In the I-I forum from which I quoted PricklesPear, both PP and Balder challenge Wilber’s ideas. Another I-I forum regular got exasperated with them and said something like: “You guys are irrelevant with your philosophical nitpicking. Can’t we just go out and apply Ken’s model and quit wasting time like this?” I find this to be a common refrain in I-I forums. Well, if getting a map right is nitpicking and you’re rather rush out to “apply” it at the wrong address, then what’s the point in that? Ironic indeed, as Ken’s IMP is about getting the address correct.
And is it possible that Ken can get it all right by himself? What if Ken, like everyone and everything else, is ony partially right? Then he’s partially wrong and he’s sending you to the wrong place. Or maybe the right ballpark but the wrong section, let alone seat. What if “it takes a villiage,” so to speak, to create more accurate maps? Yes, you can say that Ken has all those brilliant minds around him providing feedback on his model. Does he? I have seen minimal constructive criticism from them on fundamental issues about his model. But there seems no shortage of the great rush to apply it. If you hurry up and get to the wrong place you’ve wasted your time, not the other way around.
I imagine that different people have different reasons for participating in these forums. Personally, I don’t browse this one, Visser’s site, or any other one of that kind for practical advice. If you want to become “realized”, you must learn how to meditate, and for that you almost certainly have to find a teacher. Though the way the internet is changing the world continues to astonish me, I don’t think you can yet use it to take a “correspondence course”. Most likely, you will have to search for someone in the real world, and have face-to-face encounters.
Some forums, like the Wilber one at Lightmind, can be helpful in that regard, because members there often discuss teachers they’ve met, studied under or even just read about. We’ve done a little of that here (Alan’s discussions of Aurobindo). But for me, at least, we don’t have to do that for this forum to be useful. The way I see it, until you are fully realized (and anyone, including Wilber, who thinks it can happen in a few years is really dreaming), you still have to operate in this world. Which means, most likely, have a job, a family, some friends, and stay aware of important global events. I think the efforts to relate spirituality/higher consciousness to more academic knowledge qualify as important events. Participating in forums like these is a way of exercising the mind, just as there are other exercises for the body and the emotions. It is a mistake to think that one can just meditate. Meditation is unique in that it can, and must, go on simultaneously while all other life activities are going on. So once you’ve started the trip, the question is not, how do I do it? but rather, what kinds of activities are healty and enriching, given that I’m going to be something all along?
Others of you may have different reasons for joining this discussion. It might be interesting to hear them. But I don’t see this forum as having to justify its existence by instructing people on how to search for realization. On the contrary, I would be somewhat concerned that a purely online forum that claimed that it could do this–beyond some fairly general principles–was deluding itself.
As I said before, the internet is really changing our world. There are people in India, for example, who tutor American school children online. Obviously, the whole concept of education is being transformed. It may be that the internet will even change the way the spiritual search is conducted–beyond simply facilitating informational exchanges about particular teachers. Whether it could, whether people should try to adapt it in this manner, might be an interesting topic for discussion. But I don’t believe that is the case yet, and I’m certainly not checking out this place in the hopes that that will come to pass.
Shouldn’t our concern be that his theory is doing what it tries to do in a more integral way than anybody else’s has so far?
I do think that there is a danger to over critiquing elements of a philosophy until they are entirely out of context- but if you do it on a forum like this one, I’m guessing someone will knock you gently back into the ballpark. Of course, I’m a new guy here and others may not agree.
(As to the reason I started coming here- Very, very few people have ever heard of Ken Wilber here in Western Washington State, so its nice to hear anything said about his stuff! Also, watching the rhetorical battles is fun. Good training.)
Matthew,
Really, I lived in Bellingham and knew of quite of few people who knew of Ken’s work and this was in 2001. And our concern should be that what his theory tries to do isn’t quite practiced as I have seen, (I live in Boulder, aka Integral Mecca) so I know of which I speak.
I find a lot fans of Ken’s work unabashed uncritical nature terribly disconcerting. In the ILP starter kit Ken was talking about this map maker idea, and how the first maps made by the Europeans of North America were quite off, making Florida the size of Greenland and such. I think Ken is right that there is a new territory but his map I think is tad off and will become refined over the years, (by others). The fact that so many people want to rush off and start applying AQAL to a map that very well may be of a new territory but it’s accuracy off to be a grand mistake.
Part of what I neglected in my opening remarks is that one has to explore the actual territory of the map to provide feedback on the mapmaking. Pure mapmaking without application of course leads to really bad maps.
But I agree with Ken that the view of the explorer to a great extent determines what they see. So if you have a strong need to prove a certain map then when you go out exploring that’s all you’ll see, despite what’s out there. That’s the missing piece in the injunction-data-validation scheme: those doing the validating only see what they are able to see via their interpretative lens.
So I agree with Ken about that and an IMP is paramount in putting the various interpretations into perspective. But Ken’s own IMP perspective is also subject to the same road rules and needs some validating as well.
I find the whole idea of a map irrelevant to the spiritual journey. Maps are tools of rationality. If, as a rational being, you want to be able to discuss higher levels of consciousness, and their relationship to the world that science knows, then maps are useful. Though I’m a strong critic of Wilber, I give him credit for trying to do this, and in the process opening up the area.
However, if you are really serious about exploring higher levels of consciousness, there are no rational-level maps. Wilber’s system might help convince someone with no previous knowledge/interest in spirituality that there is a higher level of being, and provide a stimulus for trying to explore it. But at that point, Wilber’s role is done. I think he himself would be the very first to say the same thing.
Ok, I’ll bite. Aside from being uncritical of the notion of multiple pespectives co-creating reality, how does the KW crew fail? I don’t know, because I don’t have the time or money to travel to any “Meccas” at this point in my life.
Also, I think that Andy is right on with his assesment of the opening Ken’s work can create- it provided me that stimulus.
Jason, do you know of any groups/people down in the Portland, OR area, or some way to find people there? Any help would be greatly appreciated. : )
Edward said:
But I agree with Ken that the view of the explorer to a great extent determines what they see.
Yes, this is my understanding too.
Andy said:
However, if you are really serious about exploring higher levels of consciousness, there are no rational-level maps.
I completely agree. The rational mind can only know other rational and conceptual things (like can only be known by like), and at best can only provide an impoverished and distorted dsescription of states beyond its understanding
The map analogy is okay, so long as we understand the limitations of analogies. I’ve been away in Sydney where I saw an 8 hour long adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses by the enfant terrible of Oz theatre and opera, Barry Kosky. It reminded me so much of the theories of Antonin Artuad and the theatre of cruelty, and of absurdist and surrealist attacks on all and any maps in the domain of the arts.
Maps are fine when you want to follow directions, but explorers tend to ignore maps and head off into unknown territory…
Explorers even need maps to know the boundaries of the known territory. We can’t get there without going through what is known. And then, having traversed the unknown, it becomes known and the mapping begins anew. And it is in this process, while it is still fresh, wherein the most distortion can occur before several more travel the same ground to compare maps. Then off to the unknown again.
“From the inner mind to the outer limits.†–The Outer Limits
“To boldly go where no one has gone before.†–Star Trek
“I have an existential map; it has ‘you are here’ written all over it.†–Steven Wright
So then the question would seem to be: Is the philosophical knitpicking actually movement off the map into new space, or is it really just knitpicking? Are the people who are prematurely rushing out to apply the map moving out into new space or not?
It seems to me that this site, founded by many who constructively criticize Ken, are those who are travelling the same new territory and have legitimate issues as to the territory and the map. It also seems to me that those wearing only a Wilber-colored lens when pursuing the territory might miss some key features of the terrain. What are those missed features? We’ve been discussing quite a few of them in the various blogs here.
“So then the question would seem to be: Is the philosophical knitpicking actually movement off the map into new space, or is it really just knitpicking? Are the people who are prematurely rushing out to apply the map moving out into new space or not? ”
Some of it is definitely nitpicking, or haggling over details within a generally understood framework. To the extent that new space is involved, I would say it’s new rational/intellectual space.
For really interesting maps of consciousness, one leaves academia and is the field of esotericism. Plotinus, Abhinuvagupta, Suhrawadi, Isaac Luria, Radhasoami, Max Theon, Sri Aurobindo, Jane Roberts/Seth, A.H. Almaas…. One thing I strongly dislike about KW is his claim to reduce these sort of maps to sterile and sanitised intellectual models that he considers would be acceptable to academia. In fact he does nothing of the sort, because he doesn’t really understand what these other mapmalers are describing in the first place, and even if he did he couldn’t fit their maps into his own ones.
This is certainly not to say that KW should be ignored. He can certainly be studied for his map, provided it is understood that this is only his map, and his interpretations of all the other maps are only his interpretations, nothing else. And his own map (by which he interprets everything else, in the manner of systematisers everywhere) is only one among many. I have also shown that KW’s levels can be directly derived from the seven stages of life of Da Free John (Adi Da), and Da himself, like any mapmaker, can only plot the territory as far as he has travelled (which may be further than KW, but not as far some or all of the other names I listed)
This is why I would ideally like to see this group – and the integral movement as a whole – explore other maps than the Wilberian ones.
I say ideally because this may not be practical, or even possible at all. The problem with exploring a map is that one needs to have familiarity with the teaching that provides the map. Some folks here have probably dedicated years of their lives to studying Wilber. I have dedicated years of mine to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and other esoteric teachings. And that is the dilemma; it takes years to truly understand what the mapmaker is saying, and hence to properly understand and apply their map.
I feel you on the years of dedication issue- I’ve been training in classic Japanese martial arts (as a less esoteric example) for about seven years. Styles like mine teach kamai, or static postures, to be learned as a reference to and context for all other movement. (Think classic kung fu poses.) We then begin to learn kata, which are trained in (primarily) two person drills. The kata are dynamic movements that take advantage of physical, physiological, and mental limitations common to human beings- that end with one person in an extremely advantageous position over the other. You can learn the kamai in a few days, a good chunk of the kata in maybe a year, and begin to grasp the interplay between the kamai and individual kata within two to four years. What gets tricky is becoming familiar enough with both that you can apply them meaningfully against an opponent that is actually trying to dominate you. No one can teach you anything beyond the external structure of kata- you have to figure out the guts yourself. And nothing brings home the reality of “two perspectives co-creating reality” like some friendly sparring. (I think most systems of philosophy are actually very similar to this, notably.) But the really interesting thing is that this is just one take on the style, developed by the our soke. The style itself is made up of nine different systems with their own specialties, such as use of and techniqes against armor, or unarmed evasion vs weapons. Each system (a seperate martial art in its own right) has a distinct set of kamai, kata, and overall feel based on the assumptions which that style makes. What we actually train is only bits and portions of what makes up the entirety of these systems, but due to the unchanging nature of being human itself, and the relatively limited number of practical ways to injure a human, many of the exact same patterns do in fact show up from system to system. It seems to me that the important thing to do when training, just as with talking philosophy, is to keep in mind what “your” system is, and how it can best compliment or defeat another distinct system. The “knitpicking” might well be system assumptions bumping heads, not map errors. My point being- (sorry it took so long) is that keeping in mind what specific map you are juxtaposing with the map of topic is both key to personal understanding, and also really interesting to know for everyone else.
Philosophy is a lot about nit picking, which is a good thing when you are infested with nits
The question really is, is it relevant? But to whom? What is relevant criticism to one is nit picking to another.
Personally I think it would be foolish to apply Wilber’s system without it going through the normal peer review process. But here’s the thing. The process of applying it involves educating people about it – and there are a lot of very smart people out there who haven’t heard of it yet. And when they do they’ll raise their own questions and objections. In other words, they’ll do their own nit picking.
Nit picking is part of the process…
Alan, yes, Wilber got his levels from Adi Da, and Adi Da got his from Muktananda, and Muktananda from…I was aware of Muktananda before I was aware of Wilber and could see the familiarity.
I regard all systems in terms of their usefulness – and Wilber makes some useful points – but he is also problematic on a number of fronts.
My view has always been a critical view, I use what I find useful and ignore what I don’t. I don’t have to accept the whole package (which I find incoherent anyway).
Matthew, thank you for your very illuminating post! Yes, martial arts is indeed like learning a spiritual path or esoteric teaching, imho it definitely is a spiritual path, it is a meditation and spiritual discipline of the body. And philosophical debate is mental sparring!
What you say about juxtaposing maps is very interesting too; e.g. I critique KW using primarily an Aurobindonian map, and it seems so far the Aurobindonian poisition has been the only spiritual-esoteric teaching to solidly critique KW (not because it is the only teaching that actually does so, but because people like Rod Hemsell and myself have written on this). I’d like to see representatives of other traditions putting foward their perspective in debate and discussion and mental sparring as well, not just to contrast with the wilberian position, but to contrast with each other.
Ray, Muktananda apparently got a lot of his ideas from Kaula Tantra; here is a facsinating first hand account that is both sympathetic, scholarly, and critical, although personally I believe her analysis could benefit a lot from what Sri Aurobindo says regarding the Intermediate zone