Reconciliation of the Headless Hearts and the Heartless Heads in Global Modelling

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 1 Jun 2026

Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens - TRANSCEND Media Service

Distinction between the Form of the Symbolic Heart and the Cardioid of Science

Introduction

30 May 2026 – This is an annex to an exploration with AI of the Strategic Implications of Missing Psychodynamic Dimensions in Global Modelling (2026). That focused on conceptual mandalas contrasting existential issues in comparison with the Earth4All initiative of the Club of Rome and that of Inner Development Goals (IDG). The focus was on analysis of past issues of the Paradigm Explorer journal of the Scientific and Medical Network (SMN) in comparison with an earlier analysis (Experimental AI Meta-analysis of an Academic Journal Issue, 2024). With the new AI facilities that have since become available as a result of rapid development, it was possible to repeat the earlier study. The comparative analysis was extended to the report of the Galileo Commission instigated by SMN (Harald Walach, Beyond a Materialist Worldview: towards an expanded science, 2019).

This annex is inspired by the classic argument of C. P. Snow (The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, 1959) regarding the seemingly incommensurable extremes of the “sciences” and the “humanities” — echoed to a degree by that between the Paradigm Explorer and the Earth4All initiative of the Club of Rome. Efforts to reconcile them are primarily characterized by tokenism — challenged to a degree by The Bridges Organization.

The economist Paul Collier has argued that: the debate on migration is polarised into two strident positions, a heartless and the headless (On Immigration, Head to Head: Al Jazeera, 7 August 2015; rerun on Head to Head, 18 August 2018). In an extensive review of the book which Collier co-authored (Refuge: Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World, 2017), the metaphor is further emphasized (David Jimenez, How Europe’s ‘Headless Hearts’ Made Refugee Crisis Worse, The American Conservative, 27 September 2017). \

The relation between the two extremes is explored more generally in what follows in the light of the focus of science on “cardioid” (hence cardiology) — which might be assumed to be that of the Scientific and Medical Network’s Paradigm Explorer, as with the seemingly distinct economic focus of Earth4All — to the extent that the metaphor is meaningful to either. However it is the SMN which seeks an expansion of the boundaries of science to include an existential extension — through the Galileo Commission — an extension potentially epitomized by the “heart” as widely known in a somewhat different form in the iconography of the Sacred Heart and Valentine’s Day. The purpose of the comparison was to highlight the extent to which the intangible issues articulated by Paradigm Explorer and SMN were recognized by the tangible issues with which Earth4All was preoccupied, or by the behavioural science focus of IDG.

The following queries were evoked by an extensive exploration of heart-related configurations (Symbolizing Collective Remembering Otherwise: encompassing the “headless hearts” and “heartless heads” through their dynamic entanglement, 2018) with its discussion of the Implied dynamics of the heart symbol — the “cardiac cycle” otherwise interpreted. Given the importance of heart symbolism, the headless/heartless framing has been variously used (Challenge of the “headless hearts” to the “heartless heads”? 2018; Possibilities of reconciling the “headless hearts” to the “heartless heads”, 2018). The many queries on the matter which follow are included because of the nature of confusion in that regard — exemplified by visualization of the heart as cardioid (Cardioid Attractor Fundamental to Sustainability: 8 transactional games forming the heart of sustainable relationship, 2005).

Given the fundamental symbolic significance of the Sacred Heart for the Catholic Church and its iconography, the extensive use of AI in this exercise is especially relevant in the light of the recent Papal Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (25 May 2026). This is concerned with “preserving the human person in the age of artificial intelligence” characterized by crises of human dignity and multilateralism (Pope Leo’s ‘Magnifica humanitas’: AI must serve humanity not concentrate power, Vatican News, May 2026). The optional access provided below to AI commentary occurs in a period of increasing scepticism about its value to humanity, by presumed contrast with the insights of secular human experts and the think tanks that house them. As presented, the argument is itself a worked example of the AI-assisted cognitive carrying that its later sections discuss.

The scepticism increasingly turns on the contested question of whether an AI can be held to be conscious at all — a question on which authorities, including the Pope, are now openly divided (Robert Booth, Richard Dawkins concludes AI is conscious, even if it doesn’t know it, The Guardian, 6 May 2026). Less obvious is how that same question implicates equally those asking it — namely how humans may be tricking themselves with regard to their own consciousness (Leif Weatherby, Why We Keep Tricking Ourselves Into Thinking A.I. Is Conscious, The New York Times, 15 May 2026).

Controversy is also inherent in the papal call for the “disarmament” of AI in a period when Christianity — as with the other Abrahamic religions — is renowned for its association with the possession and use of arms (Pope Leo presents ‘Magnifica humanitas’ calling for disarmament of AI, Vatican News, May 2026). As variously noted, such ironies are all the greater in that Christianity has proven itself totally incompetent over centuries in mitigating the violence between the religions with which it shares a degree of spiritual inspiration (Eric A Seibert, Disarming the Church: why Christians must forsake violence to follow Jesus and change the world, 2018).

The criteria by which AI consciousness is doubted sit uneasily beside the confidence with which consciousness is attributed to humans in general (How Artificial is Human Intelligence — and Humanity? 2023). The debate is especially controversial in the light of the consciousness attributed by owners to pets, the frequent reference to the extent to which humans are effectively “asleep” and challenged by the process of individuation — or to being “born again” (Varieties of Rebirth — distinguishing ways of being “born again”, 2004).

The exploration that follows begins with the heart/cardioid distinction as a means of introducing the broader question of how cognitive frameworks carry significance across the science-humanities divide. From the iconography of the heart, the discussion moves through a simple modification of the familiar seam curve of the tennis ball and baseball (as hypotrochoid configurations) and their relation to regular polyhedra, into the structural implications of these polyhedral substrates for interfaith dialogue, cultural-bias comparison, philosophical pluralism, and theological articulation.

The later sections engage the cognitive-load problem that contemporary frameworks face in carrying complex content in a period of polycrisis, the carrying capacity that higher-dimensional geometric structures offer, and the role AI could play in enabling cognitive carrying at scales that human cognition alone cannot sustain. The unifying argument throughout is that geometric structure — and specifically the polyhedral substrate connecting cube, octahedron, and their elaborations — carries cognitive content in ways that current discourse uses implicitly without articulating, and that explicit articulation of this carrying offers significant resources for engaging the strife of systems that has characterized governance, religion, philosophy, and intercultural discourse.

With current worldwide focus on the three-nation FIFA World Cup, the new design of the Trionda football is literally a global model in two senses simultaneously. It is a spherical object explicitly designed and marketed as a representation of global unity (the “triwave” name, the celebratory iconography). It is also a polyhedrally-derived design with specific symmetry properties that can be analyzed structurally on the same geometric substrate used for the governance and religious comparisons made. The football is therefore a case where the metaphorical and the literal converge. It is a form of “global model” that is also comprehensible as a model of globality — specifically designed for enhanced flight, ironically recalling the desperate quest to ensure that global strategies “fly” (Mnemonics of Achieving Strategic Lift-off and Sustainable Flight, 2026).

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