All of this suggests that we should engage a group to solve the problem or prepare the innovation is often necessary when the sole creator is caught in an attractor. Under the conditions of complexity, strange attractors, and compelling fractals, we might find that collective intelligence is greater than the intelligence of any one member of a group (Arima, 2021). Something called “swarm” intelligence has taken hold, often complemented with Artificial Intelligence (Seebacher and Legat, 2024). While artists might be working alone, they are often more productive when affiliated with other artists—as we have witnessed in the explosion of accomplished creative work in such places as Florence of the 15th Century, Harlem of the 1920s, and Paris of the 1930s.
While the term is rarely used, I would suggest that there are also strange detractors. These are the defensive structures and processes that keep pulling us away from a direct confrontation with disturbing or socially inappropriate thoughts and feelings. Under conditions of great complexity, there is a pull not only into the “rut” of a strange attractor, but also a pull toward escaping the complexity in search of a state of simplicity—what I have identified as a distorted wonderland in which many people of the mid-21st Century live (Bergquist, 2026a).
Contradiction
It’s hard to focus on creating something new out of nothing when people are calling for outcomes that are contradictory and polarizing. The problem that is facing a 21st Century task force team often resides not in identification of a solution. It resides in the differing outcomes desired regarding this problem. The noted behavioral economist, Daniel Kahneman joined with two colleagues in address this problem of differing outcomes (Kahneman, Sibony and Sunstein, 2021). They distinguished between Noice and Bias, suggesting that often a problem-solving team faces highly diverse and contradictory outcomes. The members of this team are confronted with substantial Noise.
At other times, the team members agree on the outcomes, but the outcomes are not directly related to the problem being faced. Under these circumstances, the team must address Bias rather than Noise. In the first case, a Noisy group is likely to become stuck in a polarizing situation. In the latter case, a Biased group might not be polarized, but it is likely to be filled with “true believers” and will form a bubble of belief that prevents members of the team from recognizing their bias (Weitz and Bergquist, 2024).
When an “outsider” comes into the Biased team and offers an alternative set of outcomes, the condition of contradiction is likely to be produced, leading this team, like the Noisy team, to confront the challenge of managing often-emotionally loaded polarizations. Fortunately, as I have already mentioned in this essay, there is a very effective process that can be engaged to address this polarization. It is the polarity management method first proposed by Barry Johnson (1996, 2020).
As I noted, Johnson has identified a way in which either/or becomes both/and. He breaks up a powerful swinging back-and-forth between two opposing outcomes that in many ways resembles the just mentioned dynamics of strange attractors and fractals. For Johnson, the key feature is the pausing to consider the positive and negative features of each outcome. This consideration of both positive and negatives contrasts with the usual focusing just on the negatives and then flipping to the other outcome. This pausing is fully aligned with Daniel Kahneman’s (2011) slow thinking and Don Schön (1983) reflective practice.
