Deconstructing Integral Postmetaphysics: Keeping the Future Open...

[Cameron Freeman]

Deconstruction inhabits Integral Post-metaphysics from within in order to show how the out workings of IPM are “always, already” inwardly disturbed by the “un-decidability” (aporia/paradox) upon which Integral theory depends logically for its own (relatively stable) constitution. In simple terms, the deconstruction of IPM gets underway when we put all of its conceptual formations into scare quotes (“All”, “Quadrants”, “Levels”, “States”, “Consciousness”, etc.) as we expose the contingency, revisability and reinventability of everything that it proposes, from it's clear-cut distinctions (pre/trans), to it's fixed and stable categories (interior/exterior), to it's centered structure (developmental holarchy), to it's privileging of pure presence (Nondual awareness), or to whatever is taken as simply “given” (indigenous perspectives, intrinsic features).

To give an example of how deconstruction makes the very foundations of Integral tremble, let’s look at the familiar developmental sequence: pre-conventional, the conventional, and the post-conventional. Firstly, things are never identical with themselves, including these three stages. Nobody is ever simply or purely at a pre-conventional (beige/red), conventional (amber/orange), or post-conventional (green/turquoise) stage of development. This is an Integral fiction or myth.

For example, pre-conventional fetal life is not simply pre-conventional – but deeply affected by conventions: not only by the mother’s bodily health - which is in turn affected by conventional political institutions, but also by her social and family environment - more conventions, including the linguistic cadences of her body, the music she listens to, her stresses, etc. Empirical studies show that babies who are relocated to another linguistic culture at around 6-10 months begin to speak later than they would have because they have already absorbed the sounds, intonations, etc. of another language and now have to start all over. 

But the simply point is that the interweaving of pre-conventional and conventional is not a developmental hierarchy, but “hauntological”- each haunts the other, the specter of each hovers over and disturbs the other.  In the same way, the pre-conventional and post-conventional logically depend upon and cannot so much as be discussed without reference to the conventions one has in mind in any case.  Anomalies are anomalous relative to the nomos. Nothing happens without conventions, including spiritual breakthrough/enlightenment. Post-conventional creativity is inescapably the reinvention of the conventional, and if that is denied, let someone invent something that is supposed to be purely idiomatic and new, and afterwards we will show them their pedigree. (The owl of Minerva spreads her wings at dusk.)  The “unprecedented” is unprecedented only compared to what precedes it. Again, nothing is ever identical with itself.  

Long story short, IPMS is not a hierarchical-developmental growth towards higher consciousness but a roll of the dice, a kind of chancey circling, recycling and reinvention - whence Deleuze’s critique of evolution or world-history as having any kind of direction (which is a long story). Furthermore IMPS may not a gift but a disaster, where whatever it is we call Integral implicates itself in new complications and unforeseen consequences, and where nothing is ever guaranteed in advance. Integral takes strange turns, and it is by subsisting in this element of chance and contingency, of “what we cannot see coming,” that it keeps itself open to what breaks in upon us and takes us by surprise.

And this means that Integral itself proceeds by paradigm shifts, by anomalies that throw a horizon of expectation into confusion and thereby effect a reconfiguration of the horizon, whereas for the most part, in what we normally call “Integral” here on IPMS, we are just filling in the horizons. IPMS means preparing to be taken by surprise, to prepare to be unprepared for new horizons that create new problems. The very last thing Integral PMS ought to ever speak of is a developmental sequence leading us to some telos or destination. The purpose or destination of Integral is to vanquish the illusion of purpose or destination, in a recognition of the endless difficulty of life, where we produce what we repeat, where we produce something new by the repetition, like a composer picking at a piano, and where repetition keeps the future open, under-determined, a promise/risk, an open-ended venture into an unforeseeable future…

[Ambo Suno]

Hi Cameron - great riff!

I'll leave it to others to tie what you say in with what other contributors and contributions have said and leave it to others to question and challenge.

I have felt some affinity for the philosophical languaging of Layman Pascal's (and those who influenced it in him) 'metaphysics of adjacency'. Much of what you suggest about newness arising from what was just prior and even from events more distant, and what you say about the everpresent connection that pre has with contemporary and contemporary with post reminds me of the implications of adjacency in time, space, causation, influence. Maybe Pascal can offer more here, along with others.

[Cameron Freeman]

Thanks Ambo, I'm just thinking out loud, but Layman's the trailblazer here, and yes - we do have some uncanny overlap when it comes to these questions, let's see if he bites! :-)

Ambo Suno said:

Hi Cameron - great riff!

I'll leave it to others to tie what you say in with what other contributors and contributions have said and leave it to others to question and challenge.

I have felt some affinity for the philosophical languaging of Layman Pascal's (and those who influenced it in him) 'metaphysics of adjacency'. Much of what you suggest about newness arising from what was just prior and even from events more distant, and what you say about the everpresent connection that pre has with contemporary and contemporary with post reminds me of the implications of adjacency in time, space, causation, influence. Maybe Pascal can offer more here, along with others.

[Balder]

With no slight to Layman intended -- he is blazing integral trails --, and with no intention to diminish the force of your own remarks, Cameron, but I must speak up on behalf of theurj here:  he has been sounding very many of these same notes on IPS for years now.  One difference:  he wouldn't deny development or developmental models, but he does argue for a different conception of them (which includes a hauntology...)

[Cameron Freeman]

The developmental dialectic (Wilber's ""transcend and include) that informs the underlying structure of Integral theory (including IPMS) is fundamentally unable to explain the evolution of consciousness - simply because it cannot think difference independently of an original sameness (One) from which things differ (Many). Instead of getting to the heart of difference itself - and the Real of irreducible antagonism, for all versions of Integral theory (as far as I know), contradiction and negativity are always seen to be marks of the "unreal" or "retrospective illusions”. However, once we deconstruct the 19th century German idealist assumptions of Integral as we know it (i.e. jettison Hegel's Aufhebung), we can open up an altogether new and unforeseeable future for Integral. The simple shift here is to move away from the Master's discourse (KW), which cannot think difference independently of an original Oneness from which the Many go out of and then return to, to the irresolvable paradoxes forever trembling in the sacred depths of the universe - where it is this perpetual wrestling between contradictory forces and irreconcilable tensions at the very heart of things that constitutes the "condition of possibility" for the quantum leap into 2nd tier, the next phase of human consciousness evolution and the transformation of our entire way of life. This deep shift in perspective is one that requires a radical break from all those versions of IPM that conceives of politics and society as ‘right order', or of a world-historical process oriented towards the reunification of absolute Spirit, or of the human species as that has become divided from itself and is returning to itself... Human history moves forward not by dialectical development, or what Integral calls "transcend and include" (Hegel's Aufhebung), but by wrestling with those irresolvable paradoxes that we have buried beneath our imaginary solutions - only the shadows of history live by dialectical development (Deleuze, "Difference and Repetition")

[Cameron Freeman]

Integral's three indigenous perspectives (good, true, beautiful) constitute a thoroughly Platonic metaphysics that is not so much synonymous with the Real of antagonism, but a fantasy formation that is designed to stabilize this ceaseless, restless tension in the pulsating heart of reality, or to protect us against the traumatic truth of this irresolvable conflict in the sacred depths. Also, for the sake of clarity, antagonism is not hateful or violent, it's the engine room of the universe, and the source of all the serendipitous creativity we find in the Kosmos. In fact it's our inability to deal with irresolvable conflict and antagonism in a sane, conscious way that leads to all the violence and warfare we see in human history... Or to put it differently, at the origin of human consciousness (and the generation of the temporal world) lies a repression of this primordial antagonism. And while no beginning of the world would be possible without this decisive break away from the Real of irreconcilable conflict, this radical rejection of irresolvable paradox into the timeless past (unconscious) is never entirely successful. The inner strife and disharmony of this disavowed antagonism that we foreclose upon in the emergence of the world of language and meaning (Logos) always returns to haunt or spook us, as the internal gap or irresolvable tension in any of our existing, historically constituted systems of meaning-making. In this respect, Integral's Big Three is a classic example of how metaphysics provides us with a temporal, relatively stable unity of meaning -a necessary fiction - that can temporarily keep the inner strife and disharmony of this irresolvable antagonism that is forever out of sync with itself at bay..... However, everything begins in darkness, and it is from out of this deep rift, the unending antagonism of this eternal conscious torment within God's innermost self, that all new life is born...

[Edward theurj Berge]

Tis true, I've been harping on these themes for aeons. Unfortunately my time is limited these days and prevents deep discussion on the topic right now. But there are reams of pages in this forum that will attest to it. I can though nod in assent and appreciate Cameron's riffing here.

[Balder]

Cameron, yes, as we've discussed before, I also feel that an Idealistic and monistic doctrine of the One is ill-fitting or unsatisfactory in an IPMS worldspace, for a number of reasons.  But I have a few questions for you regarding some of your points above.

Cameron:  "In fact it's our inability to deal with irresolvable conflict and antagonism in a sane, conscious way that leads to all the violence and warfare we see in human history..."

What, in your view, would it look like to deal with irresolvable conflict and antagonism in a sane and conscious way?

Cameron:  "Integral's three indigenous perspectives (good, true, beautiful) constitute a thoroughly Platonic metaphysics that is not so much synonymous with the Real of antagonism, but a fantasy formation that is designed to stabilize this ceaseless, restless tension in the pulsating heart of reality, or to protect us against the traumatic truth of this irresolvable conflict in the sacred depths."

I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly, but it sounds like you are identifying one particular form of relation -- the "against" of antagonism -- as the true nature of the Real, as opposed to other possible forms of relation.  Is this the case?

Cameron:  "Also, for the sake of clarity, antagonism is not hateful or violent, it's the engine room of the universe, and the source of all the serendipitous creativity we find in the Kosmos."

In that sense, is antagonism "good"?

[Ambo Suno]

Hi Cameron - I'm having to work at following your evocative ideas here, but let me try to get closer.

I think you're saying that a fundamental error in Wilber and many other's thinking is that they root themselves and their theories around the central core of ontological Oneness.

They have had an immediate, it seems to me, recognition that The Many also needs to be accounted for, particularly within the human mind. Or in reality for many people, their philosophically contemplating this may start at some age of their lives with the many and almost immediately or eventually have to account for oneness. The modeling is represented and imagined in the mind, but also grokked almost beyond the mind when mind is at its thinnest, as in meditation, as in nondual-seeming experience. [I have presumptions here, since my personal experience is very limited.] Their form of recognition and their 'understanding'/interpretation/articulation of oneness and manyness, sameness difference, is that they are related in given ways.

I'll speculate that something, maybe about sensation and perception, as with gestalt-like foreground-background oscillations, also maybe has nudged them to imagine that that the many emerges from the one (as by analogy, pops foreground). You are saying, how they and we can think of this relationship of sameness/oneness-difference/a plurality, can be where an error lies.

I hope what I have written can be tracked so far.

You may be suggesting that Wilber and others have come to privilege their formulation of sameness and difference that has settled on these basic dynamic 'appearances' - for example, perhaps that the many emerges from the one and then the many remerge into the one. Or that the many/the differences succumb to an ontological oneness/sameness/union and then, possibly, as with a metaphor of gravity and overcoming or freedom from gravity, separate out, lacking complete union/cohesion fly apart into manyness. [As George Lakoff reminds us, our metaphors and understandings are so linked to how we perceive, and experience our bodies within the physical world.]

This may also remind them of the theorizing about the origin of everything from the big-bang theory that is quite deeply rooted, though not without controversy, in the astrophysics community (I think.)

Are you suggesting, for one thing, that Wilber and others at some level of regression presume this mostly as a one-directional dance of sameness and difference, of unitary oneness, out of which comes manyness? If so, you may be correct, but my own sense is that at this point it would be a bi-directional dance, one to many, many to one, 'always' 'already'. But I must say that when feeling informed by or imagining into the origin of the universe, using science as a guide since I am otherwise totally lost, I have trouble imagining beyond the big-bang's expansion into distance and multiplicity, from consolidation or some One unitary thing/energy/state/condition. I suppose I am then caught in the one-directional model.

I can almost imagine into the sometimes imagined-by-others idea of an endless series of expansion/contraction without beginning and without end. Whew.

But I think, I am wondering, and wanting to get clarified that your primary objection is that sameness and distinction, Oneness and Manyness are not linked in the presumed ways that the history of ideas favored by Wilber and many others have led them to believe and to center their theorizing around. You use the word radical/radically that suggests to me that these two constructs, one and many, are almost unrelated, at least in the commonly presumed ways. You seem to be suggesting that in the minds of men, this relationship/non-relationship ought to be known, ought to be acknowledged, ought to be held in fertile non-conclusion, as paradoxes (and unknowns?).

Then, many fresh possibilities for the arrangement of the minds, actions, artifacts of man within our ecology can occur.

Human life has not been working well and portends poorly for the future as our minds, actions, artifacts, and ecology demonstrate. We need better ways, and we need to start at the beginning of how we perceive and understand the world and ourselves with these fundamental philosophical presumptions/assumptions and perspectives. Wilber and other integral theorists who mainly follow his lead have led us away from the how things really are. Do I have this more or less accurate to how you are thinking?

One ongoing philosophical question still remains for me. Are you, and we, talking about how things are, the relationship of sameness and difference, unitary Oneness and Manyness, in the minds, the mentality of man? Or (/and) are you saying, we can know how things are without the medium of or without reference to mentality and the man-created/co-created worlds of man? And in knowing that, you can see how wrong Wilber has gone and how to bring Integral Theory back to truth? I sort of have my default waffling around this, but this is a real recurring question for me.

I am stopping here for now. I have to cross my fingers hoping this is sufficiently intelligible and in other possible ways not too tedious, obvious, or requiring you to backtrack to bring me up to speed - or not :) I hope this is not gobbledygoop, since I do feel in 'way over my head', Cameron :)

I now, personally and intentionally, come back to sighs and chuckles as relief from all of this intense philosophizing. Hah. ambo

BTW - I'm not sure how Layman comes down on sameness/difference dynamics in regard to your objections - he does seem to say they have an intimate dynamic adjacency, if I recall correctly.

Cameron Freeman said:

The developmental dialectic (Wilber's ""transcend and include) that informs the underlying structure of Integral theory (including IPMS) is fundamentally unable to explain the evolution of consciousness - simply because it cannot think difference independently of an original sameness (One) from which things differ (Many). Instead of getting to the heart of difference itself - and the Real of irreducible antagonism, for all versions of Integral theory (as far as I know), contradiction and negativity are always seen to be marks of the "unreal" or "retrospective illusions”. However, once we deconstruct the 19th century German idealist assumptions of Integral as we know it (i.e. jettison Hegel's Aufhebung), we can open up an altogether new and unforeseeable future for Integral. The simple shift here is to move away from the Master's discourse (KW), which cannot think difference independently of an original Oneness from which the Many go out of and then return to, to the irresolvable paradoxes forever trembling in the sacred depths of the universe - where it is this perpetual wrestling between contradictory forces and irreconcilable tensions at the very heart of things that constitutes the "condition of possibility" for the quantum leap into 2nd tier, the next phase of human consciousness evolution and the transformation of our entire way of life. This deep shift in perspective is one that requires a radical break from all those versions of IPM that conceives of politics and society as ‘right order', or of a world-historical process oriented towards the reunification of absolute Spirit, or of the human species as that has become divided from itself and is returning to itself... Human history moves forward not by dialectical development, or what Integral calls "transcend and include" (Hegel's Aufhebung), but by wrestling with those irresolvable paradoxes that we have buried beneath our imaginary solutions - only the shadows of history live by dialectical development (Deleuze, "Difference and Repetition")

[Cameron Freeman]

Thanks Bruce, there are some challenging questions here, so I'll just take them one at a time. So, what would it look like to deal with irresolvable conflict and antagonism in a sane and conscious way? Firstly, irresolvable antagonism is the very "condition of possibility" for the emergence of personality, freedom, new life, love, artistic creativity, revolution, etc. and it involves a decision to hold to the inherent “tension”, "gap", or "non-coincidence" that makes a thing “not-at-one” with itself...
But to give a specific and down to earth example, I will outline a brief reflection on the nature of romantic love relationships, what I call the Eternal Honeymoon. As we all know, there is a ubiquitous fantasy, propagated across our culture, of a couple who are able to make each other whole, complete and fulfilled. Not surprisingly the stories that describe this vision tend to end at the moment when the couple meet: often signaled by the phrase, “and they lived happily ever after.” What this suggests is that, after all the dragons have been fought, the evil step mothers overcome and the curses broken, the couple melt into each others arms and… well presumably watch TV.

The problem here is that, not only is such a view a type of fiction, but that it actually gets in the way of what a truly enriching, exciting and enduring relationship might be like - the “eternal honeymoon", where the temporary state that is represented by the word “honeymoon" never gives way to settling down into an all to predictable or mundane rut. Now, the secret to this type of "Integral Spiritual" relationship is that there must first be a crisis, or failure. This failure is one in which we realize that there is no such thing as the One and that this idea of completing one another is altogether false. Yet it is this very failure that ultimately reveals a success, at least to those with eyes to see. Here are the basic moves in the process:

1. There is an antagonistic gap that lies between us: this is the first manifestation of the traumatic failure. It is the point when one realizes that there are issues that get in the way of us becoming one with our beloved. Whether the two people are in an existing partnership, or are already in another relationship and so unable to consummate their love, a crack is revealed that cannot but strike both as horrible. The fantasy we have is that this gap can be abolished, however despite those wonderful fleeting moments in which two lovers feel like extensions of each other’s being, there is an irreconcilable gap that remains between two subjects.

2. There is an antagonistic gap within me: this leads to a further horror. Namely that the gap which separates me from my beloved also exposes a gap that separates me from myself. It feels that the only way that I can close this inner gap is if I close the gap between myself and my lover, yet this gap cannot be filled in either. The first gap is thus redoubled: not only can I not be one with my beloved, I cannot be one with myself either.

3. There is an antagonistic gap within my partner: the next step involves realizing that the gap within me is also mirrored in the truth of my beloved; that she is also not at one with herself. This is also a profoundly difficult insight, because not only does it involve the recognition that my beloved is also caught up in the same realization of the impossibility of ultimate fulfilment, but even worse - I cannot be the one that makes her whole. I cannot complete her any more than creative work, children, travel, marriage, yoga or parties can.

4. The irresolvable antagonism or gap within each of us overlap: this however all opens up the possibility of turning these various failures into success. For as both partners learn to embrace the insight that the antagonism or gap that manifests itself both between and within us is precisely what each of us share, we begin to see that this is what brings us together. Or simply put, true love begins when we realize that we can never be at One with our beloved. It is the impossibility of any ultimate reconciliation that makes true love possible. In other words, when our respective antagonisms are brought into awareness, we realize that we are unified in our incompleteness and restlessness, and that what we share is our lack, our failure to make each other whole or complete. To love entails that one accepts the antagonism is without closure. To love is to recognize this lack in one’s being - and then gives this lack to the Other, for desire springs our of this irresolvable tension and not-wholeness at the core of our being. In this way, it is precisely in our irreconcilable difference that we discover our ongoing and inexhaustible desire for each other, and that it is precisely in our shared frustrations and dis-satisfactions that is able to keep desire alive in a perpetual openness to the future.

Far from idealizing “settle down” the Eternal Honeymoon leads to a more creative and dynamic type of love relationship in which we relinquish the fantasy of the One who will make us whole and complete, and where what is exposed in the love relationship is the enigma of this irreconcilable antagonism or irreducible difference between sexes. It is the very embrace of this irresolvable antagonism that makes a successful romantic coupling possible, one that is fueled by ever-new challenges, political engagements and/or artistic expressions - none of which are embraced because of some idea that they will fulfill us in any kind of sacred fullness, but because it is precisely these irresolvable gaps and antagonisms that fuel the circuit of the couples insatiable desire. Passion and desire springs from out of the irresolvable tension or antagonism at the center of life. In short, we discover that true love is what arises when a couple can deal with the Real of antagonism, when a couple is satisfied in their dis-satisfaction, or sated by their hunger. And so contrary to popular belief, the essence of love is not that of wholeness and harmony of finding the One (the illusion of separation) - but of irreducible difference and irresolvable antagonism. Or simply out, irreconcilable differences within a romantic relationship are not a reason to get divorced - this is the very condition that makes true love possible! (Reference: Peter Rollins via Jacques Lacan)

Cameron:  "In fact it's our inability to deal with irresolvable conflict and antagonism in a sane, conscious way that leads to all the violence and warfare we see in human history..."

What, in your view, would it look like to deal with irresolvable conflict and antagonism in a sane and conscious way?

[Cameron Freeman]

And from a more psycho-therapeutic perspective, dealing with irresolvable conflict and antagonism in a sane and conscious way would look like someone who has:

a) Given up on finding the Secret and learned to live with unanswerable questions, in a perpetual wrestling with conflicting forces, paradoxes and contradictions – both within and without.
b) Acknowledged that there are no safe or secure grounds for their fundamental passions, commitments, hopes and aspirations.
c) Learned to keep desire alive by bringing awareness to the constitutive gap/lack/incompleteness at the core of their being
d) Embraced the eccentricity of a world without foundations (or the failure of Being to ground itself) by remaining continually self-critical, and by seeking to decenter one's own privileged perspective or fundamental assumptions
e) Relinquished the futile quest of having ones self-understanding (identity, meaning, life purpose, etc.) confirmed from the outside

[Cameron Freeman]

Hey Ambo

It's not simply the question of KW privileging the One over the Many, or the same over the different - because for the most part he doesn't (Reality for KW is made up of holons - simultaneously one/many, whole/part). It's more to do with putting into question the out-dated (and in some cases only implicit) metaphysical lexicon of Integral theory - ultimate reconciliation, growth up the spiral, developmental trajectories, higher altitude, increasing wholeness, wider balance, deeper order, levels of consciousness, final synthesis, wider embrace, etc...

In other words, it's to do with deconstructing pretty much the entire sweep Integral theory's most widely held presuppositions: the notion of an over-arching framework than contains and reconciles all temporal perspectives, a developmental holarchy leading to ever-increasing levels of consciousness, the "transcend and include" in a higher embrace, notions of telos/purpose/directionality in evolution, the story of Spirit going out of Itself and returning to Itself, the ground of all Being as a state of primordial peace or Non-dual awareness, and the entire series of kw's founding distinctions or binary oppositions - inside/outside, individual/collective, pre/trans, Absolute/relative, states/stages, etc. and so on... 

My fundamental point is that all of these basic Integral presuppositions actually prevent the further evolution of human consciousness, because they obscure from view the primordial antagonism at the heart of things, the non-coincidence of a Being with itself, and the irreconcilable conflicts and irresolvable paradoxes in the depths of the divine that actually make the transformation of human consciousness possible. The Integral vision is a fantasy construction designed to conceal a traumatic truth. And fair enough too, I wouldn't hold that against anyone!!

But in simple terms, Yes - the One does not come first. (aka non-dual awareness, primordial peace, ever-present Emptiness) In the beginning is irresolvable antagonism. Spirit is not at one with Itself, and this non-coincidence of the One with Itself is the engine room of the Kosmos. Primordial antagonism is what can explain the "how" of evolution, it's what accounts for the unpredictable emergence of new forms and structure through the process of temporal reality.

And yes primordial antagonism is not just in our minds, there are irresolvable tensions and paradoxes in the very fabric of reality itself, whether we like it or not. In other words - All is not One. This is also called ontological incompleteness or the Real as Non-All (read: not-whole) in contemporary continental philosophy. Honestly, if you take the time to read about what's going on in contemporary science, linguistics, philosophy and psychoanalysis you'll soon see that there many good reasons for why Integral has never been taken seriously by the academic world. I hope this helps :-)

Ambo Suno said:

Hi Cameron - I'm having to work at following your evocative ideas here, but let me try to get closer.

I think you're saying that a fundamental error in Wilber and many other's thinking is that they root themselves and their theories around the central core of ontological Oneness.

They have had an immediate, it seems to me, recognition that The Many also needs to be accounted for, particularly within the human mind. Or in reality for many people, their philosophically contemplating this may start at some age of their lives with the many and almost immediately or eventually have to account for oneness. The modeling is represented and imagined in the mind, but also grokked almost beyond the mind when mind is at its thinnest, as in meditation, as in nondual-seeming experience. [I have presumptions here, since my personal experience is very limited.] Their form of recognition and their 'understanding'/interpretation/articulation of oneness and manyness, sameness difference, is that they are related in given ways.

I'll speculate that something, maybe about sensation and perception, as with gestalt-like foreground-background oscillations, also maybe has nudged them to imagine that that the many emerges from the one (as by analogy, pops foreground). You are saying, how they and we can think of this relationship of sameness/oneness-difference/a plurality, can be where an error lies.

I hope what I have written can be tracked so far.

You may be suggesting that Wilber and others have come to privilege their formulation of sameness and difference that has settled on these basic dynamic 'appearances' - for example, perhaps that the many emerges from the one and then the many remerge into the one. Or that the many/the differences succumb to an ontological oneness/sameness/union and then, possibly, as with a metaphor of gravity and overcoming or freedom from gravity, separate out, lacking complete union/cohesion fly apart into manyness. [As George Lakoff reminds us, our metaphors and understandings are so linked to how we perceive, and experience our bodies within the physical world.]

This may also remind them of the theorizing about the origin of everything from the big-bang theory that is quite deeply rooted, though not without controversy, in the astrophysics community (I think.)

Are you suggesting, for one thing, that Wilber and others at some level of regression presume this mostly as a one-directional dance of sameness and difference, of unitary oneness, out of which comes manyness? If so, you may be correct, but my own sense is that at this point it would be a bi-directional dance, one to many, many to one, 'always' 'already'. But I must say that when feeling informed by or imagining into the origin of the universe, using science as a guide since I am otherwise totally lost, I have trouble imagining beyond the big-bang's expansion into distance and multiplicity, from consolidation or some One unitary thing/energy/state/condition. I suppose I am then caught in the one-directional model.

I can almost imagine into the sometimes imagined-by-others idea of an endless series of expansion/contraction without beginning and without end. Whew.

But I think, I am wondering, and wanting to get clarified that your primary objection is that sameness and distinction, Oneness and Manyness are not linked in the presumed ways that the history of ideas favored by Wilber and many others have led them to believe and to center their theorizing around. You use the word radical/radically that suggests to me that these two constructs, one and many, are almost unrelated, at least in the commonly presumed ways. You seem to be suggesting that in the minds of men, this relationship/non-relationship ought to be known, ought to be acknowledged, ought to be held in fertile non-conclusion, as paradoxes (and unknowns?).

Then, many fresh possibilities for the arrangement of the minds, actions, artifacts of man within our ecology can occur.

Human life has not been working well and portends poorly for the future as our minds, actions, artifacts, and ecology demonstrate. We need better ways, and we need to start at the beginning of how we perceive and understand the world and ourselves with these fundamental philosophical presumptions/assumptions and perspectives. Wilber and other integral theorists who mainly follow his lead have led us away from the how things really are. Do I have this more or less accurate to how you are thinking?

One ongoing philosophical question still remains for me. Are you, and we, talking about how things are, the relationship of sameness and difference, unitary Oneness and Manyness, in the minds, the mentality of man? Or (/and) are you saying, we can know how things are without the medium of or without reference to mentality and the man-created/co-created worlds of man? And in knowing that, you can see how wrong Wilber has gone and how to bring Integral Theory back to truth? I sort of have my default waffling around this, but this is a real recurring question for me.

I am stopping here for now. I have to cross my fingers hoping this is sufficiently intelligible and in other possible ways not too tedious, obvious, or requiring you to backtrack to bring me up to speed - or not :) I hope this is not gobbledygoop, since I do feel in 'way over my head', Cameron :)

I now, personally and intentionally, come back to sighs and chuckles as relief from all of this intense philosophizing. Hah. ambo

BTW - I'm not sure how Layman comes down on sameness/difference dynamics in regard to your objections - he does seem to say they have an intimate dynamic adjacency, if I recall correctly.

Cameron Freeman said:

The developmental dialectic (Wilber's ""transcend and include) that informs the underlying structure of Integral theory (including IPMS) is fundamentally unable to explain the evolution of consciousness - simply because it cannot think difference independently of an original sameness (One) from which things differ (Many). Instead of getting to the heart of difference itself - and the Real of irreducible antagonism, for all versions of Integral theory (as far as I know), contradiction and negativity are always seen to be marks of the "unreal" or "retrospective illusions”. However, once we deconstruct the 19th century German idealist assumptions of Integral as we know it (i.e. jettison Hegel's Aufhebung), we can open up an altogether new and unforeseeable future for Integral. The simple shift here is to move away from the Master's discourse (KW), which cannot think difference independently of an original Oneness from which the Many go out of and then return to, to the irresolvable paradoxes forever trembling in the sacred depths of the universe - where it is this perpetual wrestling between contradictory forces and irreconcilable tensions at the very heart of things that constitutes the "condition of possibility" for the quantum leap into 2nd tier, the next phase of human consciousness evolution and the transformation of our entire way of life. This deep shift in perspective is one that requires a radical break from all those versions of IPM that conceives of politics and society as ‘right order', or of a world-historical process oriented towards the reunification of absolute Spirit, or of the human species as that has become divided from itself and is returning to itself... Human history moves forward not by dialectical development, or what Integral calls "transcend and include" (Hegel's Aufhebung), but by wrestling with those irresolvable paradoxes that we have buried beneath our imaginary solutions - only the shadows of history live by dialectical development (Deleuze, "Difference and Repetition")

[Ambo Suno]

Advance your theoretical game!

Go Meta - the new 1000ST will get you there!