Not So Simple: Difficult Distinctions in Integralism

Julian! So much excitement here! It's one thing after another! I've always loved the energy you bring everywhere you go.

I basically agree with what you've said here, and there are some really important points. One is what you have called the “the faux nondual position” elswhere and which you touch on in 3. They basically take upper-left revelations and meditation instructions and try to apply them to all four quadrants–an example of the basic lack of hierarchy, integralism, and directionality we see in the new age.

With regard to faith, I think you're right that we can't say that faith (or trust) is transrational in and of itself, but we can say that it's an important ingredient in a transrational holon, an important building block for transrational consciousness.

Best,

David

excellent opening salvo, as always, Julian. i'll watch this thread and see how the discussion develops.

but since you end up with only 9 points, allow me to add one to make it a perfect 10. this point is also a critique of integrally-informed people.

10) avoidance of rational “food fights” (i.e. Sam Harris' conversational intolerance, Hirsi Ali's the right to offend, etc.) not framed in integral lingo, thus leading to a walled-garden of “integral” discussions. hence, the perceived cultishness of integral movement. not to mention the enormous amount of “faith” put on the transrational by people have no experience of it aside from descriptions given by Wilber and other mystics.

case in point: i've noticed that a number of integrally-aware people easily dismiss the efforts of the New Atheists. saying that the New Atheists are not doing anything new when it comes to philosophical arguments. that the New Atheists are mean to “blue.” and yet, integral is mean to “green” right? (i.e. Boomeritis). i see a bias there. conversational intolerance should span the color spectrum, when appropriate and given the chance.

i've recently riffed on this topic. see Why Sam Harris and B. Alan Wallace Should Talk

my two cents.

~C

In general agreement with the above… but for a point by point:

1: Yes there are worlds of difference between simply being aware that people possess different beliefs/worldviews/ideologies/etc. and being able to deeply inhabit multiple different experiential universes and make meaningful (not drastically distorted) cross comparisons between them.  It is still one further step to be able to skillfully apply the right perspective for the right action at the right time in an effective way that takes into account the other perspectives presently available.

2: Agree Turquoise does not necessarily = 'well' nor Red necessarily = 'pathological.'

3: Really Agree.  While Turquoise can intuit unification and even provide some grand maps… it is still embedded in the process of mapping/meaning making as a defense against the what-is, even if it might be fully aware of that fact.  If thoughts are most of your mental life… you are likely not at Unitive let alone Non-Dual even if your maps or intuitions predict Non-Duality is in fact so… or not so… or not so much not so as so beyond so and not so… etc.

4: 2 + 2 = 4 except in the land of 3's where it is 11.  Bad logical arguments are still bad logical arguments even if you are aware of Gödel.  Quantum uncertainty sucks for manufacturing automobiles.  Just because materialism or reductionism taken to the extreme can sometimes be 'bad' does not mean we should jettison the methodology anymore than we should get rid of our toasters because they make terrible bath toys.

5: Again agree, simply memorizing 1-p x 1-p x 1-p while possibly serving to expand cognitive concepts is a castle in the air unless you are familiarized with the practice of checking in with actual phenomenological experience.  Knowing what Zone # the discipline of Structuralism fits into is not as important as the knowledge that the world appearing to you is filtered through one of those structures at this very moment.

6: Just for the heck of it I propose a completely arbitrary new rule that people can only use the abbreviation IMP if they have actually read Kant and can articulate what the differences are between: being able to cause whatever objects one wishes to have appear in the world and behave as one wishes (The Secret); recognizing that the only 'objects' that can be 'known' are those that conform to the structural architecture of the perceiving mind in question (roughly Kant's insight); and every object out there appears as just what it is, can clearly be seen by anyone, and these objects are fully real and objective (naive realism). The new Integral Shibboleth… knowing which book Kant laid the groundwork for such later additions as IMP.

7: There is a story (pardon me for forgetting the exact citation) of some students asking a Zen master what happens when we die.  He replied that he did not know.  They got upset and asked how he could not know as he was a Zen master.  He simply informed them that was not yet a dead Zen master.  All people who cherish Eastern style authority should study this story well so that they will be less lost than us poor, skeptical, Westerners.

8: So true!  Seeing things us other mere mortals do not can be a result of your great sophistication and steadfast practice… or projection, delusion, fantasy, distortion, etc. please consult you local psychotherapist for a longer list… oh right that stuff only happens to me not you… so most folks can just skip this and the whole 3-2-1 Shadow process etc. due to their elite status.

9: See number 7.  Substitute “Zen master” with “Priest,” “Rabbi,” “Imam,” “Head of Scientology,” “Writer for Skeptic Magazine,” “Presidential candidate,” or other suitable title and reread.  Then ponder what that crazed fool Nietzsche meant when he said: “Belief means not wanting to know what is true.”  Examine all of the above from at least 10 altitudes and 5 differing perspectives.

10: Admittedly I do not keep up with the 'New Atheists' all that much, but I remember reading Sam Harris's book The End of Faith when it first came out and it seemed pretty reasonable to me.  It has been a while, but if I recall he even mentioned Wilber in a footnote or something.  I would guess that some Teal may avoid wading in because it is pretty obvious that Orange reason will not dislodge Blue values in people who are generally flying at Amber altitude (Teal has more important things to do with its precious time).  I would guess some Turquoise probably feel frustrated in wanting to be on both sides… many Turquoise individuals may believe in some form of Higher Power, but be deeply depressed with most of what goes on in the name of their Higher Power.  Also some Turquoise may see themselves as being beyond trying to change people. 

Just because materialism or reductionism taken to the extreme can sometimes be 'bad' does not mean we should jettison the methodology anymore than we should get rid of our toasters because they make terrible bath toys.”

Ha ha, that is good!

Great post Julian! Looks like the work of post-integral cognitive consciousness. hehehe

and I don't see any hostile commentators here, only good loving support

Hi Julian, I wrote a post on radical relativism - inspired by your post - here.

We probably see it in quite similar ways (or not, I don't know). I just have a hangup about the way some integral folks put it down :)

I may write more later on other aspects of your post.

Per

For me I notice #2 more than others and has been problematic for me from the beginning with some integral discussions.
#8 is also one that I see quite a bit in newbies to meditation practice along with #5.

I like this list.

Keeping it simple.

hey there all…..good to be back…..

julian i feel i've missed a mountain of posts, perhaps you can tell me which you think are most relevant in terms of catch-up…..

i like #3 above, and want to know more about #2. i have yet to understand states and stages….i think i have an inkling, but haven't read much about it…..

Hi Balder. I'm commenting here to part of something you wrote to me in this thread at Julian's blog. Julian asks that discussants bring the discussion from that thread to this one.

You wrote:

Yes, it is true that I do not think the materialist “metaphysic” is a satisfactory one. My point was that I have no intention of dismissing your arguments out of hand if they happen to be grounded in a perspective that strikes me as materialistic.  I understand that you might expect me to do so, based on your experience with other Integral students, but as you and I both value the imparative method of dialogue, I hope we can proceed with this discussion along those lines.  I am not saying I am immune from being dismissive or biased altogether, but typically that is unconscious on my part and is not a feature of my intentional approach to these sorts of inquiries.

I have a problem with the term “materialism” and I will explain why.

Within spiritual, transpersonal, and integral circles, the term “materialism” is a Janus-word, meaning that it is both descriptive and evaluative. I doubt that anyone could find a single instance in the entirety of Ken Wilber's voluminous work where he uses the term “materialism” without at least the implication of a negative connotation. I've been in and around spiritual and transpersonal circles since the early half of the 1970's on the West Coast, the East Coast, and in the Midwest, and I cannot recall a time when I've heard the term “materialist” used in such circles in anything but a way that has negative connotations.

Jim, it seems to me that we're in a sort of spiral of misunderstanding here.  I hope we can get out of it.  I understand the difference between physicalism and materialism, and I agree with you that it is important to clarify these terms for the sake of people who might be reading this discussion.  When I wrote, “I have no intention of dismissing your arguments out of hand if they happen to be grounded in a perspective that strikes me as materialist,” I wasn't saying this because your perspective really strikes me as necessarily flatland or naively materialistic; I was making this comment specifically because you had just said to me that you were afraid of being mischaracterized as such.

Also, did I ever suggest you were a “methodological materialist”?  If so, it was a typo; I believe I would have meant, “methodological naturalist,” since that is how you've described yourself previously.

Regarding the notion of the universe as “a vast field of information” – a view which may be consonant with pan-semiotics – neither you nor anyone else so far has responded to the Bohm essay on soma-significance that I've referenced and linked several times.  Do you have any thoughts on it?

Best wishes,

Balder

P.S. I have written a couple posts to you, I believe, since you last wrote to me.  I'm not sure if you've seen them all.  If you are going to respond to them, I'm not sure if it's more appropriate to respond to them here or on the other thread.  I imagine Julian is redirecting us here because he wants us to discuss the issues in his opening blog, rather than the 'philosophy of mind' discussion we have going on the other blog.

Julian,

Here is the beginning of a response to the many important issues you've raised.

1) Conflating of social worldviews with personal development. Conflating of being able to talk about social worldviews with having done the practice-work necessary to actually experience andunderstand certain personal stages.

I would describe this, in part, as the appropriation of various sophisticated translations in unsophisticated ways by individuals who have not done the “practice-work” on which those translations are founded.

2) Denial of pathology - “it's all stage appropriate” is the misguided mantra.

Do you have any examples that you can give of Integral folks denying pathology?  In my view, there certainly are things which are stage-appropriate, and we need to keep that in mind, but this does not undermine our ability to diagnose various pathological developments at any particular stage.  The counter mistakes are the pathologizing of whole stages of development, based on the criteria of a different vMeme or a higher stage, or the mistaking of levels for whole lines of development (the Level/Line Fallacy).

3) Omnipotent-utopian-“second-tier”- fantasy of being able to reconcile and transcend  all apparent opposties, most notably: true and false.

Calling this fantasy “non-dual”

I agree that folks often are tempted to engage in a facile “explaining away” or bypassing of issues or “opposites” in the name of a theoretical “nondualism.”

4) Rejection of rationality out of pre/trans fallacy based spirituality.

Again, I haven't come across very many Integral folks who reject rationality altogether.  I agree that there may be some pre/trans confusion going on within the Integral community, but “rejection of rationality” seems too strong to me.

5) Lack of practice/process methodology leading to meaningless use of language. Over abstracting with minimal actual application.

In a map- and theory-heavy field such as Integral, this is often a problem.  On the other hand, there may also be some distinctions which strike someone as impractical and “too abstract” because they haven't done the work yet to grasp in a fuller way what is being discussed.

6) “Myth of the Given” easily misunderstood as license to extreme relativism and even “you create your own reality.”

Likewise Post-metaphysics easily used in the service of nonsensical anti-rational arguments.

Certainly possible.  Can you give some examples?

7) A lingering hangover from Boomer exoticizing of the East.

Leads (amongst other things) to a faith-based subscription to the concept of “enlightenment,”  reincarnation etc.. as well as the idea that certain statements on the nature of reality, consciousness etc by Hindu “holy men” have some final truth even as we continue to evolve and integrate….

Yes, there is likely an over-idealization of the East going on.  However, from our discussions, I believe you may also not have a full grasp of some of the higher level Buddhist teachings, for example.  I may be wrong, but it appears to me that you see Western psychological knowledge (including the notion of archetypes, etc) and basic pyschological health (including facing and dealing with basic existential questions and issues) as the summit of psychospiritual realization, and if this is the case, I believe this is a problem in itself.

8) Use of  gross/subtle/causal as conceptual abstractions that then become containers for magic and mythic fantasies instead of signposts in a practice-based methodology.

Yes.  It's relatively easy to learn the translations and then misapply them.

9) Mis-using the level/line fallacy to suggest that the Amber faith can somehow be retained post-Orange and somehow be called “transrational.”

I think you have continually misunderstood this issue and are in fact committing a Level/Line fallacy here.  Amber faith, by definition, will not continue beyond Amber.  But folks like Fowler have argued that there are multiple forms and levels of “faith” – that the notion of faith is not, and should not be, limited to its particular Amber manifestation (which is, admittedly, the most common).  Similarly, not all forms of theism are confined to Amber-level understanding, though again the Amber level is most common.

Best wishes,

Balder

Hi Balder. I've seen all the posts you've written to me, and I am trying to respond to them in order. What I've written above is in response to the first paragraph of the oldest post you wrote to me that I have not yet responded to.

I have not yet read the Bohm piece. I have mentioned and linked to a number of articles that you have not commented on (e.g., Owen Flanagan's Templeton lectures), but I do not expect you or anyone to read everything I mention. I am currently reading several dense, difficult, fat books (and by “reading” I mean cover to cover, word for word, unlike when Ken says that he “reads” 3-4 books a day). I simply do not have time to read everything that looks interesting or that is recommended to me, and I doubt you do either. But I will look at the Bohm piece this week, and I will get back to you with my thoughts on it. (I'm assuming that the piece in question is the one I link to in the last sentence.)

I am glad to hear that my perspective does not strike you as “necessarily flatland or naively materialistic.” I hope my perspective doesn't strike you as flatland or naive at all.

I did wonder, though, because as I noted in a previous comment, you seemed to link the idea that consciousness emerged as a product of increasing biological complexity from non-conscious properties composed of non-conscious components with “materialism.”

Because I have said that I am inclined to think that consciousness (and how we define “consciousness” is of critical importance here) did emerge as stated, and because you associate acceptance of such emergence with materialism, it seems reasonable to me to assume that you must think my perspective is “materialistic.”

I have quoted Wilber saying two things in previous posts:

1) “…I do not push experience (or feelings or souls or any specific type of interior) all the way down…”

2) “Dennett, incidentally, sees a type of sentience emerging with amoebas. I am willing to settle for that…”

In response to my quoting Wilber saying the first statement at my blog, you said:

The qualification you highlighted is an important one: that, while we might find it defensible to say that “subjectivity” or interiority goes all the way down (and I do), we have to be careful about singling out any type of interiority as the thing that goes all the way down.

I agree with the first statement. As we continue to talk I will hopefully come to understand what you mean by “subjectivity” in this context with scare quotes about it. (It's not yet clear to me what the difference beween “subjectivity” with and without scare quotes is to you.)

I agree with the second statement as well, where Wilber uses the term “emerging” and indicates that he is willing to accept something that Daniel Dennett accepts. If you can go along with Wilber on that, then that's another place where we are at least in general agreement regarding emergence.

If you think it's appropriate, I'll respond to your posts to me at the other thread, at the other thread.

All best,

Jim

I am having difficulty getting my post to show up - it keeps getting chopped off.  Not sure if it is the Firefox I am using or the cut and paste.  Anway a much briefer version follows - I wanted to include some passages from Wilber's papers but alas.

James asked Jim:

Also, from your reading of Wilber, do you think he does appeal to these mystical states as reliable sources of propositional knowledge?

Jim,

I'll hold off responding to you in detail now, since I already have several posts to you out there flapping in the cyberwind and I don't want to keep adding more.  But I'll respond briefly to your request that I clarify my use of scare quotes around the word, subjectivity. 

I use them mainly because I'm aware of a number of models that have been proposed for resolving the hard problem, not all of which would accept the term, subjectivity, as the best term for describing that element of consciousness/sentience that is considered irreducible.  Some theorists would argue that other terms are better, such as phenomenal information (Chalmers), meaning (Bohm), sense (Hut – where sense is akin to meaning, not sensation), and so on.

Shawn,

Thank you for that – it's helpful.  That is also my understanding of Wilber's current position on the subject.

Best wishes,

Balder

Hi Julian,

I'm wondering about this statement: Conflating of being able to talk about social worldviews with having done the practice-work necessary to actually experience and understand certain personal stages.

Does this mean that only people who have achieved a certain “stage” of development are entitled, or “qualified,” to talk meaningfully about that “stage”?

This is a continuation from the other blog.

There, Shawn gives a reference in which Wilber states that satori “solves” the hard problem of consciousness. Jim gives the following reference: “In Eye to Eye, first published in 1983, Wilber says that “transcendental methodology constitutes an experimental, verifiable, repeatable proof for the existence of Godhead, as a fact…” (italics in orginal).”

No doubt, various traditions have claimed a special mode of knowing particular to their tradition, a kind of “metaphysical intuition” (yogi-pratyaksha; sakshatkara; anubhava; nirvikalpa-jnana; prajna; bodhi; viveka-khyati, etc.) that “transcends” the “worldly” ways of knowing. In such traditions, this metaphysical intuition is supposed to provide a form of soteriological “veracity;” almost always it is presented as a kind of “self-evident” truth. In Advaita it is the “intuition” that consciousness, which constitutes the eternal essential self, transcends the impermanent mind and body.

While interesting on their own, from an impartial philosophical point of view, I find appeals to “transcendental methodologies” to be problematic. I find them problematic because there is no uniformity as to what these various metaphysical intuitions are intuiting. In this sense, metaphysical intuition is not at all like the “experimental, verifiable, repeatable” proof that we find in the empirical sciences.
Contrary to the claims of Wilber and others it is simply not the case that these intuitions are intuiting the same thing. As Jim notes:

“But if something can only be tested through meditative or contemplative methods, then, as you point out and has many people have been pointing out for years, there is the little matter of interpretation. In the book The Bodhgaya Interviews, the Dalai Lama says: “Liberation in which 'a mind that understands the sphere of reality annihilates all defilements in the sphere of reality' is a state that only Buddhists can accomplish. This kind of moksa or Nirvana is only explained in the Buddhist scriptures, and is achieved only through Buddhist practice.Questioner: “So, if one is a follower of Vedanta, and one reaches the state of satcitananda, would this not be considered ultimate liberation?” His Holiness: “Again, it depends upon how you interpret the words, 'ultimate liberation.'”.”

To give another example, while the Buddhists and Vedantins both acknowledge nirvikalpa-pratyaksha, they simply do not agree, as their Naiyayika detractors point out, as to what it is that this nirvikalpa-pratyaksha is apprehending. And it is certainly not the case, as Wilber contends, that for tradition in general, there is a metaphysical intution of “consciousness as eternal.” Such a claim unfairly prejudices a Vedantic teaching. 

What I think is going on is this: these “metaphysical intuitions” are particular to particular traditions. Each tradition has its own mode of “intuition” – a form of intellectual insight, really, a kind of “seeing” (darshana), or understanding – and each tradition has its own “reality” corresponding to this “mode.” The practice of meditation, as I see it, is concerned with developing this “seeing,” something that no doubt takes years of practice.

In this regard, while it is true to say as Julian does that one can make a distinction between: 1) the spiritual experience itself; 2) how the experience is interpreted, at the same time, it also appears to be the case, given that the traditions do NOT agree, that “experience” – and by this I mean the particular kinds of “seeing” attached to particular traditions – is, always already, shot through with “interpretation.” Reality, here, is not “given;” it is seen through the lense of each traditional teaching – as “empty,” as “the nature of consciousness,” as “God's play,” etc.

Kela,

These are interesting, important points.  I am feeling an itch to start a new blog on some of them.  I think what is important to note here is that where perennialism tends to subscribe to the myth of the given – and while, to the extent that Wilber imports some brand of empiricism into mystical studies and the determination of universal mystical truths, he may smuggle it in also – there is a contrary problem with contextualism:  the Myth of the Framework.  Both perennialism and contextualism presuppose a sort of Cartesian-Kantian dualism – a split between Interpretation and Reality.  (You can possibly see this dualism in Julian's opening blog post).  The “way forward,” in my view, out of the thicket of both perennialism and contextualism has begun to be charted by a few individuals.  I believe TSK moves in this direction, such as with its notion of “readouts.”  And transpersonalist Jorge Ferrer does too, I believe, with his “participatory vision.”

Do you think this topic deserves a thread of its own, or would you like to carry forward with it here?  (I'm asking Julian and others as well as you.)

Best wishes,

Balder

Julian: “this grab-bag of half understood integral theory, new age spirituality, and relativism has now erroneously become synonymous with “turquoise” on zaadz - and i am saying that in the absence of a practice methodology that serves as the experiential counterpart to the map people are reading about, much of he theory - especially that of stages becomes meaningless.”

There is definitely something to what you are saying here, Julian. This is what pluralists do: they figure out what is the “best” and call whatever they are doing that. So suddenly Green politics are “integral” and self-indulgence is “spiritual.”

One helpful distinction is between “cognition” and “self-sense.” Cognition always comes first–a person may be able to think integral, at first usually just when they are reading it or when others are talking about it. But they will still be pluralistic emotionally, still have a Green self-sense, which takes longer to transform. This really becomes apparent when emotional issues are discussed, like politics. Someone integral like Tony Blair is “conservative,” and someone pluralistic like Dennis Kucinich is “integral.” But part of it is just not understanding well what integral politics looks like.

However, there will be certain things that look and sound New Age or mythic or even magic but are really Turquoise or higher, like the three faces of God idea.

Self-assessment tools sound like a great idea. There are tests at Suzanne-Cook Greuter's website, but they are not cheap ($300-400).

David

Hi Everyone

Jim
Thanks very much for the detailed response, and for the references to the Cambridge Handbook article on neuroscience and consciousness which I really liked.

You say to Bruce that you are inclined to think that “consciousness emerged as a product of increasing biological complexity from non-conscious properties composed of non-conscious components”. Me too.  (So for me the bigger question is a biological / molecular one and is probably even “harder” than “the hard problem” - it's not “how did / does consciousness emerge” but “how did animate life emerge from inanimate material”! But that's another story….)

I would like to look further into an issue previously mentioned (by Balder or Jim…? I can't now find the original reference… sorry) regarding the importance of the  “architecture” of this increasing complexity. I think the example was given that a table has a complex collection of materials, parts, molecule atoms, particles… but it has no consciousness, whereas any mammal, because of the biological nature of it's architecture and it's far greater degree of complexity, is more able to “conduct”  or “hold”  various degrees of consciousness - can anyone point me to the original comment about this, or even better in the direction of  further  reading material on this particular point? Thanks in advance…

Jim, I'm also reading through Barbara Montero's article The Body Problem - thanks again for providing great links.



Bruce
Following on from kelamuni's important distinctions re. contextualism and perennialsim (as you then succinctly paraphrased it), you then refer to the diamond approach and also Jorge Ferrer's work. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what Wilber said regarding Ferrer circa 2001- 2002:
“Jorge is one of the nicest, dearest souls you could ever meet. He's truly an amazing person. But I do believe that the view he is representing is basically a green-meme view of psychology and spirituality. I realize that that is exactly the issue being contested: can we really 'rank' views like that? And I realize that sensitive men and women can reasonably disagree on this delicate, difficult issue. At this point, in my opinion, it is simply a matter of personal inclination: if you resonate with green-meme values, you will resonate with Ferrer; if you resonate with second-tier values, you will not. At this point, no amount of argument, evidence, facts, or rhetoric will make you change your mind, which is fine. But I do believe that Ferrer's book basically marks the end of the transpersonal movement; with relativistic pluralism, no matter how dialectically presented, there is simply nowhere to go. Postmodernism is dying a slow and fitful death; increasingly scholars are moving from pluralism to integralism, in my opinion. The insuperable difficulties of Ferrer's book are a condensation of three decades of postmodern wrong turns, or so it seems to me.”

I'm yet to read the Bohm article you linked us to but always grateful for the references you're providing us with here.

Also, I'd really like to hear your thoughts, here or on a new thread, with regards to “the way out of the thicket re perennialism and contextualism”. Are these really shot through with a Cartesian - Kantian dualism between interpretation and reality? It sees to me that the quotes from the Dalai Lama suggest he's not that aware of his own interpretation on what he calls reality, so he's not insisting on the duality between the two…. or am I missing something?


Shawn
Thanks for the Wilber quotes - I'm going to try to find those entire articles. Even though as Jim pointed out there is the issue of interpretation, I'm finding the range of Wilber's scope captured in these quotes here pretty appealing. Is he not anticipating, or has he anticipated elsewhere, the problem of interpretation?

My only issue is that he seems to be saying the only quadrant that has acccess to the non-dual is the interior subjective one - via satori - and what's more, the satori experiences count as empirical answers to the hard problem… And the works of Whitehead et al are somewhat “relegated” to the relative plane


Kelamuni
Appreciating your areas of experise and the clear distinctions you are making - thanks.


Julian
I also had grey squares blocking out my screen and they are still there for me over at your old blog.


Loving the discussion, James

Hi James. Whatever you read re the importance of the “architecture” of increasing complexity is not something I think I wrote.

I would say that anyone who wants to get an overview of various positions on the “mind-body problem” might start with a textbook on the subject, such as the revised edition of Philosophy of Mind by Jaegwon Kim.

Kim writes in a 2003 paper, “During the past several decades, nonreductive physicalism has been the dominant orthodoxy on the mind-body problem.”

Hi, James,

I just got Ferrer's book at the library yesterday, which is why I was referencing him.  I have only begun dipping into a few sections of the book so far, and I may have misunderstood where he is going.  From what I've read (in chapter 6, mostly), it seemed to me that he was suggesting a way forward that neither followed the myth of the given, nor succumbed to arbitrary relativism or subjectivism.  But perhaps I am wrong about what he is doing.  From what I read, it seemed to me that he is suggesting a similar vision to Wilber's “enacted worldspaces,” which is what I explored in my recent blog – where the enacted worldspaces are, indeed, partially constructed, but not arbitrary, not reducible to the terms of Idealism, and certainly not subject to naive Secret-like manipulation. 

Let me read more of the book, and I'll get back to you.  He may be advocating a Green postmodern view, after all. 

Just as a side note, a concern of mine is the consequence that follows from certain of our (post)modern epistemological commitments – a condition of “estrangement from reality” or alienation of human beings from “the world.”  For instance, in pointing out that the “ultimate realities” of different spiritual traditions are not simply given, but shot through with interpretation, are we led inevitably towards (mere) subjectivism or intersubjectivism … where the mind becomes a prisoner of its own arbitrary or culturally constructed hall of mirrors, having nothing to do with “empirical fact” or “the real world”?  

I believe Wilber's model, especially in its latest form (Integral Postmetaphysics), represents a viable way out of the “thicket of (premodern) perennialism and (postmodern) contextualism” – or at least a valiant attempt.  Kela is pointing out a potential problem with reliance on transcendental methodologies to arrive at empirical facts about ultimate reality, which is something Wilber does appear to do when he appeals to satori as the answer to the “hard problem.”  From the little I've read of Ferrer, he appears to make the same challenge to Wilber's reliance on contemplative knowledge  – acknowledging that there are, in fact, transconceptual disclosures available in contemplation, but challenging the notion that transconceptual knowledge leads to a single insight.  He argues for a multiplicity of transconceptual disclosures.  This is why I mentioned him in relation to Kela's comments….

Anyway, there's a lot to explore here.  It does relate to Julian's topic, so I'm up for continuing here, but I would also be happy to take it up on another blog.

Best wishes,

Balder

P.S.  P.S.  I just skimmed a review of Ferrer's book on the Shambhala site.  The author says that Ferrer's model is “complete” on the quadrant side of things, but leaves out levels and lines and relies too much on the “enactive” component.  That may be – and if so, his overall model wouldn't be integral (from an AQAL standard).  But Wilber also acknowledges that he has important points to make, so I'm not going to apologize for bringing him up!

P.P.S.  Jim, I just saw your recent post to James.  I'm the one who talked about “architecture.”  I also mentioned to you, on the other thread, that Wilber's model (which places “matter” on the outside of all “occasions” rather than as the bottom rung of the chain of being) is therefore amenable to a physicalist description at all levels of the cosmos.  It sounds like we agree…

Julian,

I wrote:  On the other hand, there may also be some distinctions which strike someone as impractical and “too abstract” because they haven't done the work yet to grasp in a fuller way what is being discussed.

You replied: define “doing the work” in this context and give me an example please.

“Doing the work” could be something as simple as just taking the time to study something; to actually spending time in deep inquiry over it, wresting with it and applying it; to engaging in practices or learning disciplines which support it.  As a teacher, I'm sure you've run into instances of students who tell you that something you're describing is very vague and abstract, when you know the problem really is not that the ideas are especially “vague” or abstract,” but rather that the material is new enough to these students that they haven't really grasped the ways that it relates to (and impacts) the different dimensions of their life and thought and practice.  An example of doing actual practice that grounds an abstract-seeming concept is the Buddhist tradition of inquiring into and meditating on emptiness, which involves rigorous work (intellectually and contemplatively) and leads to insights which can have immediate and profound impacts.  There is a difference between learning ways to “use” emptiness in a sentence – the language of spirituality – and doing this work.  From the former perspective, “emptiness” will likely strike someone as an abstract, perhaps even arcane philosophical artifact rather than something which has living significance.  A more conventional example would be something like mathematics - where, to non-mathematicians, the ideas may seem particularly vague and ungrounded; but to those who work with them regularly, they can “see” these things, these relationships and patterns, in the world around them in vivid (according to some, visceral) ways.

Best wishes,

B.

Here is a re-working of some of the ideas presented above:

“Satori solves the hard problem of consciousness.” What does this mean?

Does it mean that with “bodhi” there is the recognition, as per the usual Buddhist teaching, that consciousness (vijnana) is merely one of the impermanent “heaps” (skandhas)? Somehow I doubt that this is what is meant. No, what I think is meant is that with “satori” there comes a realization 1. that consciousness is irreducible to, and in fact transcends, the body-mind complex; and 2. that consciousness is the eternal (nitya) unchanging (kutastha) witness (sakshin) underlying, and presupposed by, changing states of mind (citta-vritti). In other words, “satori” here means realizing the “truth” of teachings such as Advaita Vedanta, Patanjala Yoga, and Samkhya. And this “realization” is supposed to “solve” the problem of consciousness for the one who has achieved it.

What is the nature of this “realization?” Tradition speaks of it as a “determinate cognition” or “personal conviction” (nischaya) that comes with the fruition of the practice of examination/inspection (pariksha) of the nature of mind and consciousness. What then is the status of this “personal conviction?” Well, for one, as a personal conviction, it can hardly be said to fulfil the role of an philosophical account of the nature of consciousness. Personal convictions are subjective states, which, while meaningful for the one who has been convinced, do little to assuage the enquiring minds of other philosophers. Such “realizations” are qualitatively no different from the conviction of the born-again Christian who maintains that he has awakened to the “truth” that he has an immortal soul that has been saved. As such, personal convictions are functionally indistinguishable from articles of faith.

But should we not then “take up the injunction” and find out for ourselves the “truth” of these teachings? On the face of it, this looks promising, until we realize that the “inspection” carried out by traditions like Advaita is really an examination carried out with its eye on a pre-determined result. This is because the aims of such inquiries are soteriological. In other words, they aim at moksha, and in the context of Vedanta/Yoga this means realizing the eternality of the self; no eternality, no moksha. That their result is pre-determined can be seen in the fact that different injunctions, different forms of inspection, will produce different results. A typically Buddhist form of inspection, for example, will produce an entirely opposite result: the “realization” that consciousness (vijnana) is not permanent and unchanging, but an ever-changing flux of cognitive moments (kshana) coming and going. Thus, the metaphysics found in traditions like Vedanta are good examples of what has been called “wish list” metaphysics: metaphysical inquiries that set out to save whatever is held dear from the outset. They are not impartial explorations of ontology, and as such, they will not be seen in a favorable light by many philosophers.

Hi Balder,
I suppose we could spin off on the points you raise and start a new thread, though that's a tough subject you breach. If you'd like to bring up the issues you raise at your own blog I'll try to bring what I can to the discussion there. Here, I was attempting to follow through on some ideas as they relate to Wilber and the ongoing discussion concerning the philosophy of mind (which itself seemed to spin off from the discussion concerning theism) and found myself in territory that we had already discussed elsewhere. Interesting how these issued are interrelated. 
cheers,
kela

Jim, I've never been comfortable with the Star Trek transporter–although you probably could've guess that! ;-) The main problem is that I see a complex of “bodies” subtler than the physical–such as the etheric/pranic and the astral/emotional-mental–and I'm not sure if they would “translate.”

This applies to, say, processed vs. un-processed food: The less processed, the more “life-force” (etheric-pranic) the food retains. Or perhaps a “pranic explanation” for jet lag: the subtler bodies get out of alignment with the physical during flight.

No mental difference without a physical difference.

If we play with the definition of “physical,” I'm game. Or rather, if we equate “mental” with “interior” and “physical” with “exterior, so that we can say:

For every interior there is an exterior, and vice versa.

But these forms may be unrecognizable to our current understanding. For example, if something exists after death it doesn't necessarily need a physical flesh-and-blood body to exist; a subtle one would suffice to satisfy the above formula, where “physical” (or exterior) means a “body” of some kind–whether of matter, energy, or whatever. Something that is (potentially) perceptible.

To put it another way, if consciousness requires form to exist, I don't think the death of the physical form “proves” the death of consciousness–only that it if it does continue, it “inhabits” (or manifests as) a subtle form.

Jim and Bruce

Thnaks very much for the detailed responses. Lots to chew over here.

All The Best,

James

Kela said: While interesting on their own, from an impartial philosophical point of view, I find appeals to “transcendental methodologies” to be problematic. I find them problematic because there is no uniformity as to what these various metaphysical intuitions are intuiting. In this sense, metaphysical intuition is not at all like the “experimental, verifiable, repeatable” proof that we find in the empirical sciences.  Contrary to the claims of Wilber and others it is simply not the case that these intuitions are intuiting the same thing.

Balder said: Kela is pointing out a potential problem with reliance on transcendental methodologies to arrive at empirical facts about ultimate reality, which is something Wilber does appear to do when he appeals to satori as the answer to the “hard problem.”  From the little I've read of Ferrer, he appears to make the same challenge to Wilber's reliance on contemplative knowledge  - acknowledging that there are, in fact, transconceptual disclosures available in contemplation, but challenging the notion that transconceptual knowledge leads to a single insight.  He argues for a multiplicity of transconceptual disclosures. 

I say: Try reading Michel Bauwens' latest essay at Integral World, “The Next Buddha is a Community.” He references both Ferrer and Heron in that essay. he makes some mportant points (for me): 1) That this so-called meditative/contemplative line is only one line of several in so-called “spirituality”; 2) that this line gets unnecessary and undue influence in the overall formula of spirituality, 3) there are not only more important lines involved but that it is their integration that matters; 4) that this entire process is now contingent of a post-traditional, collaborative inquiry and no longer within the narrow confines of traditions that sefl-define such states of experience (as kela points out).

I would add that even the entire notion of “spirituality” is challenged in postmodernity, as such states of experience, which occur to us all, are alreadys already contextualized and that perhaps our pomo contextualizations are more accurate than previous, “spiritual” interpretations. That is, if we think we are “evolving” in our worldviews. As to whether Wilber's version of integrating the pre, modern and pomo worldviews goes beyond such pomo insights as Derrida and Deleuze is questionable.

Hi Jonny, you say:

if consciousness requires form to exist, I don't think the death of the physical form “proves” the death of consciousness–only that it if it does continue, it “inhabits” (or manifests as) a subtle form.

I think we say things like “if consciousness requires form to exist” and ”every level of interior consciousness is accompanied by a level of exterior physical complexity,” as Wilber says, because of a natural intuition that conscious states and physical states (brain states) are distinct.

When we say something like, “Victoria Beckham was accompanied by her husband David Beckham to the awards ceremony,” we know that we mean that Victoria and David are distinct individuals and that either could've shown up at the ceremony without the other. I wonder if Wilber chose his words carefully so that he could leave open the possibility that conscious states and brains states are distinct and can exist independently of one another?

It may be counterintuitive to think that conscious states are brain states, but it's possible that they are.

If conscious states are identical with brain states, then it makes no sense to say that conscious states “accompany” or “correlate” with brain states, nor does it make sense to say that brain states “give rise to” or “generate” conscious states.

“Identical” in this sense is as in the classic example of the Morning Star and the Evening Star. One appears in the morning, the other in the evening, and before astronomers knew that both names (“Morning Star” and “Evening Star”) referred to the same individual, the planet Venus, it was believed that they were distinct individuals.

One reason some people may reject the mind-body identity theory is that it means that if your brain is injured seriously enough, there goes your ability to realize certain conscious states. Another reason is that it means that there is no human consciousness or mentality over and above the brain that can persist after the brain is dead. If David Beckham dies during a soccer game, Victoria Beckham will not die as a result of his injuries. But if the Morning Star is destroyed by a super nuclear weapon, the Evening Star will also be gone.

I'm not saying anything conclusive here about consciousness, I'm just blabbing! ;-)

- Jim

Hi all,
Am I a “relativist?” I guess my answer would be that where spiritual truth is concerned, I am one; I seem to have given up on the search for a single spiritual truth to which I might attach myself. My point here, however, is largely methodological, which is to say, I am attempting to articulate an account of the nature of contemplative traditions that brings to bear the findings of late 20th century thought. One of the strongest charges that could be brought against my account is that it is not phenomenologically “sympathetic” enough, not sufficiently “emic.” In other words I do not take tradition as it understands itself, as a “given,” but reconfigure it, interpret it. This may be true. But personally, as a scholar, I think the time has come to move beyond mere phenomenological description, which has the weaknesses of being historically and geneologically “naive.” If anything, our encounter with the likes of Da, and the parade of New Age gurus, has shown us that a more critically attuned approach is necessary. Of course, “balance” is needed and I certainly do not wish to “throw the bathwater out with the baby.”

Hi theurg. I hear what you are saying concerning the narrowness of only looking at contemplative traditions. I myself for some time now have been looking at the philosophical traditions of late antiquity – skepticism, epicureanism, cynicism, stoicism – as analogs to the more “contemplative” traditions of late antiquity – gnosticism, hermeticism, neoplatonism, neopythagoreanism, and christian mysticism. In this regard, Pierre Hadot's book, Philosophy as a Way of Life, is an excellent place to start. He interprets the various philosophical schools as forms of ethos, ways of being, of comporting oneself in life.There is also a rich tradition in India that people like Wilber have not even begun to consider: The various kinds of shramanas besides the Buddhists and Jains, such as the Ajivikas; the svabhava-vadins, the naturalists; and the ajnanikas, who were like the Greek skeptics; and their heirs the Tattva-upaplavavadins, the “exploders of truth,” who were even more radical that the Prasanjikas; and for that matter the “proto-Madhyamikas”; and the Shaiva Pashupatas, the grand-daddies of  Tantra and Indo Tibetan “crazy wisdom,” who are like Indian cynics (they even wore lion skins and carried clubs, just like the Hellenic cynics); and my favorite, the yadrccha-vadins, the spiritual anarchists, who incarnate at various times in the Indian tradition, such as in the Ashtavakra Gita, and the sahaja-yana of the long-haried feral adepts like Saraha. And so on.

On Theurg's point concerning “transcendental methodologies” and integralism in general: One of the points I'm questioning is the potential compatability of the “eye of soul” with the “eye of mind” (reason) and the “eye of body” (empiricism). Historically, the “eye of soul,” or what the older tradition called “intellectual intuition,” is conspicuously absent in the modern period. It makes a brief reappearance with Hegel in his concept of “speculatio,” which grasps absolute knowledge, but generally we find its disappearance in the modern period. This disappearance coincides with the “naturalizing” of philosophy and with the movement in philosophy toward theoretical universality alongside a similar movement in the natural sciences. In other words, we find “intellectual intution” most typically where we find philosophy (variously) considered as a “life path,” in particular in (somewhat insular) traditions like Neo-Platonism wherein certain “noetic states” fufill a particular role. We can understand why intellectual intuition gradually fell out of favour during the “communalization” of philosophy: there was simply no consensus on what it was that intellectual intuition was supposed to be intuiting. In any case, it seems to me that if integralism chooses to retain the various forms of “intellectual intuition,” at least at a theoretical level, they will have to accept some form of pluralism. Another option is a form of hierarchic “inclusivism” in which the various traditions are “ranked” under the auspices of a single tradition, such as the Vedanta. But that, IMO, is what we already have in the Wilber/Da system.

I like blabbing, Jim ;-)

Yeah, it is a tricky thing and I'm not exactly where I stand, although I would like to believe that consciousness can exist without a brain, but I'm not sure. If “subtle body theory” has truth to it, then it would follow that once the physical body dies–and brain states end–the subtler body, or bodies, can continue, yet without the “anchor” of the physical.

The vast majority of traditions hold that some form of existence continues after death. I'm not prepared to write these off as diehard atheists do as some kind of endemic denial.  Eckhart Tolle said something along the lines that there is no opposite to life–death and birth are opposites, but life has no opposite, is without duality.

Kela, what do you think of the Wilber-Combs Matrix in relation to your notion of the relativity of spiritual truth?  I'll do my best to summarize it briefly, for the sake of anyone who needs it.

As I understand the implications of the basic theory of the WC Matrix, what it posits as “given” (at least in an evolutionary sense) are the developmental structures of the human organism and the several basic states that are available to human beings, with different mystical experiences being understood as enactively emergent in AQAL space (e.g., as various evolutionary structures intersect with various states within various sociocultural contexts).  There is no singular spiritual “ultimate” or “ground” in this vision.  The continuous and discontinuous “consciousness” you reference (Vedantin and Buddhist, respectively) are similarly understood as perspectives, rather than simple representations of a pre-given spiritual reality.

Kela, one of the things that has drawn me to Rudolf Steiner's work is his emphasis on the development of cognition through what Steiner calls Imagination (which is somewhat similar to Coleridge's usage) towards Intuition, which I think is related to what you are calling “intellectual intuition”. Of course, as you say, the problem becomes communal verification–if that is important to you–because how do you know if what you are “intuiting” is true, or to what degree it is true? (This is my problem with channeling: not that I think it is isn't possible, or is inauthentic, but that there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of different channeled cosmologies, all revealing the “True History of the Universe”–and not all of them are compatible, even distantly).

I suppose Anthroposophists use Steiner as a barometer: he has literally hundreds of books that discuss the findings of his clairvoyant “spiritual science” (or development of the imaginative-cognitive capacity towards Intuition), but Steiner lived in the pre-hermeneutic era, so the matter if interpretation wasn't as taken into account as we might today.

But I think part of the reason why we don't see an emphasis on intellectual intuition in modern spiritual circles is because of the “Easternization” of it. Most Eastern approaches advocate “bypassing” what Wilber calls the psychic/subtle realms in favor of causal immersion and nondual realization. I call it “bypassing” intentionally, and along the lines of John Welwood's popularized usage, because I see a real bankruptcy of certain capacities in modern spirituality–including integralism–having to do with imaginative consciousness.
This topic is going off track, so I'll post something more on my blog this weekend.

Since you've brought Steiner into this you might want to check out this article in the current issue of Integral Review, which attempts to integrate Steiner, Gebser and Wilber.

Gidley, J (2007). “The evolution of consciousness as a planetary imperative.” Integral Review 5

Abstract: In this article I aim to broaden and deepen the evolution of consciousness

discourse by integrating the integral theoretic narratives of Rudolf Steiner, Jean Gebser,

and Ken Wilber, who each point to the emergence of new ways of thinking that could

address the complex, critical challenges of our planetary moment. I undertake a wide

scan of the evolution discourse, noting it is dominantly limited to biology-based notions

of human origins that are grounded in scientific materialism. I then broaden the discourse

by introducing integral evolutionary theories using a transdisciplinary epistemology to

work between, across and beyond diverse disciplines. I note the conceptual breadth of

Wilber's integral evolutionary narrative in transcending both scientism and

epistemological isolationism. I also draw attention to some limitations of Wilber's

integral project, notably his undervaluing of Gebser's actual text, and the substantial

omission of the pioneering contribution of Steiner, who, as early as 1904 wrote

extensively about the evolution of consciousness, including the imminent emergence of a

new stage. I enact a deepening of integral evolutionary theory by honoring the significant

yet undervalued theoretic components of participation/enactment and aesthetics/artistry

via Steiner and Gebser, as a complement to Wilber. To this end, I undertake an in-depth

hermeneutic dialogue between their writings utilizing theoretic bricolage, a multi-mode

methodology that weaves between and within diverse and overlapping perspectives. The

hermeneutic methodology emphasizes interpretive textual analysis with the aim of

deepening understanding of the individual works and the relationships among them. This

analysis is embedded in an epic but pluralistic narrative that spans the entire human story

through various previous movements of consciousness, arriving at a new emergence at

the present time. I also discuss the relationship between these narratives and

contemporary academic literature, culminating in a substantial consideration of research

that identifies and/or enacts new stage(s) or movements of consciousness. In particular, I

highlight the extensive adult developmental psychology research that identifies several

stages of postformal thinking, and recent critical, ecological and philosophical literature

that identifies an emerging planetary consciousness. In summary, my research reveals an

interpretation of scientific and other evidence that points beyond the formal, modernist

worldview to an emerging postformal-integral-planetary consciousness. I posit that a

broader academic consideration of such an integration of integral theoretic narratives

could potentially broaden the general evolution discourse beyond its current biological

bias. The article concludes with a rewinding of narrative threads, reflecting on the

narrators, the journey, and the language of the discourse. Appendixes A and B explore

the theoretical implications of the emergence of postformal-integral-planetary

consciousness for a reframing of modernist conceptions of time and space. Appendix C

holds an aesthetic lens to the evolution of consciousness through examples from the

genealogy of writing.

Hello all,

This discussion on consciousness reminds me of a story David Lane shared in his prologue to his essay Ken Wilber's Achilles Heel - The Art of Spiritual Hyperbole:

Prologue

This past year I was invited by Dr. Anthony Kassir, who had
recently graduated from Medical School at U.C. Irvine, to an informal
gathering of would-be doctors of psychiatry who were going to an
Italian restaurant in Newport Beach to talk with Dr. Roger Walsh, the
well-known transpersonal therapist and author.

Dr. Kassir knew of my interest in Wilber and thought that Dr. Walsh
and I should meet. Naturally, I was happy to go. I also thought it
would be fruitful if I brought my best friend, Aaron Talsky (a
Harvard educated lawyer and an expert on Indian spirituality), along
with me.

I should have known better, of course. Aaron Talsky is one helluva
of nice guy when you get to know him, but he is, to put this politely,
an intellectual pit-bull. He's very smart, but he can also be very
acidic. Since we are pals, I told him that I was going to put a
“leash” on him for the night. Basically, I was bribing
him into a free meal at my expense because Aaron needs to get out at
night and away from his Haiku dog, Master Basho.

It was a pleasant evening and the conversation was at first polite.
Everything seemed to have a warm goo to it, and I could just tell
that it was not going to last. There were too many uninspected
statements, too many miracle claims, too much optimism about what
transpersonal psychology will achieve.

Aaron was sitting right next to Dr. Roger Walsh. Talsky was biting his
tongue, holding his hurl, the entire time….. until I slightly
winked at him (forgetting that a wink to Aaron can also be
interpreted as “you are off the leash!”). No sooner had I given
Talsky the nod than a full-fledged debate began to rage.

Aaron Talsky was like the proverbial bull in a china shop, breaking
apart the most delicate of items. Yet, as I watched him unleash his
exceedingly keen intellect like a laser-sharpened Ninja
blade, it became painfully obvious that nobody in the room could
counter-argue Talsky's devastatingly simple points.

For example, when Talsky talked about brain lesions and how certain
patients literally experience non-connecting selves–each one
unknown to the other–he raised the issue of a “soul” or “self.”
In such cases, what sense does it make to talk about a permanent
self or soul? Moreover, why do we think that we survive death, when
in actual experience we cannot even remember deep sleep (those
moments in which we don't even dream).

And what, truly, is modifying the play of consciousness? The Neural
symphony or some divine symphony for which we have no proof, but a
lot of stories, which depend by the way on the activity of neurons.
No neural activity, no stories–no religion, no spirituality, no
myths, no nothing (at least in terms of what one could talk about at
Dominos).

Then Aaron raised the issue of silicon chips replacing “wet”
neurons… or the transplanting of one's brain into another person's
body. Does the soul stay or move or translate or pay rent or what?

Or does it make any sense to talk about a “soul” when such a term is
as outdated as Zeus or Thor or any God which we used to think
controlled some vital organ or substance of the body or the
world….?

Naturally, there are many ways to approach these questions and they
have been with us since time immemorial…..

But I tell you something…. at this party it deadened the “spirit.”
It grounded the flights of fancy. It made everybody look like a bad
poser…. We all started sounding stupid, sounding inarticulate.

Why? Because we really don't know much and even the best of minds
are stuck when confronted with simple little questions…. and it is
the simplest of questions that can derail transpersonal psychology
much too quickly.

Put it this way, some of the best emerging minds in transpersonal
psychology were in attendance, and not one of them could answer
Talsky's questions in a satisfactory way. Quite frankly, it was
pathetic. And Talsky is not even that well informed on the latest
issues. He just had the balls to ask impolite questions at a polite
pizza party.

It got me to thinking. Thus my critique of Wilber, which has been in
the back of my mind for years…….

With reference to Steiner's notion of imagination Gidley says on p. 115:

For Gebser, the reintegration of the imagination is primarily related to what he would call the conscious awareness and concretion of the mythical structure. Steiner (1984b), on the other hand, has a rather complex characterization of the significance of imagination. He certainly sees it as a crucial factor in the emergent consciousness. In a similar manner to Wilber's vision-logic he refers to two major features that need to be activated for consciousness soul to develop: “a clear perception of the sense world” that he notes has been assisted by the empirical sciences, and the unfolding of “free imaginations side by side with the clear view of reality” (Lecture 2). For Steiner, the conscious cultivation of the Imagination-resembling Schelling's notion of the intellectual imagination-is a crucial early step in psycho-spiritual development (Steiner, 1905/1981b).

Wow, theurj, thanks for that! Although, at 223 pages I'd hardly call that an article! I'm guessing that is Gidley's MA or PhD dissertation?

Anyways, I agree with what she said in her abstract–that Wilber too easily writes Steiner off (I think he only mentions him in a note in Integral Psychology, saying something to the effect that like most German philosphers he's too mental…as if KW is one to talk! LOL).

Anyways, I like the idea of bringing together Wilber, Gebser, and Steiner–although to be more complete I'd like to see Aurobindo and William Irwin Thompson woven in, maybe even Terence McKenna to diversify a bit.

The second quote is very interesting. Gidley rightly points out that Steiner's Imagination is not quite he same as vision-logic, which is more akin to the mental mode of Steiner's “consciousness soul”–which equates with the existential level. Steiner's Imagination is the bridge between the mental and the trans-mental, a bridge that Wilber's work doesn't really touch on (or, at the least, slides over–i.e., the psychic realm).

The key difference may be an emphasis on right vs. left brain; Wilber only really emphasizes the latter, Steiner emphasizes both (and artistic visionaries and poets are the polarity to Wilber, focusing on the right-brain).

My own current opinion is a weaving of the transpersonal psychologists like Ferrer and Washburn with Gebser and Wilber. Per the last Gidley quote above Gebser sees this “imagination” as an integration and concretion of the mythic structure. Combine this with Washburn's notion that we go trans-ego via a “u-turn” that integrates lower structures, which is not the same as merely returning to them in a regression. Then this “imagination” of Steiner's would indeed be our rational ego's first step back/forward in this integrative process (concretion) into the subtle-psychic. Gidley emphasizes the mytho-poetic as an expression of this development, which has been going on for some time now, well before even Steiner's time. Much like the egoic-rational has been around since Greece but it took a couple thousand years to reach its upper limits.

Hi Balder.

As per your question, my sense is that beyond the models of development offered by psychological theorists such as Piaget, the schema for development offered by the transpersonalists are arbitrary and speculative. Presumably they are based upon tradition. But again, which tradition are we going to use?

Here is something I posted at Lightmind some time ago when I was reviewing sections of Integral Spirituality:

If consciousness is, as Ken suggests, empty, what is the criterion within consciousness that allows us to gauge the various levels, and that, just as importantly, also allows us to distinguish levels from lines? Ken makes it clear that we need to distinguish between levels and lines of development, and the various lines of development are relatively clear. We can, for example, speak of moral development, or intellectual development, and so on, in terms that can be understood by most of us. But as soon as we begin to talk about “levels” in general, things become very vague.

My sense is that levels can only be understood in terms of some particular line, which is to say as soon as we attempt to characterize “levels of development,” we are, in fact, understanding that development in terms of some particular line. The difficulty here appears to reveal itself in chapter nine, “The Conveyer Belt,” where Wilber attempts to distinguish lines of phylogenetic development (i.e., Lower Left development) from levels of development. But when Wilber is required to speak of these general levels in more specific terms, he resorts to of the well-known color scheme of “red, amber, orange,” and in doing so, makes use of a particular characterization: modern/orange=the “rational,” etc.

Now one might wish to go along with a particular characterization in this manner, but unless some criterion can be given as to the general nature of this development, it comes off as being merely speculative and arbitrary, an a priori imposition upon “consciousness”; and if some criterion is given, then, I would suggest, we are merely understanding development in terms of some particular line of development.  

Hey johnny quest,

It's not so much that I'm “attacking” the idea of intellectual intuition, though I am offering a critical understanding of it, as much as pointing to some of the problems it poses for those integral theorists who want to avoid a pluralistic paradigm. I'm willing to concede that it “exists” though I have a rather particular take on its nature.

Your inquiries into imagination sound interesting. The connection noted by theurg between Steiner and Schelling looks promising. I seem to remember a book by Schelling on Somathrace in which he expresses his views on the role of myth. While we're on the topic of the Romantics, there's a dirty little secret among Kant scholars that Kant was actually quite taken with Swedenborg's ideas about the imagination. But Swedenborg was also a kind of exemplar for Kant of speculation gone out of control. By the time of Hume and Kant it was not only intellectual intuition that had come under fire, but the eye of mind, reason itself. Speculative reason itself tends to generate competing views, what Kant called the “antinomies,” and so the problem of the “multivalency of truth” is not particular to “intellectual intution” alone. And the critique of speculative reason is not merely an ancient or modern theme either: Rorty's attacks on “systematic” philosophizing and Lyotard's dismissal of “grand narratives” fall within it as well.

I think that whenever we find people talking about some “grand narrative” or another it is usually under the purview of some great theorist – be it Hegel, Wilber, or as you point out Steiner among the Anthroposophists. Their theories serve as the backdrop against which disparate historical phenomena can be understood, interpreted really. 

Kela, leaving aside the viability of using “consciousness itself” as a “neutral measuring stick” for the moment, what do you think of Wilber's general approach of laying developmental lines alongside one another and noting possible interrelationships – e.g., suggesting that certain relationships obtain among cognitive, emotional, moral, and cultural “lines” of development, for instance?  Robert Kegan, as you are likely aware, draws explicit connections between cognitive development, the evolution of meaning, and the development of moral perspectives and values.  Do you think this approach has merit?  If so, do you have objections to coming up with a convention for referring in a general way to these inter-line developmental relationships (and correspondences)?

Hello Julian - here is the link to the rest of Lane's essay.

He also has a few other good essays that you may be interested in:

On Reductionism

Wilber and the Misunderstanding of Evolution

Wilber on Evolution Revisited

-Shawn

Hi Balder,

I remember the discussion moving along similar lines at Lightmind. I'm trying to find in my notes where I gave further considerations to the question but don't seem to have saved them. I think one conclusion we came to was that Wilber seems to opt for “cognitive” development as the most inclusive line, or the one line that the other lines might most easily be brought into accordance with. This idea has a distinctly Kantian flavour to me, but that's OK I guess. The discussion then went on to consider what is meant by the term “cognitive” and the degree to which it can be said to apply to the transpersonal “domain.”

On another note, I came across the following quote while reading some of Wilber's sidebars referring to Varela. (I actually stumbled across Varela while researching Husserl on the “phenomenology of internal time consciousness.”) In any case, Wilber says, referring to autopoesis and systems theory: 

“There are very important truths (i.e., perspectives) contained in all of those approaches, and all would clearly find a place in any integral methodological pluralism–if shorn of their absolutisms.”

Here he seems to acknowledge a methodological pluralism.  The question then is how are they related, and do they even need to be?

kela

Yes, Integral Methodological Pluralism is one of the main focuses of his latest work.  I am guessing you are aware of Wilber's relatively new convention of classifying methodologies according to zones (or hori-zones of awareness)?  Where he identifies eight major “perspectives” (the “inside” and “outside” perspectives that can be taken on the four main perspective-dimensions which he describes as subjective, objective, intersubjective, and interobjective) and the various methodologies associated with each?  By arguing that these perspectives are irreducible and co-arising, and by suggesting that all major methodologies can be understood as relying on one or more of these perspectives, Wilber is of course making an argument about the necessary relationships that exist among various methodologies or paradigms.  But he is also arguing for their necessary limitation and contingency.

Since this is all basic Integral theory, I am guessing that your question about how the methodologies are related, and if they even need to be, is coming from a position that is critical of, or at least unconvinced by, Wilber's particular approach?  (Or are you just being lazy with me again?  :-)  )

Balder,

It seems Wilber, the transpersonalists, the P2P folks and the alternative integral folks agree on an IMP of sorts, i.e., muptiple perspectives. But from Wilber's perspective all the perspectives are “transcended and included” by his version of a “turquoise” altitude. Whereas some of the others “integrate” the perspectives from a similar-sounding integral “a”perspectival view, but the perspectives are not similarly “reduced” within an over-arching, grand metanarrative. So the former finds the latter hopelessly green relativism while the latter finds the former hopelessly deficiently rational.

This is why I brought up this topic in the gaia-II pod under “the origins of action-logic” and at Open Integral and Open Source Integral as “is integral a level?” The bottom line question is, as you pose, how do we “integrate” the various levels/lines/perspectives from an integral-aperspective? There is a legitimate, translative struggle going on within this “movement” as to how to formlate exactly what is this emerging thing called “integral.” And for now, in our infancy, all sides seem to be reducing the other's models. Hence you'll start seeing a lot more cross-model (cross-paradigmatic) comparisons like Gidley's to come.

Theurj, yes, I see this translative struggle as a good thing, as I suppose you do too.  I've talked about it a bit in my classes – this inevitable movement to integrate the various competing integral models.  I haven't read beyond the first several pages of Gidley's paper yet, but it looks interesting.  (I haven't been very impressed with Steiner, to date, but I'm willing to see what she has to say about him.)

But the various integral models might also be irreducible to each other within some form of “integration.” That's part of the translative difference. That's a point kela makes above about various eastern notions of enlightenment. We often talk about it like it's a monolithic, agreed-upon “event,” but even within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition there is much divergence on the two truths. See The Two Truths Debate by Thakchoe (2007) for example. His conclusion about Tsonghapa and Gorampa specifically  (and Dzogchen and Gelug more generally): “The positions…take by these two…are distinct, and finally, irreconcilable.”

And even more diverse than irreducible difference within different schools is the pomo axiom that it goes all the way to individual differences. For example this from Bauwens' essay “The Next Buddha”:

“In terms of epistemology, conceptions of an objective material universe which can be known from a single objective framework or perspective, have systematically been undermined by postmodern philosophers (but even before, with Marx noting the deformations through the social unconscious, and Freud noting that the personal unconscious meant that we were not the masters of our own house). They have argued that there is no absolute framework, only elements in a system which can only be defined in relation to one another. The hierarchical card catalog, which implies that there is one way of knowing the world (the hierarchical tree of knowledge), first made way for the decentralized databases which could be queried through different ‘facets', to the now totally distributed folksonomies and tagging systems. In these new distributed systems of knowledge, every individual frames his own world, but he has access to how other individuals have framed the same and other knowledge objects, and all other objects in their own accessible tagging systems. Independent researchers and scholars are now able to peer in each other minds and frameworks, implying that there is not one way to interpret reality, but an infinite number of singular worldviews. Truth then, becomes a matter of integrating, encountering, and exchanging with others and their worldviews, so as to look at the world and its subjects and objects from a variety of viewpoints, each illuminating reality in a different way. Tensions and paradoxes that arise can be confronted through dialogue. Of course, certain types of knowledge, such as physical sciences, still use traditional methodologies, but the human and social sciences are certainly influenced by these new attitudes, which govern how many individuals now make sense of their world.”

But how do we “integrate” an infinite number of singular worldviews? Perhaps we do not. Perhaps we can contextualize them while always keeping in mind the contingent nature of our own contextualizations. And granted there are “better” contextualizations, depending on the specific, individual situation. But perhaps there is no grand contextualization that is always better in all situations?

For example, Gregrory Desilet was involved in the last Integral Review discussion on Hampson's article “Postmodernism: The Way Out is Through.” In the thread called “Question of States” Desilet said:

I feel fairly certain that Derrida would have trouble with the way in which Wilber views the rainbow of consciousness. Contrary to what some have argued, Derrida is not opposed to applications of heirarchical organization. For Derrida, hierarchy is everywhere a natural phenomenon of life. So he would not oppose the rainbow or “evolution” of consciousness on hierarchical grounds. But Derrida always wants to understand hierarchy in more complex ways. In this sense he does not advocate viewing hierarchies as universally stable–life (and also deconstruction) is always in the process of destablizing hierarchies. All hierarchies are natural and all hierarchies are temporary and contingent and their current organization is always relative to current contextualizations (and what is meant by “current” could be one year, one decade, one century and so on).

So I believe Derrida would not want to buy into the notion of a rainbow of consciousness whereby some levels are intrinsically and universally “higher” (in the sense of “transcending and including”) than others. What appears “higher” and more inclusive in one context may not appear so in another–or might move down an “evolutionary” line that will ultimately be judged less fruitful than another.

For Derrida, we would need to remain more flexible in our evaluations than is implied in the idea of a rainbow of consciousness with its “built in” scale of evaluations based on some notion of evolutionary progress. For example, if that notion is from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric there may be a sense in which this entire progression is still too “ethnocentric” from a vantage point that has simply escaped “our” awareness to date; or it may be that the progression is not ethnocentric enough (i.e., not well calibrated to the variety of human existence on this planet). While Wilber does make some concessions to temporality and contingency, he seems to backtrack from the consequences of these admissions to promote a notion of enlightenment whereby at any given point in time we can be certain that we have attained the “highest” levels of awareness (enlightenment). I think Derrida would argue that we 1) ought never to be so presumptuous and 2) that if we were to be so presumptuous it would only impose a false destination standing in the way of the journey (which is perhaps more like the “true” destination).

Yes, I did not mean to imply that we will ever – or should ever – end up with just one “integral” worldview or model.  I just meant that a natural movement now is for the various integral worldviews to enter into dialogue, and through that, to arrive at new integrations, new generative perspectives.  I do not think this will ever add up to a single, monolithic truth or absolute worldview.  I was just writing to Jonny Bardo on his recent blog that I think that the multiplicity of perspectives extends horizontally as well as vertically – that even in Integral Theory, with its hierarchical Kosmic addresses, a multiplicity of worldviews or perspectives is to be expected at any particular “altitude,” given the other elements that are also in play (lines, states, types, etc).  This means, of course, that Integral Theory itself should lead us to predict the necessary emergence of other integral models.

Hi, Theurj,

I''d like to respond to some of Desilet's comments on Wilber and Derrida.

Desilet wrote:  I feel fairly certain that Derrida would have trouble with the way in which Wilber views the rainbow of consciousness. Contrary to what some have argued, Derrida is not opposed to applications of heirarchical organization. For Derrida, hierarchy is everywhere a natural phenomenon of life. So he would not oppose the rainbow or “evolution” of consciousness on hierarchical grounds. But Derrida always wants to understand hierarchy in more complex ways. In this sense he does not advocate viewing hierarchies as universally stable–life (and also deconstruction) is always in the process of destablizing hierarchies. All hierarchies are natural and all hierarchies are temporary and contingent and their current organization is always relative to current contextualizations (and what is meant by “current” could be one year, one decade, one century and so on).

From what Desilet says here, it seems to me he is addressing a less mature Wilber, not Wilber's postmetaphysics.  In the latter, the rainbow of consciousness is understood as a contingent, evolutionarily emergent patterning – as habits of cognition rather than timeless planes of consciousness.  While the elements being highlighted in Wilber's descriptions of emergent patterns are themselves partly historical accidents – another researcher in another culture may have highlighted a different constellation of patterns – this does not mean they are merely (e.g., wholly reducible to) cultural conventions.  The order of emergence of cognitive capacities – concrete operational, to formal operational, to postformal – is not arbitrary; you will never find these patterns unfolding in a different order.  Rather, they show up in the same order even in very different cultures.

Desilet wrote:  So I believe Derrida would not want to buy into the notion of a rainbow of consciousness whereby some levels are intrinsically and universally “higher” (in the sense of “transcending and including”) than others. What appears “higher” and more inclusive in one context may not appear so in another – or might move down an “evolutionary” line that will ultimately be judged less fruitful than another.

Again, this does not necessarily pose a problem for Wilber's model, as I see it.  Wilber does not argue that his model is final or absolute; only that it is an attempt to describe the world according to our best present knowledge, taking into account premodern, modern, and postmodern strands of thought.  It is neither the only “integral” model presently possible, nor the final word historically.  What I see Wilber saying is that, at this point in time, given the perspectives available to us, this is a good way to describe things – meaning, a way that will allow us to include and meaningfully relate to as much human knowledge as possible.

I do think it's a good point that a particular pattern or mode of consciousness that appears now to us to be “higher” or more inclusive may lead down an “evolutionary line” that proves otherwise.  But this argument doesn't undermine the notion of higher and lower modes of consciousness altogether; it just points out that hierarchical patterns are, in part, products of perspectives. 

Desilet wrote:  For Derrida, we would need to remain more flexible in our evaluations than is implied in the idea of a rainbow of consciousness with its “built in” scale of evaluations based on some notion of evolutionary progress. For example, if that notion is from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric there may be a sense in which this entire progression is still too “ethnocentric” from a vantage point that has simply escaped “our” awareness to date; or it may be that the progression is not ethnocentric enough (i.e., not well calibrated to the variety of human existence on this planet).

I agree that it is advisable to treat our perspectives and models as provisional – and to keep the door open to further inquiry, to further vistas of insight and understanding.  But you can go too far with second-guessing yourself, in my opinion.  Also, it doesn't seem (to me) that Desilet's second-guessing here actually undermines the validity of the progression; it only suggests that this progression may not be fully or finely enough conceived.

Desilet wrote:  While Wilber does make some concessions to temporality and contingency, he seems to backtrack from the consequences of these admissions to promote a notion of enlightenment whereby at any given point in time we can be certain that we have attained the “highest” levels of awareness (enlightenment). I think Derrida would argue that we 1) ought never to be so presumptuous and 2) that if we were to be so presumptuous it would only impose a false destination standing in the way of the journey (which is perhaps more like the “true” destination).

I resisted this idea earlier, but I'm beginning to think the notion of enlightenment has outlived its usefulness.

Best wishes,

Balder

Balder,

I've sent an email of to Gregory to respond personally to your above comments, as he can explain best what he means. He is also a member of Zaadz/Gaia so I've directed him to this discussion. It might take him a while to respond but I suspect he will.

Btw, I'm with you on the notion of enlightenment having outived it's usefulness.

Jim said:

I think we say things like “if consciousness requires form to exist” and ”every level of interior consciousness is accompanied by a level of exterior physical complexity,” as Wilber says, because of a natural intuition that conscious states and physical states (brain states) are distinct.

When we say something like, “Victoria Beckham was accompanied by her husband David Beckham to the awards ceremony,” we know that we mean that Victoria and David are distinct individuals and that either could've shown up at the ceremony without the other. I wonder if Wilber chose his words carefully so that he could leave open the possibility that conscious states and brains states are distinct and can exist independently of one another?

It may be counterintuitive to think that conscious states are brain states, but it's possible that they are.

If conscious states are identical with brain states, then it makes no sense to say that conscious states “accompany” or “correlate” with brain states, nor does it make sense to say that brain states “give rise to” or “generate” conscious states.

Thanks for that Jim – this made me think much harder about Wilber’s stance on this.  I have made a few posts on my blog about Owen Flanagan’s subjective realism and Natural Method and how they could relate to Wilber’s model.  This area brings us a distinct difference in that Wilber doesn’t quite accept the token physicalist view that Flanagan describes.  A few excerpts from each of them:

From Flanagan’s paper Subjection Realism and Phenomenal Consciousness:

A naturalistic theory of mind is not remotely adequate if it does provide an account of phenomenal consciousness.  And it can.  Token physicalism is the view that each and every mental event, each and every experience, is some physical event or other – presumably some central nervous system event. We can accept the truth of token physicalism, and thus reject the cartesian view that denies it, while resisting the conclusion that the essence of a mental event is revealed completely or captured completely by a description of its neural level realizer.  The reason is this, and it applies uniquely to conscious mental events.  Conscious mental events are essentially Janus-faced and uniquely so.  They have first-person subjective feel and they are realized in objective states of affairs.

By the way, there are no energy fields in the Left-Hand quadrants, of course, because those are aspects of holons that are first-person feelings, awareness, consciousness, and so on, whose exterior (or Right-Hand) correlates are mass and energy. All holons have four quadrants, which means all holons have interiors of consciousness and exteriors of form and energy (e.g., even subtle consciousness has a subtle body, and causal consciousness has a causal body, etc.), but consciousness is not itself energy, nor energy consciousness.

Reincarnation

      We come now to the most controversial topic related to subtle energies, namely, reincarnation or transmigration. I am reluctant to even comment on it, because once you take sides in this issue, you alienate the other half of the audience.

      My own belief is that reincarnation does occur; however, for the moment, I am more concerned with suggesting a proposed mechanism for such an occurrence, rather than arguing that it does or does not happen. Let us simply assume that it does, and then ask, how can that occurrence be squared with hypothesis #3, namely, that subtle energies are associated with complexifications of gross form? Upon death, clearly the gross form dissolves; what happens to the subtle energies if they are tied to those gross forms?

      At this point, one simply chooses to decide whether reincarnation exists or not. If you believe that reincarnation does not exist, then the integral theory of subtle energies that I have presented thus far needs no further adjustments (not in relation to reincarnation, that is). If, on the other hand, you believe in reincarnation, then an integral theory needs to be able to incorporate that occurrence. It can do so if it adds one hypothesis, as follows:

      #4. Complexity of gross form is necessary for the expression or manifestation of both higher consciousness and subtler energy.

      Hypothesis #4 introduces the possibility that the higher forms of consciousness and energy (i.e., higher than the gross-family realm) are not tied to complexifications of gross form ontologically but rather as vehicles of the expression of subtler forms and energies in that gross realm itself. In other words, it is not that higher consciousness and energies are bound to the complexities of gross form out of ontological necessity, but that they need a correspondingly complex form of gross matter in order to express or manifest themselves in and through the material realm.

Wilber’s Hypothesis #4 is quite confusing to me now.  It seems he is saying that complexity of gross form (e.g., the brain) is necessary for the expression but not the ontological existence of higher consciousness/subtle energy.  Which would mean that consciousness (specifically Wilber’s higher consciousness UL) can exist without an UR correlate. 

Hello all - this part of my post was chopped off…

So a fundamental difference in views on consciousness…for Flanagan no brain, no consciousness…for Wilber no brain still subtle consciousness that can transmigrate.  And yet Wilber argues for UL/UR correlates in his model.

“Conscious mental events are essentially Janus-faced and uniquely so.  They have first-person subjective feel and they are realized in objective states of affairs.”


The key question here is, WHY do conscious mental events have first-person subjective feel when they are also purely physical events? 

Yes, I do have some thoughts.  But first, have you read any of the essays I linked?  It would help the conversation if you did.

Gaia has been driving me crazy.  This is the only forum I belong to that has so many technical problems.

To my knowledge, Wilber has never commented on this article or on Bohm's notion of soma-significance, which in my view can map fairly readily onto Wilber's AQAL.  I believe Wilber has primarily commented on Bohm's book, Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

I do not think Bohm's movement between different domains in this discussion is arbitrary or unfounded; in longer works, he carefully traces out the isomorphisms and relationships that exist among them, without reducing one to the terms of the other.  If you can give some examples of what you're objecting to, though, I'd like to hear them so I can better consider what you are saying.  I do not think “potential to be misused by the New Age community” is a good reason not to make a particular argument, particular if there are other good reasons for making it!

Best wishes,

Balder

Thanks for posting that excerpt Shawn, I haven't read that in years. This is juicy stuff:

Hypothesis #4 introduces the possibility that the higher forms of consciousness and energy (i.e., higher than the gross-family realm) are not tied to complexifications of gross form ontologically but rather as vehicles of the expression of subtler forms and energies in that gross realm itself. In other words, it is not that higher consciousness and energies are bound to the complexities of gross form out of ontological necessity, but that they need a correspondingly complex form of gross matter in order to express or manifest themselves in and through the material realm.      The question of whether or not that is true is one thing; but if it is true, something like hypothesis #4 must be entertained. To avoid that hypothesis is to avoid the entire issue. For example, Francisco Varela et al., in The Embodied Mind, attempt to derive a spiritually attuned theory of consciousness that anchors consciousness firmly in the sensorimotor body—so much so that reincarnation, by their theory, is impossible. They present their theory as consonant with an updated Buddhism, but clearly it avoids this difficult issue. There is no way around something like hypothesis #4 if one wants to entertain transmigration.

Bingo! Gold star for Wilber. Consciousness does not need a physical correlate to exist, only to exist within the physical domain.

SHAWN: Wilber’s Hypothesis #4 is quite confusing to me now.  It seems he is saying that complexity of gross form (e.g., the brain) is necessary for the expression but not the ontological existence of higher consciousness/subtle energy.  Which would mean that consciousness (specifically Wilber’s higher consciousness UL) can exist without an UR correlate.

Yes, the New Age stuff – some of it, at least – is not founded on complete fantasy or wishful (magical) thinking.  It's generally a misreading or misapplication of fairly subtle arguments that do have merit – and that do challenge conventional assumptions – but which do not add up to the sorts of things that Channelers promise.

I look forward to your fuller thoughts once you finish the article.

To respond to your question about Wilber:

I do not think Wilber's general quadratic model inherently involves the fallacies you described – it would stand without asserting a “ghost in the machine” or making an “argument from design” – but in places, he does address certain beliefs that are not “scientific” or which have not been scientifically verified, such as the possibility of reincarnation, the existence of subtle bodies, etc.  In those instances, I see him saying, not that these things are true, but rather that, IF these things are true, as certain traditions attest, then here are some possible mechanisms for them, or here are some ways we might explain them in a more adequate way. 

One problem, in my view, with the “ghost in the machine” charge is that it levels a criticism at the “ghost” aspect, but leaves the “machine” part of the metaphor intact, and I think both things need to be challenged – both the Cartesian understanding of a disembodied thinking substance and the mechanistic model that has governed much of modern scientific theorizing.  Neither is adequate.

Varela, for instance, challenges both subjectivism and objectivism, arguing that both perspectives (either considered exclusively, or in a dualistic Cartesian sense) lead to a number of problems.  The experience of color is an example of a phenomenon that eludes objectivist/physicalist accounts.  It cannot be explained by or reduced wholly to physical operations.  He gives a fairly detailed, sophisticated account of this in “The Embodied Mind,” if you're interested.

Best wishes,

Balder

For some reason I haven't been receiving email notifications of activity on Gaia blogs I've subscribed to, such as this one. So until I checked, I thought that things had simply gotten quiet here. Apparently not!

Hi Balder,

I'm posing what I imagine must appear to be simplistic questions, but I do so because the most basic questions about integralism have not been satisfactorily resolved in my mind yet. I am also still in the process of “feeling out” where you stand on these complex issues. You seem to have an interest in, and understanding of, post-structuralist theory; and yet you also appear to be interested in, and sympathetic toward, Wilber. If you're feeling the ever so thin edge of a wedge encroaching on your backside, my apologies. :-)

I'll get to the point: Are these “perspectives” and “methodologies” discrete or not? If they are discrete, then what is the role, or even the point in having an over-arching integral philosophy; what then becomes of the term “integral”? And if they are not discrete, how are they related? If they are to be related under a grand meta-narrative, can we truly say that we have taken to heart the findings of post-structuralist thinking?

As I said above I think Ken is actually interested in re-configuring his older perennialism in such a manner that it can withstand the onslaught of the post-structuralist attack; this is one of the meanings of the “new integralism.”

He as much admits this when he says in Chapter One of Integral Spirituality, “Methodological Pluralism”:

“So this chapter begins with an overview of the methodologies available that can be used to reconstruct the spiritual systems of the great wisdom traditions but with none of their metaphysical baggage.” (p. 33)

The operative word here is “reconstruct,” though I think it is worth noting that Ken is not merely interested in saving the great wisdom traditions. (He often likes to present himself as the “prince Valiant” of tradition.) More to the point, he is interested in saving his own grand narrative, in which he has invested a great deal of time and energy over the years.

One way he does so is by means of the strategy of “inclusivism,” which is one of three competing positions on how traditions can be understood. Inclusivism is not simply a methodological meta-approach alongside pluralism and exclusivism; it is also a polemical strategy, a way of dealing with opposing viewpoints, such as, in the present case, post-structuralism. As for Ken's use of terms like “pluralism,” I think they are more or less lip-service.

As an concrete example, take the following statement, which occurs immediately under the above statement:

“Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP), involves, among other things, at least 8 fundamental and apparently irreducible methodologies, injunctions or paradigms for gaining reproducible knowledge (or verifiably repeatable experiences).” (p.33)

This language of “verification” pervades Integral Spirituality; even the Introduction talks about how one can “verify” the AQAL map for oneself (p. 2). My question is this: if these methodologies are truly irreducible, what the hey is the language of third-person empirical science doing in a description of a spiritual path? This was one of my points in several of my posts above: that the inculcation of a spiritual teaching is not at all like the replication of scientific results in a laboratory. Here, the language of positivism has “infected” the description of the spiritual methodologies. So much for “irreducibility.”

One last point. It seems to me that the central point behind “integralism” is a concern for the integration of spirituality, or “personal practice traditions,” with things like empirical science and mainstream philosophy. And yet as you yourself admit, we may have to do away with the notion of “enlightenment.” Do away with enlightenment, the raison d'etre of spirituality itself!? This, I would suggest, is the beginning of a slippery slope, a slow devolutionary slide back into the primordial soup from whence we came. If it is “enlightenment” this week, then digeridoo aura manipulation next week, who knows what the week after will hold!

cheers,

kela

Hi, Julian,

I mentioned Bohm's essay in the context of our discussion of the relationship of consciousness and matter…in particular, in response to the question of whether or not it makes sense to speak of consciousness, or the four quadrants, “going all the way down.”  I referenced Bohm's theory of somasignificance as one example of a model that suggests that it does, but not in a way that involves commitment to any mythical/metaphysical entities or to Cartesian substance dualism.

Kela,

I'll respond to your post later today.

Best wishes,

Balder

Hi, Kela,

I agree with you that part of Wilber's motivation in taking his “postmetaphysical” turn is not only to protect the traditions against the onslaught of postmodernism, but to protect his own system as well.  I wouldn't frame this latest phase of his project wholly defensively – I believe he genuinely sees value in postmodern ideas – but I don't doubt that, in some part at least, he is interested in protecting the system he has spent his life building.  Whether it really can stand up, in the long run, is the open question.  For myself, I admit that I am doubtful when he tells readers that, to become truly postmetaphysical, they don't have to change a thing in their existing spiritual traditions – they just have to “supplement.”  That seems too hopeful (and too simplistic) to me. 

There are a number of points in your letter to discuss, but I'd like to look at your example of the language of 3p verificationism “infecting” his discussion of spirituality.  Have you read his online responses to critics' charges of positivism?  I don't have a link handy, but I think I can summarize his arguments.  I'm open to hearing your further thoughts here, but in my current understanding of what Wilber is up to, I don't think he is advocating a positivist approach, per se, when he suggests that the three strands of knowledge are operative in all perspective-dimensions.  I agree that the language he uses could give that impression, though; and it may betray a commitment to the modern doctrine of epistemological primacy that Taylor and other counter-epistemologists criticize.  But I think the definition Wilber gives to the “three strands” is broad, general, and flexible enough that it escapes being reducible to a form of positivism.

For instance, I think Wilber uses the example of learning to play a piece of Beethoven's music on the piano.  The student learns to play piano, then studies the piece with a teacher, and then plays it for the teacher, who judges whether or not she has satisfactorily interpreted and executed that piece of music.  This process entails the general movement of the enactment and confirmation of knowledge that Wilber sums up with the “three strands of knowing,” but it is not positivistic or scientistic. Similarly, one might study literature, learn certain hermeneutic skills, select a book to read and analyze, and then present one's interpretations and analyses to the “knowledge community” for confirmation.  Or you might work for months with a koan and then present your understanding to your teacher in dokusan.  These are all examples of the communication and confirmation of knowledge within different paradigms and knowledge communities that follow the three strands but which do not involve positivistic assumptions or orientations.  There's a process of validation that goes on, but different paradigms and disciplines will use different validation criteria, and therefore it doesn't seem fair to describe all of this as (positivistic) verificationism.  Positivism is just one particular expression of a more general process which Wilber summarizes with his “three strands” notion.

What do you think?

Best wishes,

Balder

I'd like to comment on Wilber's “three strands” notion, however my comments do not entail charges of “positivism.”

Balder cites the examples of learning to play a piece of Beethoven's music on piano, interpreting a piece of literature (Wilber has used Hamlet as an example), and a Zen student presenting their understanding of a koan to their teacher. (I'm not addressing this post to Balder – hi Balder! – simply because I don't want to burden Balder with having to read and respond to it, given that he's got other conversations going here.)

In Eye of Spirit, Wilber uses the example of interpreting a piece of literature (“a bad interpretation of Hamlet is falsifiable”), checking mathematical proofs (e.g., the Pythagorean Theorem) “with others who have completed the injunction,” and “looking at the moons of Jupiter via “the eye of flesh.”

In ”An Integral Theory of Consciousness” (published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies), Wilber says that says that in order to know the truth of the Pythagorean Theorem and the truth of Buddha Nature one must have certain kinds of training, and he writes:

In Zen, as we saw, we have a primary injunction or paradigm (zazen, sitting meditation), which yields direct experiential data (kensho, satori), which are then thrown against the community of those who have completed the first two strands and tested for validity. Bad data are soundly rejected, and all of this is open to ongoing review and revision in light of subsequent experience and further communally generated data.
…
…this demands that, at some point, the researchers themselves must transform their own consciousness in order to be adequate to the evidence. This is not a loss of objectivity but rather the prerequisite for data accumulation, just as we do not say that learning to use a microscope is the loss of one's objectivity – it is simply the learning of the injunctive strand, which is actually the precondition of a truly objective (or nonbiased) understanding of any data. In this case, the data is postformal, and so therefore is the injunction.

Brian Holtz, in a critique of “An Integral Theory of Consciousness,” writes:

Wilber uses the tired tactic of saying that one cannot recognize that Wilber is right until one “transforms [to] a higher level of consciousness”. This is an extremely convenient way of justifying to himself why people don't agree with him.

I think Holtz has a point here, and I think he has a point when he writes:

Wilber says that the truth of the Pythagorean Theorem and the Buddha Nature both require certain training in order to know. The Pythagorean Theorem is both falsifiable and consequential in the “sensorimotor worldspace” of rulers and square inches. The “Buddha Nature” may or may not be falsifiable in the company of meditation enthusiasts, but it seems inconsequential outside that society. Indeed, if it were consequential outside that society, it would be falsifiable outside that society. Yes, you have to care about Buddha Nature in order to falsify it in the eyes of its enthusiasts (good luck!), but without that enthusiasm it has little consequence. The same is not true of the Pythagorean Theorem.

Wilber compares non-meditating consciousness researchers with the churchmen refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. The difference between meditative practices and Galileo's telescope is that Galileo's telescope does not create the phenomena in question. A comet foretold using a telescope will appear to everyone, not just telescope users.

And I think Holtz has a point here as well:

Wilber says that because no mind can produce 100% error, every theory contains irreplaceable truth. This is a non sequitor. Even if no mind can always be wrong, a given theory or proposition can be 100% wrong.

“Not everybody who takes up Zen ends up fully mastering the discipline, just as not everybody who takes up quantum physics ends up fully comprehending it. But those who do succeed constitute the circle of competence against which validity claims are struck, and Zen is no exception in this regard.” Zen is indeed an exception, because in physics you can't simply claim that anyone who disagrees with you is doing it wrong.

It is that last point that Wilber doesn't seem to get, and I think his failure to understand this is directly related to his bad endorsements. “An Integral Theory of Consciousenss” was published in 1997. In 1998 Wilber declared that Adi Da was “the living Sat-Guru” and “the greatest living Realizer.” He said:

How could any of us judge? Who among us has met Gautama Buddha? who has experienced Satang with Sri Ramana Maharshi? Who has lived in the company of Padmasambhava? I have sat in satsang with Master Adi Da, and with numerous other great Adepts, and my own opinion is that Master Aid Da is the living Sat-Guru. Beyond that, how could I say with any personal authority?

This is a concrete example of Ken Wilber applying his “three strands” notion to spiritual knowing, and look where it gets him.

Then, in 2002, in a foreword to a book by Andrew Cohen, Wilber declared that “Andrew Cohen is a Rude Boy who acts with uncompromising integrity…” By “Rude Boy,” Wilber means “enlightened crazy wisdom master.”

A number of testimonials by former Cohen students, including several former editors of Cohen's What Is Enlightenment? magazine, would no doubt disagree with Wilber's assessment of Cohen. Does this mean that they are simply not among the “adequate”?

I've done plenty of meditating (sitting meditation), and through the nineties I taught mindfulness-based stress management courses (which went beyond “stress management” but because these courses were offered by a hospital we had to label what we were offering in a way that would fit into a medical milieu), and I have never thought of meditation as a means to any kind of knowledge. It makes no sense to me to suggest that a given spiritual community can be considered a “community of the adequate.” There are too many problems with spiritual groups and even Wilber does not seem “adequate” to spot them.

Granted you didn't ask me what I think about it Balder, but I'll respond nonetheless using your example of literature, given I have a degree in it. The validation process in literature is not that we all arrive at the same interpretation of a piece, only that we learn how to analyze and argue (and write) well defending our interpretation. Two completely opposing interpretations could be “done well” and receive validation. So in that sense literary criticism tends toward the pluralist example from kela's 3 above: inclusivism, pluralism and exclusivism. The personal “experience” of the assigned piece of literature is entirely personal and there is no one correct, agreed-upon experience or interpretation, just better or worse presentations of said experience/interpretation.

Now, the one agreed-upon factor in this is that critical thinking and good rhetorical writing is the standard measure. So one might make an argument that there is a “rational” bias or worldview inherent in this paradigm. But I'd argue that while those elements are important, such literary criticism is not limited to them. Even better lit crit involves cross-paradigmatic comparisons, meaning for example using pscyhoanalytic, hermeneutic, post-colonial, feminist etc. lit crits, each with different perspectives. And within each differing opinions including some cognitive developmental issues. So lit crit is “integral” in that sense, of using cross-paradigmatic thinking but again, at base there is no one correct experience/interpretation, nor is that a desired goal.

I also realize Balder that you are not arguing for the “one correct” poslition. But that is one of the valid criticisms that I think kela is hightlighting, that by doing this (injunction) we'll all experience/interpret the same thing, which is itself a positivist assumption. And at times an apparent Wilberian assumption as well when he uses the “3 strands of valid knowledge acquisition” exemplar, applying it to “spiritual” experience.

I also think that spiritual traditions, as kela noted, are validating not an indvidual, pluralist experience/interpretation, but their own traditional experience/interpretation. It's not as if there is a “true” or valid experience that we all have; it is already interpreted within a cultural context and if that interpretation is not espoused then one is not validated. That's why I'd agree that the notion of enlightenment is outdated and has to go. And it needs replacement with more of the P2P notion Bauwens talks about in the above reference essay, that such meditative/contemplative practices elicit (enact) an experience, but that 1) that experience is not absolute or universal and 2) that it should no longer be interpreted as a special or”enlightend line but one of several lines that need an overall integration. And that each of those develomental lines, within a personal, individual mix, might best be suited for a particular purpose within a specific communal project(s), but not as a general or universal rule.
 

I would add, using the musical example, that reproducing the Beethoven piece exactly as Beethoven did it would only be the positivist, representational validation. One would likely get validation on their training and technical expertise but again the same Beethoven piece would be a unique, individual experience/interpretation.

I was working on an edited / amended version of my post above, but since Jim and Edward have replied, I won't delete it and replace it.  I'll just add a new post. 

First, I want to say that, in my understanding of the three strands applied in inter/subjective domains like literature, the assumption is not that you will arrive at “one correct interpretation” or a similar positivistic “fact.”  I also did my BA in English Lit and know that the “knowledge” that is being tested or intersubjectively confirmed is not the ability to come up with the right answer (the “only true meaning” of Hamlet), but the ability to think critically, to mine meaning spaces, to deconstruct texts, etc.

Second, about Jim's assertion that meditation does not lead to knowledge.  Can you tell me how you are defining knowledge, Jim?  It seems to me that you may be defining it in a narrower way than I do, because I have no problem seeing meditation (jnana, gnosis) as a “knowledge discipline.” 

Here is what I had been planning to add to my last letter:

Kela wrote:  Are these “perspectives” and “methodologies” discrete or not? If they are discrete, then what is the role, or even the point in having an over-arching integral philosophy; what then becomes of the term “integral”? And if they are not discrete, how are they related? If they are to be related under a grand meta-narrative, can we truly say that we have taken to heart the findings of post-structuralist thinking?

I think what Wilber would say is that these methodologies or paradigms are discrete to the extent that they employ, and rely on the language of, different person-perspectives; but they are related because person-perspectives are interdependent and coemergent.  The purpose of highlighting the perspective-dependence (or perspective-emphasis) of these approaches is, in part, to counter the historical tendency of paradigms (and paradigmatic languages) of one perspective-dimension to colonize the “worlds” and make rulings on the findings of other perspective-dimensions.  Wilber describes this as freeing a paradigm by limiting it:  pointing out the “hori-zone” in which a paradigm operates, you point out that it has a particular sphere of legitimacy within which it is free to make pronouncements but beyond which it has less “authority.”

I agree with you that “inclusivism,” as a strategy, has polemical weight – as do pluralism and exclusivism, of course.  Each position says something about the world and about the nature and relationship of the perspectives and worldviews that well forth within it.  To the degree that the integral project weds itself to an inclusivist strategy, I think that will have consequences.  I think the tendency to go in that direction is present, but I think a mature integralism – to the extent that we continue to maintain that some form of “integrative movement” in human knowledge is valid – will need to move beyond the inclusivistic strategies that informed earlier phases of interreligious dialogue, for instance.  I think Wilber attempts to do this with IMP, to the extent that it represents the operational integration of enactive paradigms (rather than the ideational integration of worldviews under a single grand narrative), but the full power of this may not have been realized because of the extent to which the Integral project remains wedded to the singular perennialist “story” Wilber has been telling for the past few decades.

I need to reflect on this a bit more, though.

Best wishes,

Balder

P.S.  In other forums, I've been more the critic than the “party line” guy.  This is interesting for me now to be inhabiting the position of the more conservative integralist!

Hi Balder.

Second, about Jim's assertion that meditation does not lead to knowledge.  Can you tell me how you are defining knowledge, Jim?  It seems to me that you may be defining it in a narrower way than I do, because I have no problem seeing meditation (jnana, gnosis) as a “knowledge discipline.”

Nor do I have a problem seeing meditation as a “knowledge discipline” as long as we don't make the kinds of statements about knowledge that Wilber makes, where he mixes knowledge by acquaintance, knowing how, and knowing that together. Wilber's way of speaking about the matter lends itself to the misinterpretation that he is saying that meditation is a means of propositional knowledge or knowing that. That's what most people (and I would guess most Wilber readers) think of when they hear the word “knowledge.”

Some people do believe that meditation and other spiritual practices and mystical experience are sources of propositional knowledge. It is difficult for me to tell if Wilber believes that or something like that. At times it seems as if he wants to say that mystical experience can give us a propositionally contentful answer to certain aspects of the mind-body problem or hard problem of consciousness. But he tends to be vague around this, so I can't really tell if he is saying that. But in any case, when I say that I have never thought of meditation as a source of knowledge, I mean “knowledge” in the sense that I imagine most Wilber readers understand the word, where it refers to knowing that or propositional knowledge.

A few more things….

I want to add something about contemplative disciplines here.  It seems to me that the suggestion is being made that meditative experience is arbitrary and that there is no legitimate process of validation of development or attainment within any contemplative community.  (This follows from the claim that there can be no such thing as a “community of the adequate” within spiritual traditions.)  Even if we take the perspective that spiritual traditions are creatively enactive, that they co-create certain transformative meaning spaces rather than “discovering” universal, objective “spiritual” facts – and I think postmetaphysics certainly points us in this direction – this does not render them completely arbitary nor should it lead to the conclusion that spiritual experience is entirely “individual” and subjective and that therefore no means of intersubjective validation or confirmation are possible, nor that there are no objective referents or patterns that can be meaningfully identified as features of a particular course of spiritual development.

And about the Beethoven music example:  I do not think the “three strands” notion implies or demands that the process of enacting the relevant phenomenon (here, Beethoven's Fifth) requires the production of a single, objective, interpretationless “product.”  I think there is a range of exactitude that is looked for, at least in the beginning stages where a student is expected to demonstrate mastery of certain skills, but of course there is plenty of leeway (within this paradigm) for multiple valid interpretations.

Jim, I just saw your latest post.  I haven't read it yet, but will do so next.

“It seems to me that the suggestion is being made that meditative experience is arbitrary and that there is no legitimate process of validation of development or attainment within any contemplative community.”

I am not suggesting that at all and agree with your following statments. It's just that there are individual variations and idosyncracies within a valid, communal interpretation and that such communal validation is not universal. They are valid within their context, or as you say, they are freed witin their limitation. I think we agree on that as well.

I think where some of the problem comes in is that a meta-system like Ken's (AQAL) is the baseline perspective from which the others are compared, or giga-glossed, or “integrated.” And one issue is whether this is the best perspective for the job in all contexts. Is there a context wherein you might find that it is not the best paradigm? What other paradigm might serve better in another context, and in what context?

For example, I will include below one of Balder's blog posts referenced in Bauwens' essay. The topic heading in Bauwens is “The development of intersubjective facilitation.” In it he quotes Balder on Bohmian Dialogue (BD) wherein it says the following:

“Certain deeply held beliefs, presuppositions, “unwritten rules,” fears and insecurities, and so on, will gradually make themselves manifest through this process, as perceptions of individuals in the group fail to line up and various conflicts emerge.  These implicit beliefs, these forms of psychological and cultural conditioning, are not readily apparent in the practice of solitary meditation; but in Bohmian contemplative dialogue, particularly if it is sustained over a period of days or weeks, these patterns will emerge over time in the intersubjective field and can be cognized and processed by the group as a whole (or privately by individuals after a particular session has concluded).”

In this context of BD we might have people from various traditional or philosophical paths, and in this process those particular perspectives will be revealed. In addition, another, alternative, “collective intelligence” (CI) will develop out of them that will acheive a new, distinct, communal validation that is not the same as the previous, distinct, communal perspectives all summed up, or necessarily “included” or “integrated.” So in that sense this communal validation is not validating a particular tradition's interpretation but coming up with an entirely new validation among several traditions or perspectives.

You can see a concrete example of this at Integral Review. One of the models used for their forum is Bohmian Dialogue. And in our last forum on Hampson's IR article on postmodernism we had folks coming from all over the integral and pomo spectrum. And in that context AQAL was one of the views involved, along with Derrida and various schools of Buddhism. But the communal validation or CI that emerged by the end of the dialogue wasn't AQAL or Derrida or Buddhist. It didn't even appear to be their “integration.” What exactly it was remains to be clearly defined for me.

JIM, interesting post(s). Some comments and questions.

First, Holtz said:

The difference between meditative practices and Galileo's telescope is that Galileo's telescope does not create the phenomena in question.

Holtz seems to assume that meditative practices “create” meditative experiences. But is this the case? Or more specifically, can we assume or conclude either way (that they “create” or “uncover” mediative experiences)? This seems to relate to the old emegence vs. emanation debate: how can we prove one over the other? And does it matter?

I agree with your point about Wilber btw, and think the mistake he makes is a kind fo category error, applying “eye of flesh and mind' principles to that which is revealed by the “eye of spirit.” This is not to say that one cannot approach the transpersonal “scientifically”, but that the usual laws and approaches of physicalist science cannot be applied to that which is non-physical (that is, meditative experiences).

Now on the other hand, because something is “knowledge” doesn't mean that everyone can recognize it as such. Take the crude analogy of a sighted person living in a community of the blind. The sighted person isn't crazy or delusional–he or she has a capacity of experience that everyone else doesn't. This is what I think Wilber means by “the adequate”: those that have the capacity to see. But I agree that when Wilber uses this as a kind of deus ex machina, it is highly problematic and terribly off-putting.

Just to be clear, when you use the word “meditation” do you specifically mean (only) mindfulness meditation? If not, how are you defining the word? (You mention “other spiritual practices” but I am still unclear as to what you mean). But either way, do you think that meditation cannot lead to propositional knowledge or that it simply generally does not?

Hi Balder,

Before I get started, I just want to say that I certainly appreciate the sophistication of your responses here. I think I generally agree with much of what you have to say on the points you raise, though I feel you are going a bit easy on Ken.

While, as you say, Ken may not strictly be a “mystical positivist” (I admit that may be a bit of a rhetorical overstatement), I still feel that the language he often uses is symptomatic of a certain bias in his thinking. I'm a bit of a fan, though not a big fan, of Gadamer and his idea that the geist sciences are a different kettle of fish than the natural sciences. For this reason I will tend to object to a certain kind of language being used where the description of hermeneutic understanding is concerned.

Take, for example, a passage highlighted by Jim:

“…this demands that, at some point, the researchers themselves must transform their own consciousness in order to be adequate to the evidence. This is not a loss of objectivity but rather the prerequisite for data accumulation, just as we do not say that learning to use a microscope is the loss of one's objectivity - it is simply the learning of the injunctive strand, which is actually the precondition of a truly objective (or nonbiased) understanding of any data. In this case, the data is postformal, and so therefore is the injunction.”

It is precisely the use of this analogy between knowledge acquired through the natural sciences and understanding acquired as a result of practising a contemplative discipline that I am objecting to, on the grounds that they are really more like apples and oranges than MacIntoshes and Spartans. In other words, when Ken speaks this way it leads me to believe that his understanding of what is involved in training within a tradition is not adequate to the task of description.

I like your use of the examples of learning a piece of music under a teacher, or learning to read a piece of literature, or of learning to understand a koan. I find, in particular, that descriptions of what is actually involved in koan study to be utterly lacking. The old model has it that the koan “stopped the mind” and that during this moment of “stoppage” an “experience of reality” (“the clear light of the Void,” “pure consciousness,” “causal formlessness,” yada yada) peaked through the “stoppage.” From my conversations with Victor Hori (a Japanese American who studied Rinzai Zen for some time), this is not at all what koan study entails. Koans, as I understand him, are like metaphors which point in the direction of a certain form of understanding. The point of koan study is acquiring the understanding of the master who wrote the koan. Koan study is always done under the tutelage of the head monk (or whatever he's called). It's his job to judge whether the student has acquired an understanding of the koan. There is in this model a certain performative aspect to koan study. And the understanding entailed is 1. determinative (and not “formless”) and 2. inter-subjective. In this sense there is a kind of “objectivity” involved, though I do not like to think of it as the same as the kind of objectivity acquired in a chemistry lab.

You say:

“I want to add something about contemplative disciplines here. It seems to me that the suggestion is being made that meditative experience is arbitrary and that there is no legitimate process of validation of development or attainment within any contemplative community.”

Yes, it is unfortunately the case that many people think that if a particular knowledge or understanding is not objective in the same manner as in the natural sciences, then it must be arbitrary and subjective. This, I think, is a false dichotomy. I don't think you are implying such a thing, but are attempting to point out that it is a false dichotomy. Many people tend to think of interpretation and hermeneutics as belonging to the “first person” domain, when it is precisely that which points to intersubjectivity. If I were to add to Julian's list of problematic interpretations/applications of post-structuralist and hermeneutic thought, that would be one of them. Saying, “everyone has their own take on the world” may be, in some restricted sense “true,” but understanding hermeneutics on such terms extends the subjectivism that intersubjectivity was meant to undermine, and thereby completely undermines the insight that intersubjectivity interpenetrates interpretative understanding. Gadamer is certainly NOT saying that “everyone has their own take on the world.”

Sometimes I think Ken's AQAL, as broad as may seem, is still too simplistic. Take as an example Ken use of “phenomenology.” I discuss Ken's take on phenomenology here   http://www.openintegral.net/blog/?p=155On jon's blog page, you point out that Varela describes phenomenology as the attempt to steer “between” subjectivism and objectivism. (This is the classical understanding of Husserlian phenomenology; it is not merely Varela's own interpretation.) And yet Ken understands phenomenology as a purely “first person” description. This kind of depiction entirely undermines the phenomenologists' attempt to steer “between” subjectivism and objectivism by reducing phenomenology to a kind of subjectivism (if we are in the business of giving it a charitible reading).

In any case, I'm rambling a bit, have probably overstayed my welcome here, and am probably coming off as billy the kid trying to take down wyatt earp. But this is an important discussion that needs to be carried on under a new blog post (hint hint ;-). On my Neo-Vedanta Web Page I will be posting (hopefully within the next week or so) an entry on the “geneology” of the idea of “mystical empiricism” as it relates to Vivekananda. Hopefully, my ideas on these matters will be made more explicit at that time.

cheers,

kela

Hi Jonny.

Holtz seems to assume that meditative practices “create” meditative experiences. But is this the case? Or more specifically, can we assume or conclude either way (that they “create” or “uncover” mediative experiences)? This seems to relate to the old emegence vs. emanation debate: how can we prove one over the other? And does it matter?

I don't know what Holtz means by “create” in this context. I hesitated to quote him saying that because I don't know what he means and I don't know if I would agree with him, but I went ahead because I do agree with him that Wilber's comparing meditation to looking through a telescope is problematic.

…because something is “knowledge” doesn't mean that everyone can recognize it as such. Take the crude analogy of a sighted person living in a community of the blind. The sighted person isn't crazy or delusional–he or she has a capacity of experience that everyone else doesn't. This is what I think Wilber means by “the adequate”: those that have the capacity to see.

The only problem I have with this is when someone claims to have “a capacity of experience that everyone else doesn't,” and they use that claim as a premise to support a conclusion, and there is no way to falsify their claim.

Just to be clear, when you use the word “meditation” do you specifically mean (only) mindfulness meditation? If not, how are you defining the word? (You mention “other spiritual practices” but I am still unclear as to what you mean). But either way, do you think that meditation cannot lead to propositional knowledge or that it simply generally does not?

I should've been a lot more clear and I'll try to be more clear now.

No, I don't just mean mindfulness meditation and I don't just mean meditation. I mean anything at all that we can classify under the umbrella heading “eye of contemplation” or “eye of spirit” experience. That includes all meditative, contemplative, religious, spiritual, mystical, transpersonal, transrational, subtle, causal, and nondual openings, awakenings, insights, intuitions, experiences, realizations, and apprehensions. It includes Friedrich Kekule saying that the solution to the problem of the structure of the benzene molecule came to him in a vision during a reverie.

Assuming Kekule's story about having a vision of an ouroboros led him to the solution known as the benzene ring is true (it's come into question), that would be an example of an “eye of spirit” experience leading to propositional knowledge. So I would not say that the eye of spirit cannot lead to propositional knowledge.

A proposition is any grammatical form which may be either true or false. (Even if a proposition is only true beyond a reasonable doubt, as opposed to being true beyond all doubt, it qualifies as true in this context.)

I don't mean to suggest that the eye of spirit (in the broad sense in which I'm using the term) cannot lead to propositional knowledge. What I mean to say is that appeals to the eye of spirit cannot be used as premises in support of propositions across and between all communities.

It may be okay for people within a closed contemplative community to agree that x is true and we know x is true because when we look through the eye of spirit we see that x is true. But once someone tries to make that kind of argument to people outside their closed circle, it doesn't work.

One reason it doesn't work is because not everyone who “looks through the eye of contemplation” interprets what they “see” the same way. When disagreements arise around different interpretations, they simply cannot be settled by appealing to the eye of spirit.

I have a longer post I am hoping to write soon, to respond to recent comments by Jim, Edward, and Kelamuni, but I just wanted to highlight something so that we can get a bit more clarity here:

Jim wrote:  One reason it doesn't work is because not everyone who “looks through the eye of contemplation” interprets what they “see” the same way. When disagreements arise around different interpretations, they simply cannot be settled by appealing to the eye of spirit.

Not everyone who “looks through the eye of flesh” interprets what they see the same way, either.  Look at all of the various competing interpretations of phenomena (quantum and otherwise) in the field of physics.  The issue of interpretation can't be used, by itself, to single out “contemplation” as problematic in terms of producing “objective knowledge.”  Nor can the eye of flesh - third-person, empirical observations - be used to settle all issues of competing interpretations in science.

Would you agree we need to fine tune this a bit more, Jim?

Hi Balder.

Jim wrote:  One reason it doesn't work is because not everyone who “looks through the eye of contemplation” interprets what they “see” the same way. When disagreements arise around different interpretations, they simply cannot be settled by appealing to the eye of spirit.

Not everyone who “looks through the eye of flesh” interprets what they see the same way, either.  Look at all of the various competing interpretations of phenomena (quantum and otherwise) in the field of physics.  The issue of interpretation can't be used, by itself, to single out “contemplation” as problematic in terms of producing “objective knowledge.”  Nor can the eye of flesh - third-person, empirical observations - be used to settle all issues of competing interpretations in science.

You're only focusing on half of what I said. I did not and would not say that the issue of interpretation can be used to single out contemplation as problematic in producing propositional knowledge. (I didn't say anything about “objective knowledge.”)

Hi, Jim,

I wasn't disagreeing with your point so much as I was just asking for fine tuning.  I understood that you had already agreed that contemplative experience might, in theory, lead to some forms of propositional knowledge, but the way you worded it, it sounded as if you were saying contemplative knowledge was especially problematic because of its interpretive nature.  And I just wanted to add the obvious point that propositional knowledge arrived at through the eye of flesh is not interpretation-free either.  I know you already understand that quite well, but I thought it needed to be highlighted, given how you'd worded your last response.

I do agree with you, in general, that appeals to mystical experience to support claims of the sort you mentioned are problematic.  And it is likely that many of the individuals who make such comments are not even referring to their own mystical insights, anyway, but are rather relying on the testimony of various authorities.  Which adds another problematic layer.  But - and I think we've discussed this before - I do not think that including contemplative insights (giving them consideration) in the formulation of propositional knowledge statements should be discouraged altogether, either.  The issue, in my opinion, is how this is done, not whether it should be done at all.

Best wishes,

Balder

Hi Balder.

We did discuss this before and I agree with you that the issue is how this is done, not whether it should be done.

Here is Ken Wilber from his essay, “Death, Rebirth, and Reincarnation,” which starts on page 340 in CW4 (1999):

But if ostensible past-life memories are not good evidence for reincarnation, what other type of evidence could there be to support this doctrine? … Reincarnation…is a spiritual hypothesis, which is to be tested with the eye of contemplation, not with the eye of flesh or the eye of mind. So, although we will find little ordinary evidence to convince us about reincarnation, once we take up contemplation and become fairly proficient at it, we will start to notice certain obvious facts – for example, that the witnessing position, the soul position, begins to partake of eternity, infinity.

There is a timeless nature about the soul that becomes perfectly obvious and unmistakable: one actually begins to “taste” the immortality of the soul, to intuit that the soul is to some extent above time, above history, above life and death. In this way one becomes gradually convinced that the soul does not die with the body or the mind, that the soul has existed before and will exist again.

This, to me, is an example of how it should not be done.

Stephen Batchelor is a former Tibetan Buddhist monk who does not accept the doctrine of reincarnation (his position toward reincarnation is one of skeptical agnosticism). Based on what Wilber says above I must wonder if Wilber would be inclined to think that Bathelor's non-acceptance of reincarnation is evidence that Batchelor is not sufficiently proficient at contemplation.

I think Wilber's approach in the above comes close to being a violation of the fallibility principle. “The fallibility principle is generally regarded as a standard principle of serious inquiry. To employ it in discussion is consciously to accept the fact that you are fallible, that is, that you may very well be wrong in your view, or at least not in possession of the most defensible view on the matter in dispute.” (T. Edward Damer, 1995)

Be well,

Jim

(PS – I'll be traveling Tues.-Sat. and don't expect to be online during that time.)

Jim,

But part of the problem is that Batchelor is, in Wilber's eyes, a green or boomeritis Buddhist. From Wilber's perspective of turquoise altitude he can't interpret it otherwise so my continuing question is not whether there are higher cogntive (or any other line) altitudes but what is the better interpretation of them? We know Wilber puts Derrida in the same green altitude, so in the latest Integral Review forum on Hampson's article we questioned whether Derrida is green when he can be interpreted to be displaying construct-aware cognition. We also explored how Derrida relates to such interpretations of Buddhism as Batchelor, Garfield & Priest. See espeically the ”posformal dialectics” thread. This really goes to the heart of Wilber's interpretation of altitude, states, the two truths etc.

Hi Edward.

But part of the problem is that Batchelor is, in Wilber's eyes, a green or boomeritis Buddhist. From Wilber's perspective of turquoise altitude he can't interpret it otherwise so my continuing question is not whether there are higher cogntive (or any other line) altitudes but what is the better interpretation of them?

Imagine that Wilber invites Tom Cruise to be his guest at Integral Naked, and at some point in their conversation they disagree on something, and Cruise says, “The reason you see things as you do, Ken, is because you're pre-OT. From the Operative Thetan persective the truth of what I'm saying is just obvious.”

“Operative Thetan” is Scientology jargon for the highest state of consciousness in their developmental system, and “pre-OT” obviously refers to anyone who hasn't reached that state.

I hope that Ken Wilber does not actually believe that he can offer a serious challenge to someone else''s views by merely implying that he's at a higher stage of consiousness or level of development.

Hi, everyone,

I've been hesitating a bit to write because I've been thinking about a way to rechannel some of these questions and ideas into a new blog entry.  I like the idea of doing so, and will keep thinking about a profitable and interesting angle to take.  Unless someone else beats me to it! 

For now, just a “light” response, which is all I have time for at the moment.

There are really a couple themes here that I'm interested in –

* The question of the nature of “contemplatively generated” knowledge, and whether (and under what conditions) it should be used to support propositional knowledge claims.

The tendency in some circles to undervalue or dismiss contemplatively generated knowledge as arbitrary and “merely subjective.”

* The tendency (in some circles) to misread poststructuralist thought as legitimizing subjectivist “everyone creates his own reality” thinking.

* A sort of “background” issue that has been on my mind, but which has not really come forward in my comments yet:  The sense of “epistemological estrangement” that seems to “color” many post/modern models of knowledge, and the resolution (if any) that may be afforded through a revaluation (and reconsideration) of nonpropositional forms of knowledge.

* The question of whether Wilber's model adequately takes account of and embodies poststructuralist insights, particularly in his proposed postmetaphysics.  At issue here, as I see it, is his emphasis on genealogy (as pluralism-plus-history) over what he would consider more “flatland” versions of pluralism (where cross-paradigmatic judgments cannot be as readily made).  With his own version of postmetaphysics, does he achieve this pluralism-plus?

* The interesting issue Edward raises about the creative potential of intersubjective inquiry – not only serving to validate particular interpretations, but to evolve new meaning spaces.  What are the points of consonance, and the points of tension, between this general intersubjective “movement” and Wilber's “integral genealogy.” 

And there are probably other issues as well.  These are the general themes I've been reflecting on, trying to come up with a way to tie them together.  I hoped it would be helpful to highlight them and set them side by side like this.

This is sort of a content-free post, in that I'm not ADDING a lot.  But I'd like to know if you agree that these are some of the main themes that merit further discussion, or if you'd add more.

Best wishes,

Balder

P.S.  Kela, thank you for the heads up about your website.  It looks very interesting.  I've enjoyed your essay so far.

P.P.S.  About Jim's last comment:  I don't have a problem with the notion that developmental differences may actually interfere with comprehension of particular questions or issues, but I agree that, as a rhetorical device, such appeals are not very helpful at all, and very easily abused.

Come on Jim, you know this is exactly what Wilber does. See for example his infamous diatribe about Meyerhoff's green altitude at this link  called “Ken's discussion about Jeff Meyerhoff,” starting at 1:35

Balder,

As research for your topic on inter-meta-paradigmatic intersubjective validation see Mark Edwards' recent work. I provide a sample of some of it at Open Integral that also provides a link to his recent series of interviews in Integral Leadership Review. Edwards has a variety of holarchical lens besides the developmental that provide for some interesting cross-paradigmatic comparisons.

Thank you, Edward; that sounds interesting.  Certainly more lenses are needed than just the developmental ones for engaging in cross-paradigmatic inquiry.  Are some of his latest writings published on Integral World or elsewhere?

I've been thinking recently about starting a pod here on integral postmetaphysics.  There are a number of things I'd like to explore and that might be a good way to focus and organize that exploration…

No, he hasn't put anything out at IW of late. He's been busy finishing up his Ph.D. and publishing in academic and business journals. You can see most of his latest ideas though in the 8-part interview at ILR referenced above.

Hi Balder,

A separate blog post or better yet a pod for the discussion of these issues sounds great.

BTW, for anyone interested, I just posted a new entry at “Explorations in Neo-Vedanta…” on Vivekananda that discusses many of the matters I have been discussing here.

cheers,
kela

Go for it kela, set up and facilitate the pod. I’ll come play there. Balder already has a few pods to manage.

I have already been planning a pod, and will be deleting one of my dead pods (Diamond Approach) to make room for it.  But Kela is quite knowledgeable about this subject, so I think it would make sense for him to facilitate a pod on this topic, if he's interested in it.

My intention has been to start one that relates specifically to the notion of “integral postmetaphysical spirituality.”  If Kela wanted to start one with a broader (or different) orientation, maybe we can both set one up and then link them for interested members.

In the meantime, one of the lines of this discussion is being continued in kela's blog. I'm bringing Habermas into it. Please join in.

I included above some of Gregory Desilet's comments from a recent Integral Review forum. Balder responded to them and Desilet responds to Balder's comments in the new Integral Postmetaphysical Spirituality pod in this thread.