Going Meta-on-Meta: Meaning-Making with Meta-Frames
An exploration of the emergence of new meta-frames in human awareness and their potential for helping us through these challenging times
This post is an introduction and overview of my research journey exploring the new paradigm movements emerging around the world and the new meta-frames1 many of us are experimenting with to help us see the bigger picture in these challenging times.2
Meta - meaning to go “beyond”; to step outside of one’s self and become self-referential
Meta-Frame - A perceptual framework that seeks to go beyond the known toward a “bigger picture” perspective, while holding the framework itself as an object of awareness
Introduction
Artists, filmmakers and all types of storytellers tend to seek the story behind things…searching deeper for hidden patterns and searching wider for bigger pictures.3 In recent years many of us have been taking this approach even further into the realm of meta-frames and applying them to all aspects of life.
In these challenging times my research suggests that this search for deeper and bigger patterns and pictures through meta-frames has the potential to increase our capacity to cope with all the rapid changes happening all around us. Many individuals and communities around the world are exploring different applications of these meta-frames and here I am sharing my first research report on this movement and what I have learned so far.4
It is important to remember that the maps are not the territory…and by recognizing the limits of the maps they can become more useful.
The Meta-Frames
Everything seems to be going meta these days from Facebook’s rebranding itself Meta as it attempts to create a metaverse, to the emergence of a new metamodern cultural code reaching beyond the postmodern, to the emergence of metamedia, a hybrid medium of expression that integrates art, media, technology and anything and everything else.
All this is happening as exponential technologies are bringing exponential change and disruption to every domain of life contributing to what many are calling the metacrisis or a crisis of multiple crises with shared underlining causes.
This metacrisis has led to a global scale hunt for a new paradigm and many new paradigms are emerging across every domain of human experience. When combined these emergent new paradigms form what could be called a metaparadigm field.5
An analysis of this metaparadigm field reveals the emergence of new collective patterns that when combined with new historical data and research in individual and collective development6 could potentially change our understanding of how we evolve…potentially leading to an expanded new developmental framework or what we might call a metadevelopment field.7
As exponential technologies are emerging more and more they are also merging with humanity in many new ways, giving us machines that are seeming more human. There are also exponential technologies that are helping to reveal and attempt to quantify previously hidden dimensions of our bodies, hearts and minds.8 This has the potential to enhance human functioning, lead to new pathways for health and healing and stimulate an awakening of a new kind of self awareness, a self more aware of all the dimensions of itself or a metaself awareness.9
Is all this meta stuff going on a sign that humanity is waking up to a deeper and more expansive awareness of itself and our place in the Kosmos? I hope to continue these explorations and report on and go deeper with what I am finding in future articles…
Meta-Frames I am currently exploring:
MetaParadigm
MetaDevelopment
MetaSpirituality
MetaShaman
MetaStory
MetaLab
Special Thanks
I would like to thank all my fellow explorers and communities of explorers out there trying to find a new path for humanity to survive these challenges and thrive beyond them.
My deep gratitude to all my subscribers for supporting me and my work through your subscription and your likes, shares and comments.
Special thanks to my paid subscribers and those who made a direct donation for helping me keep the lights on and continue this work. I cannot begin to put into words how much your contributions have meant to me.
Notes
When faced with complex situations, our minds naturally seek shortcuts to process information and form judgments. This is where meta-frames come in. These mental templates, pre-existing structures of understanding, help us organize and interpret new experiences by drawing on familiar patterns. Because of this meta-frames can be powerful tools for navigating complexity
The first thing I noticed when working with meta-frames is that they help me to more deeply understand, better cope with and take right action in these challenging times while also expanding my perspective on myself, my relationships to others and the world.
As a filmmaker using meta-frames has stimulated visions for potential new forms of storytelling and new ways of living the human story. In a previous post I introduced my sub-research stream exploring the development of new paradigms in storytelling and hope to continue exploring those further as well.
Note that this is only one angle on a complex phenomenon and there are many other perspectives out there on this topic. A great place to continue exploring is Joe Lightfoot’s Liminal Web article.
Complex social systems tend to have multiple interconnected paradigms operating across all domains of the system. Together they form a kind of meta-paradigm field…or a paradigm of multiple intertwined paradigms. Here I have mapped the 12 major emergent new paradigm streams that I have personally observed, studied and experienced first hand. I hope to post more on this research as it has revealed several fascinating patterns of emergence.
Some of this new research can be found in the book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow (2021). They have gathered valuable data that reveals much greater complexity to evolutionary development than previously believed. Although their interpretation of the data is biased, the data itself is of major importance.
This recent research data suggests that human development does not only evolve in a linear pattern. There appears to be multiple types of developmental patterns that vary across cultures, subcultures and social systems. Expanding our awareness to a meta-developmental framework has the potential to give us a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of how we and the world evolve.
Imagine having your own personal AI that can analyze all your bodily functions (heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels, hormone levels, brain waves), environmental influences (air quality, noise levels, UV exposure) and behavior patterns (sleep patterns, diet, exercise, standing-to-sitting ratio) 24/7 giving you the capacity to discover previously unknown patterns and dimensions of your every day life. Most of these technologies are already available to the public.
To go deeper into my work on the MetaSelf check out my previous article on it here: