Open Integral

In my search for a postmetaphysical meditative practice I came upon the following article at Naturalsim.org. Many of my concerns of late are expressed therein, almost uncannily so, from a perspective called secular humanism/naturalism. Here are some excerpts from “Spirituality without faith”:

To what extent can secular humanists be spiritual? Can those of us with a more or less naturalistic view of the world, one that doesn’t involve spirits, gods, or ghosts, legitimately seek spiritual experience? There seems a prima facie difficulty here since traditional notions of spirituality often posit a non-physical realm categorically separate from the world described by science. Such dualism is of course the antithesis of naturalism, which understands existence to be of a piece, not split into the natural and supernatural. If for humanists the ultimate constituents of the world don’t include immaterial essences, souls, or spirits, then it might seem that spirituality is off limits.

Many humanists, of course, will not necessarily want to access what I will call the “spiritual response.” Even if I persuade them that there’s nothing conceptually incoherent about a naturalistic spirituality, they might be constitutionally disinclined to indulge in emotions or practices that even temporarily disengage the rational mind set.

Authentic spirituality involves an emotional response, what I will call the spiritual response, which can include feelings of significance, unity, awe, joy, acceptance, and consolation. Such feelings are intrinsically rewarding and so are sought out in their own right, but they also help us in dealing with difficult situations involving death, loss, and disappointment. The spiritual response thus helps meet our affective needs for both celebration and reconciliation.

But what might evoke these states? Spirituality often involves a cognitive context, a set of beliefs about oneself and the world which can both inspire the spiritual response and provide an interpretation of it. Our ideas about what ultimately exists, who we fundamentally are, and our place in the greater scheme of things form the cognitive context for spirituality. By contemplating such beliefs we are temporarily drawn out of the mundane into the realization of life’s deeper significance, and this realization generates emotional effects. But equally, the spiritual response thus generated is itself interpreted in the light of our basic beliefs; namely, it is taken to reflect the ultimate truth of our situation as we conceive it. The cognitive context of spirituality and the spiritual response are therefore linked tightly in reciprocal evocation and validation.

A third essential component of spirituality is what is ordinarily called spiritual practice. Since the intellectual appreciation of fundamental beliefs alone may not suffice to evoke a particularly deep experience, various non-cognitive techniques can help to access the spiritual response. Activities such as dance, singing, chant, meditation, and participation in various rituals and ceremonies all can play a role in moving us from the head to the heart. And it is in the heart, or gut, after all, where we find the most powerful intrinsic rewards of spirituality, as profound as its cognitive context might be.

Spiritual experience, in Christianity and other non-naturalistic traditions, is interpreted as putting the individual in direct contact with the agent/creator, or with at least some aspect of the spiritual realm. The feelings that arise during spiritual practice are construed as evidence of the realm’s existence; they are the quasi-perceptual apprehension of God or Spirit. Thus, in this traditional cognitive context, spiritual experience is taken to be a special way of knowing ultimate truths about the world, a way quite different from ordinary empirical modes of knowing. The individual sees directly the face of God, and needs no further corroboration. Nor could any be forthcoming via normal sensory channels, since after all these are only capable of detecting physical appearances.

As much as the characteristics of traditional spirituality provide answers to the questions of death and meaning, two major drawbacks are evident. The problem of death is solved by splitting ourselves into two substances - one material and perishable, the other spiritual and immortal - but as a result the material becomes inherently inferior in its changeability. The physical becomes the merely physical - it assumes a second class metaphysical status. This in turn leads to alienation from our physical selves and indeed from the material world as a whole. Gross matter is denigrated in comparison to subtle spirit, and the material only has value to the extent that it is animated and directed by spirit. It can’t accomplish anything of significance on its own. But of course we are embodied, and our world is material, so from this alienated perspective most of our lives is an unfortunate entanglement with crass physicality while awaiting the better, immaterial world to come.

Added to the dualism of substance is the dualism of having two types of knowledge, ordinary empirical knowledge derived from the senses and confirmed intersubjectively (e.g., as in science) and the knowledge gained from the personal revelations of spiritual experience. Despite the arguments of some, such as Stephen J. Gould in his book Rocks of Ages, that these constitute “non-overlapping magisteria” which can’t conflict since they have fundamentally different concerns, the fact remains that both sorts of knowledge make claims about what ultimately exists and they reach different conclusions. Science gives us no reason to believe in the supernatural (there is no scientifically admissible evidence for such a realm), while the firm intuition of spiritual experience, as interpreted within its traditional, non-naturalistic cognitive context, is precisely that a separate immaterial reality indeed exists. If I make use of both methods of knowing, then eventually it is likely I will confront some basic cognitive dilemmas: which method, and therefore which conclusion, is correct? In deciding the momentous question of what fundamentally exists, on what grounds do I choose science over spirituality, or visa versa? When do I stick with my spiritual intuitions, and when do I stick with science?

The upshot is that these two dualisms, one metaphysical, one epistemological, put adherents of traditional spirituality in a poor position to achieve, in this world, the apprehension of fundamental unity, even if they are promised salvation in the next. And unity, of course, is the essence of spirituality. Being of two natures and two minds, the traditional spiritualist is torn between the physical and immaterial world and unified with neither. Naturalists, I believe, suffer no such handicaps in their approach to ultimate concerns.

To see how naturalism might improve on traditional religious and secular dualism as a basis for spirituality, I want first to outline briefly its essential characteristics. Standard definitions of naturalism often contrast it with supernaturalism, meaning simply that naturalism denies the existence of a separate, categorically different supernatural realm that exists outside the natural world. As seen above, the supernatural realm often is taken to involve an agent, or agency, that acts as a first cause. Such an agent is causally privileged, in that from its supernatural vantage point it gets to influence events in the natural world (e.g., create it) without being at the effect of that world. God, typically, is unconstrained by the physical laws and constants that we find everywhere in nature. Naturalism denies that there are any such causally privileged agents or entities; rather, anything that exists is entirely embedded among other existents which account for its origins and characteristics. Nothing gets to cause without being caused in turn; nothing gets to be unconstrained by its context. In Buddhist philosophical terminology, this is called “dependent arising”: all phenomena are ineluctably relational, there are no causally independent monads at any level of being.

In all these examples, the project of naturalization inherent in science has demonstrated (or aims to demonstrate) that these phenomena consist entirely of the ultimate constituents of the universe described by physics, organized and elaborated via empirically derived laws at several distinct levels of description into astoundingly complex patterns, some of which are persons. In none of these cases, and nowhere in science, is there a need to posit any essence, agency, spirit, or “spooky stuff” to make things happen. Rather, everything, down to the last detail, is a matter of functions and operations on basic elements, functions and operations that happen on their own, without supervision. This is the remarkable fact at the heart of naturalism (remarkable, at least, when compared to supernaturalism): there is no need for intentional agency or spirit as an explanatory postulate. The physical world is, on its own, sufficient to generate the marvels of life, consciousness, and human culture. From this perspective, to bring in a spirit or deity to do any explanatory work seems like a cheap trick, an easy out, and only vitiates the wonder of the fact that, to repeat, all these phenomena arise on their own.

Since naturalism rules out the existence of entities, like God, that are causally privileged, it also rules out the possibility that the universe could be the intentional creation of a being or agency that stands outside it in some respect. This means that under naturalism the universe can’t be construed as having an ultimate purpose or goal attached to it – it exists, strangely enough, for no reason.

As much as we are driven to discern or impute purposes, to ask the teleological question “why?,” we will always find that question unanswerable when applied to the largest scale of things. Naturalism also leaves us with the irreducible mysteries of why things should be precisely the way they are and not some other way, and why there should be something rather than nothing.

While traditional faiths hold that spiritual experience answers ultimate questions of meaning, naturalism holds that such experience is simply a function of brain states or processes, not contact with a non-material realm. Considerable research is underway to pin down the neural correlates of the spiritual response, for instance by imaging the brains of meditators and describing the neural effects of hallucinogenic (or “entheogenic”) drugs in generating experiences of ecstasy and unity. Researchers in Canada have successfully induced psychological states akin to cosmic consciousness in laboratory subjects using a device which stimulates the brain using magnetic pulses. Preliminary findings suggest that the sense of trans-personal connection arises when neural networks responsible for our sense of orientation in the world are shut down, and the sense of deep significance and conviction seems to have a neural correlate in the temporal lobe. In their book, Why God Won’t Go Away, Andrew Newberg and Eugene D’Aquili describe several “association areas” in the cerebral cortex they believe are the neural basis for cosmic consciousness.

All in all, the spiritual response (what Newberg and D’Aquili call the sense of “Absolute Unitary Being”) can be accounted for, naturalistically, as an experience which is at bottom identical to specific sorts of brain activity evoked by various sorts of stimuli. Understanding spiritual experience to be physical in this sense is just a special case of the reigning naturalistic hypothesis that drives current consciousness research: the mind and brain are one thing, not two. Furthermore, under naturalism the subjective sense of deep conviction characteristic of spiritual experience is not evidence for the truth of any belief. However special such experiences may seem, they are not a reliable way of knowing or of establishing facts about what exists; that privilege is accorded only to scientific empiricism and its intersubjective method of corroboration via experiment and evidence. Experiences, including spiritual experiences, are quite real of course, but they don’t necessarily refer to anything real, however much it may seem they do when we have them. They are data to be explained and incorporated into our theories.

From the description of naturalism offered above, it’s perhaps not all that difficult to see how it might serve as a basis for spirituality, both to inspire the spiritual response and to provide a plausible cognitive context for our ultimate concerns. First, it is clear that under naturalism connection with the world is built in to every aspect of our being, not a hoped for eventuality in the life to come. We’re joined to the cosmos and the everyday world as described by science in countless ways: the elements composing our bodies are the products of the Big Bang and stellar evolution; most of our DNA is shared with other beings; our perceptions and sensations are all mediated by processes involving photons, electrons, ions, neurotransmitters and other entirely physical entities; and our character and behavior is fully a function of genetics and environment. We are, therefore, fully linked with our surroundings in time, space, matter/energy, and causality. In fact, no more intimate connection with the totality of what is could be imagined. So, from a naturalistic perspective, there is an empirically valid referent for the sense of cosmic consciousness encountered in spiritual experience. The feeling of unity generated by (actually, identical to) the quieting of the orientation mechanisms in the brain mirrors the objective state of our complete interconnection with the world.

Second, in its denial of ultimate meaning and purpose, naturalism, strangely enough, may equal traditional faiths in its capacity to inspire the spiritual response. When we confront the startling fact that existence isn’t subsumable under any overarching interpretation, but simply is, we are left with an irreducible mystery about why we are here, or exist at all; and mystery serves at least as well as purpose to inspire spiritual experience. Unable not to ask questions about ultimate purpose and meaning, but rebuffed by the logic which shows such questions unanswerable, we are caught in a cosmic perplexity, a state of profound existential astonishment. The realization that existence inevitably outruns our attempts to assign meaning and purpose can have the impact of a true revelation, stunning the discursive mind in the manner of a Zen koan. Like a koan or other practices in which thinking confronts its own limitations, such a cognitive impasse can serve as the gateway to the direct, non-discursive experience that the present is sufficient unto itself. After all, there is no place to get to, no goal toward which Being is moving.

Besides connection and mystery, naturalism leads to wonder. It’s truly a marvel what matter and energy can do when left to their own devices. It’s a marvel that the lifeless, insentient elements of creation give rise - via mechanisms, operations, and functions - to life in all its astounding variety and to consciousness in all its sensory and emotional richness. Somehow, the concatenation of neural activity in our brains ends up constituting awareness, intelligence, and wonder itself. To see, transparently, how highly organized matter and mind are precisely one thing, not two, is the spiritual significance of the mind-body problem. To penetrate it would be to leave behind the last vestiges of dualism. No longer could we be alienated from matter as “mere” matter, rather its properties and susceptibilities to organization are, wonderfully, the basis for all that we are as bodies and minds. And of course, far beyond our parochial selves lies the incalculable vastness of the cosmic arena from which we spring. Wonder, although not the only possible response when contemplating the immense scale of matter, space, and time, is surely appropriate once we realize we belong to something so very far beyond us. Such naturalistic wonder and awe counts as deeply spiritual, even though no spirits are involved.

Because naturalism conceives of experience as identical to some sort of material organization (consensus on just what sort of organization may be decades away), spiritual experience doesn’t count as a special way of knowing, but rather a special way of being. Knowledge about what ultimately exists is a matter of reaching intersubjective consensus via theory and experiment grounded in our fallible capacities for perception, whether aided or unaided.

The intrinsically rewarding sense of ultimate unity, awe, and significance isn’t a perception, it’s a feeling, one of a near infinity of possible brain states of which we are capable. Nevertheless, this feeling reflects the scientific facts of our embededness in nature. Naturalism doesn’t have to posit a special route to the spiritual truth which could conflict with scientific empiricism, rather it understands spiritual experience as a materially instantiated non-cognitive affirmation of what is actually the case. Thus naturalism is entirely monistic in its interpretation of spiritual experience: there is one world and one way of knowing it. By avoiding metaphysical and epistemic dualism, naturalism naturalizes spirituality, and in so doing provides a cognitive context for spiritual experience that reinforces its essential non-dual quality.

But how, practically speaking, are we to feel all this? Abstractions are all well and good, but we might want the direct experience of connection simply because it’s intrinsically rewarding, a refreshment from our ordinary ego-centered, goal-driven state of mind. Naturalism can help inspire us, but to substantially change how we feel we may need to participate in some sort of spiritual practice.

An explicitly naturalistic spiritual practice must evoke the spiritual response in the cognitive context of naturalism. Traditional religion has linked this response to sacred liturgies, with all their supernatural connotations, using music, theater, incense, architecture and other ritual elements that generate feelings of connection and wonder. There is no reason why such a link cannot be forged between naturalism and such feelings; it’s simply a matter of finding (or designing) rituals and practices which pair these feelings with expressions of naturalistic beliefs.

There’s much to choose from in terms of existing spiritual practice that might be adapted for a naturalistic spirituality. Some Unitarian services come close to an entirely naturalistic celebration of community, despite the fact that they often use theistic hymns and take place in buildings that look suspiciously like churches. Naturalists must infiltrate these congregations, form committees over coffee, and lobby for less God and more naturalism in the liturgy. The musicians and lyricists among them must collaborate on new, more explicitly naturalistic anthems (having tried this myself, I know it’s damned difficult, but someone’s got to do it).

For those not inclined to communal practice, there are more private means of altering one’s consciousness, meditation chief among them. Meditation, although not often advertised as such, can work dramatic changes on the brain via concentration or the non-judgmental awareness of mental contents. When thinking quiets down and sensory input is at a minimum, very different sorts of feelings can arise, some of which are extraordinarily unlike normal waking consciousness. Although meditation is not an easy art, the potential rewards are great for those who have the knack and put in the time. The states of consciousness accessed, naturalistically understood, are just more brain states, but they can have directly felt qualities of unity and acceptance that mark them off as subjectively quite special, and that correspond to empirically-grounded cognitions. Because many varieties of Buddhism are inherently naturalistic and emphatically this-worldly, humanists interested in exploring meditation could do worse than joining a local Zen center or vipassana (insight meditation) group.

As with meditation, which only comes through practice, arts such as dance, music, singing, chant, and yoga should be taught so that each of us has some basic techniques with which to engage the moment. Whatever their origins, we can adopt such skills and techniques without necessarily adopting the tradition within which they arose, unless, of course, we find that tradition to our liking.

The above is the title of an article in the current Integral Review (5:1, June 2009) by Stein and Heikkinen. Below are a few excerpts:

“…what are the standards that should determine which of these psychological technologies should go to market?

“According to our review, the literature reveals a conspicuous lack of psychometric rigor on the part of some developmental approaches.

“For example, take Wilber’s (1999) early model of human development…. Regarding its theoretical aspects, we think [it] warrents valuing because of the model’s uberty. That is…the model remains one of the only full-spectrum accounts of human development, and as such remains impressively suggestive as a rough overview of human potentials. This leads the model to have some minimal utility as a heuristic for various purposes, for example, alterations of one’s action-orienting self-understanding. We do not think—and neither does Wilber—that the model boasts a great deal of security, however. That is, many of the particular claims are in need of revision in light of existing evidence, and many of the explanations and descriptions offered are only roughly correct. Regarding its practical aspects, we think [it] is valuable. Its states uses as an overview of human potentials positions the model admirably in ethical and moral discourses…. But the devil is in the pragmatic considerations; specifically, how can a model that is so general address any but the most abstract problems?”

Developmental metrics that were evaluated: Leadership Development Profile, Spiral Dynamics, SCTi/MAP (Cook-Greuter), Requisite Organization, Subject Object Interview, Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System, Lectical Assessment System.

“From what we could find, there is no evidence that the Online PeopleScan by Spiral Dynamics Integral offers reliable or valid measurements of anything…. In fact….it appears that the LAS and HCSS are the only metrics that have been calibrated using quantitative indexes of internal consistency. This means that the[y]…are the only ones that can be validly and reliably used to assess individuals.”

To clarify, the article differentiates between models and metrics, each with their own validity criteria. Wilber was evaluated as a model, as to date he does not appear to have a metric, instead generallizing based on other’s metrics. Given the article’s conclusions one could apply that to those metrics from which Wilber does generalize.

In the current issue of IR there’s also a review by Jan Inglis of Sean Esbjorn-Hargen’s and Michael Zimmerman’s new book, Integral Ecology. She notes that Integral Research Center is working with two of the metrics mentioned in this article, Theo Dawson’s Developmental Testing Service (where Stein also works) and Susanne Cook-Greuter’s work, to validate “integral thinking or integral awareness, actions and solutions.” DTS uses the LAS. Interestingly, even working with DTS/LAS Inglis notes that IE did not offer integral solutions to the problems faced; instead it “included, labeled, organized into many categories a rich list of ingredients i.e., a horizontal complexity.” She goes on:

“Integral approaches to me are not just naming and appreciating multiple perspectives, styles, and methodologies but actively working with their differences, that is, engaging the vertical complexity in such a manner so the dissonance creates integration at a higher, more complex level. This active engagement to support the vertical complexity requires a developmentally designed process. Although the authors briefly indicated that practitioners of Integral Ecology would require a “meta-discourse” they spent no time in exploring what that might be. Possibly they are not aware of a whole new field that combines the fields of civic engagement,specifically that of deliberative democracy, with adult development and political development. The need for this field, and for a pedagogical approach that supports its application, has been articulated by Chilton (2003), Inglis (2007a), Rosenberg (2002, 2004), Ross (2007, 2008b-c, inpress), and Ross and Commons (2008). It holds promise of providing the alchemical processes for integrally activating and elevating such ingredients as AQAL is integrally observing and categorizing.”

Nickeson said: “A little over four years ago in my first post on any integral forum I noted that AQAL was essentially a taxonomy with an Aristotelian style superordinated list that served as its holonic sidebar. In essence, Wilber’s theory is inert. Unless people get down on the ground and start investigating the intersubjectivity of the contents across the pigeon holes, investigations that will show, (I am sure) the irrelevance of the pigeon hole arrangement, it just sits there. For the couple of years I was a member of Int. Naked I saw a steady attrition of people who came in optimistic and left bored because AQAL just doesn’t do anything.”

Inglis would agree. She notes, as do others like Edwards, that AQAL lacks an explication of and means to dynamic interactivity. The latter is representative of those integrative approaches I’m highlighting in the Gebser thread. And many think that such dynamic interactivity is one of those requisite characteristics of integral-aperspectivity. Hence like Inglis I question the integrality of AQAL. She says:

“Like a freeze frame in a movie, AQAL has given us a very useful way of stopping the complexity of movement and interactions and observing, analyzing and creating a precise checklist of what is involved: what is present, and what is missing. However, this is not the movie. Even if more and more freeze frames are considered, they do not equate to the complex dynamic interactions that make the movie of life. As Wilber has said several times, AQAL offers a map not the territory. Nevertheless, the static AQAL map is often used to make assumptions about how to work with the dynamic territory. This is partly why I perceive that Integral Ecology has such difficulty moving from observation to application, as it does not have a process to engage and advance the complex dynamic interactions of humans dealing with ecological issues.”

The following is from this link:

The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1984 and entered into force on June 26, 1987.

It defines torture as any act by which:

severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental; is intentionally inflicted on a person; for such purposes as:

* obtaining from him/her or a third person information or a confession
* punishing him/her for an act s/he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed
* intimidating or coercing him/her or a third person
* or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind;

when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

The United States ratified the Convention against Torture in October 1994. The Convention entered into force for the United States on November 20, 1994.

As a party to the Convention, the United States is required to submit periodic reports describing its compliance with the Convention to the Committee against Torture. Following are excerpts from the Initial Report the United States submitted to the Committee against Torture in 1999 (CAT/C/28/Add.5) that pertain to questions such as “Is torture a crime in the US?” and “What remedies are available?”

Excerpts from the Report

6. Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offence under the law of the United States. No official of the Government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. United States law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a “state of public emergency”) or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension. The United States is committed to the full and effective implementation of its obligations under the Convention throughout its territory. [p. 5].

***

For US Law on torture see US Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 133C

Let’s now look to Jonathan Turley’s blog, Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, as to how the above International and US law relates specifically to waterboarding:

WATERBOARDING IS TORTURE

Despite early spin, there has never been a true debate about the status of waterboarding as torture. It has been a well-recognized form of torture since before the Spanish Inquisition. Indeed, it has remained popular because it leaves no incriminating marks and requires little training or equipment. It was the chosen form of torture of the Gestapo, Pol Pot, and the Bush administration.

The status of waterboarding as torture was established by the United States. Indeed, the U.S. military used waterboarding (“the water cure”) in the Philippines in 1898. While the accused insisted (as do many today) that the torture was justified under the necessities and law of war, members of Congress rejected the argument and demanded the prosecution of Maj. Edwin F. Glenn. He was court-martialed and convicted of the crime of torture.

The United States remained a moral leader on torture for decades, including our prosecution of Japanese officers for waterboarding American and Allied soldiers. One, Yukio Asano, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for waterboarding.

In 1983, the Justice Department prosecuted and convicted Texas Sheriff James Parker and his deputies for waterboarding a prisoner. Parker was sentenced to four years in prison.

Legal experts around the world have denounced the Bush program as classic and clear torture. They have been joined by interrogators and officials from the Bush administration itself, including various Bush administration lawyers who vehemently objected to torture at the time. Susan J. Crawford, a former judge and convening authority for the Bush military tribunals, and State Department official Richard Armitage acknowledged that we tortured individuals. Republican John McCain (himself a victim of torture) has called it torture. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder declared that waterboarding is torture. Leading organizations like the International Red Cross define it as not just torture but a war crime.

TORTURE IS A WAR CRIME

That brings us to the second truth: Torture is a war crime. This one is easy, and even the dwindling number of George Bush apologists do not seriously question this point. Torture is a crime under domestic and international law. Various federal laws address torture, not the least of which is the Torture Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2340.

There is also the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which President Reagan signed. The Convention Against Torture expressly states that “just following orders” is no defense and “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever” will be considered. This is acknowledged as a binding law, including most recently by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

WE ARE OBLIGATED TO PROSECUTE INDIVIDUALS WHO COMMIT TORTURE

Finally, the United States is obligated to investigate and prosecute war crimes. Under the Convention Against Torture, we agreed to make “all acts of torture offences under [our] criminal law” and to prosecute any such cases. The failure to prosecute war crimes committed by your own government is an offense of the same order as the original war crime.

Bush was adamant on the prosecution of war crimes in other countries. In 2003, he insisted, “War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, ‘I was just following orders.’ ” On June 26, 2003, conservatives applauded as Bush told the United Nations, “[the United States] is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example.”

A TEST OF PRINCIPLE

Our failure to investigate and prosecute accused war criminals has led some United Nations officials to accuse the United States of violating treaty obligations. More importantly, our continued debate over this question puts our troops in danger. We will be hard pressed in the future to call for prosecution of leaders who torture our citizens and soldiers.

We cannot continue a war on terrorism while being violators of international law ourselves. Torture and terrorism are cut from the same legal bolt: Both are violations of human rights and international law. If we want the world to join us in fighting one crime against humanity, we cannot continue to obstruct the prosecution of another crime against humanity.

Ultimately, we all become accessories after the fact if we stand silent in the face of these war crimes. Bush ordered these war crimes because he believed that he was above the law and others like Rice have claimed that, if the president orders such actions, they are by definition legal. They were both wrong. The law is clear. The only remaining question is whether we have the national character and commitment to the rule of law to hold even our leaders to account for crimes committed in our name.

Such prosecutions do not weaken a nation. They reaffirm the difference between ourselves and those we are fighting. To abandon our principles for politics would be to hand al-Qaeda its greatest victory – not the destruction of lives or buildings but our own self-inflicted wound of hypocrisy and immorality. True victory against our enemies will only be found on the other side of prosecuting those who (like our enemies) claim the right to wage war by any means.

Naomi Klein was on The Rachel Maddow Show last Wednesday 5/6/09. She talked about how the financial crisis was deliberately created so as to shock the rest of us into doing things we ordinarily would not, like providing huge amounts of public funds to support a continuing and failed system of crony capitalism. And the only ones who continue to benefit from the fiasco are the top executives of the banks and the masters of Wall Street, the very people who failed. But the last laugh is on us, the taxpayer, because these masters of money knew this was coming and in fact engineered it, knowing that they would not be held accountable due to the deregulation that they pushed for and got from their lapdogs in Congress. And these were not just Republican lapdogs but Democrats as well.

Hell, even Obama is continuing the exact same trend through Geitner with this bailout. The way it’s structured will only continue to keep the broken system operating the way it always has been. Without instituting those regulations that previously prevented this type of disaster capitalism, and holding the banks accountable for the money they get with strict stipulations, it’s just more of the same. While Obama is on the right track with the stimulus plan he is not applying the same general economic strategy with the bailout and it seems doomed to the same kind of failure that created the crisis.

Here’s the transcript from Maddow’s show:

MADDOW: A couple of years ago, Naomi Klein published a book called “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.” It is a book that really rattled the intellectual cage of what counts as the left in American politics.

The basic thesis is that governments and corporate interests use disasters, either natural or man-made disasters, as opportunities to reengineer societies in ways those societies would otherwise resist.

So after the hurricane, perfectly inhabitable, undamaged public housing must be torn down. After the military invasion and the toppling of the government, the oil fields must be open to foreign oil companies. After the tsunami, those wrecked fishing villages should become private beaches owned by the developers of resorts.

Don‘t you want to know what the author of “Shock Doctrine” thinks about the bailout right now and all of its “how are they getting way with this” glory?

Joining us now is Naomi Klein, author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.” She‘s a columnist for “The Nation” magazine. Naomi, it‘s really nice to have you hear in person. Thanks for coming in.

NAOMI KLEIN, AUTHOR, “THE SHOCK DOCTRINE”: So glad to be here, Rachel.

MADDOW: On the eve of the stress test results for the financial industry which are expected to show that a lot of the banks are sort of fine now -ish, I think a lot of Americans are going to be torn between being livid about the bailout, livid about all the tax dollars that went to Wall Street, but also sort of happy that maybe it‘s working, we still have a banking system. How do you feel about it?

KLEIN: Well, I mean, it still feels like they‘re playing with the numbers, that they‘re trying to delay the moment of truth. And I think that that‘s why that confidence is really, really tentative. And there‘s still - and I think that when we look at the bailout that started under Paulson and now is being continued under Geithner, you really see an absolutely seamless approach, you know.

And it was bipartisan under Bush. It was, you know, the Democrats standing together with Republicans to sell this thing. And there hasn‘t really been a shift. And I think it really does fit the thesis of “The Shock Doctrine” because in New Orleans, it was the public housing that was handed over to developers after the shock of the flooding of the city.

Here, we have just this transfer, this massive transfer of public wealth into private hands. And that‘s continuing. And it‘s much, much larger, just on a much larger scale than any of the investments in the public sphere that we‘re seeing through the stimulus or the budget.

I mean, it‘s $11.5 trillion to bail out the financial sector. And, you know, it‘s less than $1 trillion to stimulate the economy and a lot of that is tax cuts. So you know, even if it is working, you know, I do think - you know, even if we look at Bank of America and their response to the fact that they are short, you know, $30-plus billion, it‘s just a play with the numbers.

That‘s not the kind of thing that actually instills confidence. My real concern is - my concern from day one is that the crisis on Wall Street created by deregulated capitalism is not actually being solved.

It‘s being moved. A private sector crisis is being turned into a public sector crisis. So all of this mismanagement in the bailout, and even if it does work by propping up these banks, it‘s still a budgetary -

MADDOW: It‘s still a public sector liability.

KLEIN: Right. And so who pays for this? And you know, we‘ve seen some of that in, I think, the scale of the stimulus package. It‘s smaller than it should be if we believe people like Paul Krugman. He thinks it needs to be three times as large.

You know, we‘ve seen - you‘ve talked about this extensively on the show. Why isn‘t there more public in public transits? They‘re already cutting corners. And now, we‘re seeing things like AIDS funding in Africa being cut by $6.6 billion.

So who is paying for this? And this is, I think, where the unfairness of it really becomes very clear, that, you know, it is a bailout. But it‘s the very poorest and most vulnerable and weakest people in the world who are being asked to bail out the wealthiest and most powerful.

MADDOW: And in “Shock Doctrine,” you talk about the impunity of the elite. And I guess this fits that as well. If the crisis is in unregulated financial markets, unregulated capitalism of this specific kind that caused this specific crisis, if the cost of that would have been borne by the people who are players in that part of the financial world, those are the elites.

And so their impunity, not only in terms of being blamed, but also in terms of absorbing their own risks is something that - they should never be expected to have to endure that. It gets put off on others.

KLEIN: Exactly. And actually, this is something that‘s happened over and over again in the history of this economic model which takes away the rules and says, you know, have a free-for-all. It is a crisis creation machine and we‘ve seen this in other parts of the world.

And the U.S. has sort of deferred this crisis by deferring it to other locations. But I track it in the book starting in Chile where you have the first experiment in this Wild West form of capitalism in the ‘70s. And it ended with Pinochet having to nationalize the banks because they had accumulated so much debt.

So really all that is different here is one, that it has come home, and two, the scale. I mean, the scale is absolutely unprecedented. And I do believe - you know, I hate to say this because people are feeling a little bit optimistic - that I really do think this will go down - the bailout will go down as the greatest heist in monetary history.

And I don‘t see - you know, I like a lot of the things the Obama administration is doing. But what worries me is this idea that you can be Keynesian, you know, when it comes to the stimulus package. But you can maintain this edifice of crony capitalism in the financial sector. And you can have these two tracks that are completely different when really what we would optimally need in a moment of crisis like this is a banking sector that was working hand-in-hand with the social priorities.

MADDOW: Right.

KLEIN: So it would be helping homeowners, not having public money go to lobbyist to successfully defeat measures that would help those homeowners. So we have all of these contradictions because of this idea that you can keep the market happy by throwing it more of what it wants which is frankly crony capitalism, which is more handouts, no strings attached.

But, yes, we can also invest in the real economy. And the scale of that bailout is too large for that to actually happen.

MADDOW: Yes. And even if we‘re just looking for mitigating factors, the re-regulation of Wall Street, which they keep promising …

KLEIN: Yes.

MADDOW: Still to come, still to hope for, but not going hand-in-hand with the bailout money. It‘s the bailout money all comes first and the re-regulation thereafter.

(CROSS TALK)

KLEIN: This is shocking. I mean, this is really shocking if you think about FDR. He used the public anger, you know, the rage at - that these CEOs are not paying taxes, the rage at the double standard. And got Glass-Steagall, the law that prevented investment banks from also being commercial banks two days after those shocking revelations came out in the (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

MADDOW: Right.

KLEIN: He didn‘t wait. What I worry about is that there all of this free-floating rage. If it isn‘t channeled constructively into that re-regulation, if the money that‘s being given to the financial sector isn‘t tied to the restructure …

MADDOW: Yes, right.

KLEIN: … then what is going to happen with the rage? One, it gets channeled somewhere …

MADDOW: Yes.

KLEIN: … immigrants, whoever. But then, we also haven‘t used the leverage, right? I mean, if the international - you know, I was saying, you know, International Monetary Fund is a great example of this. When countries are broke, they need a loan from the IMF. They go to the IMF. They say, “Bail us out. We‘re in trouble.” The IMF says, “Sure, we‘ll bail you out. But here is a list of things you have to do to get money.”

MADDOW: Yes.

KLEIN: It‘s called structural adjustments.

MADDOW: We could be an IMF for Wall Street.

KLEIN: Exactly.

MADDOW: Naomi Klein, I could talk to you all evening. I hope you will come back.

KLEIN: I would love to. Thank you, Rachel.

MADDOW: Naomi Klein is the author of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” one of the most influential thinkers anywhere over the last 10 years. It‘s sort of mandatory reading - “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.”

Keith Olbermann’s special comment last night was on the above topic. And he’s right that Obama is wrong. We cannot move forward without holding criminals accountable for their past acts. It is evident that we tortured people in plain violation of the Geneva Convention. Perhaps a case can be made for those that actually did the torturing, as they were given the approval to do so by the highest Bush Administration officials. But the latter must surely stand trial for their specious rationalizations that were not based on law but on a failed ideology. It’s time for accountability and transparency Mr. President, things you promised us before we gave you this Office. Now live up to it.

Here’s a link to Olbermann’s video and the transcript, which follows:

As promised, a Special Comment now on the president’s revelation of the remainder of this nightmare of Bush Administration torture memos. This President has gone where few before him, dared. The dirty laundry — illegal, un-American, self-defeating, self-destroying — is out for all to see.

Mr. Obama deserves our praise and our thanks for that. And yet he has gone but half-way. And, in this case, in far too many respects, half the distance is worse than standing still. Today, Mr. President, in acknowledging these science-fiction-like documents, you said that:

“This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke.”

“We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history.

“But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.

Mr. President, you are wrong. What you describe would be not “spent energy” but catharsis.

Not “blame laid,” but responsibility ascribed. You continued:

“Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.”

Indeed we must, Mr. President. And the forces of which you speak are the ones lingering — with pervasive stench — from the previous administration. Far more than a criminal stench, Sir. An immoral one. One we cannot let be re-created.

One, President Obama, it is your responsibility to make sure cannot be re-created. Forgive me for quoting from a Comment I offered the night before the inauguration. But this goes to the core of the President’s commendable, but wholly naive, intention. This country has never “moved forward with confidence”.without first cleansing itself of its mistaken past.

In point of fact, every effort to merely draw a line in the sand and declare the past dead has served only to keep the past alive and often to strengthen it. We “moved forward” with slavery in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And four score and nine years later, we had buried 600,000 of our sons and brothers, in a Civil War.

After that war’s ending, we “moved forward” without the social restructuring — and protection of the rights of minorities — in the south. And a century later, we had not only not resolved anything, but black leaders were still being assassinated in our southern cities.

We “moved forward” with Germany in the reconstruction of Europe after the First World War.

Nobody even arrested the German Kaiser, let alone conducted war crimes trials then. And 19 years later, there was an indescribably more evil Germany and a more heart-rending Second World War.

We “moved forward” with the trusts of the early 1900s. And today, we are at the mercy of corporations too big to fail. We “moved forward” with the Palmer Raids and got McCarthyism.

And we “moved forward” with McCarthyism and got Watergate. We “moved forward” with Watergate and junior members of the Ford administration realized how little was ultimately at risk.

They grew up to be Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. But, Mr. President, when you say we must “come together on behalf of our common future” you are entirely correct. We must focus on getting things right in the future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past.

That means prosecuting all those involved in the Bush administration’s torture of prisoners, even if the results are nominal punishments, or merely new laws. Your only other option is to let this set and fester indefinitely. Because, Sir, some day there will be another Republican president, or even a Democrat just as blind as Mr. Bush to ethics and this country’s moral force. And he will look back to what you did about Mr. Bush. Or what you did not do.

And he will see precedent. Or as Cheney saw, he will see how not to get caught next time. Prosecute, Mr. President. Even if you get not one conviction, you will still have accomplished good for generations unborn. Merely by acting, you will deny a further wrong — that this construction will enter the history books: Torture was legal. It worked. It saved the country.

The end. This must not be. “It is our intention,” you said today, “to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.” Mr. President, you are making history’s easiest, most often made, most dangerous mistake — you are accepting the defense that somebody was “just following orders.” At the end of his first year in office, Mr. Lincoln tried to contextualize the Civil War for those who still wanted to compromise with evils of secession and slavery. “The struggle of today,” Lincoln wrote, “is not altogether for today. It is for a vast future also.”

Mr. President, you have now been handed the beginning of that future. Use it to protect our children and our distant descendants from anything like this ever happening again — by showing them that those who did this, were neither unfairly scapegoated nor absolved. It is good to say “we won’t do it again.” It is not, however…enough.

Some of you might remember Robert Anton Wilson from his famous Illuminatus trilogy, one of the best-selling set of conspiracy novels of all time. He was purposefully spoofing conspiracies but back then I didn’t get that and believed it all. Which of course led to my joining the Masons and the HOGD.

I just came upon this link to an excerpt of his 1990 book Quantum Psychology, where he talks about using E-Prime as our language. It’s a way of thinking, talking and writing that goes post-metaphysical. Here are some excerpts:

E and E-Prime

In 1933, in Science and Sanity, Alfred Korzybski proposed that we should abolish the “is of identity” from the English language. (The “is of identity” takes the form X is a Y. e.g., “Joe is a Communist,” “Mary is a dumb file-clerk,” “The universe is a giant machine,” etc.) In 1949, D. David Bourland Jr. proposed the abolition of all forms of the words “is” or “to be” and the Bourland proposal (English without “isness”) he called E-Prime, or English-Prime.
E-Prime seems to solve many problems that otherwise appear intractable, and it also serves as an antibiotic against what Korzybski called “demonological thinking.”

Since the brain does not receive raw data, but edits data as we receive it, we need to understand the software the brain uses. The case for using E-Prime rests on the simple proposition that “isness” sets the brain into a medieval Aristotelian framework and makes it impossible to understand modern problems and opportunities…. Removing “isness” and writing/thinking only and always in operational/existential language sets us, conversely, in a modern universe where we can successfully deal with modern issues.

To begin to get the hang of E-Prime, consider the following two columns, the first written in Standard English and the second in English Prime.

Standard English

1. The photon is a wave.
2. The photon is a particle.

English Prime

1. The photon behaves as a wave when constrained by certain instruments.
2. The photon appears as a particle when constrained by other instruments.

In the first example a “metaphysical” or Aristotelian formulation in Standard English becomes an operational or existential formulation when rewritten in English Prime. This may appear of interest only to philosophers and scientists of an operationalist/phenomenologist bias, but consider what happens when we move to the second example.

Clearly, written in Standard English, “The photon is a wave,” and “The photon is a particle” contradict each other, just like the sentences “Robin is a boy” and “Robin is a girl.” Nonetheless, all through the nineteenth century physicists found themselves debating about this and, by the early 1920s, it became obvious that the experimental evidence depended on the instruments or the instrumental set-up (design) of the total experiment. One type of experiment always showed light traveling in waves, and another type always showed light traveling as discrete particles.

This contradiction created considerable consternation. As noted earlier, some quantum theorists joked about “wavicles.” Others proclaimed in despair that “the universe is not rational” (by which they meant to indicate that the universe does not follow Aristotelian logic. ) Still others looked hopefully for the definitive experiment (not yet attained in 1990) which would clearly prove whether photons “are” waves or particles.

If we look, again, at the translations into English Prime, we see that no contradiction now exists at all, no “paradox,” no “irrationality” in the universe. We also find that we have constrained ourselves to talk about what actually happened in spacetime, whereas in Standard English we allowed ourselves to talk about something that has never been observed in spacetime at all – the “isness” or “whatness” or Aristotelian “essence” of the photon. (Niels Bohr’s Complementarity Principle and Copenhagen Interpretation, the technical resolutions of the wave/particle duality within physics, amount to telling physicists to adopt “the spirit of E-Prime” without quite articulating E-Prime itself.)

The weakness of Aristotelian “isness” or “whatness” statements lies in their assumption of indwelling “thingness” – the assumption that every “object” contains what the cynical German philosopher Max Stirner called “spooks.” Thus in Moliere’s famous joke, an ignorant doctor tries to impress some even more ignorant lay persons by “explaining” that opium makes us sleepy because it has a “sleep-inducing property” in it. By contrast a scientific or operational statement would define precisely how the structure of the opium molecule chemically bonds to specific receptor structures in the brain, describing actual events in the spacetime continuum.

In simpler words, the Aristotelian universe assumes an assembly of “things” with “essences” or “spooks” inside of them, where the modern scientific (or existentialist) universe assumes a network of structural relationships.

The big O is my man but man is he taking some wrong turns. First it’s his choice of appointments for financial leaderhship and now his seeming expansion of the “state secrets” doctrine. This is not the candidate I voted for. Here’s Rachel Maddow on Larry Summers from the transcript of her 4/6/09 show:

Maddow:

But first, it‘s time for a couple holy mackerel stories in today‘s news, beginning with Lawrence Summers of the Obama administration. He‘s sort of the awkward uncle the family prefers not to talk much about right now. Summers is President Obama‘s top economic adviser.

During the second term of Bill Clinton‘s presidency, when President Bill Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, the law that deregulated huge aspects of the financial industry and arguably got us into the financial disaster we‘re in today, the biggest Clinton administration cheerleader for that legislation was then-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. See him over there in the corner?

Yes. That was the ‘90s. In the 2000s, Mr. Summers expanded the peanut gallery of people who root against him no matter what he does when he served as president of Harvard. First, he publicly chastised Cornel West, head of the African-American studies department, eventually causing Harvard to lose Professor West to Princeton.

And then, at a conference, Summers famously hypothesized that maybe there were fewer women than men in the sciences because men were willing to work harder than women, and maybe men were just innately better at math and science, you know, they‘re going to dump (ph) all the girls. Then Larry Summers had to resign from Harvard.

Now, White House financial disclosure forms reveal that after leaving Harvard, Mr. Summers was paid millions of dollars in speaking fees by financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. All of those institutions paid him for speaking gigs just in the year 2008, in fact.

Since coming on board at the White House, Mr. Summers, of course, has been a chief architect of the financial industry bailout that has shoveled hundreds of billions of dollars to firms like the ones that we‘re, you know, paying him for stuff until about five minutes ago. The White House says that Mr. Summers stopped taking paid speaking gigs once he signed on for the White House transition team. They also say he is in compliance with the White House‘s admittedly strict ethics rules.

Still, though, this revolving door between Wall Street and regulating Wall Street, not only feels really Bush-y, it‘s starting to feel not just like the foxes are guarding the henhouse, but that the foxes are both guarding the henhouse and consulting with the wolves and Colonel Sanders on how to do better. Not inspiring confidence.

_____

Now here’s Keith Olbermann on Obama’s nightmare extension of power to the DOJ, from the transcript of Tuesday, April 7 2009. Follow the link for his discussion with two guests on this travesty:

Olbermann:

During his run for the presidency, Barack Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, argued strongly against the Bush administration‘s use of executive authority including its self-justification, its rationalization of the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.

Our fifth story on the COUNTDOWN: That was then, this is now. President Obama‘s Justice Department now is not just defending Bush officials from lawsuits surrounding National Security Agency domestic spying, but seeking to expand the government‘s authority by making it immune from any legal challenge regarding wiretapping—ever. Welcome to change you cannot believe in or sue over.

The case: Jewel versus NSA. Five plaintiffs who contend that AT&T illegally transmitted information about their phone habits to the NSA. Attorney General Holder‘s Justice Department arguing a lot of things including something called, “the state‘s secrets privilege.” The executive branch‘s standard go-to move to protect classified information. Quoting from page 12 of the government‘s motion to dismiss, “All of plaintiffs‘ claims in this case would require or risk the disclosure of information properly protected by the Director of National Intelligence‘s assertion of the state secrets privilege.”

As we mentioned, standard stuff, but the real doozy, the Obama administration seeking to expand its authority, arguing that under something else called “sovereign immunity,” the government can only be sued if the wiretaps involved willful disclosure. Page five, “A willful violation in Section 223(c)(1) refers to the willful disclosure of intelligence information by government agents and such disclosures by the government are the only actions that create liability against the United States.”

In other words, unless the government publicly releases any information that it has gathered by spying on you, you cannot sue it. It gets better, and by better I mean worse. The Obama administration wants you to believe that it does not matter if the program is no longer operative, arguing that the same standards should apply for the first Bush Terrorist Surveillance Program, the TSP. Page 15, “Attempting to demonstrate that the TSP was not the content dragnet the plaintiffs allege, or that the NSA has not otherwise engaged in the alleged content dragnet, would require the disclosure of highly classified NSA intelligence sources and methods about the TSP and other NSA activities.”

Even confirming or denying already publicly confirmed facts, like the compliance of AT&T and other telecom giants, right down to the numbers of some of the rooms in which the information-mining machinery was contained. That is apparently out of bounds. Page 16, “The DNI again has demonstrated the disclosure of whether the NSA has an intelligence relationship with a private—a particular company would cause exceptional harm to national security.”

The following is from the “Meditation & Neuroscience” thread at the IPS pod at Gaia:

The underlying anatomical correlates of long-term meditation: larger hippocampal and frontal volumes of gray matter.

Neuroimage. 2009 Apr 15;45(3):672-8: Luders E, Toga AW, Lepore N, Gaser C. Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, Department of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90095-7334, USA.

Although the systematic study of meditation is still in its infancy, research has provided evidence for meditation-induced improvements in psychological and physiological well-being. Moreover, meditation practice has been shown not only to benefit higher-order cognitive functions but also to alter brain activity. Nevertheless, little is known about possible links to brain structure. Using high-resolution MRI data of 44 subjects, we set out to examine the underlying anatomical correlates of long-term meditation with different regional specificity (i.e., global, regional, and local). For this purpose, we applied voxel-based morphometry in association with a recently validated automated parcellation approach. We detected significantly larger gray matter volumes in meditators in the right orbito-frontal cortex (as well as in the right thalamus and left inferior temporal gyrus when co-varying for age and/or lowering applied statistical thresholds). In addition, meditators showed significantly larger volumes of the right hippocampus. Both orbito-frontal and hippocampal regions have been implicated in emotional regulation and response control. Thus, larger volumes in these regions might account for meditators’ singular abilities and habits to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability, and engage in mindful behavior. We further suggest that these regional alterations in brain structures constitute part of the underlying neurological correlate of long-term meditation independent of a specific style and practice. Future longitudinal analyses are necessary to establish the presence and direction of a causal link between meditation practice and brain anatomy.
______

Long-term meditation is associated with increased gray matter density in the brain stem.

Neuroreport. 2009 Jan 28;20(2):170-4: Vestergaard-Poulsen P, van Beek M, Skewes J, Bjarkam CR, Stubberup M, Bertelsen J, Roepstorff A. Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark. peterv@pet.auh.dk

Extensive practice involving sustained attention can lead to changes in brain structure. Here, we report evidence of structural differences in the lower brainstem of participants engaged in the long-term practice of meditation. Using magnetic resonance imaging, we observed higher gray matter density in lower brain stem regions of experienced meditators compared with age-matched nonmeditators. Our findings show that long-term practitioners of meditation have structural differences in brainstem regions concerned with cardiorespiratory control. This could account for some of the cardiorespiratory parasympathetic effects and traits, as well as the cognitive, emotional, and immunoreactive impact reported in several studies of different meditation practices.
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“Most of the neurological phenomena associated with religious experience involve some form of over-activation of the limbic system, and corresponding intensified experiences. Conversely, Alzheimer’s disease is associated with a deteriorization of the limbic system and those afflicted tend to lose interest in religion, even those who have exhibited a lifelong interest”

Skeptical Inquirer, 2006 Sep/Oct (Vol 30:Issue 5), p35-38. M. Spinella is an associate professor of psychology at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, USA. O. Wain is a graduate student in biomedical sciences at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, USA
________

The second study above makes a direct reference to the brainstem. All of the brain structures in the first study relate to the limbic system. Here’s an intro to this system from about.com:

The limbic system is a set of evolutionarily primitive brain structures located on top of the brainstem and buried under the cortex. Limbic system structures are involved in many of our emotions and motivations, particularly those that are related to survival. Such emotions include fear, anger, and emotions related to sexual behavior. The limbic system is also involved in feelings of pleasure that are related to our survival, such as those experienced from eating and sex.

Certain structures of the limbic system are involved in memory as well. Two large limbic system structures, the amygdala and hippocampus play important roles in memory. The amygdala is responsible for determining what memories are stored and where the memories are stored in the brain. It is thought that this determination is based on how huge an emotional response an event invokes. The hippocampus sends memories out to the appropriate part of the cerebral hemisphere for long-term storage and retrieves them when necessary. Damage to this area of the brain may result in an inability to form new memories.

Part of the forebrain known as the diencephalon is also included in the limbic system. The diencephalon is located beneath the cerebral hemispheres and contains the thalamus and hypothalamus. The thalamus is involved in sensory perception and regulation of motor functions (i.e., movement). It connects areas of the cerebral cortex that are involved in sensory perception and movement with other parts of the brain and spinal cord that also have a role in sensation and movement. The hypothalamus is a very small but important component of the diencephalon. It plays a major role in regulating hormones, the pituitary gland, body temperature, the adrenal glands, and many other vital activities.
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Here’s more info on it from wikipedia:

The limbic system is embryologically older than other parts of the brain. It developed to manage ‘fight’ or ‘flight’ chemicals and is an evolutionary necessity for reptiles as well as humans.

The limbic system (or Paleomammalian brain) is a set of brain structures including the hippocampus, amygdala, anterior thalamic nuclei, and limbic cortex, which support a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, long term memory, and olfaction.

The limbic system includes many structures in the cerebral cortex and sub-cortex of the brain.

The following structures are, or have been considered to be, part of the limbic system:

* Amygdala: Involved in signaling the cortex of motivationally significant stimuli such as those related to reward and fear in addition to social functions such as mating.
* Hippocampus: Required for the formation of long-term memories and implicated in maintenance of cognitive maps for navigation.
* Parahippocampal gyrus:Plays a role in the formation of spatial memory
* Cingulate gyrus: Autonomic functions regulating heart rate, blood pressure and cognitive and attentional processing
* Fornix: carries signals from the hippocampus to the mammillary bodies and septal nuclei.
* Hypothalamus: Regulates the autonomic nervous system via hormone production and release. Affects and regulates blood pressure, heart rate, hunger, thirst, sexual arousal, and the sleep/wake cycle
* Thalamus: The “relay station” to the cerebral cortex

In addition, these structures are sometimes also considered to be part of the limbic system:

* Mammillary body: Important for the formation of memory
* Pituitary gland: secretes hormones regulating homeostasis
* Dentate gyrus: thought to contribute to new memories and to regulate happiness.
* Entorhinal cortex and piriform cortex: Receive smell input in the olfactory system.
* Fornicate gyrus: Region encompassing the cingulate, hippocampus, and parahippocampal gyrus
* Olfactory bulb: Olfactory sensory input
* Nucleus accumbens: Involved in reward, pleasure, and addiction
* Orbitofrontal cortex: Required for decision making

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We’ve seen (e.g, in the “status of states 2” thread) how in the process of meditation one moves from beta to alpha waves, then to theta and finally to delta. Here’s what the wikipedia entries say on the waves and related brain structures:

The theta rhythm is an oscillatory EEG pattern that can be observed in the hippocampus and other brain structures in numerous species of mammals including rodents, rabbits, dogs, cats, bats, and marsupials—theta rhythmicity is most easily observed in the hippocampal formation, but can also be detected in numerous other brain structures, including the medial and lateral septum, entorhinal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, prefrontal cortex, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, several nuclei of the hypothalamus and thalamus, and parts of the brainstem reticular formation.

A delta wave is a high amplitude brain wave with a frequency of 1–4 Hertz which can be recorded with an electroencephalogram[1] (EEG) and is usually associated with slow-wave sleep. Delta wave activity occurs most frequently during stage 4 slow-wave sleep (SWS) accounting for 50% or more of the EEG record during this stage. These waves are created by the thalamus in coordination with the Reticular Afferent System. (RAS) [2]

I started a thread on this topic at the Gaia Pod Integral Postmetaphysical Spirituality. I’m pasting from that thread:

I will introduce the topic with an excerpt from Thomas Carlson taking about Jean-Luc Marion because Carlson considers this theology to be both postmetaphysical and as a return of sorts to the magico-mythical writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. He also makes the distinctions made in the previous thread, in that the sacred must use a different language, a different methodology than that of the logos. The logos can only give us the idol whereas the mythos gives us the icon.

Disclaimer: I am not a Marionite but rather offer this as food for thought and discussion.

From “Postmetaphysical Theology” (in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology edited by Kevin Vanhoozer, Cambridge UP, 2003):

In his critique of metaphysics as “ontotheology,” Marion is indebted primarily to Martin Heidegger, and in an eventual critique of Heidegger himself, Marion will draw on…Emmanuel Livinas, but Marion’s core theological vision is shaped most decisively by the “divine-names” theology and “mystical” theology found in the last fifth- or early sixth-century writings of Dionysius the Areopagite (or the “Pseudo-Dionysius”). In the Dionysian appeal to an inconceivable and ineffable “Good beyond Being,” Marion locates an extra-metaphysical “god without Being.” The “without” in this theology…does not indicate that God is not or does not exist, but rather that any divine existence or nonexistence that human though might ever imagine falls infinitely short of the divine generosity that stands at the heart of revelation (58).

Marion argues—against metaphysics—that the real obstacle within the human relation to God is not weakness of understanding but arrogance of will; we move toward God not in conceiving him more clearly but in loving him more fully—through the religious and liturgical life that metaphysical concepts do not suffice to sustain or even to provoke (61).

The most important source of Marion’s theological understanding of language here is the divine-names…and mystical theology of Dionysius…. The move from a predictive to a hymnic form of language is a bottom…a move in the direction of prayer…that is, a form of language that surpasses the categorical and metaphysical alternative between affirmation and negation, a language that signals the “third way” of a “de-nomination” that, by naming and un-naming at once, points beyond both naming and un-naming….a third mode of theological language articulated through Dionysius’ use of “hyper” terms (hyperousious, hyperagathos, etc.)…. Beyond both every affirmation and every negation and hence neither darkness nor light, neither error nor truth, the Dionysian God would exceed the metaphysical choice between presence and absence and thereby disrupt any straightforward “metaphysics of presence” (67 - 8).

The degree to which Marion succeeds in articulating a “postmetaphysical” or “extrametaphysical” philosophy depends directly on the degree to which the Dionysian model of language that he develops does actually yield such a theology of absence….the most notable challenge to Marion has been raised by Jacques Derrida.

Derrida’s central suspicion regarding the negative or “apophatic” language of Dionysian theology is that such language, through the use of the very “hyper” terms that Marion emphasizes, remains within the thought of Being or essence, for such language intends, precisely, to indicate truly, without idolatry, the manner is which God actually is—even if somehow beyond or above being as we might conceive it…. If Dionysian language can seem to yield a philosophy of absence, that absence is in fact a function of the superabundant presence of the God whose being exceeds that of all finite beings. Following the classic Neoplatonic distinction, Dionysian negation with regard to the divine is a negation not according to lack or absence, but according to an excess of presence. Negation aims to save God’s presence, not to deny it, or place it in undecidability…it gives up finite language about God only in order to save God’s infinite presence (69 – 70).
____

Derrida’s critique is how I was responding to the first quoted excerpt. Marion seems to avoid one aspect of metaphysics, i.e., a Cartesian dualism of opposites in language. But he does so by positing a direct apprehension of God through a methodology of praise and liturgy. This is similar, if not identical (homeomorphic equivalence?), to Gorampa’s direct nondual realization (unitary fusion) beyond language. Both, however, are guilty of another aspect of the myth of the given, that of a supposed infinite that “exceeds that of all finite beings.”

Compare this to how Merleau-Ponty used the term “hyper” in his hyper-dialectic and hyper-reflection. It is reminiscent of a previous discussion on the difference between formal and postformal dialectics. From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on him:

For Merleau-Ponty then, lived experience may partake in contradiction on account of a residue of this difference between the act of speaking and what is spoken of, as well as a correlative divergence between a latent content and a manifest content. This divergence that he theorizes hints at a predicament that seems closely related to what Jacques Derrida has more recently insisted upon in his strategy of deconstruction, in that both philosophers point towards the inevitability of a philosophical expression containing contrary elements within it. While Derrida has also implicitly entertained the possibility that the law of non-contradiction might be false, in suggesting that their may instead be a law of impurity or “a principle of contamination”, it is important to ascertain that their are some surprising similarities between Merleau-Ponty and Derrida’s descriptions of the necessarily double nature of a philosophy that can never recapture the pre-reflective faith, or coincide with itself in a moment of self-presence.

Of course, unlike Derrida, Merleau-Ponty’s critique of reflection, and his subsequent call for a hyper-reflection, quite obviously locates itself primarily in an analysis of the body where he discerns a necessary and constitutive divergence within the embodied situation. As we have seen, this ecart is variously described as the difference between the sentient and the sensible, the tangible and the touched, and for Merleau-Ponty, it also applies to several other divergences, including one between the perceptual faith and its articulation (VI 87).

According to Merleau-Ponty, there is hence a fundamental divergence within the body, but just as this gap ensures the impossibility of any thorough and all-encompassing self-perception, it is also that which allows perception, and indeed subjectivity, to be possible at all. It is important to ascertain that if our embodied divergence inaugurates our capacity for perception (as well as language and reflection), this same divergence also ensures that there are certain limits upon this capacity. Just as we cannot reflexively attain to a self-identity with the hand that we are touching, for Merleau-Ponty the philosophy of reflection cannot entirely overcome similar divergences (VI 38).

In his critique of Hegel, Sartre and others, Merleau-Ponty insists that “reflection recuperates everything except itself as an effort of recuperation, it clarifies everything except its own role” (VI 33). There is a temporal divergence that precludes the attempted recovery of meaning via reflection from coinciding with that which it attempts to demarcate. The task of hyper-reflection then, is to ensure that reflection is always aware of its own finitude. It is hence somewhat removed from philosophical reflection itself, and resides in what several theorists have referred to as the non-space of philosophy. The proximity of such sentiments to Derrida has been widely recognized (and also occasionally contested), but what is irrefutable is that Merleau-Ponty is concerned with the tendency of the metaphysical tradition to exalt self-presence, as well as the rationalism that this usually entails. While traditional reflective thought is inevitable and indeed indispensable, the idea of philosophy being able to mirror or transcend nature is disparaged (VI 99). Philosophy and other reflective pursuits cannot recuperate the pre-reflective faith or rediscover some pure immediacy (VI 35, 99).

“What we propose here, and oppose to the search for the essence, is not the return to the immediate, the coincidence, the effective fusion with the existent, the search for an original integrity, for a secret lost and to be rediscovered, which would nullify our questions and even reprehend language. If coincidence is lost, this is no accident; if Being is hidden, this is itself a characteristic of Being and no disclosure will make us comprehend it” (VI 121-2).

Of course, this is a rather negative characterization of what hyper-reflection involves, and it is worth digressing to consider more precisely what it is that Merleau-Ponty wants his philosophy to achieve. According to him:

“What we call hyper-dialectic is a thought that, on the contrary, is capable of reaching truth because it envisages without restriction the plurality of the relationships and what has been called ambiguity. The bad dialectic is that which thinks it recomposes being by a thetic thought, by an assemblage of statements, by thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; the good dialectic is that which is conscious of the fact that every thesis is an idealization, that Being is not made up of idealizations or of things said… but of bound wholes where signification never is except in tendency” (VI 94).

While this passage reaffirms the enduring role of ambiguity in his philosophy, Merleau-Ponty’s hyper-dialectic is also described as acknowledging that not only is every thesis an idealisation, but that Being cannot be ascertained through such idealisations. He also goes on to suggest that such a dialectical thought:

“Abounds in the sensible world, but on condition that the sensible world has been divested of all that the ontologies have added to it. One of the tasks of the dialectic, as a situational thought, a thought in contact with being, is to shake off the false evidences, to denounce the significations cut off from the experience of being, emptied - and to criticize itself in the measure that it itself becomes one of them” (VI 92).

Merleau-Ponty’s hyper-dialectic is envisaged as being a situational thought that must criticize all thinking that ignores the conditional nature of idealizations, and it must also maintain a vigilance to ensure that it does not itself become one of them. This is why Merleau-Ponty describes his project as propounding an ‘indirect’ ontology, rather than a direct ontology (VI 179). Undoubtedly these themes are deserving of more prolonged attention, but there seems to be a significant and underestimated connection between what Merleau-Ponty’s hyper-reflection seeks to achieve, and what Derrida’s deconstructive methodology has more recently attempted.
____

Much like the two truths debate between Gorampa and Tsongkhapa, we see a similar trend in Marion/Dionysius v Derrida/Merleau-Ponty.* Like G Marion sees language itself as the problem, along with conceptualiazation, and to get past their duality one must fuse with an ultimate “beyond” understanding. However, like T D&M see concept-language-reflection as being of the same kind as bodily perception, all the way up and down, and this “split” of presence/absence is there from the beginning. With that as a starting point even so-called base, animal, “direct” perception is not “pure immedicay” but partakes of the ambiguous uncertainlty that grounds us in the conditional. In other words, emptiness is empty and dependently arisen, like everything else.

* Now there’s tag-team wrestling match I’d like to see.

We are discussing the above in the Integral Postmetaphysical Spirituality pod at Gaia. Below are some selected excerpts:

Balder said:

Or… States and The Absolute

In Wilber’s model of evolutionary enlightenment, particularly the W-C Lattice, I have gotten the impression that the “states” component is intended to allow for the preservation of the “timeless” (formless, absolute) aspect of enlightenment, even while also incorporating the evolutionary, developmental dimensions of realization via the inclusion of relative stages.

Is this your impression as well?

If so, I have a question – or the beginnings of a couple questions.

Wilber refers to states as fluid but ever-present (or ever-accessible, at least to human beings), which reinforces the association of states with the “timeless” dimension of being. But present understanding of states (see Charles Tart) indicates that states are not inherently unitary phenomena, but rather are highly complex constructions. I believe there is a difference between certain affective or cognitive states, such as a depressive or altered state, and the so-called “natural states,” but all states appear to consist of multiple interacting elements. (The fluidity of states, of course, is suggestive of this as well.)

If states are best seen as complex, dynamic (psychoneurophysiological) patterns, rather than pre-given, unitary constants, in what way, if any, can they “stand in” for the absolute / timeless dimension of enlightenment? They are arguably as “constructed” and “emergent” (relative) as structure-stages.

Many identified states, including altered states, appear to include cogntive and affective components (for instance) as well as neurophysiological ones. This suggests that the “line” between states and structures is not hard and fast – so, it’s not simply a matter of having “something” independent called a state, which then gets interpreted conceptually. Rather, the “state” itself seems to include affectivity and conceptuality as constituent aspects of its arising (as a dynamic, emergent pattern). I am sure Wilber recognizes this, but it does seem to me that a “states and stages” model might tempt us to look at states as separate “things” that arise and then “get interpreted” through a particular conceptual framework, and this seems problematic to me.

What do you think?

theurj said:

I say Alleluia brother Balder that you’ve finally come around! Wilber says in IS that even the nondual “state” in the lattice is interpreted and contextual, even so-called timeless and absolute experiences like nirvana, satori, primordial awareness etc. But as you note it is then problematic to say that enlightenment is the union of absolute and relative, and that states give us the absolute. So it’s all in how we contextualize and interpret the absolute, the timeless and transcendence.

One way to do this is to suggest that the eternal is not timeless but is ever-present, that the present moment, and experiences of such, are “timeless” in that they appear outside of time. In such a state experience we are present to our feelings, thoughts, etc. without attachment, just watching them go by. And watching the watcher. Of course we are familiar with this as vipassana meditation. And perhaps after such watching all such distinctions cease, where the watcher and the watched merge in a unitary state, the nondual. But as you noted, this too is a temporary state, and its contextual interpretation will in fact determine how we experience it as a state.

Not only that, it requires a recontextualization of the very idea of enlightenment. As you noted in the “end of enlightenment” thread such a notion, if it includes some given, timeless, absolute ground or spirit or whatever then it’s stuck in more traditional interpretations. And Wilber’s definition of enlightenment, although he gets the relative side right, is still interpreting the so-called absolute side via states in traditional terms that are not longer adequate to our task. Hence I’ve find the more “embodied” contextualizations more adequate, like Epstein, Mead, Caputo, Derrida, the CogSciPragos, Garfield etc. And forming an IMP with that base seems much more postmetaphysical than accepting traditional metaphysical notions of state experiences at face value.

Wilber seems to get this in his centaur level, body-mind integration. But his continuing traditional spiritual interpretation of states infects his so-called higher-than-centaur structural levels. That’s why I prefer the Model of Hierarchical Complexity’s postformal levels of systemic, metasystemic, paradigmatic and cross-paradigmatic. It is devoid of such traditional metaphysical interpretations, is empirically based, and is itself a cross-paradigmatic interpretation. It might be interesting to see how the MHC crowd views states. I have a good idea from my conversations with Sara Ross and I’ve encouraged her to write a paper on it, which she keeps threatening to do if she can find the time. I look forward to that paper.

Balder said:

LOL. Well, yes, I’ve definitely been influenced in my perspectives by my discussions with you and others here. But my “turn around” may not be as big as you imagine. I think we’ve been talking past each other for awhile now, and I’ve been reflecting recently on how to try to remedy that. I actually raised this issue about the status of states in discussions on the Multiplex when Integral Spirituality first came out, but the conversation didn’t go anywhere, as I remember.

In our discussions here on IPS, I believe it was a year or so ago on the meditation thread when I first tried to articulate my current understanding of a post-metaphysical, constructive, tetra-enactive form of Buddhism. As I recall (I’d need to look for the post), I argued that, while we might reject the metaphysical dimensions of Buddhist belief, we could still see it as a transformative vehicle capable of helping practitioners construct or enact a new way of being. My point was that both the contemplative practices and the various philosophical/deconstructive trainings have the potential to effect positive, creative changes in understanding and awareness (not separable from “translation,” but neither “merely” translation). Carving a new way of knowing/being out of the malleable fabric of our being, rather than “discovering” some pre-existing (metaphysical) spiritual ground.

Regarding this thread, while I think it’s fair to describe certain dimensions of Buddhist (spiritual) practice as “state training,” I think we both recognize problems (post-metaphysically) with identifying states with the “absolute” stream of realization. Like you, I also see value in certain modern embodied contextualizations of spiritual practice, and I’ve appreciated the many different excerpts you’ve posted here. I think there are dimensions of human embodiment or potential that perhaps are still not as clearly recognized in these modern, non-contemplative traditions, but there are also clearly important insights and models that these modern (postmodern, cognitive-scientific) traditions make available that allow us, as you point out, to create a more adequate post-metaphysical recontextualization of ancient spiritual practices.

theurj said:

Here are some excerpts from New Developments in Consciousness Research by Vincent Fallio (Nova, 2007). For me it indicates that so-called “spiritual” states of consciousness probably arise in very early levels of consciousness and associated brain structures. Hence there is a very real sense in which “primordial” awareness is ancient, in that it arises from these early brain structures. But it is not timeless or absolute; it is grounded in our psychoneurophysiology.

The excerpts:

…we think it appropriate to consider that consciousness is not something unitary but that it has several levels of complexity, and that these levels have been forming ontogenically and philogenetically.

On a lower level can be found the state of alertness or of being conscious, which refers to a basic level of consciousness or matrix as a generalized state in which the system is receptive to information. This aspect of consciousness is clearly related to the concept of tonic attention, and is also related to neural mechanisms in the stimulatory reticular system, the thalamus, the limbic system, basal ganglia, and the prefrontal cortex.

As well as this matrix attention, a vectorial function is necessary that must coincide with the subsequent attention concept of Posner and Peterson. Its main purpose would be the location of stimuli, that is to say being selective in order to capture priority information. This system would depend on the integration of right rear parietal cortex areas, the lateral pulvinar, and the upper culliculus.

Once the system is activated it is ready to be assaulted by a multitude of stimuli that will give rise to a conscious experience. In our opinion both the models of Crick, Llinas, or Edelman and Tononi satisfy this level of analysis, as although they differ in details they agree on the need for a pattern of synchronized brain activity that gives rise to the said conscious experience. As for its neuroanatomical substrate, this will depend on the thalamocortical networks.

At a fourth level of complexity we find self-awareness, that capacity of perceiving ourselves in objective terms at the same time as we maintain a sense of subjectivity. In a hierarchical organization of mental function this self-awareness if found in the vertex of the pyramid, as it controls mental activity, represents current experiences in relation to previous ones, uses knowledge to resolve novel situations, and guides us in the making of decisions for the future. In this sense self-consciousness overlaps with the concept of executive functions.

The critical neural system for self-awareness is found in the prefrontal cortex…. Other areas that are involved are…temporal lobes (especially in noetic consciousness) and the amygdala (related to the emotional valency of the conscious experience and the memory) (81 – 83).

theurj said:

Here’s more on “tonic attention” from Fallio’s book. Sound familiar?

…a basic level of consciousness as a generalized state in which the system is receptive to information. In this sense awareness could be related to a tonic or basic attention; it is therefore important to realize that this type of consciousness should be understood as a “condition for” and not so much as a function or cognitive process. As a result of this it can be affirmed that this notion of consciousness, this state of being aware, is a state that does not contain information (68).

kelamuni said:

“Absoluteness” and “timelessness” are functions of the “logic” of a particular metaphysic, which in turn is the function of the demands of a particular soteriology, namely, the soteriology of moksha, nirvana, kaivalya.

In “The Ultimate State of Consciousness,” Ken says that the “ultimate state” is not a state, not an experience. This idea can be culled from several traditions; in that particular article Ken quotes Eckhart.

The analysis given in the Potthapada Sutta and Gaudapada Karika is that no “state” of the self can be ultimate since all states “come and go.” And that which “comes and goes” is anitya, impermanent, which is the mark of samsara, the opposite of release, which by definition must be permanent.

My take is that someone has a some kind of “experience,” say of “timelessness” or “spacelessness,” due to the action of some naturally occuring psychotropic compound (like eg., 5 meo-dmt, the same compound responsible for so called “near death experiences”) which is released by some artificial means like yogic meditation, and then a kind of confabulation occurs wherein the experience is simultaneously interpreted-as and constructed-as an experience of “timelessness,” due in part to the inculcation of a particular soteriological “teaching.”

To me the interesting question is: why “timelessness?” What’s so special about that? Is it as if we accidently experience timelessness, and then conclude we are free because that is our immortal nature? No; that would be backwards. Rather, we seek it out because we don’t want our consciousness to cease to exist. In other words, we go looking for timelessness. We then find some “experience” that indicates for us that it has this “timeless” quality — that “confirms” our wishes, really — and this then comforts us.

Thus, the procedure is exactly the opposite of how the mystical empiricists would have it. And there is every indication that this is precisely what the Upanishads, the source of this way of thinking, are up to: defining moksha in a certain manner, and then finding some condition that “fulfills” it. Time and again, in all the classic works, various conditions are rejected specifically because they do not meet the requirements of the definition, of the “logic” of release. This is not empiricism; it’s a-priorism in its most pure form.

Sara said:

Edward, er, theurj, lured me to visit this thread. I’m glad. Balder, I think you’re highlighting key questions. I am a developmentalist, in the dynamic tradition of “genetic epistemology,” “constructivism” or “dynamic structuralism” and other labels that recognize the nonlinear, dynamical nature of humans (and other living systems) especially our increases in complexity if/when/as we develop in doing anything. These schools of thought recognize that humans construct their reality, and that there are different levels of complexity in doing so, with different results.

Relevant to mention right now, is that one thing I do is analyze the construction of terms we use, such as “states,” “stages,” “enlightenment,” as well as the active experiences we label with such terms. This thread indicates an almost “anything goes” sort of definition of states, and a perhaps unhelpful understanding of stages. Your post, however, gets appreciatively close to explaining how/why they are not very different at all, but rather labels with which people have come to associate different things. How different are they?

States and stages are two terms that originated from thinking at the Formal Operations order of complexity. Formal opns. thinking is basic logic, e.g., “if…then…” High school stuff, if we went to a decent high school. Also like Cartesian reasoning, e.g., Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” (a point I’ll return to below in re meditation). In talking about this stuff, I’m using the math-based general theory called Model of Hierarchical Complexity here, Commons et al. It accounts for and measures all tasks of any complexity, for any entity that can act (humans, animals, groups, religions/belief systems, societies, etc.). They are very simplistic terms – static, we might note – which do not have any capacity to capture or describe, much less account for, the dynamics they are burdened by us to convey.

Terms constructed by Formal thinking are the result of putting together two or more abstract assertions that have no logic, but literally just assert something. For example, “state” would have arisen in English through an accumulation of ways such as this. “We are usually happy. But right now we are worried.” (state of worry) “Usually, I am lazy. But right now, I am excited and have lots of energy.” (state of excitement, state of high energy) The term “state” functions to “earmark” an identifable condition that contrasts with another condition. It just serves to set one condition apart from another by labeling it. Well, any describable condition is different from all others, so why put “states” on a pedestal? A state is hardly a big deal. Unless we project all sorts of extra meaning on it. Which I venture to say is often the case when talking about spiritual things. But the more people talk about states in such everyday lived experience terms as here, the more obvious it becomes it is a rather useless term to emphasize. In summary, the term “state” is a simple formal operations construct used to indicate that the condition it’s associated with contrasts with other conditions in some way.

Your post, though, Balder, gets at the dynamics that support a stance
that the terms do us little good if we want to understand our own
behavior and experiences and how we construct both. (and perhaps
others’ posts do too, I skimmed the whole thread but I know I don’t
recall all I saw - apologies).

That might mean attention should go to specific states and analyze what’s happening in them. For example, how about the state of meditation, the ‘witnessing’ kind where the person watches their thoughts go by? It, too, is a formal operations activity, not “transcendent” at all unless someone wants to project “transcendence” on it (and we’d need to unpack what that word is supposed to mean). Let me explain. Back to Descartes. Formal operations is the first order of complexity (I am avoiding “stage” because until I would give the technical/theoretical meaning of it, best to use other terms) at which persons can reflect on their thought at all. Piaget called it “reflective abstraction.” Watching our thoughts go by in a certain form of meditation is not structurally different than realizing during the day that we are thinking to ourselves. Either way, we can observe our thoughts. We “dress” meditation with spiritual overtones, but forgive me for asking, why, pray tell, do we?

I would like to draw a parallel of that with notions of spiritual states, too. What are we actually “doing in them” - as infinitas (?) said below everything is doing - that makes them different, besides what narratives we tell ourselves about their meaning?

I guess I risk trying to pack too many points into one post. I’ll close for now, try to continue later and engage any push-back. My main objective was to lay some groundwork that I think supports some important insights showing up here.

These kinds of conversations too often don’t get beyond a certain point - maybe this one can prove “further” is possible?

Sara said:

Since all human activity is “rational” for the one doing it (even infants’ versions of motor skills and cognitive action), I’m not going to tango with the pre-/post-rational framing, but I offer another angle. The lowest order of complexity (zero) is assigned to machines, which have only two action-options: “on” or “off.” Humans of any age with sight have capacity for visual-based symbolic representations (e.g., visual imagery), we know the reptilian brain processes basic systemic responses we call emotional reactions, and of course we know once language is acquired, we have words to think with.

So, if I’m in the “watching thoughts and objects” meditative mode, per above, I’m functioning with formal operations’ ability to reflect on thought. My physiological system is just humming along in “on” position, and my brain (neurological) is active, though will gradually slow to alpha wave, a nice and relaxed neurophysiological condition. When my thoughts and visuals cease, my neurological activity goes not “off” but to like an idling phase and my overt mental actions slide down the orders of complexity to doing nothing - order zero. Total inner silence, except for the awareness that there’s inner silence, nothing going on. While there is nothing going on, zero complexity. During or after (depending on the practice) formal operational reflection on the absence of thought, visuals, etc., along with enjoying the after-effects. In this analysis, rather than transcending (I cannot find anything that’s transcended - can anyone help me out here?) it is gradually turning off cognitive operations till maybe we hit zero complexity (with caveat repeated: if we are reflecting on the silence/void, we are performing formal operations cognitively and are still active, and something would likely be showing up on fMRI brain imaging).

The real-time experience is relaxing - as Tom points out, the entire system is relaxed. The after-effects are pleasant. So, might we conclude that *the subjective meaning* we later assign to that state of relaxation could be whatever we individually want it to be? (this reminds me of the very old song, “you say po-tah-to, I say po-ta-to”). Could be relaxing, spiritual, healthy, any number of classifications are possible, it seems to me.

Which leads me to ask, what is “spiritual” anyway? In your case, it sounds like it can be a sense of well-being leading one to feel more open to others, feeling good about oneself, relaxed and hopeful. Atheists and agnostics have those feelings, too. What makes “spiritual” distinct?

To your last question, I would appreciate hearing more explanation to understand how those after-effects indicate less ego-centered and more world-centered - I don’t hear anything about the world or others, but rather about your personal feelings. Can you say a bit more?

theurj said:

Even John Reynolds, Tibetan Buddhist scholar and practitioner, outlines rigpa as a base consciousness at level zero, albeit clothed in traditional terms. He says in “Dzogchen and Meditation”:

We may ask, what lies below or beyond this Level 1? That is Level 0 or what is called in Buddhist terminology Shunyata. This term literally means “emptiness”. But this does not mean just nothingness or mere absence. Rather, it means the pure potentiality for all possible manifestations. This level may be compared to an empty mirror that has the capacity to reflect whatever is set before it. Whereas the other levels, primary and above, are referred to as mind (sems), this level is referred to as the Nature of Mind (sems-nyid). The distinction between mind and the Nature of Mind are like the reflections and the mirror. This Nature of Mind has the capacity to be aware of whatever may arise or manifest. This capacity is called Rigpa or intrinsic awareness. Whereas Sutra meditation and Abhidharma psychology is concerned with the phenomenology of consciousness (Levels 1-4), Level 0 is accessed directly through Dzogchen practice.

Level 1 is the primary level of immediate experience in the present moment and the stream of consciousness. This is the pure phenomena of consciousness before judgment and concept comes into play. This is the moment of pure awareness or primary cognition (jnana, ye-shes) before the mind (manas, yid) comes into operation with its judgments and concepts. In a sense, we could say that this pure awareness is beyond the mind, at least in the sense that it occurs before the various mental processes of the mind come into operation. Sensation occurs at this primary level.

Level 2 is the secondary level at which the processes of perceiving, thinking, judging, and conceptualizing come into operation. Language and memory also come into operation here. Collectively these processes are known in Buddhist psychology as Samjna or functional perception. It is this meta-process that organizes sensation into a recognizable perception having an identity and a name. Collectively, the programs that accomplish this are known as Manas or the functional mind. In some ways this Manas may be compared to a computer with its basic operating system and word processing programs..

Level 3 is the tertiary level at which occur ego identification and emotional reactions. Ahamkara or ego identification is the process where we identify ourselves with each sensation, thought, or emotion that arise in consciousness. This false identification is then compounded by Atmagaraha or grasping at this fictitious “I” which does not belong to immediate experience. As a result, certain impulses, thoughts, and emotions arise out of unconsciousness as reactions to the perceptions constructed at the secondary level. These are known as samskaras or unconscious impulses. These impulses include both thoughts and emotions; they basically represent energy emerging from the unconscious. Action may occur at this point impulsively or there may occur a further elaborations in terms of thoughts and emotions.

Level 4 is the quaternary level at which the advanced programs are run, those relating to culture, social and personal interactions, as well as ethical considerations. Here commences the processes that elaborate thoughts, building the original perception into a concept and a thought construction. This is the meta-process of Vikalpa or discursive thought. It is on this plane that our consciousness usually dwells, the plane furthest removed from immediate experience in terms of time and space. When discursive thought is operating, the immediate experience is already long in the past. Therefore, our consciousness is living in the past, not in the present.

kelamuni said:

Thanks for keeping the discussion on track, Ed. I have never seen this kind of analysis before, but it is much like the analysis of the skandhas or the Abhidharmic analysis of pratityasamutpada as a “chain” of 12 “links.”

I can see a kind of paradox developing here. The “levels” that Reynolds gives appear to refer to increasing degrees of complexity and abstraction. So, in this sort of analysis, meditation would have more to do with a kind of regressing back to discovering a primordial awareness as opposed to finding an endpoint in a hierarchical development; “depth” rather than “height.”

We find, I think, a similar paradox in the metaphor of the “subtle.” Wilber used to present the “subtle” as some kind of “higher mind” toward which we are moving in history. And yet the paradigmatic state for the “subtle” is dreaming, which is clearly more akin to the magical or mythical mind. In other words, dreaming is a kind of regression, associated with the subconscious rather than the superconscious. And deep sleep is something even more primitive. Even the term “causal” denotes something primitive or primordial.

The tradition of Advaita itself has the similar sort of problem with “turiya,” the so-called fourth. Turiya is spoken of as a kind of fourth state of consciousness identified with the state of nirvikalpa samadhi by some (following Vidyaranya, 15th century), and with so called “realization” (or “sahaj samadhi” by) others. And yet, the tradition also insists that turiya is not a state. Much like Kant, Shankara and other Advaitins are quite insistent that that which is the trancendental condition for consciousness cannot itself be accessed in experience, any more than you can stand on your own shoulders, even though the transcendental condition of consciousness is immanent in all states as their condition. So, there really is no such thing as the “fourth state,” and all such talk is, in the final analysis, metaphoric.

One other point. Reynolds writes:

“Level 1 is the primary level of immediate experience in the present moment and the stream of consciousness. This is the pure phenomena of consciousness before judgment and concept comes into play. This is the moment of pure awareness or primary cognition (jnana, ye-shes) before the mind (manas, yid) comes into operation with its judgments and concepts.”

This is the analysis of perception that we find common to both Mahayana Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. The idea is that perception has two components: a “pure” indeterminate moment free from conception called “nirvikalpa pratyaksha,” and a second determinate moment called “savikalpa pratyaksha” in which the pure perception is “overlayed” with conception (vikalpa). I think that from the perspective of post-metaphysical thought, the idea that there is any such animal as a “pure” moment in perception is no less than the myth of the given.

theurj said:

For reference also see Balder’s 6/19/09 blog on relating the WC Lattice to the pre/trans fallacy.

Does anyone have a copy of the original essay “The pre/trans fallacy?” I cannot find it but as I recall Wilber shows an inverse relationship between the pre and trans state/stages. It’s something like the lowest infantile oceanic experience is inverse to the highest causal experience, with subconsious experience inverse to the subtle. And we have the rational ego in the middle as a sort of Hermes messenger and coordinator between heaven and earth.

I think Wilber was on to something here, but not in the way he intended. If so-called subtle and causal experiences are less and less hierarchically complex and correspond to more primitive brain structures this makes sense. It is not strictly a return to the lower levels of consciousness because we do this by way and benefit of our more hierchically advanced levels and structures. So with our rational ego (or above?) and complex neocortex as mediator we integrate these lower levels in ways that they were not before, since they arose long before the ego and neocortex. Hence we have much more complex experiences of lower levels/structures in inverse proportion.

theurj said:

So in a sense Wilber is right in that the so-called states appear to “develop” from subtle to causal to nondual, because in the process of unwinding complexity in meditation it does so in the reverse sequence it was wound. The subconscious first, then the cognitve unconscious, then biological nondual interactivity. But as I said above, it’s not a return to these states as they originally were laid down because we do so by way of higher structures and states that can now integrate the lower. Hence the postformal integraton of the subconscious could be termed subtle, etc.

Although the very way we describe such things will influence the experience we have of them, so perhaps a postmetaphysical view might come up with new terms. Oh yeah, that’s what the CogSciPragos, Derrida and Caputo (for example) are doing. Doh!