In our latest round of discussion we once again come up against the title of this thread. Ken thinks critics misrepresent him. His critics think Ken misrepresents his sources. The Aurobindians misrepresent Ken misrepresenting his sources. Ray thinks Alan doesn’t get the point of such misrepresentation and Alan thinks it can be avoided in the Self, where both Ken and Alan think we all share the same, common something or other.
So how do we handle this? How do we really understand what another means or intends? Can intersubjectivity really only take place if we are connected to the ultimate Self? If not, what then? And how do we talk to each other, share and build our knowledge in community, if we can’t even agree on what we mean? And of course this relates to Being and Ambiguity and my personal dilemma of late, as well as Desilet on Derrida.
These and other issues are explored in Tom Murray’s article in Integral Review called “Collaborative knowledge building and integral theory: On perspectives, uncertainty and mutual regard.†I herein provide the abstract. I think it might be useful for us to explore this together, as one of the hopes of Open Integral was to form a collaborative knowledge building community around whatever the hell this thing called “integral†is.
Abstract:
Uncertainty in knowing and communicating affect all aspects of modern life. Ubiquitous and inevitable uncertainty, including ambiguity and paradox, is particularly salient and important in knowledge building communities. Because knowledge building communities represent and evolve knowledge explicitly, the causes, effects, and approaches to this “epistemological indeterminacy†can be directly addressed in knowledge building practices. Integral theory’s approach (including “methodological pluralismâ€Â) involves accepting and integrating diverse perspectives in ways that transcend and include them. This approach accentuates the problems of epistemological indeterminacy and highlights the general need to deal creatively with it. This article begins with a cursory analysis of textual dialogs among integral theorists, showing that, while integral theory itself points to leading-edge ways of dealing with epistemological indeterminacy, the knowledge building practices of integral theorists, by and large, exhibit the same limitations as traditional intellectual discourses. Yet, due to its values and core methods, the integral theory community is in a unique position to develop novel and more adequate modes of inquiry and dialog. This text explores how epistemological indeterminacy impacts the activities and products of groups engaged in collaborative knowledge building. Approaching the issue from three perspectivesâ€â€mutual understanding, mutual agreement, and mutual regardâ€â€I show the interdependence of those perspectives and ground them in relation to integral theory’s concerns. This article proposes three phases of developing constructive alternatives drawn from the knowledge building field: awareness of the phenomena, understanding the phenomena, and offering some tools (and some hope) for dealing with it. Though here I focus on the integral theory community (or communities), the conclusions of the article are meant to be applicable to any knowledge building community, and especially value-oriented groups who see themselves fundamentally as working together to benefit humanity.ÂÂ
From the above article:
As part of the post-modern transformation of consciousness and culture, we have progressively come to understand, to our frustration, that knowledge is fuzzy, multi-layered, constructed idiosyncratically by each individual, socially negotiated, affected by emotions and biases, and forever subject to revision.
Unfortunately, though individual integral theorists use methodological pluralism to synthesize diverse theories across disciplines, the dialog within this knowledge building community is often not epistemologically sensitive or aware.
…what would it be like for an integrally-informed community to build knowledge in a deeply integral way?
Assuming you want to methodically collaboratively build knowledge. I do see value in this approach but I find it plodding and part of me wants to run screaming from the room. Lots of well meaning people crossing t’s and dotting i’s trying establish exactly what they mean.
There has to be room for the anarchic, the radical break, the revolutionary, the novel and the wild. There’s a reason that many creative geniuses are loners.
I’ve just been looking into the phenomenon of the Prometheans, those people whose IQ is above 165. There are a couple of organizations – the Triple 9 society and the Prometheus society. One of the problems these folks face is that few people understand them. The Icarus effect is an issue – getting too close to the sun and burning out early.
In other words – can integral make room for chaos and creative anarchy?
I know what you mean Ray about the “systemization” of dialog and nit-picking definitions. I also have this aversion and kind of like the free-form anarchy of the blog. On the other hand a little understanding of some kind of dialog format might be helpful when communication gets too chaotic as to at times lack any core agreement. That’s why I asked what happened to Open Integral, since we’ve all stated our positions time and again with it seems little opening to other perpspectives or creating something novel between us. I don’t have the answer, nor do I think that Tom provides “the” answer either, yet exploring what he had to say might shed some light on the problems I’ve outlined in the original post. At least I hope so.
I cut and pasted Tom’s comment to this thread:
Tom Murray Says: March 21st, 2007 at 6:04 pm e
In an email Edward asked a question about my definition of Integral from my EI paper, so I thought I would post text from that paper here, followed by Edward’s question and my response.
=====
A Definition of Integral
From “Collaborative Knowledge Building and Integral Theory: On Perspectives, Uncertainty, and Mutual Regard†Vol III at IntegralReview.org, pg. 216.
Before discussing the implications of integral theory for knowledge building we need to attempt to define the goals, values, and methods of integral theory. This is needed because, as discussed later, the methods a group uses to share and validate knowledge depend on the group’s goals and values. There is no definitive description of the features or goals of integral or “integrally informed†theories, research, or practice, but the one given here was arrived at through synthesizing a number of sources. I give two descriptions, the first is the integral paradigm or method for knowledge building, called “methodological pluralism†(Wilber, 2005a, 2005b). The second describes the scope and contents of integrally informed theories.
The integral method, or methodological pluralism, is an approach that, “in the presence of apparently incompatible, conflicting, or unrelated data, tries to make a productive, creative synthesis of the divergent elements†with a “gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace.†It takes a “both/and†rather than an “either/or†or “right/wrong†perspective, and assumes that any person or group that has put considerable and sincere effort into discovering knowledge has at least a kernel of truth and deserves consideration. Integral theories are particularly sensitive to multiple perspectives, and claim that we gain an ever-better understanding of a thing through additional (valid) perspectives. It is not simply a relativist or non-rigorous belief that “everyone is [at least partially] right,†but rather an understanding that if there are differing ideas they probably come from different perspectives. Thus the point is more that all (sufficiently informed and sincere) perspectives are important, rather than that every idea is.
One could say that all theorists think that they are seriously and graciously considering all of the available information and ideas, synthesizing them, and only discarding those that are truly invalid, and that the integral paradigm is thus rather vapid. To the contrary, one could also argue that Wilber and other integral theorists have a particularly inclusive attitude. But we can go a step further to try to characterize the type of inclusivity integral theories have by describing their scope and tenor as follows. I propose that being integrally informed entails the following:
1. An acknowledgment and treatment of the “big three†ontological domains: objective (it), subjective (I), and intersubjective (we) (and/or the three cultural value spheres of science, morals, and art; the true, the good, and the beautiful; and/or the dimensions of body/mind/spirit and nature/self/culture).
2. A holarchical approach to problem solving that acknowledges and treats multiple holarchical levels (i.e., that when the central concern is with entities at a particular level, entities at higher and lower levels are acknowledged, if not worked out in detail).
3. A methodological pluralism is used, which, as described above, tries to incorporate material from as many valid perspectives and methods as are available.
4. Developmental and evolutionary processes are incorporated into the explanatory narrative.
5. There is an attempt to discover integrative principles or models that transcend and include the various dimensions, levels, and perspectives described above.
Later, in the section on “Practical Implications,†I will return to this description/definition in suggesting validity criteria for integral theories. Next, I summarize an analysis of the textual dialog among integral theorists, to illustrate some of the causes, effects, and ubiquitous problems of epistemological indeterminacy, and to support my claim that greater attention to epistemological indeterminacy could benefit this, and other, knowledge building communities.
==== Edward Berge’s March 19, 2007 email:
I’ve started a thread at Open Integral on this topic and with your IR article as the reference ground. If you have time or interest please join us. In the meantime I have a question. On p. 217 of the article you list the 5 characteristics of being “integrally informed.†What if those that consider themselves “integral,†like Anderson or the Aurobindians, don’t agree with these 5 characteristics? For example, I don’t’ see Anderson agreeing that it would require developmental or evolutionary processes. It seems you’d have to overcome that EI before taking another step, no?
== My Response:
EI is inherent in all conceptualizations and communication. It is not possible to overcome or eliminate. We can eliminate some of it, i.e. reduce it, but at the end of the day the most important thing is to try to “deal with it†as gracefully as we can. One implication of this is that, especially with models and conceptualizations and interpretations (less so with “data†and what some would call objective observations), claims must be held lightly by both the author and the reader. I think that my 5-part characterization does a pretty good job of covering the general concept of what people think of as “integral,†and/or it highlights the elements of integral that I think are central. But what is “integralâ€Ââ€â€who is to say?? My answer is not so much a flippant “nobody†but that there are many perspectives from which one can approaches any truth claim–many methods for determining validity (I give a list of them on page 241). My 5-part scheme works (I hope) to orient the reader to what follows in the paper. It may also have some limited value outside the paper in articulating a meaning of “integral†that captures what is essential for some others. I am basically a pragmatist about these things. Does the model work for its intended purpose–does it do work in helping generate meaning and understanding in the context it is offered in?
As a more specific answer to the question, when I look around at texts that people have identified with the term “integral†it seems that the nature of change, development, and evolution are recurrent and central themes that characterizing this mish-mosh. More or less. It may be a sign of tentative writing and a weak mind, but I could put “more or less†after almost every statement I make! I imagine, Edward, that you sympathize with this from comments you made in the Anderson paper dialogs: “I’m losing the desire to ‘chase a basis into the ontological depths,’…tired of defending positions.†IE is exasperating! My vision for how discourse can, and eventually will, evolve to account positively for EI (may take centuries) is that there will be a shared understanding that “more or less†applies to all claims and won’t have to be stated, as we try to understand each other’s world views, look for those grains of truth that build upon each other, and offer critique to help each other improve rigor and understandability.
[By the way, as of a paper on IE and Leadership that I wrote for Integral Leadership Review last fall, I’ve more often been using “epistemic indeterminacy,†as my friends complained about the number of syllables in “epistemological indeterminacyâ€Â]
Edward said
“The Aurobindians misrepresent Ken misrepresenting his sources.”
We do? Rod Hemsell (who is a much better scholar than I) cites his sources, and when I was working on my first essay for Integral World I looked up my copy of The Life Divine to confirm it.
As with KW’s (mis)interpretation of Jean Gebser, I can only give the same advice – read the primary sources!
Tom’s five points mirror my own research and exploration of what defines “Integral”, except for
o #2, (holarchical approach) which implies and requires a Wilberian metaphysic (“metaphysic” sensu Aristotle; KW’s post-metaphysics is therefore still metaphysics)
o all this still pertains to the theoretical approach, whereas Aurobindonian Integral Yoga is a practical approach. It is interesting that this vast practice (as described in Synthesis of Yoga and Letters on Yoga), which incorporates but also goes beyond all other practical approaches (such as Advaita, bhakti yoga, etc) is totally ignored in the current mainstream Integral movement. This is probably because the current Integral Movement is an outgrowth of academia. But for me practice is always superior to theory.
So a practical approach, and in my biased opinion the most comprehensive practice is Integral Yoga (although if someone has suggestions for other equally universal practices I am interested to hear them), would “include but also transcend” both the theoretical approaches and the more limited practices (as Sri Aurobindo has said – “all life is yoga”). Theory is required to lay the foundation, but once you advance to the stage of practice you can transcend it and manifest goals both in consciousness and on the occult and spiritual levels, and also even on the most physical-external level.
Alan,
Yes, Hemsell misrepresents, or “inteprets,” Ken within his own frame of reference. Neither Ken nor I would agree that what he’s saying about Ken’s perspective(s) matches how Ken or I perceive them. Hence epistemological indetermiacy (EI).
As to Ken and the movement being “theoretical” versus “practical,” or “mental” versus “supermental,” again, this is your (and the Aurobindians I’ve read) intepretation which is again, not as Ken or I would say of Ken’s model. The latter most definitely includes as a major part of it various states of consciousness attained via meditative practice. Again EI based on misrepresentation.
This relates to what I was asking Tom. How do we even get to mutual understanding and regard with EI when it seems you (and the Aurobindians) don’t even accept EI as a phenomenon. Well, it seems you do, but only at the “mental” level. You assume that EI is not a problem at the “supramental” or “nondual” (if you will permit the latter description). But the whole point of EI, as I see it, is that it goes all the way up and down, up to an including (and especially) about so-called “enlightenment” or the “supramental.” Hence the myth of the given, which again, is accepted by you as applying only on the mental.
It seems you posit “spiritual” levels that are separate and distinct from the physical and mental, or a hierarchy of levels, both ontological and epistemological. And of course the critique of that is what EI and the myth of the give are all about, as is certain flavors of nonduality, which do not posit such a difference.
So what is EI? How is it defined? Do we even agree on that? Here’s how Tom defines it in the above article:
“‘Epistemological indeterminacy’ refers to uncertainties, ambiguities, and paradoxes in knowledge and its communication and validation. (If this technical term with its mouth-full of syllables seems overly academic to the reader, mentally substitute the less precise but more digestible phrase ‘knowledge uncertainty’ whenever you see it.) As part of the post-modern transformation of consciousness and culture, we have progressively come to understand, to our frustration, that knowledge is fuzzy, multi-layered, constructed idiosyncratically by each individual, socially negotiated, affected by emotions and biases, and forever subject to revision.”
Note the assumptions is this definition: EI arises from a pomo, progressive development in consciousness that has come to recognize itself as EI. I agree with that, as might Alan and the other Aurobindians like Rod and Richard. But the latter think even EI is limited to the “mental” because it does not cross over into the transrational, such as higher states of consciousenss elucidated by Aurobindo. But I disagree in that Ken, I, Derrida and countless others do indeed cross over into such phenemonological experience, we just intepret it from an EI perspective. And it seems to me that Alan et al intepret it from a “perennial tradition” perspective, i.e., definite ontological planes. And these planes are “known” by “direct perception” free of intrepretation. Which is of course the whole point of the pomo development, that this is impossible.
This is why I think Ken has made an advance (yes, a “development”) by no longer positing the ontological states as higher manifestations of epistemological levels but as 2 entirely “related” (nondually) realms wherein the former is always translated by the latter, hence there will always be EI at ANY and EVERY level, yet one can and must distinguish which levels of epistemic understanding are relatively more comprehensive and “better.” Confusing and separating the onto from the epistemo is akin to separating the ultimate from the relative in a dual nonduality.
And even this explanation is full of EI. So I ask myself again: Is it relatively better to just quit with explanation and just dance? Or is that merely an escapism to a lower level of hedonistic immersion so I won’t feel the existential angst of living with my own death and ever-increasing doubt and EI the further I travel through “development?” Newer, bigger and better perspectives bring newer, bigger and better indeterminacies. It’s just so much more damned comforting to believe in fricken God, or that God is dead, or a good ole blow job than to go through this kind of torture.
Yeah yeah, I know, if I’d only have the right “perspective” (or aperspective) on this I’d be happy and healthy and wealthy, etc. Uh huh.
-RE Ray’s “Assuming you want to methodically collaboratively build knowledge. I do see value in this approach, but I find it plodding and part of me wants to run screaming from the room. Lots of well meaning people crossing t’s and dotting i’s trying establish exactly what they mean. There has to be room for the anarchic, the radical break, the revolutionary, the novel and the wild. There’s a reason that many creative geniuses are loners.”
1) A number of great issues packed in this. I love heavy doses of anarchy, radical creativity, emergent social phenomena, etc.â€â€I’m involved in improvisational dance and brainstorming is one of my favorite modalities. A good knowledge building process (individual or group) pulsates between divergent and convergent. Without some convergent impulses, some synthesizing, some pruning, some critique and reflection, much of the potential of the effort can be lost. Butâ€â€how to do this, how to find the balanceâ€â€its a difficult art in every context.
2) Two related themes/goals are for communication to be A) more self-reflective and B) more aware of its place in the context of a dialog. Both of these modalities have great potential (maybe even a propensity) to be plodding and tedious, even narcissistic. When does more authentic or vulnerably self-exposing dialog (e.g. reflecting on one’s biases) add to the conversation, and when does it detract ? When does trying to organize and link one’s points so that future readers will be more easily able to find and assimilate them become too artificial and stilted, vs. useful? As with every prescription, there is an implicit caveat to “apply this only when applicable” or “as intended” (which seems redundant on the surface but points to what Habermas describes as the gap between justification and application). (Another form of EI.)
3) In trying to balance these needs, we want to avoid several things and avoid “get me out of here!” syndrome, including: being bored to death from irrelevance, becoming completely lost in the tangle of ideas; and wanting to run screaming from the room fed up with nit-pickiness or over-systematization. Writing so that others don’t get bored or lost comes in part from the author caring about the reader’s experience. As to running screaming, I wonder how much of the aversion we have (I also experience that feeling) to some of these alternate dialog formats is tied to how we are enculturated to anticipate (and deliver) harsh criticism. For me there is a distinction between an *invitation* to consider some guideline (where a group agrees to give some prescription a good faith effort) and the enforcement or inflexible expectations related to that guideline. How does a group establish an invitation, help each other move in the direction of that invitation, and steer clear of counter-productive critique and policing? A difficult balance for any group (I would say particularly difficult for men in academia).
4) Some creative genius are indeed loners. There is value in getting away from the buzz and in striking out on a path free from the influences of social conditioning. But I think the best of the creative geniuses also have the ability to form a model of other people’s understanding and attempt to communicate or express based on that model. This skill is a developmental line, like emotional/social intelligence, that many intellectual geniuses are not developed in. Best to have both lines of developmentâ€â€though we don’t have that choice as we unwrap the gifts left to us by geniuses. Quirkiness and incomprehensibility can be endearing and entertaining, but I think that too often incomprehensibility is associated with genius (see the Alan Sokal Social Text hoax.)
5) Then there is the place of the lone contributor in the modern context. I believe that where evolution is taking us is toward more collective and collaborative ways of existing (maybe its just a hopeful attention to some trends and not others). I believe that as we evolve up the spiral we develop the capacity for greater communion*and* greater autonomy. (“The next Buddha will be the sangha” type of thing.) It’s simply that, *under the right circumstances*, i.e. those supporting collective intelligence rather than collective stupidity (group mentality), more can be created/discovered. What are those conditions and how do we create them? And how do we allow for the best of both individual creativity and collaborative knowledge building? Again, hard questions but I think as a species we are slowly learning about all of these hard questions that involve balance and subtlety and wisdom and flexible thinking. That is the nature of the move to second tier, to me. So I’m excited about experimenting around with the potential of collective intentionality, even though its a very klutzy endeavor in the early phase.
- RE Edward’s “But the latter think even EI is limited to the “mental†because it does not cross over into the transrational, such as higher states of consciousness”
I’ve been thinking about this lately (working on a paper about it, should be done any decade now). Hard not to get lost in the quagmire of (non) definitions here, but here I go. I do think that EI is limited to the mental or conceptual, in a sense. If we can differentiate: 1) mental/conceptual as thought that is linguistic-like or puts things into categories; 2) raw experience; and 3) the aspects of thought that are below consciousness and above raw experience. Rough categories just for this conversation. Raw experience includes everything from the taste of chocolate to the experience of satori, below the categories and interpretations that we layer on top of experiences. I also include in “raw experience” intuitions and insights that arise in us, at the stage where they are mere impulses, before they are translated into words and categories. Mental/conceptual thought is where IE comes in. In the act of translating raw experience into words and concepts experience gets “cleaned up” and something is lost. IE points to the gaps or holes that are left, the lost stuff. There is no uncertainty or indeterminacy in the experience itselfâ€â€it just is what it is. Even a vague vision of a tree is exactly thatâ€â€a fuzzy looking tree. There is a *sense* that we can say that IE exists in the experience itself, in that the experience is inherently indescribable (in its completeness). So you could say that IE *does* or *does not* “exist in the experience” depending on what you mean. More important that we both understand the point here than allow ourselves to be constrained by the straightjacket of language. Does that make any sense?
I included the third category of “below consciousness” for completeness, because epistemic sophistication involves knowing something about how the apparatus of thought works (and its limitations), even though we may not have direct experiential access to those mechanisms (.e.g. understanding “bounded rationality” or the socially constructed nature of thought, and compensating for these).
As to mental vs transrational: I think the term transrational (and even “higher states of consciousness”) may be poorly defined (or it is for me). Allow me to use the phrase “second tier thought” to vaguely point to vision-logics, dialectical thinking, transrational, etc., forms of thinking and knowing that are developmentally advanced. In second tier thought we can still make the same distinction between the three modes above: 1) verbal/conceptual/categorical/rational, 2) experiential, and 3) non-conscious. The term “transrational” can point to *experiences* (mode #2) such as flavors of satori and certain types of intuitions or insight (still in the pre-verbal stage); AND/OR it can point to types of thinking processes (conclusion and concept formationâ€â€i.e. mode #1) that are not constrained by rigid forms of logical/categorical thinking. I actually think it is *more* rational to skillfully weave and integrate the non-logical, the paradoxical, the emotional, the intuitive into thought, so “transrational” is “trans” to a first tier meaning of “rational”. From a second tier perspective, it is “simply rational” to include all of that stuff in our thinking and dialoging (when it adds value).
I think second tier thought is about more sophisticated relationships between these three modes and more depth in each one. In second tier we know that experience can not be completely communicated, but we use what we know about epistemic indeterminacies to skillfully share meaning and make progress in understanding each other and furthering knowledge, despite these limitations. Our understanding of the limitations of conceptual thought and language motivates us to engage in deeply contemplative ways of being, thus deepening the experience of experience and inviting higher states of consciousness. As we deepen contemplative modalities we may actually bring awareness (both experiencing #2 and conceptualizing #1) to some stuff that was once non-conscious. And as we deepen experience and refine our conceptual/linguistic thinking we can use it to explore and collaboratively build knowledge of both the experiential and the non-conscious.
Good Tom, I like the clarity of this differentiated description. One quick point though that I’ll elaborate on later as time permits. The issue of “raw experience” is far from settled or agreed upon, even the taste of chocolate. This is not to say that we don’t all taste chocolate but that it is always already within an intepretative framework, even at birth! It seems this is built right into the hardwiring of the brain. And it seems this is the main focus of Ken’s new book, IS, that there is no unmediated, raw experience, which is of course the epitome of the pomo revelation and undermines “direct” knowing paradigms. So in that sense EI is not just “conceptual” as if there is something non-conceptual (raw): EI merely is.
Actually it’s inherent not from birth but from “conception,” so to speak.
I re-quote below from the Desilet on Derrida thread:
“From a deconstructive slant, the limitations of human communication and understanding disclosed by the conditions of life and imposed by the constraints not only of signification but also of Being and time suggest that enlightenment as a transcendent, totalized awareness of the Kosmos (at any given point in time) is not possible. And, even if such enlightenment were somehow possible, there could be no way of verifying with certainty (either for others or for oneself) that it had been achieved. And even assuming it had been achieved, there could be no reliable way of communicating to others how precisely to go about achieving it themselves.
“Undoubtedly Wilber would not be happy to find his “integral†views associated in any way with “exclusionary†forms of metaphysics. Clearly he wants to dissociate himself from such traditions of thinking and spirituality. Nevertheless, attempts to depart from exclusionary forms of metaphysics cannot succeed by reaffirming orientations that give renewed meaning and prime significance to states of transcendental awareness implied in notions such as “transcendental signifiers,†“pure consciousness,†and “realizations of oneness.†The deconstructive critique of transcendence appears to be a part of Derridean postmodernism that Wilber and other integral theorists have not so much overlooked as underestimated.”
Note that according to Desilet’s spin on deconstruction (and mine, and I and Desilet maintain also Derrida’s) that this EI is “imposed by the constraints not only of signification but also of Being and time.” It ain’t just a conceptual signification problem. Ken even supports this in IS but does try to find a way out, which I criticized at length elsewhere here at OI and which Desilet shows above with Ken’s own myth of the given.
Following is Ken’s description of the myth of the given in IS (draft), pp. 207-8. Granted we’ve covered this before but I’m trying to reestablish the above as it relates to EI and Tom’s defintiion and assertion as to “raw experience.”
The myth of the given or monological consciousness is essentially another name for phenomenology and mere empiricism in any of a hundred guisesâ€â€whether regular empiricism, radical empiricism, interior empiricism, transpersonal empiricism, empirical phenomenology,
transcendental phenomenology, radical phenomenology, and so forth. As important as they might be, what all of them have in common is the myth of given, which includes:
–the belief that reality is simply given to me, or that there is a single pregiven world that consciousness delivers to me more or less as it is, instead of a world that is con-structured in various ways before it ever reaches my empirical or phenomenal awareness.
–the belief that the consciousness of an individual will deliver truth. This is why Habermas calls the myth of the given by the phrase “the philosophy of consciousnessâ€Â and that is what he is criticizing because it is blind to intersubjectivity, among other things. As we have been saying throughout this book, consciousness itself simply cannot see zones #2 and #4, and therefore is deficient in and of itself (e.g., “Not through introspection but through history do we come to know ourselvesâ€Â). You can introspect
all you want and you won’t see those other truths. So consciousness itself is deficientâ€â€whether personal or transpersonal, whether pure or not pure, essential or relative, high or low, big mind or small mind, vipassana, bare attention, centering prayer, contemplative awarenessâ€â€none of them can see these other truths, and that is why Habermas and the postmodernists extensively criticize “the philosophy of consciousness.â€Â
–a failure to understand that the truth that the subject delivers is constructed in part by intersubjective cultural networks. This is why the myth of the given is also called “the philosophy of the subjectâ€Ââ€â€what we also need is “the philosophy of the intersubject, or intersubjectivity.â€Â
–the belief that the mirror of nature, or the reflection paradigm, is an adequate methodology. The recent move in spiritual approaches is to take the reflection paradigm (or phenomenology) and simply try to extend it to cover other realities (such as transpersonal, spiritual, meta-normal, planetary consciousness, complexity thinking, etc.). This is essentially the belief that the reflection paradigm, or monological empiricism and
monological phenomenology, will cover transpersonal and spiritual realities. But the subject does not reflect reality, it co-creates it.
Hi Tom,
Yes, I appreciated your considered reply and would add that sometimes conflict and tension is good.
Just wanted to add that any integral approach must incorporate the wordlviews of the various creative movements. I’m actually repeating myself here but I’m thinking immediately of Dada, Surrealism, Futurism as well as Romanticism, etc. Every movement creates a counter movement. Why?
Edward said:
“As to Ken and the movement being “theoretical†versus “practical,†or “mental†versus “supermental,†again, this is your (and the Aurobindians I’ve read) intepretation which is again, not as Ken or I would say of Ken’s model. The latter most definitely includes as a major part of it various states of consciousness attained via meditative practice. Again EI based on misrepresentation”
Hi Edward. I’m afraid that our complete agreemnent in other areas does not extend to the above (and related) statements
Here is my counter-argument.
It is true KW includes meditation, but let’s “deconstruct” this. Wilber’s concept of meditation, enlightenment, spirituality etc is based on what he has learned from Adi Da, Advaita, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism; all of which teach a nondual level of attainment equivalent to the the starting point of Integral Yoga. Ken’s perspective regarding enlightenment is therefore limited because it is still based on the old “yoga of ascent”, not the new yoga of descent. This is not to say he is wrong, only, to use his own words, he has is partial, he has a partial truth, not the whole picture. The Aurobinbonian perspective transcends and includes the Wilberian, but not vice-versa. It is therefore impossible, that’s right, impossible, for KW to accurately critique Sri Aurobindo. In his own terminology, the lower holon cannot apprecuate the higher. I have already disscussed all this on Integral World, and so far not one person has been able to refute the arguments in that particular section of my essay. If you say this is just my relative perspective, I would ask you to read Aurobindo in the original, not just read but deeply meditate and contemnplate and attune to that spiritual transmission, and then come to your own conclusions. Without accessing the source, it is nothing but mental relativism.
Moreover, KW either has no conception of occultism or magic (beyond his misunderstanding of it as being an archaic magical stage that precedes the rational formop etc) , or if he has he has not mentioned it in any of his thousands of pages.
And obviously, Wilber has no conception of supramentalisation, or if he has he says the literal opposite in his voluminous writings.
Unless one has read Sri Aurobindo in the original, read Gebser, and for that matter read The Mother (who Wilber never once mentions, despite her close co-working with Sri Aurobindo), read Teilhard, and read William Irwin Thompson in the original, how can one understand, appreciate, or critique, these and other visionaries? Or arrive at an Integral worldview that is not slanted to the Wilberian?
Of course, I have equally not read Derrida. We are limited by our partial interests, and from that poiont of view I agree with you. But to reduce Wilber and Aurobindo to the same level can at best arrive at a soppy ecumenicalism where everyone is respected and everyone is equal.
imho (and this is only my own biased opinion) your EI, which is based on your own mental conceptions, which in turn can be deconstructed to their Wilberian and Derridian roots. So it reflects your own pov, which is fair enough, it is a valid perspective, one among many. But it cannot serve as a meta-explanation, because it is still based on the relativism of the rational-mental-perspectival approach.
My thesis is that it is indeed possible to transcend this sort of relativism, but that requires profound spiritual experience and gnosis. Once one has passed beyond words and relative-mental foremations, one realises the limitations of all these theoretical approaches. Thus Sri Aurobindo provides not just theory, but a practical Yoga of not just transcendence but transmutation as well. This Yoga truly begins where all the others end, at Enlightenment. But Enlightenment itself is still far beyond relativism.
To continue…
How do we even get to mutual understanding and regard with EI when it seems you (and the Aurobindians) don’t even accept EI as a phenomenon. Well, it seems you do, but only at the “mental†level.
Correct!
You assume that EI is not a problem at the “supramentalâ€Â
I would again suggest here that you read Sri Aurobindo in the original. In The Life Divine he has refuted every one of these arguments. But you have to read him. Don’t waste time with secondary sources.
or “nondual†(if you will permit the latter description).
The nondual can be seen as a preliminary stage to Supramentalisation, or alternatively a state of individual liberation (again, see my essay, mentioned above)
But the whole point of EI, as I see it, is that it goes all the way up and down, up to an including (and especially) about so-called “enlightenment†or the “supramental.â€Â
My reply is that no-one can make these sort of statements unless they have experienced these things for themselves. Without experiencing it, it is just (to use a facetious expression) “mental masturbation”; the mind going around and around making pronouncements without experience and knowledge to back it up. This is where philosophy breaks down and mysticism and yoga triumphs.
And it is not even necessary to experience enlightenment directly. You can have even a partial experience, and taht is enough. And you don’t even need that. You can read the refutation of the mental pov in The Life Divine, Synthesis of Yoga, etc. Or in Gebser’s The Ever Present Origin.
Hence the myth of the given, which again, is accepted by you as applying only on the mental.
You have represented my pov accurately
Yep, we’ll just have to disagee with mutual regard on this one Alan. You’re still ok even though you’re wrong!
Here are some excerpts from a previous discussion on the topic to provide a historical context in this thread. I like Hargens’ detailed distinctions. From http://www.openintegral.net/blog/?p=55
In the meantime, here’s a couple of excerpts on the intersubjective quadrant from “Intersubjective Musings: A Response to Christian de Quincey’s ‘The Promise of Integralism’†by Sean Hargens
http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/watch/042301_intro.cfm/
Part I
1. Intersubjectivity-as-spirit: the transcendental quality of all relationships that allows for any dimension of intersubjectivity to manifest. The only reason that two subjectivities can touch simultaneously (co-presence) is that they are ultimately only one Subject.
2. intersubjectivity-as-context: the context created by multiple intersubjective structures (i.e., meshworks) which are constitutive of the subject and create the space in which both subjects and objects arise (e.g., physical laws, morphic fields, linguistic, moral, cultural, biological, and aesthetic structures). These cultural contexts, backgrounds, and practices are nondiscursive and inaccessible via direct experience.
3. Intersubjectivity-as-resonance: the occurrence of “mutual recognition†and “mutual understanding†between two holons of similar depth. Within this dimension there are Worldspaces and Worldviews.
a. Worldspaces: ontological resonance between two subjects who share emergent domains (e.g., physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual). Here, mutual recognition is simple co-presence prior to reflection (precognitive).
b. Worldviews: epistemological resonance between two subjects who share a level of psychological development (e.g., archaic, magic, mythic, rational, and centauric). Here mutual understanding is co-presence via cognition, which complexifies with development. This is the cognitive component of a shared worldspace.
4. Intersubjectivity-as-relationship: the way we identify with and have relationship with other subjects and objects. Within this dimension there are at least three types of relationships.
a. It-It relationships: an objective subject in relation with an objective object.
b. I-It relationships: a subject in relationship with an object (or a subject seen as an object).
c. I-I relationships: a subject in relationship with a subject. This last subdivision has two general forms, either solidarity or difference.
i. Relationship-as-solidarity: relating to another subject because they mirror your values, ethnicity, gender, or nationality etc.
ii. Relationship-as-difference: relating to another subject as a subject despite the fact that they are different from you in important ways.
It is also helpful to keep in mind a related quality to intersubjectivity, namely:
5. Intersubjectivity-as-phenomenology: the felt-experience of different dimensions of intersubjectivity, including: spirit, resonance, and relationships. Note that intersubjectivity-as-context is not available as “felt-experience†by its very nature of constituting the subject prior to experience.
Part II
Wilber’s post-Cartesian framework is what leads him to emphasize that interpretation is built into all corners and levels of the Kosmos.[29] In the relative sense interpretation is sympathetic resonance of interiors, while in the absolute sense interpretation is possible because there is only one interior (Spirit). In both cases interpretation is simultaneously direct experience. Wilber isn’t denying direct unmediated experience between subjects, but his point is that that direct experience occurs in an intersubjective space such that there is no direct experience sans interpretation.
Ken, “Do Critics Misrepresent My Position†Part IV:
http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/critics_04.cfm/
There is, finally, the “ultimate†meaning of the mind-body problem (#3b) and its relation to “ultimate intersubjectivity.†I maintain that any sort of genuine and immediate intersubjectivity can only be derived from nondual consciousness or nondual Spirit. The reason is that, in the relative or manifest dimension, there is no simultaneous subject-to-subject presence, as Whitehead clearly explained. Whitehead pointed out that any actual occasion can only prehend its descendents, not its contemporaries. The reason is that every form of communication from one subject to another must enter the stream of time and travel to the other subject; by the time it reaches the other subject, the immediate present is gone, and thus the other subject prehends only the past (perception and memory being essentially synonymous). Thus, for Whitehead, there is no simultaneous Presence for any two subjects.
This is where the nondual traditions have much to offer. For these traditions, simultaneous subject-to-subject presence is possible because ultimately there is only one Subject (Atman, Buddhamind, Godhead). This means that each subject in the relative, manifest dimension, although prevented from having simultaneous presence in the relative realm (for precisely the reasons outlined by Whitehead), nonetheless possesses an immediate subject-to-subject simultaneous Presence in the ultimate or nondual dimension. Because there is ultimately only one Subject, then genuine intersubjectivity on the relative plane has an ultimate grounding. The reason is exactly as Erwin Schroedinger, cofounder of quantum mechanics, put it: “Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown.†Because there is only one “nondual Mind,†then all relative minds can possess immediate “touching†or simultaneous Presence, something that Whitehead’s view cannot explain or even allow.
According to the nondual traditions, as this nondual Spirit or Mind “steps down†into the relative, manifest plane, each individual mind or subject remains nonlocally and immediately in touch with other minds or subjects (all the way down), which is why, among other things, knowledge of other minds is possible. Once on the manifest or relative dimension, then the relative forms of intersubjectivity arise (three of which were outlined by de Quincey, and four or five of which I outlined). But all of them can exist primarily because of the nondual ultimate nature of consciousness itself, which is “a singular the plural of which is unknown.†This is the final and radical meaning of intersubjectivity (namely, grounded in nondual Spirit), and this is likewise the fourth and ultimate meaning of the mind-body problem and its “solution†(namely, awaking to the one Mind or nondual Spirit, which is “not-two, not-oneâ€Â). My simple suggestion is that all four or five of these meanings and their solutions ought charitably to be included in any integral approach to these important issues.
Edward Berge Says:
August 9th, 2006 at 6:22 am e
Just a quickie for now, but the above ultimate (inter)subjectivity seems to me to be participating in the phenomenological myth of the given. As does the notion of involution and involutionary givens, and pure absolute experience outside of relativity. These notions seem part and parcel of the metaphysical assumptions of the perenniel traditions. Granted Ken tries to pare them down to a bare minimum, but it seems to me the later pomo enactments recognized the “ultimate†realm but intepreted it in a more accurate postmetaphysical way. The absolute is always deferred, never present, always a possibility and not an actuality. The latter view acknowledges the possibility of ultimate existence but also the impossiblity of knowing it directly. It eliminates all of the metaphysical baggage Ken talks about, while Ken has to retain at least some of it to get his universe going, i.e., the metaphysical Spirit or Consciousness.
God is not dead but alive and well and living in “denial.” God is. Not. To quote the chorus from my song “The three veils of negative existence”:
That’s right, that’s right, nothing
And not just nothing, but no nothing
And not no nothing neither
Let me state what I think is going on here. Ken no longer puts the states of consciousness above the stages in the Wilber-Combs matrix because they are distinct. States and stages are the supposed “raw†ontological experiences on the one hand and the interpretative epistemology on the other hand. However, in IS Ken notes that both always arise together, so that a “direct†perception is also always already an interpretation, i.e. they co-arise simultaneously. Therefore there is no perception without interpretation, and vice versa. It’s both/and. And this both/and dialectic is represented by (one of) Ken’s definitions of nondual realization.
The myth of the given comes in when we posit a “pure†experience (or “rawâ€Â, to my understanding) that can exist apart from an immediate and co-arising interpretative framework. Hence we get Ken’s critique of Aurobindo’s separate ontological realms, and Alan’s defense of them as being outside the “mental†or “interpretation.†If Ken is right on this, and I think he might be, his postmetaphyical insight finds such an integration (to a point) between ontology and epistemology (nondually), whereas Alan and the Aurobindians can only see it as a mental abstraction because there is “pure†consciousness without relativity.
But of course Ken then back-tracks on this when using the “causal†level interpretation, that there “really†is a “pure,†“ultimate†consciousness free of form and relatively. And it is this “pure†consciousness that is united with, or integrated with, the relative realm in the nondual.(1) But that version of the nondual interpretation is not the same as the Nargarjuana or zen intepretations of nonduality, which does NOT posit such an “absolute†distinct from the relative.(2) Hence this “causal†nonduality is more akin to what Alan and the Aurobindians are saying. Ken wants it both ways here, where it’s NOT a both/and situation. Yes, if we contextualize each type of nonduality we can say they are both/and correct given the context, but IF the non-dual non-dual trumps the causal non-dual (and it does, according to Ken), then one is relatively better than the other, absolutely.
Put that in your integral pipe and smoke it.
1. And also the source of some \”ultimate\” measure of altitude via consciousness per se.
2. And it is here where I think Derrida comes in, with the same type of distinction AND realization.
And to further clarify what I mean by the types of nonduality I re-quote the below that I noted in the Gebser thread:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber
Others, including Georg Feuerstein, argue that Wilber’s Neo-perennial Philosophy is a confusion between concepts of differentiated nondualist doctrines (such as Plotinus’s neo-Platonism and Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita Vedanta) and truly unitary monism of Zen and Advaita Vedanta: the former philosophies distinguish between emanated or manifest reality and the unchangeable source, while for Zen or Advaita the Source and reality are essentially one and the same. This is expressed in a famous Zen saying of which Wilber is quite fond: “Nirvana is Samsara fully realized; Samsara is Nirvana rightly understood.â€Â[citation needed]
Wilber’s response to criticisms like this is typified in this quotation from the extended audio interview Speaking of Everything: “…when I lay out the stages of development, I am giving what I explicitly called in SES a ‘rational reconstruction of the trans-rational’.[12] Thus, differentiated non-dual doctrines and truly unitary monist doctrines are describing (or coming from) different levels of consciousness, the former from a causal perspective that differentiates between emptiness and form (and hence must see form as emanationary), and the latter from a nondual perspective that equates emptiness and form (and hence renders emanation a redundant concept).
[12] http://www.geocities.com/piers_clement/wilber1.html
Edward Berge said:
Yep, we’ll just have to disagee with mutual regard on this one Alan. You’re still ok even though you’re wrong!
lol lol!!!! Likewise!
Alan seems to agree with some of what I said above regarding Ken’s mixing and matching of various kinds or schools of nonduality, at least when he wrote the following on The Atman Fiasco at this link:
http://www.kheper.net/topics/Wilber/atman_fiasco.html
Irrepressible contraries wreck Wilber’s Atman Project from the outset: evolution ( however “spiritual” it may be, and in whichever guise-Hegelian, Theosophical, Teilhardian, Aurobindoan ) and the radical unitary monist idealism of Ch’an/Zen or Tibetan Mahamudra schools are mutually exclusive.
In short: Wilber continually uses the semantics of the differentiated monism ( or Theosophy ), but, since it is juxtaposed on the extreme unitary monism grand blueprint, it momentarily loses its coherence and meaning.