What the Bleep and Wilber's 4 Quadrants

in thinking seriously about What the @#$%*, here is a question to examine:

1) what is the difference between empirical science and experiential spirituality? where do these overlap and what is the problem with confusing them with eachother? is there a precise way of evaluating the experiential soft science areas of human endeavor?

Different Types Of Science

empirical science has very specific paramaters. it requires things like hypotheses and experimentation, along with provable, repeatable results without experimental bias. sometimes this entails some kind of double blind verification. empirical science concerns itself with what can be empirically proven. as such it gives us a lot of very useful information about things that have “simple location” - rocks, chemicals,  kidneys, the temperature at which paper combusts etc…

empirical science cannot tell us anything about meaning or any subjective value-ing for that matter. empirical science cannot tell us about morals or beauty. these are just simply not it's domain. empirical science is limited to surfaces -  and while this is such an important domain of study, it can tell us nothing about depth.

depth has to do with interiority, consciousness, hermeneutics (the interpretation of meaning) emotions, how we feel about things, what hurts us, what delights us, etc…

empirical science is discovered through the “monological gaze”, it is a process of observing, not of interacting with interiors. we do not dialog with the consciousness of a stone to find out it's chemical composition, we analyze it's constituient parts using an empirical process. anyone who claims otherwise is very confused and possibly certifiable.

hermeneutics, morals, ethics, psychology, states of consciousness are studied through a “dialogical process” that reveals interior depth. i have no empirical way of understanding what picasso's guernica “means”, but if i engage in a dialogical process of studying up on the history of that time and picasso's opinions and feelings abvout it and if i let myself enter a contemplative meditation on the painting it starts to have all sorts of interior meaning…art is experiential and is situated in a historical and intellectual context.

while empirical science can tell us that you are feeling happy because your dopamine and serotonin levels are elevated, it cannot tell us what subjective meaning the experience preceding your happiness (say, a meeting with the dalai lama) had for you.

while empirical science can tell us that traumatized children have amygdala's that dont quite function correctly, it cannot tell us how to dialogically resolve the trauma itself or the ways it has affected the child's feeling reality and sense of selfhood…this can only happpen through a therapeutic process.

i think these examples might articulate the differences and the overlap in these two domains - two facets of the diamond.

Hermeneutics and Interpretation

the soft sciences are not empirically provable, therefore they relie on extensive dialog, case studies, theoretical discourse, argument and counter argument. there are real experts in each field who represent a “community of the adequate” qualified to assess the claims of peers and less experienced newcomers….though it is not empirical, there is nothing arbitrary about this. *being subjective does not mean it is all relative - or that all opinions are equally valuable*

for example:

there are expert art historians whose interpretation of picasso's guernica would be significantly better and *deeper* than my kid sister's.

there are expert psychological theorists and clinician's whose analysis of a dream or interpretation of a symptom would be better and *deeper* than your average tarot reader on venice beach.

there are experts who specialize in ethics who could make more nuanced and *deeper* arguments than saddam hussein or george bush.

there are expert meditation teachers who exist within well-established healthy communities who could make a better *deeper* analysis of your progress on the cushion than your naive friend who is so impressed that you had a very spiritual “vision of the buddha”.

all of these distinctions are wonderfully illustrated by the incredible thinking/analysis tool that is wilber's 4 quadrant model.

Reductionism and Merging

NOW, the problem arises in two ways.

a) whenever we reduce any domain (or quadrant)  to any other domain.

b) whenever we confuse or merge any domain with anyother - domains or quadrants are deeply related to eachother but not the same.

to elaborate:

a) the reductionist problem is this: empirical science folks wanna reduce everything to what is empirically verifiable - and they will often deny the validity of anything that is not empirically verifiable. but, as we have already observed, much of what makes us human - art, psychology, meaning, philosophy, emotional values are not empirically verifiable at all!

the empirical reductionists will then say that all emotions are merely chemical, or there is no such thing as meaning because you cant measure it with a slide rule….consciousness has no objective reality becasue we cant find it with a microscope etc…poetry has no intrinsic value either, right?

on the other hand soft science folks will wanna reduce everything to the subjective (ie non objective, non empirical) realm. they will then say that all reality is merely a product of thinking (solipsism is the name of this not particularly new philosophical stance - thouroughly disproved at least a hundred years ago..) or that all chemical imbalances in the brain are a product of traumatic experiences or repressed emotions etc….(in truth some are and some are not - schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder are more often than not genetic)

both of these positions eviscerate reality and do us a great diservice. both poitions are sometimes true, both sometimes false, often it is some combination of the two.

b) let's make a brief reference to the what the bleep movie as an example of merging the domains. (i will talk more about the film in a future in-depth post…)

physics is an empirical science. period. it is concerned with observable surfaces. very very small but still on the surface.

quantum physics took science to it's edge back in the 1930's and showed us the limitations of our then extant empirical model to explain certain observable, repeatable, experimental phenomena. this in no way means that there is no such thing as physical reality or that everything is affecting everything else in this insipidly meaningful way, or that that gravity is just a consensus reality illusion - the previous are all popular, fanciful, fun science fiction concepts. our generation got to see these concepts in wonderful movies and t.v. shows and are a little confused at times as to how real they are - or wether or not any serious scientist believes them.

these phenomena reveal that there are big gaps in how we understand physics at the sub atomic level. much theorizing has ensued to try to make sense of these gaps. none of this theorizing has anything at all to do with any of the new age beliefs that people have tried to merge them with in recent years. zero.

read the physicists themselves (wilber's book quantum question is very useful here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1570627681/102-0260759-5650512?v=glance&;n=283155 )  and you will find awe in the face of the mystery but not a trace of science-of-mind magical thinking that movies like what the bleep try to link to their very thin explanation of quantum physics. this also brings up the very important distinction between mystic and the new age orientation to reality - more on this later.

Onward: in contrast to physics, both spirituality and psychology are soft dialogical sciences. period.

they are concerned with depth, interiority, meaning, consciousness.

the attempt to apply the laws of physics to say, consciousness or emotions (category error) is much like trying to apply the rules of chess to the game of tennis. on an abstract level it is kinda fun (for a minute) but in practical terms it is essentially meaningless.

likewise, trying to apply the observations of developmental psychology to the process of measuring radiation from the sun is like trying to apply the principles of the observed mating rituals of the musk otter to the process of cd burning - again meaningless.

so too - the attempt to conflate what gets called “quantum physics” with what gets called  “psychology and spirituality” is a con of sexy marketing perpetrated on those who know very little about either and walk away more confused about both than ever before - albeit pleasantly disoriented.

ah - the new paradigm!

what i call the new age (click here for a clear definition of the new age) commits both of these category errors. both the reducing and the merging of domains/categories/quadrants with eachother. in doing so there is much confusion about depth and meaning.

the new age is in some ways a reaction to empirical science and logical reasoning dominating western thought since the rational enlightenment - but unfortunately they do not attempt a higher order integration that stands on the shoulders of this important rational development while honoring and including the hermeneutical, dialogical domains. rather, they romaticize and seek to regress to a pre-rational state in the name of spirituality. more on this concept in my essay called pre-rational spirituality…

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