dmb says: Of course biologists don't reduce things to quarks and nobody said they did.
We're talking about flatland, not tiny town. Think of Pirsig's discussions about objectivity in anthropology or the way behaviorism is considered scientific while psychoanalysis is merely an art. That is flatland reductionism. I've never heard of anybody wanting to break biology down into quarks or anything like that. I really can't imagine where you got this impression. [Krimel] Wilber equates flatland with reductionism. If the land were truly flat biology would have to be reduced to nothing but matter and energy, Quarks and leptons. Clearly it does not reduce this way and is not flat. As I mentioned before Pirsig is ranting about the anthropology of Boaz during the Victorian era and the treatment of Dussenberry in the late '50s. Times have changed. But by the way behaviorism was scientific and psychoanalysis isn't even that great as art. Reductionism is not the enemy. Breaking thing down into parts and examining the relationship among those parts is a valuable tool for thinking in all areas. This is after all in large part what holarchy is all about. Wholes composed of parts that are wholes. The real problem is a determinism that attempts to establish fixed causal relationships among both parts and wholes. While relationships can be established, they are probabilistic. They may often be regarded as causal if all other things are equal. But all things are never equal. The network of causality is so complex that only probability statements can be made. Probabilities that are resolved through the process of becoming in the present then dissolve into a probabistic past. If you want to postulate a whole new sense probability is a good candidate. It is embedded in our language, mythology, popular culture and economics. We assess the environment instantly and sense probable outcomes. Value is the measure of weight we assign them. Quantum physics and mathematics only confirm what we already sense in this regard. Old School determinism may indeed be thought of as flatland. Even I think of it as such. But it works better as a relic of the past than as a strawman in the present. Krimel opined: I have pointed out many times that Wilber's talk of expanded consciousness is nothing more than pandering to empty headed rich new agers. dmb says: You've dished up a lot of empty insults like this one. You say he panders to empty headed new agers but his work is fairly well established in the academic world. I'm not denying that there might be an empty headed new ager who read and enjoyed one of his books, but the idea that his ideas have no credibility among serioius people is factually incorrect. Its just plain wrong. By the way, I have no money. [Krimel] If you have a list of academic papers or dissertations on Wilber I would love to check them out. I don't have access to a citations index but you probably do. Show us what he's got. Krimel said: All this while virtually ignoring the emergence of real expanded awareness and consciousness that is booming around us in the form of cell phones, instant messaging, e-mail, Google Earth, GPS, webcams, Alternative Intelligences, the expansion of identical shared memory in the form of film and voice recording and the sum total of human knowledge instantly available at the touch of a button. All of this higher level consciousness emerges specifically from the direction of rational thinking suggested by Piaget whom Wilber butchers while you applaud. dmb says: These forms of technology reflect a higher form of consciousness and their use might very well lead to even higher forms in turn, but technology itself is not conscious. At least, not cell phones. Not yet. You're not really saying anything that hair-brained. The post-Piagetian structures added by Wilber are also based on "the emergence of real expanded awareness and consciousness" too, but its not the sort that is "booming all around us" for the simple reason that it is not that common. Unlike the early stages, which are more or less universal, these higher structures are not something you can find in just anybody but they can be detected in the same way. Like I said, I don't think this is butchery. Its only addition and in the world of idea is it perfectly normal practice. In fact, I think your objections to this are quite meaningless. [Krimel] Actually one of the best criticisms of Piagetian stages I have heard is that there are a great many adults who never achieve the formal operations stage. Artists, plumbers, Buddhists, ministers and politicians may achieve high levels of functioning that are not rational or spiritual. Various kinds of intelligences have been proposed and this is a general problem for stage theories. Wilber takes note of these multiple intelligences, but I thought his treatment of them was superficial. Talking about integrating is not very meaningful if you are fuzzy about what is being integrated. My biggest problem is his emphasis on the spiritual as representing the highest level, the level toward which integration leads. moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
