Critical Thinking and Integral Theory

Julian, I am glad you are diving into these issues. They are undoubtedly critical. Finding a way to see through metaphysics seems to be the essence of each of your 6 points. And the solution you suggest seems to be practice, practice, practice. I couldn't agree more. But I still have a few questions. 
1. What exactly do we mean by metaphysics (not even Wilber can write enough books to answer this one, so I'm not necessarily asking you, but just offering it up as the obvious ongoing discussion that we the “integral people” are going to be having for a while)? 
2. What exactly do we mean by practice (how, without a guru, is one to self-enlighten)? 
I also wanted to add that there are plenty of ways to talk about evolution integrally in the company of rational atheists without sounding like a creationist. The actual science itself is not all that threatening when you keep it in context. Sure, Dawkins/Dennett may lump anyone who doesn't think evolution is entirely explained by gene mutation and environmental selection into the theological crowd, but that doesn't mean a more forest-perspective of the field of biology (we can leave Behe out) necessarily falls in line with such reductionism. Relying on reductionism as if it were able to provide certain knowledge about an objective state of affairs in the external world is nothing but metaphysics. Any good philosopher of science knows that reductionism is really just a method, not a conveyor of ontological truths. It answers the questions about evolution that is asks, but it doesn't ask all the questions. The proof is in the success of the methods of holism and systems, which reveal just as much if not more about the structure and function of life as reductionism does. Reductionism does better on the physical world, systems thinking asks more of the right questions about life. The point, though, is that we don't even need to talk about knowing what evolution “is” or how it works if we know what science does in a postmetaphysical age. Science is about describing experience (whether interior or exterior, which themselves are also just descriptions). This also requires a lot of unpacking… I am sure Wilber has said it all before, though. 
Thanks again for the read, Matt

Julian, I have been mulling over just such a paper for a while now, and I'll definitely try and focus in on the specifics of the claims I am making so I can construct a sound argument in their favor. The only reason I haven't done so yet is because I want to be sure I have a little bit more than just a general understanding of the different paradigms within biological science. I don't want to end up mischaracterizing any theorists I employ to justify my conclusions (as Wilber is so often accused of). For now, I uploaded a short video about the approach I'll take towards the issue of evaluating evolution from an integral perspective without resorting to metaphysics. For whatever reason, speaking about this topic is much easier for me than writing, maybe because writing seems to require a level of formalization that I've not quite reached with my thoughts yet. So for now, have a look: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0hxeow3RQmQ

Good stuff Julian, as always. I just started reading some of Robert Augustus Masters' stuff, and he just put up a blog post called Spiritual Gullability that's very close to what you are saying here.

Oh, and Matt's youtube video is very cool. You guys should do a dialog BloggingHeads style.

I'm always down for dialogue. 

Check out oovoo.

You might be surprised to hear me say this, but I agree with your post in general, Julian. There are a few areas where I diverge slightly, but overall we're in agreement. A couple comments/questions.

1) First, where do you think Wilber “went wrong?”

2) Regarding reincarnation. Maybe this is just better left alone? I mean, why try to make an argument either way? All previous tomato-throwing aside, this is where I feel an agnostic approach is better than an atheistic one: Rather than say “I see no proof for reincarnation, therefore must conclude that it does not happen” (your atheistic view, as I interpret it), why not say “I see no proof for or against reincarnation, therefore I will make no conclusion either way.”

It is not fuzzy-headed or relativist to make no conclusion about reincarnation one way or another. My point is that a conclusion is simply not necessary unless one feels that one needs to hang one's hat somewhere, a necessity that is antithetical to my own view on what “21st century spirituality” is all about (which we both agree is not belief-based).

Now taking a stand isn't quite the same thing as believing. My sense is that you are open to being proven wrong about reincarnation, that if I made a good argument you would entertain it and be willing to change your opinion. But all of this bypasses what I am trying to say, that we simply don't need to solidify a perspective either way. And furthermore, that the platform for authentic transpersonal understanding is actually letting go, or dissolving, any solidification of perspective. Again, this is not antithetical to critical thinking or hierarchical statements (A is better than B), but in truth gives them greater freedom because they are held more lightly.

Wow, J…you've been busy….all good points and i always learn a lot from reading your perspective…thanks for putting it all together and thinking so deeply about this…

and on solving the evolutionary puzzle…definite hubris…it just makes me sad to think it could even be done…is not the beauty of the mystery behind evolution one of the most gorgeous and awe inspiring forces there are ?!?!?…i think so.

and to jonny, i have to say that i have been nonconclusive about reincarnation as well…like you i am a bit more on the 'open to the possibility' idea…but definitaly not counting on it…to the point it could be considered disbelief because for those that do believe, it is disbelief for if i am not agreeing, i am disagreeing…however, from my personal experience it seems that those who believe in it have some work to do in the areas that julian so often points to…the critical thinking/shadow work/inquiry based stuff (not that i am saying that i don;t…just not in the area of this particular belief)…also, i find it hard to have a real grounded conversation about spirituality with someone who thinks of the concept of reincarnation as fact…thats usually where the conversation ends…something i am finding a bit frustrating in my world at the moment…

anyhow, my itty bitty 2 cents on some of the ideas mentioned above…

much love to all…S.

About reincarnation… I remember something I read in one of DT Suzuki's books about the distinction between the common and esoteric understanding of reincarnation. Zen mind is no mind, as they say, and so to suspect that some immaterial essence or soul passes from life to life seems to be nothing more than a misunderstanding or literalization of something a bit more subtle. Suzuki suggested that the deeper meaning of reincarnation had nothing to do with previous or subsequent lives, but rather applied to this reality, right here, rigth now. Each sentient being's awareness/consciousness/soul/mind appears separate, but is actually only a re-incarnation of the One into Many.

I like this interpretation of the concept, but it may not really answer the question that so many seem to have regarding an afterlife. All I can say about it is that I suspect the birth and death of the body are much like waves crashing and receding along the shore. We come and we go, always remaining a part of the ocean even when we appear apart. So the sense that “I” individually am reborn doesn't make much sense if “I” was only a temporary illusion to begin with.
 
There's a line in the Tao Te Ching: “Can you keep your soul in its body…?”  The implication seems to be that most of us experience our soul as separate from and in control of our bodies. This is not the case according to both Taoism and modern science, and so it would seem that our common experience is an illusion. According to Lao Tzu, it seems like this illusion is at the root of most of our anxiety and suffering, and of our fear of loss of control and/or death. To keep the soul in the body is to see ourselves as being intimately related to the natural arising, living, and disolving of our biological organism. There never was nor could be an immaterial essence existing apart from this body and its activity, and so to fret about death and lack of control is quite silly! Who or what is going to die? Who or what has lost control? Each wave is undoubtedly unique, but there is absolutely no sense in trying to preserve it. Its impermanency is exactly what gives it its uniqueness, after all. Learning to be whole seems to require identifying ourselves, not with some essence in the wave representing our bodies, but with the ocean from which we came and will return.

Hey, Julian,

Here's my brief response to your six points. 

* 1: Integral and Intelligent Design

I agree that there are problems with “god in the gaps” arguments, and we need to be careful here.  But there are  problems with conventional materialist accounts of the origins and evolution of the cosmos, a number of which have been addressed by various physicists and philosophers in sophisticated ways.  I think it is legitimate to make attempts to formulate new models that have greater explanatory power, but when you cross from science into philosophical argumentation or speculation or conscious story telling, you need to be clear about that, not mixing the domains.

* 2: The insistence on the primacy of consciousness.

Experience in Buddhist meditation is not the only reason one might argue for a fundamental role for consciousness in the universe.  We had a detailed discussion about this recently, and after reviewing some of the articles we discussed, I hope you will acknowledge at least that there are sophisticated, rational, non-regressive reasons to challenge conventional materialist accounts and posit consciousness or experience or however you want to term it as an essential feature of the fabric of being, rather than a late-emergent product of material processes.

I do agree with your criticism of the new “faith” – the readiness of people to believe even very extravagant claims of “professional” meditators and traditional or modern contemplative authorities without bothering to investigate these things for themselves or even to reflect very critically on them.  Unlike you, I do not think faith itself is always regressive or unhelpful – I think that there are grades of faith, that it is a line rather than a level – but I agree that uncritical faith in the claims of meditators is problematic.

About the experience of the attainment of shamatha, the classic stages of enlightenment, the realization of Satori, etc – I believe that these stages of attainment described in traditional contemplative literature are not as easily won as many modern meditators claim.  There is a tendency to want to go straight to the top in our culture, and the appropriation of certain of these terms by folks who have not actually realized the (very demanding) stages of development dilutes the meanings of these terms and undermines what might yet be very powerful and challenging vehicles of human transformation.

For instance, after attaining shamatha, you should be able to rest your mind one-pointedly on a single object without distraction for hours at a time.  Most modern people who claim high meditative attainment (after a few workshops or a few good acid trips) are not anywhere near capable of doing so.

* 3: The question of reincarnation.

In your letter to Jonny, you remarked that taking an agnostic position (to reincarnation or “what happpens after death”) does not mean that one should hold out for any number of possible (far out) claims to be true.  I agree with this.  Saying, “I'm not sure; maybe,” to this particular issue does not entail – and should not lead to – uncritically entertaining whatever fantastic theory about the afterlife someone might come up with.

With regard to the issue of reincarnation itself, I think it's different than, say, the UFO/comet example you gave above.  There's no good evidence at all for the latter and it's pretty silly to even entertain it.  But studies on past life memories have been done that ARE pretty interesting.  Dr. Ian Stephenson's name gets mentioned a lot in relation to this question.  He has done the most extensive studies, and his conclusion so far is that there is a statistically meaningful number of cases of what appears to be authentic past life memories in young children (after carefully screening for hoaxes, unconscious influences through the media, etc).  In my view, this does not PROVE the theory of reincarnation.  There may be other ways to explain this phenomenon.  But it is suggestive of a linkage between the lives and consciousnesses of unrelated individuals that is currently inexplicable according to current Western models.

* 4: The idealizing of gurus.

The guru-student relationship can be very powerful, so I do not think it should be denigrated (nor merely reduced, in all contexts, to post/modern peer-to-peer relationships), but I definitely agree with you that the idealization and romanticization of gurus is problematic and, often, harmful.  I also am critical of a number of Wilber's endorsements.  Honestly, they disappoint me.  There ARE some great teachers out there, and I've been somewhat dismayed by several of the ones Wilber has chosen to highlight.

* 5: Integral post-metaphysics

Potential for misunderstanding or abuse by those who do not understand a theory is not an indication of a problem with the theory itself.  I agree with you that Integral Spirituality was not one of Wilber's most well-written books, and his thoughts in the book on post-metaphysics do have a number of important gaps still (though you can fill in some of the pieces if you read his Kosmos Trilogy excerpts), but I am not troubled by a “compatibility factor” with New Age thought.  At least, I don't think this “compatibility” invalidates it through some sort of guilt by association!

* 6: lastly  - Including all worldviews in an Integral embrace.

I've seen the problems you list (naive relativism, pre/trans fallacy, etc) in a number of places in Integral discussions, but it isn't universal.  “Integral embrace” points beyond pluralism, but it includes pluralistic insights in a way that I honestly haven't seem much evidence of in your own writings and criticisms.  Integral embrace, while it points to an order beyond flatland relativism, nevertheless shouldnot lead to a monolithic inclusivism that subjects (and subjugates) all other worldviews to a single value system or view.  But this is what you appear to be doing in a number of your writings.

Best wishes,

Balder

Cool, I look forward to it.  And yes, your rewrite of the Vanilla post is an improvement…

Hi Julian,

Interesting post.  I remember asking you about half a year or so ago in a comment about your disagreements with integral theory, and have really enjoyed reading your new and latest thoughts on the subject.  Good stuff.  While I like a lot of what you said, I'm going to stick to areas of disagreement or perhaps just misunderstanding.

Regarding #2, if the solution to the “primacy of consciousness” issue involves the eye of contemplation, I don't see the problem with excluding “educated, smart people” who aren't well trained in meditation.  Are you suggesting that the issues around the primacy of consciousness can be solved with the eye of mind and not necessarily the eye of contemplation?  If so, I understand why you would lament that such people are unnecessarily excluded.

The issue you raise about novice meditators accepting through faith descriptions by advanced meditators is something I struggle with a bit as a novice meditator.  I agree with you about the problems surrounding blind acceptance of what other “more advanced” people say in terms of sidestepping critical thinking and inquiry-based practice.  At the same time, I think there is some value in recognizing that other people are farther along in their development and can see things that I can't yet see.  I think there is a big differnce between blind faith or dogmatism and following something along the lines of “this guy seems like a credible source and he has done a good job at representing areas that I know well.  So, I have some faith that he wouldn't lie to me about others areas that I don't know and I'll take his word provisionally until I can reach this point myself through my own practice and critical thinking and make my own judgments.”  This seems like a better route to me than an agnostic claim of “I don't know at all,” and I think we all are willing to follow the suggestions of experts in other areas of our lifes such as say taking medication from a doctor.  I'll look forward to your thoughts on this.

Regarding #4, my impression is that Wilber has moved away from the concept of “enlightenment as an absolute condition.”  He now talks about double enlightenment (along state-stages and structures-stages) and frequently admits that it isn't really feasible to be at the highest level in all lines of development and that it is very possible for spiritually advanced people to have a mixed psychograph and unresolved shadow issues.

Your choice of Adi Da and Andrew Cohen as representative enlightened gurus makes a good point and I think is also a bit unfair.  I do agree that Wilber has supported some very controversial teachers, but most of the teachers that Wilber supports in my opinion are nowhere near as problematic as those two.

I've never been in a relationship with a guru, so I don't have first-hand knowledge about this subject and am limited to descriptions of what I have heard from others.  If you are willing to share, I am curious if you have ever been in a guru relationship, Julian, or if your judgments are also solely from what you have heard and read from others.  My impression is that this can be an effective approach for spiritual growth, but is also one fraught with potential pitfalls (I think much like going it alone also has unique potential pitfalls).  So, my take on this situation is to choose very carefully if you want to enter this type of a relationship, rather than saying that such relationships are always a bad idea.  My question for you, Julian, is whether your disagreement with Wilber is mainly that he idealizes the guru relationship, that he is not sufficiently critical in who he supports as enlightened gurus, that you think he propagates the idea of a perfectly enlightened master, or some combination of those.

For #5 and #6, I think Balder made a critical distinction between actual problems with the theoretical framework of integral theory and problems with the framework being described in such a way that it is easily misinterpreted, in this case with New Age.  These are both important but one is related to core content and the other to delivery.  My impression is that the problems regarding Integral Spirituality and integral post-metaphysics are mostly with the latter.

Best wishes,
Elijah

Hi everyone, great discussion. Julian cross posted this blog on the I-I pod, and I responded to it there. He asked me to cross post my response here, and it sounds like a good idea. There were a few posts on that thread, so rather than cross post the entire discussion I will just cross post what seems relevant to this discussion.


- - - - 

 

Regarding the idealization of Gurus …  earlier in his career he probably did this, but not since Wilber IV at least, when he added lines. Lately he's said things like he's “never met a guru that didn't have fundamental problems,” so I don't think that charge has merit now. With Wilber V he had differentiated between states and stages and was now seeing many of these gurus as being well developed horizontally but not vertically.

[Also, I think we should remember that gurus like Adi Da and Andrew Cohen did not have the benefits of Wilber V or even Wilber IV early in their career. And even once you read this stuff it takes a while to sink in. This really does make a difference. It might not make so much difference for some, but for others it really could, especially those who found themselves outside of a tradition or in a kind of a mythic, flatland, or one-side-of-the-street tradition, as Advaita tends to be, or who had some issues to work through. I'm not trying to make excuses for anyone, just bring a little understanding. Also, Wilber as well did not have the benefits of Wilber IV or V before they came along.]
 

Hi Julian,

1) I didn't have an answer ready for the What is primary? question [which I asked him]. I thought any number of thigns could have been said in response to that, including something like “Nothing! It's a metaphysical question!” Or “Emptiness!” Or God! Or Me!  Or carbon, which might be the materialist position, right? So, many of the mystics say it's awareness or consciousness that is “always already there.” That makes sense to me given my experience, but who knows, they could be deluded in some way. I mean, I believe it, but I understand why some people demand more proof. But I think by consciousness we should be careful to add that consciousness is a “no thing”-not a thing like other things in the gross realm-which isn't necessarily to say that it's empty or voider than the void.

2) One way to see the difference between KW's perspective and those of ID or God in the Gaps involves the differences between involutionary givens and evolutionary inheritances or emergences, which Ken kind of touched upon in the quote in the original post. An involutionary given is something that was there at the beginning or perhaps before the beginning. Ken posits Eros and Agape and the 20 tenets as involutionary givens. An evolutionary emergence or inheritance is is something that evolved, something that came to be and perhaps became a “kosmic habit.” The creatures, for whatever reason, wanted to see so they developed eyes-an evolutionary emergence. The people wanted laws and a police force and courts of law, so they became an evolutionary emergence; they weren't there from the beginning (and of course this example is a part of a stage, Orange).

Theories like ID believe that there is some kind of master planner that was there before the beginning, and the givens in some theories include stages there at the beginning that appear to require evolution to develop.  It's sort of like the difference between saying that the master has been here from the beginning and the master, who was born 13 billion years into the show, began sitting under the bodhi tree and thus became a master. So here's the difference: KW's theory is not saying that the involutionary givens are like evolved stages or a master planner. The involutionary givens are more like nature. He is saying it's the nature of consciousness to evolve, to unfold, to emerge into more complex and integrated ways of being and ultimately open up into infinity (because that is what has happened to some people) and continue to evolve even then.

So this nature, according to the theory, is simply an inherent aspect of consciousness-everything is in it; it is in everything, and it is everything. So we have directionality that may seem to have a certain endpoint the way it is expressed sometimes but  which Ken says isn't really an endpoint because it is infinity and contiuning to unfold. He calls the theory “a useful myth.” Every worldview was a useful myth for its time-the creation story of the raven was useful for the northwest Indians; the fighting, vindictive Gods useful for the Aztecs; Jesus and Mary useful for traditional Christians; the materialist myth useful for modernists, and this one useful for evolutionary integralites! Some people will say, “Well, if it's a myth why believe in it? I don't believe in anything. Therefore I am more evolved.” What happens there is that they just fall to their own default myth or the cultural COG, likely the materialist myth. Often that nihilism preserves a flatland narcisism.

We need to act according to our best understanding, or our best “myth,” holding it lightly as we know someday there will be a better one. This myth or understanding orients our lives in the proper way, gives us the proper moral compass. Now if we learned that life was not so much about amassing as many material possessions as we possibly could or lamenting our inability to (the materialist myth) but more about evolving, even to the point of having our self-sense dissolve forever (the Eros/Agape myth), it would change a lot, right? For more on all this see here. And here. So, I think the basic difference is between involutionary givens and how they are not evolutionary emergences or inheritances, whereas ID is more like an evolutionary emergence, only more so, having been there before evolution began.

So, according to the theory, there's just this field with a morphogenic gradient that's like a river. You jump in the river and the river carries you down. You can fight against it, try to swim upstream, grab hold of a rock or a stick to keep it from moving you, or you can learn to flow with it.

3) I agree with you about 4. A lot of people miss some of his most important points and just get caught up in the Eastern romance and enlightenment dream. Particularly most people don't see the difference between states and stages or realize just how much of KW's spirituality means going beyond ego in action and how there is a huge difference between going beyond ego in meditaton and going beyond ego, or the personal self, in action. It's rare to see people actually endeavouring to do both and really getting the transpersonal nature of Eros/Agape and how it's both “other” (from the perspective of the separate-self sense) and who we are. Usually it means going about your life in pretty much the same way, staying in the ego's loop rather than aligning with and becoming Eros/Agape. And one of the big pitfalls is the faux nondual position, as you call it, where this upper-left teaching and/or insight is then applied to all the other quadrants when it's convenient to do so (and only when it's convenient to do so).

David

Also, on the reincarnation question–first of all, I think from a meditation standpoint that it is a good issue to be open about. If we decide that there is no reincarnation, we could end up identifying strongly with the gross body rather than disidentifying with the gross and learning to identify with subtle, causal, and nondual bodies, which is what meditation is about. And if we decide that there is reincarnation, we could likewise simply continue to identify with the separate-self sense, dwell on how we have to accept our death and such, rather than, again, learning to disidentify with the gross body and the personality and learn to identify with subtle, causal, and eventually nondual bodies.

In terms of evidence for reincarnation, I don't think there's enough to prove it, but the many reported near-death experiences, meditative experiences, out-of-body experiences, drug experiences, as well as the studies that are suggestive of reincarnation should raise some doubt in people who like to believe that consciousness cannot exist apart from the body and that there is definitely not reincarnation. For a fine article about the studies that have been done on reincarnation by What Is Enlightenment's Carter Phipps, click here.

Finally, it seems to me that there is a middle ground in the reincarnation debate; that is, reincarnation, rather than something that has always been happening, is an emergent phenomenon. According to his view–which is not what I believe but seems like something to consider–most of the people who have lived and died have done just that–lived and died, lights out, gone forever. (That's awfully harsh, I know,  but I'm just playing around here…) However, some people may come to disidentify with the physical plane so much that they began identifying with the subtle and actually continue to exist after the body died. So in this scenario, reincarnation is not a given but an emergent possibility. In this scenario culture had to evolve to a degree to create people evolved enough to disidentify with the gross body. Some people talk about “old souls”–according to this view, the oldest souls may not go back to the beginning but may just be a few hundred or thousand years old. Just something to play around with …

Also, I don't see yet how the traditional view of reincarnation would necessarily cause all sorts of metaphysical problems for a philosophy. Maybe the life process, the manifest-world process that began with the Big Bang, simply isn't confined to the gross realm but our senses delude us into thinking that it is. And already we know that we spend time in the waking state, the dream state, and the deep-sleep state. Why is the dream state, for example, unquestioningly taken to be dependant on the waking state?

David

let me ask you this: why bother with any of this 'integral stuff' when one can go to law school for 7 years; run 10 k a day, afford 2 hours of talk therapy a week and be completely healthy,vanilla, and boring…..why even bother with the yoga moniker……
also, in what little time i have spent around this community, i havn't met anyone who has a strict orthodox view of creation by a personal god…what are you talking about here? from what i can gather from ken's writings he suggests that it's the monist's and materialist's version of life and universe that sounds vacuous and insane….but maybe i'm reading a different wilber………
and you seem yourself to incorporate mythic symbols in your life and practice; and yet, you seem very hostile to christian people who embrace a non-orthodox or progressive take on said mythic beliefs…..
and yes, we canucks love a good snow ball fight and as for ice cream i'll take rocky road-cause if your spiritual journey has been nice and comfy and vanilla, i question what kind of spiritual experience one is having……
oh what the hell, i'll ask you this, too: hitchens says in religion poisons everything that the roman symbol fasces was adopted by the fascists and that  same said symbol decks the halls in congress in d.c.    what gives? oh right, meaningless coincidence……

Hi, Julian,

J:  i think we should err on the side of empiricism when discussing science and biology rather than on the side of theology - dont you? of course vice versa when discussing contemplative states and/or moral concerns…. right?

Yes, I think this is a good operating principle.

J:  i think it is a little bit unscientific though to proceed from the theory of reincarnation - a metaphysical belief and then try to find evidence that proves it - and i agree with you that yes there may be multiple ways of explaining the interesting anecdotal evidence that exists AND it should continue to be enthusiastically explored.

Dr. Stevenson is not starting from the premise of reincarnation in his research; he is starting from the phenomenon of purported past life memories (mostly in children), and his work involves investigating and attempting to rule them out as actual instances of “past life memories” or memories of the lives of deceased individuals.  He does say that evidence of a significant number of cases he has investigated is suggestive of reincarnation, but he avoids philosophizing or making religious arguments in his texts.  If you (or anyone else reading this) would like to hear about his work, check out this interview with his successor at the University of Virginia.  Click on the picture of Dr. Tucker to activate the video.

J:  you have not addressed the burden of proof problem. it is not necessary to disprove and extraordinary claim in the name of being agnostic - agreed?

I'm not clear what you're asking me here.  Can you ask it another way, or contextualize this question more?

J:  my other POINT is that we should not pretend that the acceptance of reincarnation does not open a whole rat's nest of philosophical problem that necessitates an exponential multiplication of metaphysics - all of which is unproven and relies on the kind of faith that i think is not compatible with reason.

In the Integral context, I think Wilber has readily acknowledged the problems that acceptance of the theory of reincarnation would entail.  He offered one possible way it could be understood, but I don't think he holds that out as anything more than speculation (constrained by certain modern principles and informed by certain ancient ones).

B: The guru-student relationship can be very powerful, so I do not think it should be denigrated (nor merely reduced, in all contexts, to post/modern peer-to-peer relationships), but I definitely agree with you that the idealization and romanticization of gurus is problematic and, often, harmful.  I also am critical of a number of Wilber's endorsements.  Honestly, they disappoint me.  There ARE some great teachers out there, and I've been somewhat dismayed by several of the ones Wilber has chosen to highlight.

J: agreed completely but you are still  not addressing the problem of belief in absolute enlightenment which is at the heart of the problem you agree exists.

I think one of the central arguments of Integral Theory, particularly emphasized after the post-metaphysical turn and the (proposed) resolution of the problem of states being confused for stages (e.g., the W-C Matrix, which entails the sliding scale of enlightenment and the two modes of emancipation), is that deep realization or attainment in some lines can sit alongside pathology in other lines.  I am not in any way trying to avoid this, since I think it is reasonable.  I just didn't know you were looking for me to affirm this (if that is what you are really looking for).

B: Potential for misunderstanding or abuse by those who do not understand a theory is not an indication of a problem with the theory itself.  I agree with you that Integral Spirituality was not one of Wilber's most well-written books, and his thoughts in the book on post-metaphysics do have a number of important gaps still (though you can fill in some of the pieces if you read his Kosmos Trilogy excerpts), but I am not troubled by a “compatibility factor” with New Age thought.  At least, I don't think this “compatibility” invalidates it through some sort of guilt by association!

J: agreed - however given the zeitgeist that theory is being thrown into, it is skillful means to differentiate it clearly from the very, very popular superficial vulgarities to which it seems to lend authority , no?

in buddhist terms its like new age magical thinking is the “near enemy” of integral post-metaphysics and it should be taught with some good distinctions in place to point out where the confusion lies. perhaps you will do this kind of service?

I believe I am already engaged in this.  That's sort of what we're exploring on my Integral Post-metaphysical Spirituality pod.  (I actually have not put any “target” on New Age or Green; I'm just trying to explore the promise, implications, strengths, and weaknesses of the post-metaphysical vision, which includes differentiating it clearly from other perspectives.)

J:  bruce i find nothing amiss in pointing out that the way a particular theory has been presented is flawed because it is easily misunderstood as validation of a much poorer, more superficial, and incorrect yet rampantly popular theory that obscures the kind of inquiry the original theory seeks to make possible, why is this a problem?

There's no problem with this at all.  I also have criticisms.  Any disagreement I've expressed with you around this has to do with the way you've approached it, because you appear to be lampooning it without acknowledging that it has its own strengths.  In other words, it appears to me that you are not clearly distinguishing the theory from the presentation of the theory in your critiques.

J:  you are still not responding though to the problem of a kind of faux-nondual fantasy of all conflicts being resolved at the mythic enlightened stage of integral consciousness wherein the opposites are resolved, all is always already perfect and all truths are seen in their partiality as part of the beautiful opiated whole.

I have not gotten the impression from many people that this is what they really believe, not in Integral circles.  There is the “always already” teaching, but that must be understood in its proper context and, taken by itself, would make for a disastrous foundation for social policy.  (Just as the notion that there is no self and we are all just impersonal strands in the vast interrelated web of life could lead to some very inhumane social policies, if taken out of context.)

J:  glad we agree though on the prevalence of the naive pre/trans errors. while they may not be universal they are pretty ubiquitous. again - of course this is understandable as the inadequate differentiation of integral from popular new age nonsense…

where is the problem in pointing this out and trying to make better distinctions?

There's nothing wrong with making clear distinctions or criticizing beliefs or perspectives that you believe are misguided or harmful.  If I give the impression of standing against you, it is not against this exercise, but perhaps against a tendency towards absolutization and sweeping dismissals.  For instance, the teachings that get the “New Age” label are not 100% rubbish, just as “religion” (in my view) is not entirely regressive or merely an Amber holdover.

Best wishes,

Balder

Thanks for the reply, Julian. I am waaaaay too tired to offer a (cogent) response now, but I will definitely do so sometime tomorrow. Sweet dreams!

What is “the burden of proof”?

Philosopher T. Edward Damer articulates a burden of proof principle:

The burden of proof for any position usually rests on the participant who sets forth the position. If and when an opponent asks, the proponent should provide an argument for the position.

Damer says:

It should be pointed out that “proof,” in the context in which it is being used here, does not mean absolute, knock-down proof. It does not even mean, for example, “beyond a reasonable doubt,” as required of the prosecutor in a criminal trial. To require proof for one's position is to present what appears to be a good, that is, fallacy-free, argument in its behalf.

Thank you for the definition, Jim, and for being helpful.  I do know what burden of proof means, but I'm not sure what Julian is saying with regard to agnosticism.  What he means by this sentence – “it is not necessary to disprove and extraordinary claim in the name of being agnostic - agreed?” – is not clear to me. 

Julian, I really enjoyed and agreed with the spirit of your reply to Andrew. I think you are right that we need a naturalistic spirituality, meaning we need to take science seriously and not invent supernatural or metaphysical explanations to justify our belief systems. I see no reason why a genuine naturalism should in any way threaten a spiritual approach to life. By genuine I of course mean a non-reductionistic or materialistic kind of naturalism (I think we ought to question reductionism/materialism just as much as we question spiritual metaphysics). So when we have intra-integral conversations, so to speak, we all need to be sure to keep one another's supernatural assertions in check. Metaphors are one thing, but if we want to be taken seriously outside this community, we need to remain scientific. Remaining scientific is the BEST way to counter reductionist/materialist metaphysics. Trying to counter one metaphysic with another will lead nowhere.

Hi Julian,

Thanks for the detailed response!  I agree with most of what you wrote, and again stick to possible points of disagreement.

I see what you mean about the danger of accepting radical metaphysical claims on the basis of faith.  I am comfortable though with provisionally accepting metaphysical claims if they have been cross-culturally validated by a community of the adequate (not all of the areas you mentioned to me in your response fit this criterion).  Also, the work by Suzanne Cook-Greuter on the Unitive stage give experimental backing to this stage and the perceptions that many people at this stage tend to have.

I need to think a bit more to answer all of your questions to me about the primacy of consciousness, but I'll offer my current thoughts now.  I think it is important to realize that there isn't just some real world waiting around for people to see and observe (this is the impression I get from your writings at times).  Instead, our assessments are a function of many things including the tools we use to make the judgment (including which “eye” is used to gather the data), our own personal development (different worlds are seen and brought into existence at different altitudes), our cultural conditioning, etc.  My impression is that you mainly use the “eye of mind” in making your judgments about the the primacy of consciousness.  Based on my readings and personal experiences using the Big Mind process, I think there is also a world that can be understood using the eye of contemplation and understandings can be affirmed or refuted by a community of the adequate, much like scientists in a field can judge truth claims in that area.  I realize though that your objection here is that you performed the experiment, didn't find the same results, and then are in the position of not agreeing with the contemplative community.  Still, my impression is also that some concepts such as nonduality are not logical and cannot be understood using the tools of the physical and mental worlds, but can shed light on the nature of objects within those worlds.  I think this also holds true for issues around the primacy of consciousness.  Perhaps we'll agree to disagree here.

In terms of your response about the two gurus, I'm not convinced (although I could be if you provide convincing evidence) that Andrew Cohen deserves a spot as one of Wilber's two most endorsed gurus.  He is not listed as a teacher at ISC and I don't believe he was present at any of the three ISC gatherings.  I realize Ken and Andrew have a pandit and guru series at WIE, but I think he would have played a larger role at ISC if Ken was that awestruck by him as a guru/teacher.  My impression is that Ken currently most vocally supports the work of Genpo Roshi and the Big Mind process.  Genpo did lead a large part of the ISC gatherings as well.  In terms of Adi Da, I agree that Ken spoke highly of him for a long time, but has since retracted that endorsement to some extent although not as much as many would prefer.  In the IN and ISC dialogues during the past five years, Adi Da is mostly mentioned by Ken to reference his huge pathologies and as an epitome of boomeritis buddhism.  So, I think your complaint about Ken's idealization of gurus is more a reflection of his work about a decade ago (as David also suggests) rather than his most recent stuff.  If you agree with this, you could perhaps rephrase this concern as a critique of integral theory as it has been historically presented. 

Lastly, I think your statement about “the absolute failure of the guru experiment in the west” is an example of what Balder refers to as your “tendency towards absolutization and sweeping dismissals.”  I've read your post about the guru problem a few times, and I largely agree with it although I don't think it proves the absolute failure of the guru experiment in the west.  Without minimizing the harm that guru relationships have caused many people, I think guru relationships in the west have also fostered a lot of highly positive developments.  One unique and important example of this is the Big Mind process by Genpo Roshi.  Instead of taking 6 or 7 years of meditation to have an experience of satori, people can have a satori in less than an hour (I've been to a handful of guided Big Mind sessions and have seen/experienced this first hand).  Also, at a workshop with him two months ago in Copenhagen, his focus was on shadow material for seekers on the spiritual path and he used this technique to get us in touch with typically disowned voices such as jealousy, arrogance, etc.  Very cool stuff and very much in line with your work.

Thanks for the great dialogue! :)

Best wishes,
Elijah

HI Bruce.

I do know what burden of proof means, but I'm not sure what Julian is saying with regard to agnosticism.  What he means by this sentence – “it is not necessary to disprove and extraordinary claim in the name of being agnostic - agreed?” – is not clear to me.

I take it for granted that you know what “burden of proof” means. My comment was for anyone who might not be familiar with a clear definition of the term and who might not know that the kind of proof in question is neither absolute nor even “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

I bet I know what Julian means by that sentence, and he can correct me if I'm wrong.

Jonny wrote to Julian:

I feel an agnostic approach is better than an atheistic one: Rather than say “I see no proof for reincarnation, therefore must conclude that it does not happen” (your atheistic view, as I interpret it), why not say “I see no proof for or against reincarnation, therefore I will make no conclusion either way.”

It is not fuzzy-headed or relativist to make no conclusion about reincarnation one way or another. My point is that a conclusion is simply not necessary unless one feels that one needs to hang one's hat somewhere, a necessity that is antithetical to my own view on what “21st century spirituality” is all about (which we both agree is not belief-based).

I think Julian is responding to this approach or way of thinking when he asks if “it necessary to disprove and [sic] extraordinary claim in the name of being agnostic.”

Jonny seems (and he can correct me if I'm wrong) to be using the words “agnostic” and “atheistic” to mean something like “making no conclusion either way” and “hanging one's hat on a conclusion.” And by “conclusion” he seems to mean something like “solidification of perspective” (a phrase he uses in his first comment in this thread). Thus, it seems (and I keep saying “seems” because I may not be understanding Jonny as he wants to be understood) that Jonny is suggesting that someone who is “atheistic” about reincarnation has come to a “conclusion” and is thus to some degree solidifying their perspective, and Jonny says that “the platform for authentic transpersonal understanding is actually letting go, or dissolving, any solidification of perspective.” On this view, someone who has a solidified perspective or conclusion (i.e., is “atheistic”) about reincarnation, is not quite standing on the platform for authentic transpersonal understanding.

I think Julian is responding to this when he says that “it is not necessary to disprove [an] extraordinary claim in the name of being agnostic.”

In other words, the burden of proof is on someone who makes an extraordinary claim (such as the claim that reincarnation occurs), and skepticism and doubt about and/or disbelief in such a claim is not automatically a “solidifying of perspective.”

I think Jonny would agree that one can be skeptical or doubtful about a claim or can express disbelief in a claim without falling into the solidification of perspective or the holding of a conclusion in a way that is fixed and rigid. So I actually think that Julian and Jonny may actually agree, but are just representing different ways of approaching the same epistemological problem.

- Jim

Julian writes about “the insistence on the primacy of consciousness.”

this insistence is based on satori - and to even qualify to debate that fact you have to have meditated for 6 or 7 years, right? this has several unfortunate effects - it excludes many educated, smart people who have not meditated for that long from a debate on the an important question and it disqualifies people like myself who do qualify on the circular basis that they don't agree with the assertion - because that is where the probelm is solved and the doctrine is verified and if this doesnt happen for you - you must be doing it worng. (btw i dont think stephen batchelor would either.)

I've meditated for more than 6 or 7 years (I first took up formal sitting meditation practice in the early 70's) and I've studied philosophy of mind. I think it is patently absurd for anyone to make ontological claims about consciousness when their only evidence in support of their claims is phenomenological (in a loose sense of the word) or based on their meditative experiences.

Sure, like many meditators I am well familiar with the dissolution of subject and object that results in what Forman and Wilber after him (e.g., in SES endnotes) refers to as the pure consciousness experience. For years I took it for granted that because this “experience” made it seem that consciousness is primary, meaning that consciousness is omnipresent and eternal (meaning that consciousness existed before biological organisms, nervous systems and brains existed), that it was the case that consciousness is primary. It was just obvious to me, and my opinion (which I didn't think of as an opinion at the time but considered a patently obvious fact) was supported by any number of living and dead mystics, yogis, saints, and sages who said things to the effect that consciousness is omnipresent and eternal.

I think it was when in the late nineties that I read Ervin Laszlo's book The Whispering Pond that I began to reconsider my interpretation of the deep meditative state that had led me to believe that consciousness was primary (i.e., was omnipresent and eternal). As I recall, Laszlo said something in that book to the effect that human nervous systems and brains were to consciousness or mind as computers were to the world wide web, except that, as I recall, he seemed to be suggesting that consciousness or mind, unlike the internet, always was and always will be. And I remember thinking that if every computer in the world were destroyed, there would be no world wide web or internet, so what if the only conscious creatures in the universe existed on earth and the earth was wiped out? Why would it necessarily be the case that consciousness or mind would continue to exist (which is what I understood Laszlo to be suggesting). (Incidentally, several years after I thought about this, John Horgan asked Ken Wilber what would happen to “Spirit” if the only conscious life in the universe was on earth and earth was wiped out by a meteor, and Horgan reports in his book Rational Mysticism that Wilber said that mystics are “pretty unanimous” that mind rather than matter is the basis of reality and can never be extinguished and that the material universe “is a manifestation of this pure awareness” that is apprehended in deep meditation. Horgan also reports that Wilber said that “materialistic Flatlanders” have a hard time accepting that “Mind” is eternal.)

At the time that I read Laszlo's book and considered for the first time since I took up meditation and got into spirituality that maybe consciousness is not omnipresent and eternal, I approached the issue with an open mind, and I also realized that there was an awful lot I'd have to learn before I could even think about the issue with any real clarity. (For example, we can't really talk about consciousness without defining it, and there are a number of different kinds of consciousness and a number of different ways of defining it. To this day I would say that there is a sense in which we can say that consciousness is eternal, but that sense has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with human phenomenal consciousness, which today I would say is to brains as digestion is to digestive systems.)

My whole point is that I do not think that it is realistic to suggest that what Wilber refers to as a “community of the adequate” is qualified to determine the ontological status of consciousness solely on the basis of meditative or contemplative experience. The reason is simple, which is that whatever a given meditator or community of people who are “adequate” (usually by their own standards) believes about consciousness on the basis of their meditative experiences are intepretations. Our intuitions about consciousness and much more can be good places to begin philosophical inquiry, but I think our claims about the way the world is (claims about the ontological status of consciousness are claims about the way the world is) require the support of argument, reasons, and evidence.

Several years ago (after I began to question my previous interpretation of my deep meditative experience to mean that consciousness is eternal), during an extended period of insight meditation practice (both formal sitting practice and practice during everyday activities as well as during sleep), I experienced what I would describe as a breaking down of consciousness. It was as if I could see or apprehend how imagination moved within my psyche to give meaning to events which were otherwise empty of meaning. And I felt as if I could see how phenomenal consciousness is indeed a result of brain processes which are anything but eternal. But here too there are two things: my experiences and my interpretation. Some of what I read about neuroscience after these insight meditation experiences jibed with my interpretations of those experiences, but just as I don't think that having an experience that one intreprets to mean that consciousness is eternal is strong evidence of the ontological status of consciousness, I don't think that having experiences that can be interpreted to mean that phenomenal consciousness functions much as some neuroscientists (e.g., Damasio) describe, is strong evidence of anything. Interpretations of “interior” phenomena need the support of arguments, reasons, and evidence. (One of the great things about Madhyamaka emptiness is that it can be both non-conceptually realized and conceptually explained in plain language and supported with argument.)

Hi Julian. You say:

one line i draw is at UFO ascension after death, heaven and hell and reincarnation for example. none of these have been adequately proven and therefore i do not include them in my understanding of reality.

And your not including them in your understanding of reality does not mean that you are rigidly holding to a position, solidifying a position, failing to stand on the platform of authentic integral understanding, etc.

It's as someone said:

Atheism is no more a religion than not collecting stamps is a hobby.

:-)

Elijah,

“Instead, our assessments are a function of many things including the tools we use to make the judgment”

Yes, Kant made this point, but he used that observation to undermine metaphysical speculation. He made the point that we can never know anything beyond what our perceptive toolbox presents to us, that the “Thing-in-itself” is forever beyond our grasp. So we can't speculate about metaphysical possibilities, because they are, by definition, beyond our perceptive apparatus. Any time we talk, think or write books about them, this is not legitimate knowledge because it is structured according to the conventional world, regardless of whether they appear to be cross-culturally validated.

To make this concrete, time and space do not exist as they appear, they are part of our perceptive apparatus, so if we conceive of some spiritual concept like reincarnation in terms of time or space, that won't work. And that is exactly what people try to do with these ideas – they are rendered intelligible by resorting to concepts that only work in the conventional world, but they are claimed to not be part of the conventional world.

A classic example of this is prana – some people claim it is a “spiritual” energy, but if we can manipulate it with conventional knowledge, then it must really be conventional and no more inherently spiritual than magnetism.

At this point, we can talk about the eye of contemplation, but I think this is not an honest move. Arguments can't be made and books can't be written with the eye of contemplation, so in all this proliferation of speculative metaphysics, its fairly clear that they must be using nothing but the eye of the mind and the eye of flesh. And if people do that, then we can simply say they are wrong. What we know about nondual knowledge is that it cannot be rendered into conventional knowledge, so any books that claim conventional knowledge about unconventional things must be false.

You last comment is nicely put, Mr. Teacup.

At this point, we can talk about the eye of contemplation, but I think this is not an honest move.

I couldn't agree more.

Mike: “To make this concrete, time and space do not exist as they appear, they are part of our perceptive apparatus, so if we conceive of some spiritual concept like reincarnation in terms of time or space, that won't work. And that is exactly what people try to do with these ideas - they are rendered intelligible by resorting to concepts that only work in the conventional world, but they are claimed to not be part of the conventional world.

At this point, we can talk about the eye of contemplation, but I think this is not an honest move. Arguments can't be made and books can't be written with the eye of contemplation, so in all this proliferation of speculative metaphysics, its fairly clear that they must be using nothing but the eye of the mind and the eye of flesh. And if people do that, then we can simply say they are wrong. What we know about nondual knowledge is that it cannot be rendered into conventional knowledge, so any books that claim conventional knowledge about unconventional things must be false.”

I think this is basically true, Mike. But at the same time we can formulate closer approximations of the truth, right? Writers of today come closer than writers of two thousand years ago, generally, and in two thousand years they will have a more refined understanding stiil. So it's a worthwhile exercise, right? I'm not saying you think otherwise, but a lot of people do come to the conclusion that it's not a worthwhile exercise, or that eschewing all theory is somehow the most evolved thing to do, and simply fall back to some default understanding, so I thought I would throw it out there.

David

“Yes, Kant made this point, but he used that observation to undermine metaphysical speculation. He made the point that we can never know anything beyond what our perceptive toolbox presents to us, that the “Thing-in-itself” is forever beyond our grasp. So we can't speculate about metaphysical possibilities, because they are, by definition, beyond our perceptive apparatus. Any time we talk, think or write books about them, this is not legitimate knowledge because it is structured according to the conventional world, regardless of whether they appear to be cross-culturally validated.”

Elijah, 
Glad you brought up Kant. I don't know that his thought necessarily made metaphysics off limits, but rather I think he opened the door for a new kind of investigation into reality, namely phenomenology. If the phenomenon is all we have access to, we cannot assume the world we perceive is in any sense pre-established or objective. So strictly empirical science based on a materialist foundation goes right out the window. What our senses tell us about reality is not all there is to reality. William James came up with the notion of “radical empiricism” which jettisons a priori materialism and instead focuses on experience itself, on what binds sensual reality together into a coherent whole (roughly equivalent to the eye of the mind). I think this is very similar to phenomenology, which as an approach takes both value/quality/mind and fact/quantity/matter into consideration, but all the while is careful not to presuppose that the facts exist independently of our values. We find what we look for, after all. Now what you said at the end about the eye of contemplation is interesting, because while Kant did indeed say that the “thing in itself” is beyond our perception, his notion of “transcendental apperception” sort of brings it all back around again. Transcendental apperception is what makes experience possible, in that it unites us with reality. It is where subject and object become one. So while the thing in itself can be seen as something “out there” beyond our ability to reach, it is also that in us which allows us to reach at all. 

well, yes julian, i'm quite fond of what ifs myself, and i certainly appreciate the perspectives you wrote. also, i think there have been ample maps made thru the centuries that stake out a healthy moral, ethical way of being human without the need for meta-physic's..but i do think the what ifs go both ways. we do know and use extensively the science of probabilities in all kinds of endeavors on this planet; so although i do understand your principle, i'm not convinced that it's entirely valid. we can know from that science that a purple dinosaur is not god, but the idea that there may be some casual agent that is unquantifiable and unqualifiable is a better probability of said god than a purple dinosaur, in my opinion….
i'd like to make a distinction between fantasy and imagination also..with out denigrating fantasy, i personally enjoy people's imaginative flights on what they think god might be; whether it's g.w's very unique ideas or even michael sharps, or hell, even my own!lol now, i know that kind of leads to a slippery slope, but i really don't see the problem with it if it's sincere, without hidden agenda or deceit. i can safely say that thru out the 30 years of my personal search for meaning that i've never tried once to profit from my ideas or experiences, and i've never,ever, not once viewed another human as an object to be exploited for profit….so, for what's that worth…..
as for the age old argument over impersonal or personal; hell, i say that if there is a god then it's both, all things and no thing, both impersonal and personal. in other words 'it' has no boundaries…now, i can feel you squirming,lol but that's the god i believe in, if there indeed is one…..and your right, there may not be one………..

buddhalicious-
I'm glad you brought up phenomenology.  Have you ever read Vico, or Grassi's rejuvination of Vico's rhetoric?  (I know, the very term itself implies triviality!)

I'm really diggin this discussion!  I keep telling myself that when I no longer allocate my day to the steps necessary for earning those expensive initials employers enjoy, or for the minimum-wage within which I gratefully participate in brief discussions on Thought, I will submerge myself in these virtual threads.  I, for now, would become lost in it all, however!

Grassi sums up, Language is not “merely the tool, but the very stuff” of human response to existence.  I am facinated by the movement of relative truth, throughout the times!

It seems much of the intelligent discourse on the Kosmos moves along two axes.  The horizontal of an absolute, measurable, quantifiable reality, in it's ultimate physical (Dawkin-esque) and abstract forms (Platonic?), is a wave constantly colliding with the verticle of physical relativism (Gotswami?) and abstract interpretation (Aristotlean?). 

Now, I must confess to having only read “Brief History of Everything” and “No Boundary”, but I felt the four quadrants were much like this model for mapping the interpretations of the Kosmos. 

Socrates is said to define color as “that which accompanies shape”.  Couldn't Truth, similarly, be defined as “that which accompanies meaning”? 

The beauty I see is within the act of these discussions.  Imagine the quadrants as a 'timeloaf”; picture a rectangular, eternal hallway with the axes of the quandrants stretched out and centralizied.  With each shift along these axes our dialogue takes us, a probabilistic point can be mapped in the relative field of “how physical” or “how spiritual” as well as, conceptually, “how concrete” or “how abstract.”  Because of the nature of the dialogue, as it shifts point/counter-point, the movement will spiral within the “timeloaf” of posts and shift like waves in relation to the horizontal or verticle axes. This pattern of movement is also shared by the electro-magnetic spectum, which we precieve as light.

Maybe it's just this movement pattern that we can rely on.  In the end, it's a balanced and everchanging “definition” within the eternal Brahma of no-thing-ness.
(Please help me clarify the vocabulary I am using in an attempt to present this “very stuff” of human response to existence…)

Julian, in your response way-back-when I think you jumped a bit too far away from the point I was trying to make and thus, seemingly, missing what I was actually saying (or trying to say!). Let me try to rein it in a bit.

First off, the burden of proof with regards to reincarnation is not a problem for me because I’m not trying to prove that reincarnation does or does not occur. Nor am I saying that “all proposed possibilities are equally valid” (you seem to rely on that strawman a bit too much, J). I am saying that we simply don’t need to make a conclusion either way, that to do so is not only unnecessary but also a false conclusion, if we do not have strong evidence or experience to come to such a conclusion.

Now certainly the burden of prooving something like the idea that Barack Obama is the Antichrist lies on those that think so. But let me turn one of your statements around: Yes, all proposed possibilities are not equally valid; we could then say that all “mythic beliefs” are not equally invalid. Reincarnation, in one form or another, is embedded within perhaps every major religion. That is, there is a difference between the ideas of Obama-as-Antichrist and reincarnation—to say otherwise smacks of the extreme relativism that you yourself decry. Yet what I see you doing is throwing the vast smorgasbord of “New Age beliefs” into one basket and lighting a funeral pyre. Isn’t this a kind of reverse relativism? And it is even more complex then that: Just as, in this instance, there is a difference between “UFOlogy” and astrology, so too are there numerous different takes on UFOlogy, different approaches to astrology, etc. To throw all of astrology into one basket is simply coming from a place of ignorance about astrology.

Now in the case of something like what happens after death, most of us poor shmucks simply don’t know. Agreed? Now if we say that there are two basic possibilities: that either “something” or “nothing” occurs after death, my point is that if we don’t know what happens after death, why take a stand either way? We might have a preference, we might have an inkling or intuition even, but to “conclude” either way is…well, to use one of your favorite terms, intellectually dishonest. Or at least confused.

Let me be clear: I see nothing wrong with speculating or even trying to come up with a rational, scientific hypothesis of what happens after death—and even to say “This is what I think happens.” And I am open to the possibility that some folks actually know—or at least have had first-hand experience or a convincing vision or intuition, and thus have greater knowledge, perhaps, than most folks. But if we are starting from a position of “not knowing,” and if we do not come across conclusive or extremely convincing evidence either way, why make a rock-solid conclusion? Why not remain open? And is this openness indicative of “extreme relativism?” I think not, because it is not closed to knowing, to deeper or truer knowledge about what happens after death, given adequate information or experience.

To me it seems that your approach is to weigh all the options and then choose the one that you think is most empircally sound. Nothing wrong with that—actually, not only do I applaud it but I take the same basic approach. Yet I am pointing to what I see as a degree of solidification or identification with a given perspective or belief. You advocate a move beyond faith-based, or belief-based, spirituality—and in this I am with you 110%. Yet it seems to me that you end up reifying a kind of subtle, subconscious, belief system (which comes up in your more recent blog entry, which I’ll try to respond to directly)—which of course is antithetical to your conscious mission statement of moving beyond belief.

Thus, in my view, beliefs themselves aren’t the problem, but the degree to which we are identified with them is.

ItsWill, 
I really enjoyed your comment, as well as your one and only blog entry! Language is not the tool, but the stuff! All this talk of metaphysics–of what lies behind form and beneath appearances–is really just a play on words. Meaning comes from language, it is not about a correspondence between symbols and reality. When we assume all our theorizing is for discovering an already created reality, we forget that our descriptions elicit the very things they are trying to describe. 
Your “timeloaf” metaphor enacted a beautiful picture of reality for me just before. I traveled through the spiral of this thread in my imagination as you described it. 
We are indeed just like a cluster of neurons spitting chemical signatures back and forth to one another in order to coordinate some larger activity we know almost nothing about. Though if reality really is fractal in nature (like you say in your blog and like I tend to believe as well) then self-similarity is the law, and our ignorance of the larger process is just a misappropriation of our conceptual skills. Instead of searching for the truth “out there” in the objective world of theoretical abstraction, we ought to be peering inward in order to perceive our own nature and realize the creative potential of our words.  
BTW, I haven't read Vico or Gracci, but I think I am going to have to now! 

For anyone that is interested in the Intelligent Design/Creationism aspect of this thread, I've been having what I think is an encouraging discussion (or at the very least revealing) with a Dawkins-esque atheist about evolution. 
Here is a link to my video reply to his objections to a more holistic approach to evolutionary biology. 
And here is a link to a discussion we had through email. 

To say a little bit here about the discussion going on above:I think questions about the primacy of consciousness are misguided. If we as integralists want to talk seriously about evolution, we need to do so scientifically. We cannot make metaphysical claims like that mind came before matter. Mind and matter are two metaphysical poles we have invented to speak meaningfully about reality, and so when we try to prove that one of them is more significant than the other we end up just playing games with words. Reality itself is neither mental or material. Claiming it is all really mind is just as absolutist as materialism. I think our energy would be best spent trying to counter the dogmatic claims of reductionism and materialism with a healthy blend of skepticism and systems science (autopoiesis, Gaia, ecology). 
Saying consciousness is primary is very misleading for another reason. Consciousness is usually defined as intentionality (thoughts are about the world). If “consciousness” is primary, if it exists before and without the world, what the heck is it conscious of? I think saying reality is non-dual avoids this confusion. That is, reality is neither mind or matter, spirit or body, but an ungraspable relationship between each. 

Hi Matt,

I'm not sure it's correct to equate consciousness with mind and then claim that people who believe that consciousness is primary are engaging in mind-body dualism. I understand that some Buddhists may use the word mind to mean consciousness, but I don't think everyone defines it that way.

Consciousness can be conscious of itself. In certain meditative states it is. Also, who defines consciousness as intentionality?

Your last sentence is interesting. Have you heard of Ramana Maharshi's definition of reality? Ken Wilber wrote about it in One Taste (December 29):

“That is why Ramana Maharshi said, 'That which is not present in deep dreamless sleep is not real.'  The Real must be present in all three states, including deep dreamless sleep, and the only thing that is present in all three states is the formless Self or pure consciousness.”

It makes sense that the Real needs to be present in all three states, doesn't it?

Best,

David

Hey David, 

I don't necessarily disagree with the spirit behind the claim that consciousness is primary, I just think we run into problems using that particular word. So let's just see if we can tease out the many meanings and implications of “consciousness.” 

Consciousness can indeed be conscious of itself, which highlights the etymology of the word. It originally was used to mean only “conscience,” which, roughly, is the voice in our heads or witness of our deeds, something a long the lines of “knowing-with,” which implies a dualism. So there is a moral as well as a dualistic connotation which I don't think you mean to imply by your usage of the word. Consciousness has been defined in a more modern context as intentionality by Franz Brentano, which moves away from the moral context and just means that consciousness is always a knowing-of or about something. 

The only reason I am being picky about words here is because of my training in philosophy. In order to avoid confusion, I think it pays to look at the history of the usage of words and to choose words without any contradictory implications when trying to define something as indefinite as the “formless Self.” So I'll repeat that we may avoid confusion by saying that reality is non-dual, which I think expresses the spirit of what you are trying to get across without using language that leads us into metaphysical confusions. 

Julian, I haven't read all the posts here because they seem very much from the hard-core Integral philosopher's guild, which doesn't always engage me.
I have been sitting with some words you wrote above for a few days and however feel compelled to respond. You said:

(one of my devilish favorite moments is watching new agers try and make sense of why they are prochoice and reconcile that with their smorgasbord spirituality and subscription to mind/soul-body dualism! - this usually ends with some kind of precious ritual thanking of the soul who came to visit and invitation that he/she come again when the time is right..)

I am frankly stunned by the absolute lack of compassion I find in that statement.

Ritual is, and has been since the dawn of human time, a very organic way to deal with grief and loss of any kind. It is, to me, programmed in our bones, and not something I'm interested in “evolving” out of. (This goes for rituals for life experiences other than grief as well, but I am trying to stay on point here). I will not knock anyone's mechanism for dealing with the emotions of a terminated pregnancy, no matter how “unskilled” they may be at creating authentic ritual in anyone's eyes (including perhaps their own). I point this out because being pro-choice does not necessarily mean that there will be no grief or sense of loss in making the choice to terminate a pregnancy.

I don't think any of your commenters even blinked an eye at this, and I also believe that all but one of the comments were written by men…

Nobody gets it “right” all the time….I think you yourself see that “smorgasboard spirituality” is oftentimes a response to grief or fear…I am beginning to see that judging anyone for it isn't going to make it go away as a cultural phenomenon nor will it be the most effective way of helping people on to a more authentic path….the only real way to do that is via compassion, which is easier written here than practiced, for sure.

I am trying to compassionately assist you with your shadow work.

-rainwriter

Hi Mr. Teacup and Jim,

Thanks for the great detailed responses!

Jim - I especially liked your paragraph about the need for need for “argument, reasons, and evidence” to go from meditative experiences to claims about the ontological nature of consciousness.  I couldn't agree more, although what constitutes evidence is perhaps a dicey issue in terms of what approaches or eyes can be used to gather data.  I also like your point (which Julian also made above) about the distance between an experience and the interpretation of that experience.  Filtering any experience through the dualistic filter of language is going to influence it, and is necessary for expressing it.  Overall, I also enjoyed and appreciated how you included your first-person narrative to explain how you came to your current stance.  That really helped contextualize your response.

Mr. Teacup - I wholeheartedly agree with you about how time and space are part of our perceptive apparatus.  I'm not trying to encourage metaphysical speculation about things that by their definition are beyond our perceptive capacities.  It seems like your response to me was mainly addressing this, and I could see how you got that impression based on my earlier post.  Your wrote “What we know about nondual knowledge is that it cannot be rendered into conventional knowledge, so any books that claim conventional knowledge about unconventional things must be false.”  I agree with you here in that all books about nondual knowledge are false.  At the same time, there are more and less accurate ways of talking about nonduality.  For example, there are “right” or “acceptable” answers to zen koans even though dualistic language is being used.  I think you would agree with this.  And, I think there is value to writing about topics such as nonduality using conventional approaches even if they are “false.”

Best regards,
Elijah

It appears I made a mistake above and address my comment about Kant to Elijah when I should have addressed it to Mr. Teacup. My bad!

Hi Matt,

Yes I think words are very important and that many of the words people use to describe nonduality (the witness, consciousness, etc.) have connotations of duality. But I'm not sure that the word nondual will cover it. It doesn't, for one thing, address the state bias people can have when talking about “reality.” People might think nondual means emptiness is form and form is emptiness and so all that is an expression for reality. But form isn't present in deep dreamless sleep, so there is a problem with that if we are trying to determine what's real.


A. H. Almaas has an interesting idea with regard to wording and descriptions of nondual consciousness that he calls “inexhaustibility.” He writes about it in Spacecruiser Inquiry, page 13:

“Some would say that you cannot say anything about the mystery because whatever you say is going to be inaccurate, and therefore it is better not to say anything. The perspective I prefer is that the essence of being is amenable to descriptions. You can actually say a great deal about it, just as the mystical poets have been doing for thousands of years. You can say it is emptiness, you can say it is mystery, you can say it is stillness, you can say it is peace, you can say it is neither existence nor nonexistence, you can say it is the ultimate beloved, you can say it is the annihilation of all ego, you can say it is the source of all awareness, you can say it is the ground of everything, you can say it is our true identity, you can say it is dimensionless nonlocality, and so on. Each one of these descriptions is saying something about it.

“Thus the mystery of Being can be seen as having two different implications.  I believe the more fruitful one is not that there is nothing you can say about it, but that you can never exhaust what you can say about it. We can describe it and talk about it forever. So instead of calling it indeterminacy, I think a better word is inexhaustibility. The mystery is characterized by the fact that it is inexhaustable. You can never know it totally.”

One interesting aspect of this nondual consciousness involves some kind of energy and directionality. Ken Wilber, for example, has observed in deep dreamless sleep, where there is supposed to be nothing, a tendency consciousness has to “effervesce” or bubble over. Almaas calls this aspect the evolutionary force or the optimizing force, and some other teachers have a version of it as well. The reason some teachers talk about an energetic aspect of nonduality and others don't is because the former are more evolved stagewise,  though, ironically, they are often accused of trying to bring some kind of Amber metaphysics into the picture.

The point, anyway, is just that there is a great mystery in it. A number of words put together will modify eachother and give us a better picture than just one or two. Some of the words may seem to have connotations of duality, but nondual language alone does not equal nonduality and will not give us a clear picture of nonduality or be a true reflection of the two truths doctrine.

David

Hi Julian. In a comment above and in other posts you have defended what philosophers call “metaphysical realism.” There are those who disagree with it and their position is typically referred to as “anti-realism.”

Here is one approach to defining realism:

Realism, on the other hand, is not a great deal more (at root) than the
expression of fairly standard, prephilosophical assumptions about the
world and our place in it. There are a few very common intuitions at the
heart of what might be called the “general idea” underlying metaphysical
realism:
1) The world and its features are as they are irrespective of any of our
beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, etc. (leaving aside our trivial and obvious
influences on the world - e.g. intentional relations, creation of
artifacts, manipulation of physical objects, etc.).
2) The world’s existence preceded the existence of minds (except, perhaps,
for God).
3) The world will (probably) exist after the extinction of minds (except,
perhaps, for God).
4) Minds are not ontologically constructive (i.e. minds do not make the
world, its parts, or facts about it - save trivial, obvious exceptions).
The world is one thing, and our representations of it are quite another.
Each of the above four claims about the nature of the external world
speaks, in one way or another, to one (or both) of what Michael Devitt
refers to as realism’s two fundamental dimensions: 1) existence and 2)
independence (1984: pp. 13-25). By existence, he means that there is, in
fact, an external (to the mental or phenomenal realm of cognizers)
world. By independence, he means that the world does not need to be
related to anything at all in order that (nonintentional) facts about it obtain.
If philosophical doctrines came with slogans on their boxcovers,
metaphysical realism’s would read: The world exists independently of the
mental.

That's from ”Metaphysical Realism” by William Ferraiolo (clicking on the link will open a PDF file in a new page).

I tried to find an essay on realism by Peter Van Inwagen that explains and defends realism in pretty simple terms, but I couldn't find it. Here is a page from the essay where he gives a simple example of what it means to be a metaphysical realist.

Matt,

“I don't know that his thought necessarily made metaphysics off limits”

This generally how Kant is understood. Here's a source (from Schopenahauer's summary of Kant) that captures it up in one sentence:

Religious scholastic philosophy is completely overthrown by the demonstration of the impossibility of proofs for speculative theology and also for rational psychology, or reasoned study of the soul.

One thing I keep on saying over and over again is that New Age “metaphysical” thought has a lot in common with the speculative theology that Kant was dealing with, at least in its general form and the kinds of assumptions it makes. So Kant's (and especially Schopenhauer's) transcendental idealism is the right cure, but we should be very careful to note that this kind of idealism is very different from subjective idealism of Berkeley, which I believe we are right to reject.

I think this response to New Age thought is more philosophically sound (and a much stronger refutation) than Julian's empirical realism, but at the same time, transcendental idealism is notoriously difficult to understand – I only started to really understand it recently after a 3rd attempt. In the interests of simplicity, let's look at it in terms of the dialog (apologizes to Julian for hijacking his voice :)

NewAgeGuy: Consciousness is behind the entire universe, therefore Thoughts Create Reality!
Julian: There's no evidence of that!
NAG: Yes there is, here let me show you.
J: That's not good science, therefore its not knowledge.
NAG: More experiments will come along to show that it is true. In the meantime, Thoughts Create Reality!
J: *sigh*

Meanwhile, from the transcendental idealist perspective:

NewAgeGuy: Consciousness is behind the entire universe, therefore Thoughts Create Reality!
Kant: “All knowledge of things merely from pure understanding or pure reason is nothing but sheer illusion, and only in experience is there truth.”
Kant: You can't use reason to speculate about what is outside of possible experience or behind the universe, because all the tools you have to create knowledge are based on experience in the universe.
NewAgeGuy: Oh…

Hi Elijah, Thanks for the feedback!

Hi Julian. I find it hard to tell where Wilber stands on the issue of metaphysical realism. He says different things at different times (and at different “phases” of his work), and it seems to me that he says different things to different audiences.

As for Wilber telling Sheldrake that he is “not arguing for panpsychism, but rather for the position that insides go with outsides….. i leave it up to people how far down they want to push it - to shrimp or atoms, but i do say that by the time we get to human beings we definitely have all four quadrants,” this is consistent with a couple of thing he says buried in endnotes to Integral Spirituality (at least the first edition of the book when it was published in CW4 before being published as a standalone book).

Namely, these two statements:

I do not push experience (or feelings or souls or any specific type of interior) all the way down… (Integral Psychology in The Collected Works of Ken Wilber Volume 4, p. 710, italics in orig.).

And:

[Daniel] Dennett, incidentally, sees a type of sentience emerging with amoebas. I am willing to settle for that…

And in a discussion he had a few years ago with Michael Zimmerman, Wilber says that he has always said that he is “a little bit uncomfortable with panpsychism.”

David, 

Thanks for the response. I like Almaas' inexhaustibility idea, that sure makes it easier to talk about these things without walking on egg shells. Other than that, because I cannot profess to have had the experiences necessary to make claims about what deep dreamless sleep is like, I've got nothing much more to add. 




Mr. Teacup, 

I'll quote Kant to clear up what I was trying to get across: 

“That the human mind will ever give up metaphysical researches is as little to be expected as that we, to avoid inhaling impure air, should prefer to give up breathing altogether. There will, therefore, always be metaphysics in the world; nay, everyone, especially every reflective man, will have it and, for want of a recognized standard, will shape it for himself after his own pattern. What has hitherto been called metaphysics cannot satisfy any critical mind, but to forego it entirely is impossible” (from 'Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics').

I am by no means a Kantian scholar, but what I read out of the texts I have studied is that metaphysics can in no way provide us with the Truth, but that, as human beings, we cannot help but speculate about Meaning. The metaphysics that Kant did away with was the former kind. I think he sought to elevate the latter, to show how central it is to a full human life.  

I brought up phenomenology in my response because I think that it indeed does help us cope with finding legitimate descriptions of spiritual experience. I see transcendental idealism and phenomenology to be quite similar if not identical approaches to philosophy, but feel free to point out the differences if you please. 

I think the point is that we cannot get outside our own experience. This doesn't mean that reality is made of thoughts, but it does mean that thoughts characterize (almost) everything we experience. So instead of trying to find out what the Truth is, we need to shift gears and focus on what experience means. The best way to do this (avoiding solipsistic relativism) seems to be by way of intersubjective exploration. There's lots more to be said about this, and I'm willing to go there in the future, but I'll leave it at that for now. 

-Matt

We all know that Kant and the German idealists have been a big inspiration for Wilber, particularly the fusion of spirituality and the idea of evolution, right? In case anyone doesn't, I will offer a couple of quotes:

“The fruitfulness of Nature is without limits, since it is nothing but the exercise of the Divine Omnipotence…. Even in the essential properties of the elements [in the original condition of Nature], there could be traced the mark of that completeness which they derive from their origin, inasmuch as their nature is but a consequence of the eternal Idea of the Divine Intelligence. The matter which appears to be merely passive and without form and arrangement has even in its simplest state an urge to fashion itself by a natural evolution into a more perfect constitution.”

(Kant, Allgemeine Naturgeschichte, 1755)

“The law of causality, and the consideration and investigation of nature which follow on it, lead us necessarily to the certain assumption that each more highly organized state of matter succeeded in time a cruder state.Thus animals existed before men, fishes before land animals, plants before fishes, and the inorganic before that which is organic; consequently the original mass had to go through a long series of changes before the first eye could be opened. And yet the existence of this whole world remains for ever dependent on that first eye that opened, were it even that of an insect…. This world is the succession of the representations of consciousness, the form of its knowing, and apart from this loses all meaning, and is nothing at all.”

(Schopenhauer, The World As Will and Representation, 1819-1844)


Here's a good article about it.

Another way to distinguish Wilber's theory and ID is that ID, of course, ignores empirical evidence and rational thought while Wilber's theory not only includes it but was partly inspired by it.


David

Julian,


I think I see where you're coming from. There is a difference between scientific myths and religious myths. Gravity, for instance, does not require faith to experience. It's there whether you like it or not. But just what gravity actually is remains open to question. Newton thought it was a force. Einstein thought it was curved spacetime. String theory thinks it is slowly vibrating interdimensional strings (or something like that). Will we ever settle on the right answer? It seems more like what gravity “is” depends on your point of view. On a terrestrial scale, Newton was right. On a galactic scale, Einstein was right. On a cosmic scale, string theory (or whatever) could be right. It all depends where you're standing. I think this points to a relationship between observer and observed where one doesn't create the other, but where the one always participates in how the other appears.


So I don't think all worldviews are equally metaphysical. Science is grounded in experience (empiricism), and so it studies only phenomena that exist at least in some way independently of human subjectivity. Gravity, for instance, keeps us from floating off the earth no matter what we think. It's when we start asking what gravity is that our subjectivity becomes irreversibly involved in how we characterize it.


When it comes to evolution, I do think genetic reductionism (seeing evolution as nothing but the conservation of selish genes) is as metaphysical an interpretation as irreducible complexity/Intelligent Design. This doesn't mean there aren't plenty of good empirical reasons to include natural selection in any complete description of evolution, just that genes alone cannot account for all the order/complexity found in the biosphere. That said, I think Behe's ideas about complexity are misguided. Complexity is not evidence of a designer, it is evidence of self-organization which can be modeled mathematically and reproduced in a lab using nothing but ordinary molecules.


Does this clear anything up, Julian?

Hi Julian,

Thanks for insightful comments.  I really like a lot of what you had to say.

In terms of the guru discussion, I think we are in much closer agreement now that you have defined what you meant by the term guru (although I would add this is not how I typically understand that term is used, and I would guess that Genpo would be comfortable referring to himself as a guru of some sort).  I can see how you picked Andrew Cohen as one of Wilber's main “gurus” now, and encourage you to clearly articulate this definition in future writings if you want to use the word this way. 

Now on to the main topic, the primacy of consciousness.  Frankly, I haven't really thought about this topic until a few days ago when you made this post, while you guys have thought about it for decades.  Based on some responses (especially Jim's), I feel I need to do a good bit more philosophical reading on this topic before I can really articulate a solid position.  And, we still haven't defined (at least I don't think we have) a working definition of consciousness (and there are many potential definitions for this word as Jim pointed out) that we all agree on, so we may be arguing for different things.  Given this, I don't want to prompt any more thoughtful responses to my half-formed ideas on this topic. I was basically trying to offer an alternative perspective and not necessarily my own.  I appreciate those responses and have learned from them, but I am stepping out of this particular part of the debate.  I see where you guys are coming from especially with applying insights from one quadrant to another as Julian has pointed out.  So, thanks! :)

An area where I do feel very comfortable discussing is IPM.  I see where you are coming from here Julian in that those objects (bacteria, ford fucking explorers, etc.) are waiting to be found (at least for us adults that have object permanence and have passed through the first few stages of cognitive development :) ).   The main thing that differs is how people understand these things and what sense they can make from them.  Take a bunch of fossil records to a blue/amber fundamentalist and try to convince them that evolution exists.  It doesn't within that amber world space.  For orange or higher, that evidence is as obvious as can be.  So, the truth claims (UR quadrant) that one makes depends to some extent on their development (UL).  That is what I mean by people enact and see different worlds.

I'm expecting we are in agreement so far, so let's take a bit more of a complicated example that I hope will tease out some of the nuances I am hoping to make.  Here is a quote from Integral Spirituality (page 298) about Michael Murphy's “Future of the Body,” a book I expect we also highly respect.  (Julian - I strongly encourage you check out Wilber's whole critique of this book, as I believe it would help improve your already great writing.)

The “natural history” Murphy gives is not the simple objectivist account he imagines, but is a view seen only from turqouise or higher, by an educated-Western-male, acknolwedging and using three particular injunctions, whose own para-normal and transpersonal states and stages enact and bring forth a perceptual capacity that can disclose phenomena that reside in those specific worldspaces-and then, and only then, can Murphy's real data be seen.  And that data, those facts, are definitely real.  But they aren't just lying around out there waiting for a universal, objective, natural historian to stumble on them and objectively report them.

Let's do a thought experiment and give “Future of the Body” to a “smart, educated” guy such as Dennett and see what he thinks of it.  My expectation is that he won't even be able to see the real data, so his judgment in that case would be worthless.  The book is probably “over his head.”  Just as ford explorers are out there in the world, so are subtle energies although most people can't “see” them.  The reason I go back to this point is that this was the point I was trying to initially make (albeit perhaps poorly done) when I talked about excluding “smart, educated” people from discussions that necessitate being able to possess certain advanced states of consciousness.  I'm not saying that the “primacy of consciousness” debate is necessarily such a place, but I could certainly see the potential for discussions where such exclusions are necessary.  And, I am open to the possibility that some things are “over my head” and that I can't understand them right now based on my altitude (this doesn't mean I stop from making useful distinctions now to the best of my ability, but it does define the range of data I can understand and legitimately confirm/refute).

Julian, I must admit that I am a bit confused by your frequent linking of IPM and what seems to be to be some form of moral relativism.  Perhaps this is because I don't read around that much on Gaia.  It seems fairly obvious at least to me that contextualizing information in the sense that people's worldviews influence their reality should not affect judgments of pathology or distinctions of good/bad thinking/science.  If someone at a green altitude has latched on to magenta beliefs, that is unhealthy and perhaps pathological (depending upon your definition of pathology).  There may be partial truths in those beliefs (such as this is how the world legitimately looks to someone at the magenta stage when they are five years old), but those beliefs are still absolutely inappropriate for someone with a center-of-gravity at green.  Making critical distinctions is crucial, AND people experience different worlds at different levels of development.  I hope this response makes it clear that I am not trying to “have it both ways” with regards to IPM and satori proving the primacy of consciousness; if they perform an injunction, then use those results.  I think you are attributing some misguided understanding of IPM to me for reasons I don't understand.

All the best,
Elijah

One more thing Julian.  I've tried to respond to the main points you raised in your response.  If there is anything you believe is important that I missed, feel free to let me know.

Elijah

“the implication that these are all equally valid or equally articles of faith is misleading and i think a little intellectually dishonest”

I agree with that, and I think its important to realize that even though there are metaphysical problems with empirical realism, they are quite different from the problems of speculative theology. Technically, the difference is between synthetic a priori judgments and synthetic a posteriori judgments, respectively. An example might be helpful: empirical realism assumes that all events have a cause, but this cannot be proven from experience. But we have to assume that this is true, or we wouldn't have any knowledge at all, so Kant says that this indicates that those metaphysical assumptions are actually part of our perceptive tools that structure reality and create our experience of phenomena, that effects follow from causes, etc. One very important point is that if we don't accept that this metaphysical problem is solved, then we are saying that no knowledge is possible at all.

The metaphysical problems of speculative theology are of a different order. Another example: each person has a soul. This is not a fact that is given to us in every day life, unlike the proposition that events have causes. In fact, what we are saying with this proposition is “Even though I don't have any experience of a soul, I still maintain that it exists outside of experience.” The difference is that the empirical problem is “How can I prove what I experience?” but the speculative theology problem is “How can I prove what I don't experience?”

The way that transcendental idealism solves the first problem entails a limiting of knowledge to the phenomena of ordinary experience. Whatever is outside of that is fundamentally unknowable and unintelligible. Schopenhauer claimed that what is outside of experience is radically whole and undifferentiated, i.e. nondual., which is also the position of the nondual mystical traditions.

One final point I want to make is that it is dishonest or at least lacking in intellectual rigor to claim that empiricism has its problems, so knowledge is open-ended. Actually, you'd have to conclude that knowledge is closed off completely. If you close the eye of the flesh and the eye of the mind, then there is no way to access the eye of contemplation at all.

Thanks Julian! 

I looked up the term “guru” on wikipedia and here was the first paragraph of their definition. ”Guru (Sanskrit: गुरु), is a term denoting a teacher in the religious or spiritual sense, and is commonly used in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, as well as in many new religious movements. The guru is seen in these religions as a sacred conduit for wisdom and guidance. In many branches of the for-mentioned religions, the importance of finding a true guru is given as a prerequisite for attaining self-realization.”  This seems to generally follow my understanding.  You know more about this issue than me, so I trust your description is more technically accurate. 

I am totally with you on the desire to avoid relativistic narcissistic solipsism and that UL worldviews don't change right hand phenomena.  I encourage you to not hold statements such as “viruses still cause illnesses” as being set in stone  because we could look back at that in 300 years the same way we now look back statements such as “the world is flat.”  All scientific data is based on the approaches used to make those determinations, and new paradigms disprove or modify old claims.  The interactions of right hand quadrant objects don't change but our understanding of them does.  I believe you know all of this but the way you phrase your sentences at times suggests otherwise at least to me.  Are you with me as well on the points I was making above regarding Wilber's critique of “Future of the Body” and IPM?

Best wishes,
Elijah

Julian,
 
I agree with you about my poor choice between viruses and flat-earth beliefs to illustrate my point.  It is possible that the virus connection to disease could be misproven, but the chance is small.  Partly what inspired me to write that was Elliott Ingersoll's clip on Integral Naked about “Word Magic” and how current scientific hypotheses (the example he gives is psychological problems as a result of nuerotransmitter imbalances I think) are stated as if they are true.  Perhaps you are more careful than to use examples that could fit into this category.  I'm a scientist by training and current vocation and am not seeking to make the world more “swirly.”  At least I'm not doing this consciously. :)

I get you about how subtle energies can be framed in a more scientific way and how dennett or dawkins wouldn't have any problem with them in that light.  I feel like that response doesn't totally get at how people can miss evidence that is over their head though and the important role that can play in some discussions.  As “Future of the Body” is currently written, do you agree that Dennett would be unlikely to see the “real facts” described?  As with the experience  and then interpretation of meditative experiences, I think there is a filtering process between seeing the reported data for phenomenon and the meaning making process in the mind of the reviewer where the interpretation of that data occurs.  I think that is were development and life experiences can play a critical role, filtering out some data and selectively focusing on others.

I enjoy the intellectual sophistication of the dialogues here as well Julian, and thank you for the kind words!  Thanks also for providing this space and your thoughts. :)

Eljiah

Thanks, Julian.


Julian:   he implication that these are all equally valid or equally articles of faith is misleading and i think a little intellectually dishonest.

Who has implied that the scientific and religious myths are equally valid or equal articles of faith? I certainly haven't. I said that the “useful myth” Wilber offers actually has an awful lot of empirical evidence to back it up. A part of this evidence includes what people see when they realize a certain amount of construct awareness, which is different  than experiencing a deep state. It's the difference between a state and a stage. A person can be a meditation master of sorts, at least have what KW calls a “state plateau,” and not have much construct awareness, which we might call ego awareness, at all. The Amber Zen masters come to mind.

What people see when they realize this degree of construct awareness–after serious spiritual practice–is that there are basically two sources of causation within a person, or at any rate a second source of causation comes into view: one sees that there is an energetic aspect of being, an energetic that comes out of nowhere it seems, and then they also see their personal intentionality–two very different sources of causation with two different agendas. People who can see these two different causations will be much more willing to engage in speculative theology and such.

They see that there is a bigger voice at work than the voice of the personal self, so they start coming up with names for the second voice: deeper psychic, the psychic being, Overmind, The Optimizing Force, the Authentic Self, etc. The idea that there has been an evolutionary impulse that everyone has in common also gets very attractive, because what they can see looks kind of like that. I know this sounds metaphysical to some, but there is a very good reason people start talking like this, and it's not because they started getting excited about God from reading a book.


David

I'm glad its a useful distinction, but if its going to be a reference point, then I have to make a technical correction: Both types are synthetic a priori, but the speculative metaphysics is not grounded in experience. :)

Julian,

Sorry I've been delayed in getting back to you.  I see a lot of conversation has taken place and I have yet to catch up with it all.  About the distinctions you want to be made with regard to IPM, I don't recall that I have ever suggested that magical speculative beliefs are on par with scientific theories because “all knowledge is constructed anyway.”  I understand that you fear that some people may run that way with the indeterminacy or openness at the heart of IPM, taking it as implicit support for all manner of fanciful or mythical beliefs, but I don't read it that way and would not have suggested that.

I generally agreed with Matt's initial response to you; I think he put that well.  And Mr. T's references to Kant are helpful.  I am planning to write a fuller response when I have a bit more time.  For now, I have a couple comments and questions regarding some things Mr. Teacup has said.

Mr. Teacup:  One final point I want to make is that it is dishonest or at least lacking in intellectual rigor to claim that empiricism has its problems, so knowledge is open-ended. Actually, you'd have to conclude that knowledge is closed off completely. If you close the eye of the flesh and the eye of the mind, then there is no way to access the eye of contemplation at all.

I'm not sure which comment prompted you to say this, Mr. T, so I am not entirely clear what you are getting at.  What do you mean by knowledge being open-ended?  I don't have a problem with seeing knowledge as open-ended, if we understand that to mean that we are never likely to know all there is to know; that knowing is rounded by (a potentially fecund and generative) not-knowing.  Do you mean something different?  Are you saying something like, “Because we can't demonstrate the absolute truth of empirical knowledge, and because there are certain things the eye of flesh may not be able to access, then anything goes, and I have license to believe whatever I want”?  If that's the case, then I agree with you – that's a problematic conclusion.  I'm just not sure why you're talking about closing the eye of flesh and the eye of mind; I don't recall anyone suggesting something like that in our conversations here.

Mr. Teacup:  I'm glad it's a useful distinction, but if its going to be a reference point, then I have to make a technical correction: Both types are synthetic a priori, but the speculative metaphysics is not grounded in experience. :)

I suppose it depends what brand of speculative metaphysics we're describing.  I think many speculative metaphysical beliefs are actually “grounded” in different types of experience – from contemplative experiences to dreams and visions to (perhaps in more primitive times) natural forces or disasters.  Think about the ancient idea that the wind was a living spirit (or many such spirits, as in some Amerindian cultures): it was an invisible, moving force, which we take into our bodies and without which we will die; which has the power to knock down houses and trees; which carries or is wedded to our communicative acts; etc.  Heck, atmosphere has the same etymological root as atman.  We may disagree with the interpretations at this point, but many metaphysical ideas appear to me to be, or to have been, grounded in various human experiences.

Best wishes,

Balder

Okay, yes, I'll try.  First, three points:

1) About my avatar:  I'm missing my son, so I'm keeping him near me in spirit.

2) I'm sorry to hear that you received my comments on your Simply Put series as an attack.  I was attempting to challenge certain aspects of what you were saying, but not to harm you or undermine you.   I consider you a friend and would not want to do that.

3) I hope, after we talk here, that you will take some time later to review the discussions on the Simply Put blogs (including mine) and see if you still find the same things that you did then.

Okay.  Now I'll try to present my position in a clearer way, since I apparently haven't done a good job so far!

You wrote:  it is relieving to hear you say some of the things you do above - but i must say in the attacks you led on the simply put series i did, i feel like you kinda were taking the approach that you were going to deconstruct the “metaphysics” of ALL statements about reality and show (perhaps unintentionally) that even the simple statements i was making about cause and effect, psychological defenses that distort reality etc were metaphysically based and thus really  on the same level as other kinds of metaphysics like you create your own reality and karma. its all just what you choose to have faith in, right?

No, it's not all just whatever we choose arbitrarily to have faith in.  I've never said that.

There is an element of “construction” in all statements we make about the world, and really in all of our empirical observations as well.  No propositional claim we make about the world is context- or interpretation- or construct-free.  Would you agree with that?  In AQAL space, subject, objective, intersubjective, and interobjective factors are all at play, and all are implicated in each other, such that any “objective” account you may want to give of something will necessarily be “shaped” by subjective and intersubjective factors, for instance.  Similarly, your subjective experience is not entirely free floating; intersubjective and objective factors influence and shape what arises for you.  Do you agree with this?

In my posts on the Simply Put thread, I wasn't saying that science is equally as “metaphysical” as Norse mythology or astrology.  Rather, I was saying, following Wilber's particular use of the term, that denying the intersubjective, constructive elements of all of our perceptions, models, statements, and so on, amounts to metaphysics, because it privileges a “view from the outside” which pretends to deliver absolute, context-free, perspective-free truth.  Is this distinction clear?

This does not mean there is no way to differentiate between scientific claims and mythological ones.  There are all sorts of tests available in an Integral Methodological Pluralism that we can use to evaluate the nature of different claims, including whether or not they can qualify as scientific or empirical.  The measure of what we accept as truth is not whether or not it is “constructed” or has intersubjective elements; all claims do.  Rather, truth is a particular AQAL enactment.

You wrote:  on the one hand [integrally informed folks] will fall back on a relativist, (what i have been calling swirly) worldview in which all things are possible, atheism is just another belief system, science is as much a metaphysical narrative as religion and equally faith-based, evil spirits really are truly real for tribal peoples, bacteria didnt cause disease until we discovered they did - because they weren't just sitting out there waiting to be discovered, we co-enacted them into being.., consciousness is proven to be prior to matter by experiences in meditation - or even third hand accounts of those experiences (!) and the highest level of integral embrace includes so much  i can't really tell what it transcends…

I'll respond to a few of your examples.

1)  Atheism is a belief system, for many atheists, to the extent that it is a label for a whole worldview and not just the simple rejection of a particular propositional claim.

2)  Science is also a narrative endeavor.  It is not “just as metaphysical” and “equally faith based,” in my opinion, as religion or folk beliefs, but neither can it pretend to be narrative-free.

3)  Tribal people really experience something that they label the influence of “evil spirits,” and this phenomenon is very real to them, but from a modern perspective we can justifiably disagree with their interpretations.

I've got to run, but I hope these remarks are a helpful start.  I'll be back online in about an hour.

Best wishes,

Balder

What do you mean by knowledge being open-ended?

Yes, that is a bit ambiguous. I mean the idea that everything about the universe is knowable in principle. But more than being merely unlikely, the implication of idealism is that there are certain things that are impossible to know, even in principle. So in that sense, knowledge is closed to things beyond phenomena, but perhaps open-ended in the sense of what we can practically know.

I'm just not sure why you're talking about closing the eye of flesh and the eye of mind; I don't recall anyone suggesting something like that in our conversations here.

That idea is prevalent in the general sense, and several people have said things that seem to approach spiritual questions from that direction, so I think relevant and worth unpacking. I have had the sense that people think Julian's viewpoint is materialistic, scientistic, realist, etc., and I'm just saying let's look at it from the idealist perspective. We get the same result, but for some reason, people seem to be more open to having their speculative metaphysics undermined by transcendental idealism than by empirical realism, which is a bit confusing to me. Perhaps this is a bit of the old Romantic “We murder to dissect” perspective that people have about science.

I think many speculative metaphysical beliefs are actually “grounded” in different types of experience – from contemplative experiences to dreams and visions to (perhaps in more primitive times) natural forces or disasters.

Yes, and I think what idealism tells us is that these types of experiences are not truly transcendental, but in saying that, its been suggested that I am improperly psychologizing mystical states, which is in a way, an odd thing to take issue with if you are a person who would psychologize even waking states :) As we know, the content of subtle states is strongly influenced by culture, personality, history, set and setting, etc., and even so, there are still limits on what knowledge can be derived from them. The knowledge that is derived from those experiences are actually about those influencers, i.e. phenomenal reality, rather than a supernatural knowing. It's important to note that people have appealed to bad metaphysics in order to explain why reality in the subtle domain doesn't appear in the gross domain because that is what they actually experience. The problem is not that science has somehow failed to account for some fact that appears in contemplation; no, it is that the meaning that people want requires some fact that is not given in experience in any state, so they have to appeal to a transcendental signifier in order to arrive at the proper conclusion. Even so, I think all this leaves open the possibility of the Kantian skillful-means position of “I cannot know if there is a God, but I find it useful to believe nonetheless.”

Julian, yes, I think caution is needed.  However, I haven't seen an excessive amount of abuse of IPM going on yet, simply because I don't think a lot of people have really started talking about it yet or debating it in the way it needs to be debated.  That's one reason I started my new pod, to see if that sort of work could begin to be done here on Gaia.  So far, virtually no one on my pod is running in the magical, wishful thinking directions that you fear (rightly) COULD arise from sloppy or naive application of that view.

Your response to me is rather brief, so I'm not sure where to go next, or if we understand each other now.  It's up to you.

Best wishes,

Balder

Bruce: I think many speculative metaphysical beliefs are actually “grounded” in different types of experience - from contemplative experiences to dreams and visions to (perhaps in more primitive times) natural forces or disasters.

Mike: Yes, and I think what idealism tells us is that these types of experiences are not truly transcendental.

Mike, I also appreciate a lot of what you have said here (you've always been a favorite of mine!), however, I wonder if the approach you're taking is favoring one zone, one methodology and perhaps undervaluing another. For example,  I understand if one meditator gives us a report, it doesn't mean much in terms of evidence, but when many who are spread out over different cultures and traditions give us the same report, or we are able to boil their reports down to some common characteristics, then it becomes credible evidence, yes? And not entirely a reflection of culture? And when reasoning alone is used to deconstruct these experiences it seems to contradict what you were relating to us from Kant, that “you can't use reason to speculate about what is outside of possible experience or behind the universe, because all the tools you have to create knowledge are based on experience in the universe.”

Julian, I believe you're the master at rooting out the magic and mythic, but the trouble is, sometimes you see it where it isn't. For example, I've assumed since the beginning that religious Amber myths were less valid than Orange scientific myths, and I think everyone else in integral has as well. Your response to IMP is that it may be abused by pluralists with Red and Amber infections, but this doesn't seem likely to me considering Wilber's emphasis on stages and hierarchies. One provides a check for the other.

Julian:   My experience (and of course i could be wrong here) is that many integrally informed folks [believe that] atheism is just another belief system.

Is it not?

What I believe atheists are missing is the perspective I spoke about a few posts ago, when a person sees that they, as a personality with a birthday, have not always been the captain of their ship in the way they thought they have been. This is not to say that there is some “other” God, ultimately, but it is to say that from the perspective of the separate-self sense, there actually is a “higher power”–not an “other” power, but a power higher than the ego. When so many adepts from various traditions have this experience, I do believe it makes compelling evidence, though, of course, our interpretation of the phenomenon is up for grabs. But I do know that people like KW, Almaas, and Aurobindo are aware of this perspective, and atheists are not–if they were, they would at least not be hostile towards religion and would likely define themselves in some other way than the absence of religion–which gives the former group a higher kosmic address.


David

David,


I agree about atheism being a belief system. It is not as ethnocentric as mythic religious belief systems, but nonetheless, it seems like most atheists  still find it necessary to actively deny something that doesn't exist to begin with. So there is the remnant of some emotional attachment to a theistic God, even if in a negative sense. Not that there aren't reasons to be concerned about religious fundamentalism, but it seems to me that radical atheism provokes it in much the same way that the war in Iraq provokes terrorism. It's not a perfect metaphor… but I think you get the idea.

Hi Julian,

I see the distinction you are trying to make and agree it's important.  You think integral people play the “altitude card” unnecessarily when there could be problems elsewhere in the methodology or reasoning.  Fair enough.  I  haven't found that to be as prevalent as you do, and it feels to me like you are not giving enough weight to developmental altitude in filtering people's understanding of the world. 

I feel like you are more focused on the discussion related to the primacy of consciousness (where you have indicated that the altitude card has been misplayed) while I am attempting to speak more generally.  I think that is partly why we are appearing to disagree here.

Also, I think Dawkins is a poor candidate to choose in terms of someone who is open to carefully gathered evidence for topics outside of the mainstream academic beliefs.  See here for a description of an encounter between Dawkins and Rupert Sheldrake (although this is admittedly a one-sided description of the encounter it fits my perception of Dawkins).  Dawkins strikes me as being very dogmatic and as someone would be likely to disregard carefully gathered evidence that doesn't fit his worldview (at least partly I believe as a result of his orange worldview).  Sam Harris is another story, and I believe he would be much more open to different kinds of evidence (at least partly I believe as a result of his higher altitude).

This also ties in with the excellent points Balder was making above about subjectivity, and the “reality” of evil spirits to tribal people.  This doesn't mean we can't make critical distinctions based on our own altitude.  Evil spirits are very real to tribal people, AND that interpretation can be disproven from a higher altitude.

I feel like my comments are straying a bit from the initial focus of our discussion on the primacy of consciousness, so I am comfortable with us possibly picking up this discussion at another time if we feel a need to do as much.

Best wishes,
Elijah

Hi buddhacious,

Sam Harris covers this topic in much of the same way here.  He basically asserts that the term “atheism” is misguided because why do you give yourself a name as someone who denies the existence of something people shouldn't believe anyway. 

I think some of the apparent disagreements here related to atheism as a belief system relate to differences behind the meaning of the term and the practical aspects of how many atheists embody that label. 

Elijah

Hi Matt,

Yes, I've thought about that as well, whether the New Atheists are simply causing mythic believers to back up into a corner and fight or if they're actually transforming people. My hunch is like yours, that they're causing a lot of people just to harden their position to the attack. To transform them, you would probably have to deeply understand them, be in touch with a part of yourself that sees the good in Amber religion, and then you would have to have a lot of patience with them. But they may help nearly rational thinkers or help rational thinkers who have some remnants of mythical thoughts clean things up a little, and as you suggest maybe they're even continuing to negate or disassociate with something within themselves. Also, it often seems to me that some people who are above, say, Orange who are entirely intolerant of any notion of a power within themselves that's higher than their personal will are really saying they don't want to change. It could even be that something is calling them from above, as it were, :)–meaning a higher stage trying to come in–and they are projecting it and fighting the projection in an attempt to stay the same.

Best,

David

David,

I wonder if the approach you're taking is favoring one zone, one methodology and perhaps undervaluing another.

I don't think so, because all methodologies and all zones must take objects that are present in the phenomenal world.

when many who are spread out over different cultures and traditions give us the same report, or we are able to boil their reports down to some common characteristics, then it becomes credible evidence, yes?

Sure, I think there are certain things that are universal, but even so, they are universals of the phenomenal world, and are in no way transcendental. In meditation, you can disidentify with the phenomenal world, and stay in the radically empty space that is the gap between phenomenal and noumenal, but even then we don't truly escape from phenomena into reality as such.

And when reasoning alone is used to deconstruct these experiences it seems to contradict what you were relating to us from Kant

I'm focusing on reason because that is what is at stake in this discussion. I think you might conceive of this dispute as Reason vs. some other methodology, but to me, that's a mistaken view. When someone says “Souls persist after death”, that is proposed as a True statement, its a rational statement, so the limits of rationality apply to it.

You might propose that actually its not an empirical statement, perhaps its a statement of phenomenology, but then you are at risk of what you originally suggested I was doing: favoring one zone or methodology over another. In this case, you are saying that knowledge of interiors grants us transcendentally real knowledge that is beyond knowledge of exteriors. And in any case, knowledge of interiors still requires the same conceptual apparatus that only works in the phenomenal world.

Hi, Julian,

I'm just popping in to let you know I've decided to try to respond to your challenge today.  I'm writing up a blog entry right now.  I'm away from home and don't have any references to use for quotes or “support,” so this will largely be “off the cuff.”

Best wishes,

B.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your thoughtful and interesting post.

 

David: I wonder if the approach you're taking is favoring one zone, one methodology and perhaps undervaluing another.

Mike: “I don't think so, because all methodologies and all zones must take objects that are present in the phenomenal world.”

I wonder if you might give a brief restatement of what you've been arguing recently. I'm not sure I'm a hundred percent clear on it, partly because I'm not familiar with all the vocabulary you're using. You may be able to clarify just by answering subsequent questions, however.

Mike: “Sure, I think there are certain things that are universal, but even so, they are universals of the phenomenal world, and are in no way transcendental. In meditation, you can disidentify with the phenomenal world, and stay in the radically empty space that is the gap between phenomenal and noumenal, but even then we don't truly escape from phenomena into reality as such.”

I'm basically fine with saying that reality as such is a relative thing, meaning a person can go ever deeper, so you can never say you have realized the absolute or reality as such–is this what you are saying? At the same time, I do think we can say that certain things are more real than others. For example, since only a particular kind of consciousness is present in all three states–waking, dream sleep, and deep sleep–I think we can say that consciousness or nondual consciousness as experienced in deep sleep is the most primary or absolute “thing” that we know of. I know some people will object to modifying an absolute like “absolute” or “primary,” but I think it's appropriate in this case, giving us better reflection of the two truths doctrine, nondual consciousness, the evolutionary perspective, etc.

Mike: “I'm focusing on reason because that is what is at stake in this discussion. I think you might conceive of this dispute as Reason vs. some other methodology, but to me, that's a mistaken view. When someone says “Souls persist after death”, that is proposed as a True statement, its a rational statement, so the limits of rationality apply to it.”

You seem to be setting up a straw man here, as Julian has done recently. Who declared “Souls persist after death”? I believe people have simply been saying that souls may persist after death–it's certainly all I've been saying and I know Bruce hasn't made any such declaration–and I believe that's the most rational thing we could say considering all the evidence that suggests it could be the case. Also, I believe, at the very least, that it's one of those things that is useful to believe could be possible for a meditator, though of course you can go too far in the opposite direction and decide that it's true. Also, again, reincarnation could be an emergent phenomenon, just like sight–creatures wanted to see, so they developed eyes. People want to live beyond death; maybe they can meditate and such and learn to survive bodily death. If some creature way back when had decided to tell its friends that they should all develop a capacity to see this world they were walking on or swimming in and eating, I think they would have all thought it was an absurd idea.

~  ~  ~

Not directed at anyone in particular: it does seem that some of the arguments being thrown around here could actually inhibit evolution. Imagination, needs, deep desires, might well be precursors to evolutionary emergences–it seems to be in many cases, at any rate. But if we demand empirical evidence for every new idea, consider it hogwash if people can't come up with it immediately, I believe it is likely to inhibit novelty and development.

~ ~ ~

 

Mike: “You might propose that actually its not an empirical statement, perhaps its a statement of phenomenology, but then you are at risk of what you originally suggested I was doing: favoring one zone or methodology over another. In this case, you are saying that knowledge of interiors grants us transcendentally real knowledge that is beyond knowledge of exteriors. And in any case, knowledge of interiors still requires the same conceptual apparatus that only works in the phenomenal world.”

Do you think it's impossible to experience something that transcends interiors and exteriors? And, even if that's true now, mightn't that be a limiting belief? Mightn't it be possible some day?


David

 

Mike: Sure, I think there are certain things that are universal, but even so, they are universals of the phenomenal world, and are in no way transcendental. In meditation, you can disidentify with the phenomenal world, and stay in the radically empty space that is the gap between phenomenal and noumenal, but even then we don't truly escape from phenomena into reality as such.

1)  How do you know that these states and stages are not transcendental? That's an extraordinary claim since it seems like they are to many people, most who experience it anyway–demands some extraordinary evidence!   :)

2) Not even if the meditation continues into in deep sleep where there is nothing else but consciousness? Wouldn't that be trancending the phenomenal world?


3) Also, if one can't truly “escape” from the phenomenal world, how do you explain the ability of monks to do things like light themselves on fire and maintain perfect composure? KW explains this by saying that the monk was able to rest in nirvikalpa.


David

Mike,

I am curious to get your thoughts on Kant's notion of transcendental apperception (TA from here on out), which to my understanding is basically where all experience of both self and world come together (and arise). This would seem to have a great deal to do with non-dual states reached by meditators, and I think it might offer a way out of the idea that all experience is phenomenological. It doesn't offer a way out by subverting the idea that when self and world are two (as during all perceptual acts), the world is phenomenal (partly constructed by the self). But meditation does seem to offer “experiential access” to the noumenal in that the pure or non-dual consciousness of TA unites us with the “thing in itself” residing at our very core. This needn't be interpreted as an escape from reality as such; rather, we might instead reorient ourselves a bit such that the noumenal is no longer conceived of as that which is beyond perception, but instead as that which gives rise to perception to begin with. We are not other than the noumenal, though while we are emersed in the perceptual world we easily forget it. Meditation is to remind us (turn the mind on itself) in order that the root of perceptions and phenomena is made evident.

What say you? (anyone feel free to jump in!)

-Matt

David

I'm basically fine with saying that reality as such is a relative thing, meaning a person can go ever deeper, so you can never say you have realized the absolute or reality as such–is this what you are saying?

I don't disagree with that, but its not what I'm saying. I'm saying its impossible to have any knowledge whatsoever of reality as such, the Thing-in-itself. All of our experiences are distorted by our perceptive tools, so if something is an object of consciousness, it is an image, not real. This doesn't mean its pure illusion – there is something behind the image, but we can never know it.

For example, since only a particular kind of consciousness is present in all three states–waking, dream sleep, and deep sleep–I think we can say that consciousness or nondual consciousness as experienced in deep sleep is the most primary or absolute “thing” that we know of.

Well, strictly speaking, there's no such thing as an experience of nondual consciousness. Which is to say that nondual consciousness is not an object of consciousness, it is the dissolution of the subject-object split. All knowledge requires a subject and an object, which is why what we call nondual is not a type of knowledge, nothing can be said about it, etc.

You seem to be setting up a straw man here, as Julian has done recently. Who declared “Souls persist after death”? I believe people have simply been saying that souls may persist after death

That was just an example of a type of knowledge claim, I didn't say someone had claimed it. Julian's perspective is (or has been, I hope to change his mind) that there is no evidence of souls, so we must conclude there are none, to which you say, “Well, I think there is some evidence, and we might get more evidence in the future.” And then from there the debate goes around in circles about what constitutes “good enough” evidence, are we justified in believing in souls, etc. The idealist view is much more radical: knowledge about souls is impossible; there can be no evidence about things outside of the phenomenal world; whatever the gaps in our knowledge of the phenomenal world, no appeal to hypothetical transcendent reality is valid. By the phenomenal world, I mean 4 quadrants disclosed by 8 views. This doesn't deny the reality of people's spiritual experiences, it just locates it in the phenomenological zone, as opposed to outside the quadrants or in other quadrants.

it does seem that some of the arguments being thrown around here could actually inhibit evolution.

I disagree, and this is a function of the differences of opinion about what evolution is. To me, speculative metaphysics is regressive not evolutionary, and most often a distraction from genuine spirituality, so inhibiting it is exactly what is called for.

Do you think it's impossible to experience something that transcends interiors and exteriors?

Yes. As I said above, nondual experience is not an object of experience.

And, even if that's true now, mightn't that be a limiting belief? Mightn't it be possible some day?

I don't think it will be possible, just as its not possible to imagine 10-dimensional space. But for the sake of argument, let's accept that it might be possible some day. What then? It doesn't do anything for me today, and perhaps it permits me to hope that somehow, this magical state will save me from my current condition and escape from samsara. Taking the opposite view, what if it is impossible? What if this is all we have? To me, this question, the acceptance of our limitations and finitude, is the genuine spiritual path.

1)  How do you know that these states and stages are not transcendental?

Because they are only intelligible because they are constructed by the perceptive apparatus, such as the subject-object split.

2) Not even if the meditation continues into in deep sleep where there is nothing else but consciousness? Wouldn't that be trancending the phenomenal world?

To my understanding, there's still a subtle subject-object split here, even though it is objectless.

3) Also, if one can't truly “escape” from the phenomenal world, how do you explain the ability of monks to do things like light themselves on fire and maintain perfect composure? KW explains this by saying that the monk was able to rest in nirvikalpa.

In not identifying with phenomena, you don't escape from the world. Those monks still burned to death.

Matt, I think TA is really just a description of our cognitive processes, as interpreted by Kant. Its relevant to meditation practice because those are sometimes used to realize impermanence of self, but I don't see much beyond that.

I think I basically agree with the rest of what you said. Maybe we can say phenomena is form and noumenon is emptiness – I think this was basically Schopenhauer's view, and he called himself a Buddhist. Its interesting to note that Kant thought that if we ever did experience the noumenon, we would lose our free will, and maybe there's an element of truth there, not literally, but that something radically different happens.

Julian, I've blogged my response to your challenge here.

Best wishes,

Bruce

Mike: “I don't disagree with that, but its not what I'm saying. I'm saying its impossible to have any knowledge whatsoever of reality as such, the Thing-in-itself. All of our experiences are distorted by our perceptive tools, so if something is an object of consciousness, it is an image, not real. This doesn't mean its pure illusion - there is something behind the image, but we can never know it.”

I agree that it would be a mistake to think too highly of our evolved capabilities, but mightn't it be more accurate to say that we can know some of it, a little, and more and more as we develop and evolve? Not that we will ever know all of it, but aren't we at least beginning to know it a little?
 

Mike: Well, strictly speaking, there's no such thing as an experience of nondual consciousness.

Yes, I understand that distinction; it was simply a figure of speech, a convention. Maybe  “a non-experience of nondual consciousness” would be better.


Mike: “The idealist view is much more radical: knowledge about souls is impossible; there can be no evidence about things outside of the phenomenal world; whatever the gaps in our knowledge of the phenomenal world, no appeal to hypothetical transcendent reality is valid. By the phenomenal world, I mean 4 quadrants disclosed by 8 views. This doesn't deny the reality of people's spiritual experiences, it just locates it in the phenomenological zone, as opposed to outside the quadrants or in other quadrants.”

If we don't give the idealist view–which is very interesting and important, I think–a kosmic address of its own we will be creating a little metaphysic of it, right? First of all, I think we need to get clear on some definitions:

1) By “phenomenological world” do you mean just the waking state, gross realm, or also the subtle and the dream sleep state?

2) You say “soul” in the beginning of the sentence and “transcendant reality” in the end–I don't think they are necessarily synonomous.

We can think of a personal soul or we can think of a collective soul, or we can think of a combination of both. Either way we're still in the subtle. In my view, to get any “transcendant reality” we would have to get into the causal at least, which we might call “universal soul” (along the lines of pure consciousness, evolutionary impulse, etc.). There is nothing at all personal about that but radically impersonal; there is something personal or at least collectively personal about the subtle.

If you say that there can be no evidence outside the phenomenologicall world, I believe you are either discounting all zone-#1 methodologies or denying the possibility of non-experiencing the transcendant.

At any rate, if someone says that it is not possible to have knowledge of the soul (using “knowledge” in the broadest sense) I think we would have to peg their kosmic address in first- or second-tier. People will develop awareness of the subtle in third tier–of course languaging that is another story, and that's maybe what you mean by not having any real knowledge of it, something that we can communicate. But this may be just a matter of our language and communication skills not keeping pace with our zone-#1 non-experiences.
 

Mike: I disagree, and this is a function of the differences of opinion about what evolution is. To me, speculative metaphysics is regressive not evolutionary, and most often a distraction from genuine spirituality, so inhibiting it is exactly what is called for.

Would you describe Ken Wilber as a speculative metaphysicist at times? I'm not sure what is falling under that heading. I think you have a point there, but it still seems to me that it could fall the other way as well. Isn't a little speculation necessary in science to get things started? Aren't we looking for possibilities that don't exist in some cases, capabilities that don't yet exist? It seems as though the imagination must be used there in a way that might broadly be described as “speculative.” It seems to me that a little of that would be hard to eliminate completely even if we tried.
 

Mike: “To me, this question, the acceptance of our limitations and finitude, is the genuine spiritual path.”

I think acceptance may be the most important thing on the spiritual path, or at least one of them; I'm with you there, but when you say “acceptance of our limitations and finitude” it seems as though you might be discounting one of KW's definitions of spirituality, the one that involves our infinity. A snarky, arrogant Advaita type might say at this point, “Who is aware of the finitude?” They can get tedius, but perhaps they would have a point here. I can see that believing in an infinite self could put one in a dreamy state, but not believing in one could put a person in an unnessarily contracted state.


Just to make clear what I said earlier about the kosmic address of those who say we can't be aware of the soul–though I have said it before–with third tier one has increasing awareness of the personal, as opposed to simply stepping out of it into the unborn (horizontal development in the latter case).
 

David: Not even if the meditation continues into in deep sleep where there is nothing else but consciousness? Wouldn't that be trancending the phenomenal world?

Mike: “To my understanding, there's still a subtle subject-object split here, even though it is objectless.”

Apparently deep dreamless sleep can be experienced as the causal “witness” and also as One Taste. I have read KW discuss this, and I've also read a Tibetan teacher talk about it, how one should first stabilize the causal in each of these states and then stabilize the nondual in each of these states. I read the Tibetan in Shambhala Sun or some similar magazine years ago; Ken Wilber talks about it in One Taste (November 30). An excerpt:

“This constant access to the pure Witness (which is called the “fourth state,” after the other three of waking, dreaming, and sleeping) nonetheless still retains a subtle dualism: the formless Witness, on the one hand, witnesses objects, on the other. The Absolute Subject serenely and with unshakeable equanaminity witnesses the entire world of objects. That subtle split between subject and object, inside and outside, formless and form, is undone when the Witness shatters and One Taste is recognized as always-already present (this is called turiyatita, or the fifth and final state that transcends and includes the other four).
 

Mike: In not identifying with phenomena, you don't escape from the world. Those monks still burned to death.

We know that they burned to death on the gross level, but I see no reason to discount the possibility that they did transcend the phenomenal world. I just don't think it's scientific to come to the conclusion that they didn't or that it isn't possible. It doesn't seem as though the idealists have considered the idea of meditators impersonally experiencing (causal) or non-experiencing (nondual) deep dreamless sleep.


David

 

Mike: “It's interesting to note that Kant thought that if we ever did experience the noumenon, we would lose our free will, and maybe there's an element of truth there, not literally, but that something radically different happens.”

Kant was right. Whether one absolutely or completely loses their free will aside, it's true that the personal will is overtaken by a higher, impersonal will in what Ken Wilber calls third tier. Aurobindo referred to this phenomenon as the “psychic being coming to the fore.” There is an interesting video of Michael Murphy talking with Andrew Cohen about this here (fourth-to-last video). It's not a common realization; most teachers claiming enlightenment don't understand this because it is a stage development. People have different names for that which takes over: psychic being (Aurobindo); deeper psychic (Wilber); optimizing force or evolutionary force (Almaas); authentic self (Cohen). KW and AC discuss it here, but they generally don't talk too openly about it. Unless you go to an Andrew Cohen retreat you won't hear him talking about it, and he might not even then.  Ken avoids the discussion for obvious reasons, but he might talk about it in his forthcoming book Overmind, Supermind.

  Andrew Cohen once spoke to his teacher H. W. L. Poonja about this (you're not going to like the language or the interpretation (“a friend you'll never see”–it's obviously personal), but Cohen at least does not interpret it in that way now, though the second-face-of-God perspective does retain some validity):

A Friend You'll Never See

My teacher once said to me, “I'm glad you've found a friend you'll never see.” That's what the enlightened mind is: a friend you'll never be able to see. That friend emerges when you discover that the most authentic part of your own self is already completely free. It is not possible to be mindful or aware of this already free part of yourself in any ordinary way, but when you have the courage to let go, you will find that miraculously, it can and will respond with great passion and incredible precision, seemingly with no premeditation whatsoever. Out of the blue, the right response will appear. And only after such a faster-than-thought response do you become aware of the fact that a part of yourself that you're not normally conscious of is paying attention all the time. That part of yourself is always awake-even when you don't seem to be. The expression of that wakefulness is the shocking spontaneity of enlightened awareness.

Many of us say we want to be enlightened, but how many of us are ready to let our whole lives be guided by a friend that we will never be able to see? For most of us, it's unbearable even to conceive of, because it points to a kind of surrender that is unimaginable. A surrender in which the ego no longer gets to run the show. Finally, all the weighing and measuring is given up, because you have no doubt that what you are seeking for is something you will never be able to grasp with the mind. This is the dawning of humility: when you begin to discover a non-materialistic, not-knowing relationship to the immeasurable, ungraspable, inconceivable, all-consuming mystery that is your own deepest self. It is this that opens the door for that friend you will never see to begin to speak through you and ultimately to become who you are.

Andrew Cohen

Far out, huh?


David