Welcome to Aporia.

For years it has simply been "the Land" and it will continue to be so. However, after 22 years of connection with this sacred and mysterious place, I feel I have found a name that captures its essence for me and many others.

It may be temporary, and it may be the first of many, but I feel I now "know" the land well enough to name it "Aporia".

Aporia refers to a state of being confused yet knowing you are confused. It is not the blind thrashing of simple confusion, but rather the conscious embrace of the quest and mystery. It may also be our highest state of awareness as it always precedes our next insight.

(Inspired by Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge.)

"In Confusion alone we might be unaware that we are confused and choose to proceed with familiar actions and solutions without much thought. We tend to be led by yesterday’s “knowns” even though the situation has evolved. This is a dangerous state of ignorant confusion that may cause us to take a not so shallow dive into Chaos.

In the Aporetic domain, we are well aware that we are confused and we know that we need to adopt different ways of learning, perceiving, interpreting, and exploring to work our way out.

Aporia was introduced by Aristotle to describe a state of impasse in our thinking.

Translating from the Greek root of the word, “‘a’ not + ‘poros’, path or passage”, aporia means no way through. “The aporia of our thinking points to a knot in the object; for in so far as our thoughts are in aporia... it is impossible to go forward.” Aristotle also emphasized that the undoing of this “knot” can only be done by those who are aware of this impasse.

This awareness is what shifts the Aporetic from domain to method.

The Aporetic turn refers to the method of intentionally creating doubt and paradox, so we may explore the many contrasting truths present in this space.

We may be concerned with a lack of, or contradictory information, differing perceptions, ethical dilemmas, resource constraints – and how all these concerns impact each other. There are also unknown unknowns and questions we haven’t thought to ask yet.

The Aporetic method facilitates discussion across the many interconnected parts of the problem."

Cynefin - pg 109-110, Dave Snowden.