Alan Marcus James Robbins
Alan Marcus James Robbins | |
|---|---|
| Residence | Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Octaikon, resource management, philosophy, human relations, theology, Christianity |
Alan Marcus James Robbins, who publishes as A. Marcus J. Robbins or Marcus Robbins, is a British writer and educator based in Oxford, United Kingdom. He is the creator of the Octaikon, an octagonal graphic model of the human person intended to help people summarise, compare and integrate ideas drawn from philosophy, psychology, human relations, theology and Christianity. He has also worked as an independent consultant associated with the natural-resources management network known as the NR Group.
Biography
Robbins lives and works in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. He describes his interests as spanning resource management, philosophy, human relations, theology and Christianity, and he has pursued much of his work independently through self-published educational materials and websites. His projects are distributed online through the Octaikon website, the Scribd document platform and a YouTube channel, and he invites feedback from visitors as part of an ongoing, revisable body of work.
Work
Robbins is best known for developing the Octaikon, an educational graphic model of a person presented in the form of a coloured octagon. According to his own description, the model organises human "faculties" or personal powers into a structured set — beginning with four primary faculties, extended to eight and then to ten — arranged around a circular colour wheel that fades to white at the centre. The aim of the model is to provide a single visual framework for understanding oneself, comparing different systems of ideas, and reflecting on how people can live well with one another.
Alongside the diagram, Robbins produces octagonal mind-maps that he calls "okki-maps", which highlight key points to explain concepts in education and personal development, and a cartoon character named "Al" used to introduce the Octaikon ideas to a general audience. A short booklet describing the origin and progress of the Octaikon project is made available through his website. His related writings include the essay Fractal Faculties — A Pattern of Us All?, which explores the same faculty-based model of the person.
Separately, Robbins has been associated as a friend or associate member with the NR Group, a network of independent, multidisciplinary consultants working on sustainable development and natural-resources management.