, Illinois U.S.A, Phase I, (1965) Document 3 COMPREHENSIVE THINKING by: R. Buckminster Fuller (Selected and edited by John McHale. ) World Resources Inventory Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Illinois U. S. A. Copyright © R. Buckminster Fuller 1965 (Other volumes in this series are: Phase I, (1963) Document 1: Inventory of World Rescurces, Human Trends and Needs by R. Buckminster Fuller and John McHale Phase I, (1964) Document 2: The Design Initiative by R. Buckminster Fuller) World Resources Inventory Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Illinois U. S. A. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Permission to reprint various writings is gratefully acknowledged to the following publishers: Introduction to Halo: Omni-directional Halo: No More Second Hand God Southern Illinois University Press Carbondale, Illinois, 1963. Wave Transformations of the City: New York as a Focus of Energy 'The New York Guidebook' Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1964. The Prospect for Humanity: Saturday Review Anniversary Issue August/September/October, 1964. FOREWORD This document, the third publication in the 'World Design Science Decade, 1965 - 1975 series has been prepared for the VIII World Congress of the International Union of Architects to be held in Paris, July 1965. It should be read, therefore, in conjunction with the first two documents in this series – particularly, Document Three, "World Design Initiative" by R. Buckminster Fuller, which deals specifically with the ways in which students may assume the design initiative and which also outlines the overall conduct of generalized design science exploration. Although this selection of the writings of Buckminster Fuller has been com- piled primarily for the use of students participating in this world program, it may also be useful to the general reader as an introduction to certain aspects of his design philosophy which have tended to be overshadowed by his practical inventions and structural achievements. The writings have been ordered in a manner which is intended to reflect the basic orientation suggested in the title, Comprehensive Thinking. As will be seen, this order proceeds from the whole to the particular – from considerations of how one may think about the larger comprehensible whole system to how one may apply such 'whole systems' thinking to local and particular aspects of the system in the planning of environment for man. Though the language of some of the texts may seem difficult at first approach, it should be borne in mind that one of our major problems in thinking today is the use of language systems which still represent a fixed structurally compartmentalized world view. The terms available to us for the expression of dynamic, rather than static, concepts are far from satisfactory. Fuller's language is particularly representative of the 'transitional state (of the Western world) between the older, traditional, noun-centered culture and its present day, changing, verb-centered culture'. In his search for an adequately descriptive terminology he tends to employ concepts and usages from many different fields juxtaposed in ways which may be unfamiliar to those more customarily restrained within the vocabularies of particular disciplines. Some brief notes on the specific texts may be useful at this point – The Halo papers deal primarily with the exploration of the thinking process itself and provide a conceptual 'general systems' model of thought, in terms of tuning, frequency modulation, and feedback operation as analogies of this comprehensive process. The Halo concept represents the further development of Fuller’s ’Energetic and Synergetic Geometry’ towards a rational 'all energy behavior accounting system. An important aspect of the geometry is that it allows of conceptual modelability of many dynamic energy relationships whose behaviors are traditionally considered as not communicable in this way. Citations of the congruence of many of Fuller's constructs and geometrical accounting procedures have particularly increased in recent years, i.e. in tissue and virus structures, in bio-molecular research generally, and in the study of fundamental particles These recent insights extend and amplify the postulates of the geometry into the area of a more generalized epistemological frame work. Many similarities in conceptual approach already exists in various widely separated areas of enquiry where such modelability is being sought, e. g. the ‘radex’ and ‘circumplex’ figures employed in mathematical analyses in social sciencel, the ‘biofilm’ approach in overall earth ecology’ structural relations in the electro-magnetic spectrums. Though similar in ‘form’ to such approaches the Halo concept is a more fundamental attempt to provide a ‘structural tool’ for the elucidation of the widest range of complex phenomena relationships. The Profile of the Industrial Revolution applies the conceptual organizing principles discussed in Halo to the historical development of man’s accumulated intellectual discoveries, their practical implementation into environ controlling techno- logies , and their cumulative effects on man’s overall ecology on earth. Venus Proximity Day analyzes the ‘local’ aspects of various social, economic, and political forces and the ways in which they may retard or accelerate comprehensive planning. Within this context the role or architecture and environment planning is dis- cussed in relation to industrialization. An analogy is drawn which poses medicine as the prime discipline which deals comprehensively with all the internal metabolic processing of man, and discusses the new role of architecture and environment planning as the emergent comprehensive discipline which would deal in similar overall fashion with all the external metabolic pro- cessing of man. Wave Transformations of the City examines New York as an urban center in terms of its cyclic growth patterns and discusses the ways in which we may analyze such organic growth as dynamic frequency-modulated wave phenomena. The Prospects for Humanity is an example of comprehensive long-range thinking applied to the future extrapolation of various discernible trends in man's present ecological patterning. Geosocial Revolution represents a summation of all the above aspects of comprehensive, historical, ‘local’, and long-range thinking, directed towards the specific problems of man’s present global dilemmas and their solution, through comprehensive redesign. and redirection of the world’s industrial tool complexes toward the ‘livingry’ revolution. Our present political and ideological impasse in relation to the various facets of the world geosocial revolution is discussed. It is emphasized that science and technology as key formative processes favor no one political ideology as against another and, indeed, that such formative forces alone maintain and forward man’s physical well being,without direct benefit of supporting ideological constructs. In this ordered sequence the reader may choose alternative routes. If he wants to examine first the results of thinking comprehensively let him go first to Geo- social Revolution. If more concerned with the process of comprehensive thinking he should begin with Halo and work through the series of following chapters. 1 .“Mathematical Thinking in the Social Sciences:’ Edited, F. L. Lazarsfield, Illinois, Free Press, 1954. 2 F. L. Kunz, The Film of Living Beauty, Main Currents in Modern Thought, Vol. 18,Oct. ‘61. 3 Time: Its Breadth & Depth in Biological Rhythm, J. J. Grebe, N.Y. Acad. Sc.,Vo1.98, October, 1962. The schematic diagram using the Halo conceptual structure to process man-shelter environment as a functional system is included here as a rough example of the operational use of the concept. The first major categories of the 'Universal Requirements of a Dwelling Advantage' by Fuller1 are laid out in terms of magnitude, frequency of occurrence, etc. within the Halo system. Students may from this example, be able to devise ways of using Halo as a conceptual tool in organizing the interrelationships of many other problem areas. It might also be usefully applied in this manner to material in other chapters of the present work. In general, within our present program, each of the texts will be found to have particular relevance to the comprehensive manner in which we must now approach world planning. The major problems confronting our global society are no longer amenable to local piecemeal solutions, but require such comprehensive confrontation. The statement of the problems alone requires that we deal with our world as a whole process, as an overall ecological system, within which man, his present requirements, and future trending must be viewed as part of the ongoing evolutionary development. How can the student learn to think comprehensively about such large-scale processing? Little training in such thinking is given in our present educational systems. The assumption of any degree of comprehensivity tends to be suspect, when extreme specialization within the given range of academic divisions is still the prevailing education-al goal. Yet, patently, no single human problem may be wholly solved within the province of any one academic discipline; even 'local' problems require for their consideration
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