[Keith] First: Greetings to all! This is my first post to MOQ.org in about 5 years. I just recently rejoined the list & have been lurking for a few weeks. I know some of you, but many names are new to me. For those who've read it, I'm the Keith in *Lila's Child*. The pace of MD has always moved too fast for me, so I don't know how much I'll be able to contribute, but I have a few moments this holiday weekend and this thread seems an appropriate one to jump back in with, as my interests since leaving MoQ.org have expanded to include Wilber.
[Krimel] Welcome back, Keith! It is always good for us "new" timers when the old timers return! My tirades against Wilber result from repeated reference to him by others on the list. My casual reading of Brief History of Everything and Kosmic Consciousness sparked a number of critical comments on what I regard as utter nonsense. dmb insisted that I was not getting the "real" Wilber so I read Sex, Ecology and Spirituality which I was assured was Wilber at his best. All I can say about it was that is was somewhat better than the other two. >[Krimel, Thursday, May 24, 2007 23:47] >There is this: holons. This is a great metaphor and a potentially useful >tool for thinking. Wilber drives it into the dirt, claiming that, it's all >holons. Everything is a holon. Yeah, well kinda, maybe... Not really. >Everything is whole made of parts, every part is made of wholes. This is >not nearly as profound as Wilber makes it sound. It is really just set >theory simplified and certainly not a matter of metaphysics. [Keith] I'm not sure from which text of Wilber's you have gleaned this understanding of holons, but I don't think that it accurately reflects his current usage. Wilber is more particular about what constitutes a holon. Fred Koffman, an Integral Institute colleague of Wilber's has written a useful essay called "Holons, Heaps & Artifacts" that summarizes the distinctions: [Krimel] Ok I glanced over the article and it seems to be a rehash of SES. It's a holiday and I was already sick yesterday and would like to have nausea free day today so maybe I'll read it in detail another time. The point I was trying to make is that, as Wilber states it, holons are a way of viewing hierarchies. Higher levels include the lower levels and so forth. And yet the direction the holoarchies he points to are toward rational thought at the highest level. Spirit he claims is at the lowest level with the inorganic arising as a manifestation of Spirit. As I said this is poppycock. Rational thought which is rules based and language driven includes and subsumes spiritual and touchy feely thought not the other way around. Koffman's essay would not seem to be reversing Wilber in this respect. In addition I think it would be a lot clearer to just talk about set theory rather than gussy it up in new terminology. But maybe you can tell me how Wilber's use of holonography is different than plain old set theory. [Keith] If I understand you (and Wilber), I think the confusion pointed to here may be cleared up by recent revisions in his thinking. He now makes a distinction between *states* of consciousness and developmental *stages*. So one may have a "spiritual" experience of, say, nondual union with the Kosmos at any developmental stage you're at, whether it's rational, pre-rational, or post-rational. When someone who has had a profound mystical experience starts thinking again, they'll typically interpret that experience at whatever developmental stage they're at: "God spoke to me / I had an experience of Christ." (concrete operational/mythic interpretation), or "I am one with nature." (formal operational/world-centric interpretation). [Krimel] I have heard Wilber go on about states of consciousness. Here again his is talking trash. States of consciousness more than anything else point explicitly toward a neurological explanation of "consciousness". Drugs, fasting, meditation and other mind altering activities produced marked changes in brain states. It is clearly not the case that consciousness acting as some supernatural agencies causes people taking LSD to have altered perceptions. It's the drug that does it. In a study of meditating devotees of the Dali Lama it was found that meditation did indeed cause changes in brain activity and even in the structure of the meditator's brain. So does learning a new language, playing a musical instrument or participating in sports. [Keith] Wilber claims those developmental stages evolve through the commonly recognized levels of pre-rational to rational thought to "trans-rational" states. At the top levels, I'm not entirely sure what he's talking about, but the progression, as I understand it, has to do with becoming consciously aware of the operation of the current level of thought, disidentifying with it to allow a new level of thinking that transcends but includes the previous in its operation. This process also includes identification with larger and larger domains of care, from ego-centrism, to ethno-centrism, to word-centrism, to an eventual identification with the entire Kosmos. [Krimel] Indeed he says this kind of thing. He even enjoins his followers not to "dis" rationality too much: "Rationality is the great doorway to the invisible, through which, and then beyond which, lie so many secrets not given to the senses or to conventions (which is why all true mysticism is transrational and never antirational; "right thought" always precedes "right meditation")." -Wilber SES And yet the "the commonly recognized levels of pre-rational to rational thought" you refer to originate in Piaget and did not extend to the "transrational" until Wilber made Piaget a pawn in his game. Transrational seems to be a word Wilber made up to include spirituality. "Spirit is indeed nonrational; but it is trans, not pre. It transcends but includes reason; it does not regress and exclude it. Reason, like any particular stage of evolution, has its own (and often devastating) limitations, repressions, and distortions." - Wilber SES Who says that spirituality transcends reason. According to Wilber's progression it should be just the opposite. Rational thought transcends and includes spirituality. We understand through reason that we have an emotional side that can not be ignored. Reason by all accounts is a relatively new development in human affairs. People seem to have been having mystical experiences 30,000 years ago. Reason according Pirsig arrived on the scene with the Greeks. So what is emerging from what here? Furthermore the growth in human consciousness follows a clear path from spoken language, to written language to printing, to photography and sound recording to digital storage and access of information. These are expansions of consciousness. We can look on the internet and see satellite photos of our homes from space. We can talk in real time to people anywhere on the planet. We can assess history and science and every form of human knowledge in seconds. This strikes me as a vastly higher form of consciousness that you are going to get staring at the wall. Among Wilber's levels, (or is it states?) of consciousness are sleep and deep sleep. These are higher states than wakefulness? Only in Wilber's wacky world. [Keith] As I understand it, these levels of development are all responses to manifest Spirit, which is the central term in Wilber's ontology, in the same way that Quality is central for Pirsig. A pretty picture of all of the components of Wilber's AQAL model may be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=44612365&size=l [Krimel] OMG, that is hysterical. I recommend that chart to anyone. Color coded consciousness, Supermind, Overmind, Meta-mind, Global Mind, here a self there a self everywhere a self, self... 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