Synergetics accounts for energy transformation patterns in terms of 12 degrees of freedom: 6 positive, and 6 negative. In Utopia Or Oblivion (p.76), Fuller explains how it takes 4 vectors to localize an object and 8 more to comprehensively immobilize it, considering torque as well as displacement.
These 12 degrees of freedom can be conceived as the radial lines connecting the centres of the 12 surrounding spheres of the vector equilibrium to the centre of the inner sphere.
Alternatively, they can be identified with the positive or negative vectors of the 6 edges of the tetrahedron.
© Paul Taylor 2001