The Transformative Power of Development: A Three-Part Distinction

Hi, Julian,

Happy 4th!  And nice post.

I am on my way out the door for some July 4th doings, but I wanted to make a couple comments and will return later to expound on them if necessary.

One, the passage from Salon.com you quoted is one I recently highlighted (and somewhat critically assessed) on my blog.  I don't think you're referring to my comments when you talk about how amazing it is that people can be critical of Wilber's remarks, but just in case, I'll clear up where I'm coming from.  I believe Wilber was probably just talking in loose, abbreviated terms for the sake of his audience (or else he was thinking of his Wilber-3 or Wilber-4 model at the time).  I'm not saying he's being “mean” or too strict in his observation; I'm saying he's actually not being stringent enough, according to his latest model.  If rationality begins with 3p, and transratonality begins at 5p (or expanded 4p), then it just isn't correct to call a temporary state experience at a rational level (3p) transrational.  Because transrational is a structural designation, not a state designation.

Concerning your last comment – “Though some of the interior meaning that magic and myth were unconsciously fumbling toward may be included in it's deeper unfoldment in transrational awareness, none of the literalism, narcissism, magical thinking or pseudo science lasts a nano-second in the crystal clear, diamond like perception of reality as it is” – I believe this is potentially problematic, if you are saying that the view you are presenting, or the view that modern science and psychology currently describe, is “reality as it is.”  That is essentially a modernist – a pre-postmodern – way of framing things.  A post-postmodern way to frame it might be something like, “…none of the literalism, narcissism, magical thinking or pseudo science lasts a nano-second in the context of truly rational or transrational perspectives.”  This latter view allows you to critically assess inadquate earlier views without assuming that you've arrived at an interpretation-free, altitude-independent view.

Best wishes,

Balder

Julian,

Do you own a copy of Geber's Origin? If you do, read chapter 4, part 3, called “Temporics.” It talks about causality, as well as the relation of the various structures of consciousenss to one another, which I feel the need to discuss again here (I just posted a comment on your prior blog about it).

I think what you have done, rather successfully, in this and many of your blogs, is defend an attitude (in an emotional, moral sense) that you feel one ought to take towards “spiritual” matters. You are saying, correct me if I am wrong, that we need to grow up and stop wishing for and believing in impossibilities. I do not at all disagree with this sentiment. Where I am having trouble is with some of the finer metaphysical details that you seem to be tacking onto this important moral realization.

Specifically, as I mentioned in my prior comment, I am concerned about rejecting the literalisms of the magic and mythic structures only to replace them with the literalisms of the rational. I know you are well aware of this mistake, but nonetheless, when you say,

“The shift from prerational to rational is an absolute revolution. New software comes on-line. Cause and effect becomes apparent and the place-holder of magical causation becomes less plausible.”

I fear you may be literalizing the mechanistic notion of cause and effect within which the rational structure is at home (or rather, within which it feels quite homeless!). The mental-rational structure is no more a reflection of objective reality than any of the prior structures, though of course it does make use of the shortcomings of each prior structure in developing its own response.

So I don't think it is so much that magical analogies and mythic narratives become less plausible in light of the mental structure. After all, by definition, anything outside the rationalist worldview is implausible, if by plausible we mean “reasonable.” Saying non-rational worldviews are implausible is basically a tautology. Rather, I think the aperspectivalism offered us by the integral structure allows us to see through the deficiencies of all prior structures, magic, mythic, and mental-rational.

I defer to Gebser (p. 358-9): “The new world reality [integral structure], which is at the same time also a world unreality, is to a great extent free of causality. Its reality is encompassed by the whole. In rational terms, it appears now as the cause, now as the effect. Although this hampers our understanding, it proportionally increases our 'verition' [as is explained here, verition refers to the sense in which 'statements about truth are superseded by statements as truth… verition, not description, is what we experience and know… philosophy is replaced by eteology; that is, the eteon, or being-in-truth']. The separation of entities from becoming is a conceptual systematization; in the universe and on the earth the originary manifests itself as a transient effect, but also as an effectuator, albeit only in the universe and in man to the extent that he is bound by space-time. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the unique plentitude and transparency (diaphaneity) visible in the new mutation touches all phenomena and makes them perceptible. The confusion that could be elicited by the wealth and intensity of the terms we have used to describe the theme of the mutation [from mental to integral consciousness] is all the more comprehensible since it is not restricted to what is conceivable to the mental consciousness. We must not forget that in our era, which is now coming to a close, we are accustomed to considering the validity and necessity of everything from a mental standpoint. But the mental is not even adequate to 'comprehend' the mythical, not to mention the magic. We have conceded the status of reality to only an extremely limited world, one which is barely one-third of what consitutes us and the world as a whole. The new integral structure, on the other hand, requires us to recognize all 'preceding' structures and the irrevocable efficient actualities which they integrate and make perceptible.”

When Gebser says, “the mental is not…adequate to 'comprehend' the mythic/magic,” I think he is speaking to what I was trying to get at above, that we should not attempt to interpret prior structures in terms of the mental-rational, such that they come to seem somehow inadequate. Each structure is plenty adequate for the people who adopt it. Integral consciousness seems to be about realizing that the process of growth is not about getting better at defining reality, or about throwing out past structures, but rather about becoming one with the process of reality as a whole, about integrating the structures such that the adequacies of each are recognized and cherished just as they are.

I know this might all seem a bit nit-picky, and as I said I wholeheartedly agree with the emotional sentiment I sense behind your message. I am just having trouble with some of the content. Let me know how all this sounds to you…

-Matt

Balder, I appreciated what you said here:
“If rationality begins with 3p, and transratonality begins at 5p (or expanded 4p), then it just isn't correct to call a temporary state experience at a rational level (3p) transrational.  Because transrational is a structural designation, not a state designation.”

I'm starting to understand the importance of separating states and stages.  So, if transrational is a structural designation, then does that mean the pre/trans fallacy doesn't apply to stage designations?  If transrational isn't the correct label for a temporary state, then what is?

I really liked C4Chaos' blog about some of the limitations of our brain and science.
There is plenty more than can be said on those subjects.

But I don't think it's necessary, because those of us who understand these things don't need to hear it, and I doubt that you are any more open to the possibility of being wrong today than you were nearly two years ago when I first started reading your blogs and posts to the Integral pod on zaadz. You're very bright, funny and interesting but this tendency to discard anything you view as not rational creates an enormous and crippling blind spot for you.

I don't imagine I have all the answers as a theist who believes in some things you sneer at as “mythic”. However, I do know this: the following is true of every human being alive and will always be true nor matter how much we learn and grow:
Hamlet by William Shakespeare: Act 1. Scene VThere are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

New-Age Narcissism and “fuzzy” philosophy is a major problem within the spiritual community, and your direct opposition against it is not only understandable, but well merited.

But, it must also be taken into consideration the atmopshere of confusion that the New-Age movement arose from; loads of misunderstood information from an amalagam of diffrent (often Non-Western) spiritual schools jumbled together to create a smorgasboard of beliefs, approached with a Western perspective, is just that: a misunderstanding.

Equating a legitimate school, practice, or 'concept' with its watered-down New-Age analogue, is a major error, and I feel you have a tendency of doing this, namely with your  habit of immediately calling “superstition” on anything outside the realm of gross-body rationalism (save energywork, which is your field, and depth psychology). As human beings we're not only composed of gross-bodies, but subtle and causal as well, and each creates their corresponding realms. None of these realms are essentially “separate” from one another, but vary in degree of subtly, depth, and causality. To assume that any system that works too deeply in metaphor with subtle and causal reality is automatically 'prerational' tribal thinking is a Pre/Trans fallacy, and I see this same mistake arise in Wilber's work as well.

Speaking from years of experience, most 'magical' experiences and practices are not pre-rational, but trans-rational. Granted, most magical 'entities', 'angels', 'demons', 'hungry ghosts', and so forth do have their roots in the 'mind', however through these experiences and practices, the insights gained drastically alter ones personal definition of “mind”. Subtle-body and energetic awareness, sharp, keen intuition, perception of causality, synchronicity, and contact with entities from other realms are not mere superstition, but plausibly reproducible. Angels and Demons may all be in your 'head', but that doesn't mean they aren't real. And, it certaintly doesn't mean they don't effect the quality of ones life, and the unfolding of (both personal and collective) history.

The reality of these sorts things are not only mentioned, but expounded upon within the great nondual (and Trans-Rational) wisdom traditions and higher tantric schools –

Within Buddhism, there is the doctrine of the 6 samsaric realms; of naraks (hell beings), pretas (hungry-ghosts), animals, humans, asuras (demi-gods), and devas (god-forms, bliss pride beings), which not only have their psychological correlates within the human sphere, but their own *autonomous* existance, just like you and I. A similar map exists within the Hindu and Tantric Hindu systems, within the Qabbalistic framework (with an extensive demonology and explanation of the Qlippoth), within the Sufi map, and the Western Esoteric schools as well.

Not only are these spoken of, but, especially within the Western schools, extensive reproducible practices exist for contact with entities from these realms, and for dealing with the interference of (malevolent) naraks and pretas. All of these notions, practices, and experiences are far more complicated and empirical than their New-Age baseless misinterpretations, but this does not make it Pre-Rational thinking.

I think the biggest factor that negates the label of 'pre-rational' on these aspects of Spiritual Practice, is the fact that belief is not necessary for experience and contact with these entities. Reproducing the process (ritual), and proper Intent  is enough to produce results.

I personally am no longer a 'practicing magician' by the conventional sense of the title. At this point in my life, I have dedicated myself completely to the aim of Waking Up, and my ever-deepening practice and study of Zen Buddhism. However, unlike most people who became “turned on” to deeper layers of experience via entheogenic drugs, my “turn on” was experimentation, turned into consistent practice of Western (High) Magic. This is what broke me out of my hardlined-rationalist shell, and it was through this that I grew up, matured, did the tremendous amount energy-work and psychological healing that brought me to where I am today.

The bases of all these practices and experiences: intution, depth, synchronicity, and causality are far from just pre-rational tribal lore, but very pertinent aspects of our precious human experience.

*Also* I'd want to add that coming towards the end of his life, Jung started to regard Archetypes not only as aspects or forces passed down through nerugenetic memory (collective unconscious), but also as transpersonal 'entities' (if they can be called that) with their own autonomous will and existence. This, and his study of synchronicity formed the groundwork for his (I don't think completed) work on Astrology.

I'll post more on that later, I'm actually rushing out now for Zazenkai.


Peace,
Julian

Great post, Julian. I love the clarity you bring to this stuff.

Julian: Generally there is a narcissistic tone - one of specialness, being at the center of the universe, being chosen, having angels, spirit guides and special intentional powers etc..

I think it's great to put a spotlight on narcicism. Are there any particular sort of developmental issues that lead to narcisism, or can they all one way or another?

I love your list, inquiry-based practice and such. But you know, KW says that the one thing that has been proven to help people develop is sitting meditation. What do you think about that? Why not sitting-meditation-based practice? Or when you say inquiry-based does that include sitting? It seems to me that one can make a good argument for inquiry, but at the same time sitting still seems essential.

Julian: Suffering is real

I don't dispute that, but how about a little horizontal-awakening dharma as a brain teaser? From One Taste:

“This 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 prsent in all three states is the formless self or pure consciousness. And each night you die to the separate-self sense, die to the ego, and are plunged back into the ocean of infinity that is your Original Face… . The ultimate “spiritual test,” then, is simply your relation to death.” [December 29]


Bruce: “If you are saying that the view you are presenting, or the view that modern science and psychology currently describe, is “reality as it is.”  That is essentially a modernist - a pre-postmodern - way of framing things.  A post-postmodern way to frame it might be something like, “…none of the literalism, narcissism, magical thinking or pseudo science lasts a nano-second in the context of truly rational or transrational perspectives.”  This latter view allows you to critically assess inadquate earlier views without assuming that you've arrived at an interpretation-free, altitude-independent view.”


Cool!  

:)

David

Julian,

Let me reemphasize that I do not disagree with the sentiment, but I see a few details that I want to engage you further about.

You say:
is there more? absolutely thats what transrational is….
does this more conflict with reality as it is revealed by broad science and reason? absolutely not!
might it someday expand the scientific worldview?
yes, with good evidence, solid methodology and critical thinking intact….
but that's a big, big (did i mention BIG?) deal and would be massive news all over the world were it repeatable, provable etc….

There are Vedic texts written before 8,000 BC that refer to the Sun as the center of the solar system. The Pythagoreans, in the 5th century, also took it as a matter of course that the Earth was round and orbited the Sun. Each had mathematical reasons behind their ideas. If one learned their methods, one would have been forced to agree with their conclusions. But because of “common sense,” heliocentrism wasn't generally accepted until around the 16th century. 

In regards to what you have said, Julian, I think it is key that we understand what is meant by “broad science.” When we expand the narrow science of Galileo, Descartes, and the rest of the Enlightenment, we are changing more than merely a method. We are transforming an entire worldview. Good evidence and solid methodology cannot be dispensed with, I agree with you there. But the meaning of “good” and “solid” will need to undergo total reconstructive surgery. The method itself can remain largely unchanged, but for the minor loosening of what is meant by empiricism, such that not only sensory but psychological experience is admited to be “real.” But the background assumptions about the nature of reality must be radically reconsidered. The easy split between subject and object must be called into question. Really, this split is already done away with when we broaded the concept of empiricism (by “done away with,” I don't mean we cannot draw useful distinctions between subject and object, just that they are useful shorthands, not opposed ends of an ontological chasm in reality itself). This doesn't mean there really are monsters under the bed, but it does mean we cannot attempt to know reality as though knower and known were not deeply related.

You say:
this is the great gift of rational and of scientific method - they are not merely relative perspectives - they are testable provable truths everywhere and everywhen on planet earth - regardless of your worldview, philosophy or hairstyle!

I don't consider the scientific method to be a perspective/worldview, in the sense that it can, of itself, provide a community of subjects with all that they need to lead meaningful, coherent, full lives. It is only a method, after all.  It is a way of getting something. But before you try to get it, you need to know what it is you're reaching for. That's what a perspective/worldview gives you. A “postmodern” science (and I'm not talking about the deconstructionist kind of postmodernism… that school is better termed 'hypermodernist,' where everything becomes merely relative, the whole world reduced to the ideas of a Cartesian subject who can think up and manipulate reality into whatever form it pleases) is a science that doesn't assume a materialist (or idealist) ontology, but that takes experience as it comes. But we still need a background structure to fill in the gaps between the experiments we perform. I personally prefer a panexperientialist ontology, as it jives better with the findings of contemporary physics, biology, and psychology. But regardless, I do not think it is legitimate to see the scientific methodology (broad or narrow) as all a person or society needs to function.

Furthermore, it is not evidence that ushers in new paradigms, but transformations of background assumptions. What counts as evidence depends on the perspective you take. It took thousands of years for the general population to accept that the Earth went round the Sun because not until the telescope was invented could the layman (non-mathematician) experience the proof (which even to this day runs contrary to our earthly perception of the rising and setting Sun). And even then, unless one was ready to have the mythic give birth to the mental structure (which involves far more than just admitting the sky is not what you thought), they would deny the evidence because they simply wouldn't understand it. A recent Gallup poll showed that nearly 1/5 of Americans still think the Sun goes around the Earth.

So just to reiterate the point of my first comment, I am only trying to emphasize that the “scientific method” as practiced by most non-integrally informed scientists has many background assumptions built into it. One of which is that mechanical causality is the only reality. Now, broading science such that this background is transcended and included doesn't mean we put gravity on the same plane as “the law of attraction.” But it does mean we recognize that the mechanistic understanding of reality is metaphorical, and not meant to be taken literally. It is useful at times, though at others it does quite a bit of violence. We must use it wisely, being careful not to view the whole of nature through its lens as though anything else were merely wishful thinking. This would be bad science, in the broadened, integral sense.
 
-Matt

I agree I am treading a fine line, Julian. Other very scientifically literate people have told me exactly what you have said here. So I'm aware I need to be careful. But I think it is worth paying very close attention to how we frame these issues, whether we lean more in my direction or in yours.

I just watched Michael Dowd on Lou Dobbs. What do you think of the message he is spreading? I am encouraged by it, so I'm curious to get your reading on the issue.

Thanks, Julian. You provide a great space for inquiry here. I also like your comments on inquiry/meditation.

Julian: * rational awareness gives us access to the objective world in the most complete way possible - so far.

When we say “rational,” generally, we are talking about Orange cognition, right? If that's not what we mean I think we should be more precise with language. I think everyone here would argue, for example, that integral gives us “access to the objective world” in a far more complete way than Orange rationality. Orange rationality, after all, is a rather cramped, dogmatic space. It is the level just above Amber, and they're just about as narrow and stubborn as Amber only in a materialistic way. So surely we mean “integral awareness” in this sentence I quoted, right? Which we could also call post-post rational?


Julian: * transrational doesn't  change or really even add very much to this - transrational has much, much more to do with the interior, subjective experience .

It sounds like you might be confusing states and stages here. If integral adds much to rationality (which I think we all agree it does), then transrational, which adds more perspectives still (as well as construct awareness, ego awareness, better intuition, ethics, etc.), would add even more. AQAL, after all, is not a product of rational or even integral but transrational, at least by Wilber IV and probably by Wilber III as well.

When you say that transrational has more to do with interior subjective experience, it sounds like you are saying that transrational is about zone #1, or perhaps about feelings or something. But transrational can take any of the perspectives in IMP, and way more perspectives than rational, so surely it would add a lot to the way we view and interpret the gross realm, the dream-state realm, and the causal realm. It sounds like you're referring to state training there.

Julian: * that is why to access transrationality one HAS to engage in practices of internal development…

Yes, but of course with vertical transformation (which includes the transrational stages) there is also a correlate emergence in the upper-right quadrant. Someone can have an experience of the nondual state, however, without new emergences in the upper quadrants or even “attain” a state plateau—be considered a meditation “master” of sorts—with a first-tier worldview. I think it's peak experiences and state plateaus that you have in mind when you talk about “transrational” being much more about the interior and not adding anything to rationality rather than the transrational vertical structure.

So, just to help out with the language, I think we could say we have vertical development (referring to the vertical axis on the WC Lattice) and horizontal awakening (referring to the horizontal axis on the WC Lattice). And then transrational (referring to vertical development and the vertical axis only) and also (continuing to use the prefix trans to help differentiate between the two) trans-waking, trans-dreaming, and trans-causal (referring to horizontal awakening and the horizontal axis). The former (transrational) adds an awful lot to rationality (as integral does), but the latter (horizontal awakening) adds very little and is much more about interior subjective experience, though it can speed vertical development (as well as inhibit it profoundly in some cases because of its ability to make some people more certain of the worldview they already hold).

Horizontal awakening and vertical development do converge in third tier, and I will address that soon in a blog.


David

David:  It sounds like you might be confusing states and stages here. If integral adds much to rationality (which I think we all agree it does), then transrational, which adds more perspectives still (as well as construct awareness, ego awareness, better intuition, ethics, etc.), would add even more. AQAL, after all, is not a product of rational or even integral but transrational, at least by Wilber IV and probably by Wilber III as well.

When you say that transrational has more to do with interior subjective experience, it sounds like you are saying that transrational is about zone #1, or perhaps about feelings or something. But transrational can take any of the perspectives in IMP, and way more perspectives than rational, so surely it would add a lot to the way we view and interpret the gross realm, the dream-state realm, and the causal realm. It sounds like you're referring to state training there.

Yes, this is something I remarked on as well in my recent blog on the W-C Lattice and the Pre/Trans Fallacy.  As I suggested then, Julian, you may be overly confining “transrational” to a type of UL state experience, rather than treating it as the stage that it actually is within Wilber's model.

Yes, I understand; my emphasis was not on UL but on state-experience.  I think you are using transrational to refer to states (including state plateaus) rather than the structure-stages (4p-expanded, 5p, or beyond) that actually constitute the transrational band of vertical interior development in the models of Wilber and Cook-Greuter.

Cognition is also just one aspect of this. Motivation is another. We could also say personal (rather than rational) and transpersonal (rather than transrational). The personal tends to be motivated by personal interests. The worldview changes as we go up to Turquoise, but Turquoise still tends to be focused on the personal self and the evolution of this personal self.  With the transpersonal stages, however, one is no longer motivated so personally, and one tries to live from beyond the personal self. Turquoise is into self-actualization, Indigo and above into self-transcendence . One is motivated more and more purely by the evolutionary impulse, and one's actions are more and more for everyone or geared more toward some genuine contribution than the personal needs of the individual (safety, security, prestige, sex, comfort, etc.). The individual becomes more and more subtle and less and less needy. It becomes more of a giver than a taker.


David

Hi, Julian,

As a stage of cognitive development, as I also argued in a previous discussion, transrationality should not be limited or “bracketed out of objective discourse” in the ways that you might similarly wish to limit or bracket out an altered state experience.  Transrationality, as it is currently being used in Wilber's model, represents a way of interacting with the world – a way (5p) which incorporates and builds on rationality (3p).  So, when you write in your post that transrationality is mostly a private, interior development and doesn't have much to do with how we see, understand, or interact with the objective world, I do not believe this is correct. 

Best wishes,

Balder

Hey Julian, Balder,

Now this is a conversation I'd just love to jump into…. I'm not entirely apathetic about God-talk, but it is not something I think much about. The implications of transrationality (Gebser's term “arational” may be more appropriate, as it is misleading to see this new structure as somehow “better” than rationality; it's just different, not opposed to, but other than) for scientific thought and objectivity, though, are really the core of my interests and studies. So make what you can out of the following speculations…

I agree with what you are pointing to, Balder, but I think Julian is justified in his unease. We need to really specify what arationality might mean in relation to the rational objective/subjective dichotomy, as we don't want to open the door to a shallow New Age egotism where subjectivity completely subsumes the objective world.

Julian: it does not alter our understanding of the objective world in anything like the way that does the transition from prerational to rational. the growth from prerational to rational allows us to interpret objective reality with more accuracy, less distortion, less wishful thinking and delusion

I think arationality does alter our understanding of the objective world in quite a profound way, actually. And keep in mind that for the prerational structure, there really isn't any objective world as rationality understands it. Transformations between structures should not be flattened out and seen only from the rational perspective, such that we speak of them as though they are merely changes in how subjectivity relates to objectivity. This is one criticism I'd make of Wilber's AQAL map, that it may falsely concretize an ontological gap between subject and object that is actually an abstraction which arises out of the rational structure's perspective. As McLuhan said, though, the medium is the message. Anything in print or on a Cartesian grid necessarily reflects the subject/object ontology of the rational structure. I'm sure Wilber is aware of this, and I know he is quite interested in Maturana and Varela's models of enactive cognition, wherein the subject/object ontology is bracketed (ie, science can still go on “as if” it were a true reflection of reality) in favor of a more relational/transactional ontology. Enactivism does not imply that the mind creates reality. It completely deconstructs the Cartesian duality and replaces it with the “middle way” offered by Madhyamaka Buddhism.


In their book The Tree of Knowledge (definitely worth reading), Maturana and Varela offer this description of the goal of their project:

“confront the problem of understanding how our existence-the praxis of our living- is coupled to a surrounding world which appears filled with regularities that are at every instant the result of our biological and social histories…. to find a via media: to understand the regularity of the world we are experiencing at every moment, but without any point of reference independent of ourselves that would give certainty to our descriptions and cognitive assertions. Indeed the whole mechanism of generating ourselves, as describers and observers tells us that our world, as the world which we bring forth in our coexistence with others, will always have precisely that mixture of regularity and mutability, that combination of solidity and shifting sand, so typical of human experience when we look at it up close.” [Tree of Knowledge, pg. 241]

So the arational structure is not an entirely interior transformation. Indeed, it does not sharply divide inside from outside as does the rational. It is equally a shift in how we relate to the world out there (including other people). What science has taught us about reality does not become obsolete, not by any means. But it does become re-contextualized as a thoroughly socially embedded activity rather than some transcendental perspective with access to reality itself. It remains the best method for developing shared, experience-based truths.

Let me know what ya'll think,

Matt

Hi, Julian, Matt,

I appreciate both of your perspectives.  Matt, I have to say that I completely agree with what you are saying; that is my view exactly.  I certainly do share Julian's concerns about how descriptions of “transrationality” might appear to give support to certain faulty interpretations which are actually pre-rational.  I am not at all meaning to discount that.  I am just concerned that, in his concern to protect against that, Julian may be downplaying or incompletely acknowledging the nature and scope of perspectival shift that actually takes place with the emergence of a- or trans-rationality.

Julian, please correct me if I've misread you, but it appears to me that you are suggesting that the description of the world, as disclosed by rational-level science, is identical to reality-as-it-is, rather than itself being a certain perspectival enactment.  To use Matt's turn of phrase here, my concern is that you are arguing that rational-level science offers a “transcendental perspective with access to reality itself,” and that anything disclosed from a transrational perspective will not, and cannot, contradict this immutable reality. 

The change being discussed here is a subtle one.  I am in no way suggesting that the shift to transrational negates the law of gravity or changes the chemical composition of my computer or suddenly opens the door to “a hodge-podge of naive beliefs around psychics, pseudo science, astrology, prophecy, conspiracy theories,” etc.  It is true that we create, or co-create, reality – meaning, our experiential, tetra-enacted worldspaces – but while the language may appear to parallel certain magical beliefs, what is being suggested is not the same as the egocentric, subjectivistic worldview of The Secret.

Matt, you describe a potential limitation of the AQAL model, in that it appears to overly solidify or reify the “gap” between subjective and objective – a gap which is challenged in subtle but profound ways with the transition to transrational.  I agree with this, but I think the introduction of the enactive paradigm, and in the Integral context, the language of tetra-enactment in conjunction with the oprationalizing of AQAL via Integral Methodological Pluralism, can help to counteract this … especially to the degree that construct-awareness allows the co-enactment of subjective and objective to be more clearly apprehended.  The quadrants of AQAL become an ongoing flowering, not a static map of isolated, independent dimensions or realms.

Best wishes,

Balder

Thanks Balder. I agree with you that the enactive paradigm is not lost to the AQAL map so long as we have a deeper sense of its transrational meaning (ie, so long as we can understand it as a flat, 2D representation of a 4D reality, and not take it as a literal reflection of the structure of reality). This is why I emphasized the degree to which the medium is the message. We simply cannot codify integral insights into text-based arguments and graphics without flattening them into rationalist representations. This is not a hinderance, though, so long as we are aware of what happens when an experiential, transpersonal truth is written down.

“while the rational/scientific method may not ever be able to say that it finally definitively reveals ‘reality as it is” - what we perhaps can say is that it reveals the aspects of what reality certainly isnt - namely the many prerational misrepresentations. yes?”

Exactly.

while the rational/scientific method may not ever be able to say that it finally definitively reveals 'reality as it is” - what we perhaps can say is that it reveals the aspects of what reality certainly isnt - namely the many prerational misrepresentations. yes?

I'd say that's about right. Scientific theories are falsifiable, but they cannot be proven right (as in, shown to be perfect reflections of reality).

i would  ask you bruce to explain if you think transrational changes objective reality rather than just some aspects of how we think about objective reality.

No, when you realize a transrational perspective, objective reality doesn't suddenly change into something else – if by that you mean some objective object, which “really was” made of atoms, suddenly physically transforming so that it now exists in a new, spiritual state.

The problem with the above understanding is that it fails to recognize the interdependence of subjective and objective poles.  It assumes that the object really existed in a particular form, and once our mind changes, then it too responds – coming to really exist in some new form.  But this is not what is implied by the notion of enactment.  According to the notion of enactment, whatever we take to be “real” at any given moment – any perception we may have – is already, in part, shaped by our understanding, by our prior embodied experience, by our particular sensory and cognitive apparatuses. 

In some earlier posts, I talked about a change in how objects in a given worldspace ex-ist, but I am using this convention to try to capture the nature of enactment – where ex-ist emphasizes how an object “stands-out” or shows up, perceptually and meaningfully, in a given observer's worldspace.

So…yes, what changes is how we think about objective reality, but the important point of enactment is that you cannot isolate and pinpoint “objective reality” in itself, independently of us, such that you could stand outside the world to perceive and describe it as it really is.  The world disclosed by rational consciousness is the-word-disclosed-by-rational-consciousness: an enactment.  Transrational consciousness will enact the world differently.  But no “magical transformations” are involved.

Best wishes,

B.

Hi Everyone

In this wonderful discussion, this comment from Matt stood out for me, specifically the final sentence - my underlining:
“So the arational structure is not an entirely interior transformation. Indeed, it does not sharply divide inside from outside as does the rational. It is equally a shift in how we relate to the world out there (including other people). What science has taught us about reality does not become obsolete, not by any means. But it does become re-contextualized as a thoroughly socially embedded activity rather than some transcendental perspective with access to reality itself. It remains the best method for developing shared, experience-based truths”

Just to clarify Matt, by “it” in the final sentence you mean rational science, right?

James

James, yes. More specifically, I mean the scientific method.

Thanks Matt

I have been visiting many integrally informed discussions about  “enacted perspectives” on Gaia and elsewhere, and I find your comment to be a great help and of great significance.

Along with well-argued and clear examples of the (partial) truth of this position, I have seen this perspectivism ( or is it aperspectivism?!) taken to a curious extreme in some cases, whereby the rational element involved in the scientific method is dismissed as being some foolish descartian concoction rather than, as you say, still the best method for developing shared, experience based truths.

Some comments I came across seemed to suggest that ultimately we all live in our own enacted perspectives, and that  we actually share very little if anything as fellow human beings. I found such comments to be indicative of  a mindset possibly showing a type of avoidance behaviour, using crisp, clean perspectival arguments to keep the great unwashed of humanity at arms length.

I found such views and comments quite disconcerting, so for me your statement was a refreshing clarification.

Thank You

James,

The rational/Cartesian paradigm of science was an important step beyond the medieval sense in which a person was constantly at risk of being possessed by demons. It separated the mind from the world, creating a “buffered self” in Charles Taylor's words. This was exactly what mythic consciousness needed. But I think as we transition from the mental/rational structure into the integral/aperspectival, we see Descartes' dualism as a nifty heuristic rather than a fact about reality itself. As safe and secure as the buffered self is, it can also become tremendously alienated from others and from nature. Other people become indistinguishable (logico-empirically, at least) from machines (especially when Descartes' system is secularized and the divine spark (soul) is explained away). The living, breathing depth of the natural world becomes but a show of surfaces. In many ways, it is the deficient phase of the mental structure that has caused many of the ecological and social problems associated with industrialization and the global economy.

Let me clarify exactly what I was saying remains the best method for developing shared, experience-based truths. Not Cartesian science, as from this perspective nothing is shared; you are an individual thinking subject cut off from the world and other people, even from your own emotions, senses, imagination, etc. It is the spirit behind the notion of basing truth on experience (rather than traditional dogma) that can be shared with others that is the most appropriate method for garnering truth. I was going to say truth “about” reality. But this sort of nudges us back into the subject/object dichotomy again. Truth in the aperspectival sense is a “being-in” truth, not a “knowledge about” truth.

Enactivism does suggest that our ability to know and experience depends largely on our biological structure/organization. But we humans are nearly identical in this respect. So we share far more than we differ in. And certainly, consciousness begins as a “unified field” of intersubjective relation, only afterwords, as we develop, differentiating itself into a more autonomous selfhood (which ideally also deepens our relation to the community of other autonomous selves).

Thanks for your response James, I've got to run! Let me know what you think of this attempt at clarification/expansion of what I said earlier.

Be well,
Matt