Ken on Supermind

[Balder]

Wilber has a new (premium) offering on Integral Life - an excerpt from his forthcoming book, The Religion of Tomorrow:

Supermind and the Primordial Avoidance

An excerpt:

"Supermind is the epitome of freedom and responsibility. You, and in the deepest sense you alone, become responsible for the entire planet and all of its beings. Immanuel Kant beautifully defined a “cosmopolitan” as one who feels that, “when anyone anywhere suffers, I suffer” – a profound world-centric awareness. And the ultimate cosmopolitanism is when one feels that, when anyone or anything anywhere suffers, I suffer, because I am them.

Supermind is that type of all-inclusive, all-pervading, all-embracing responsibility. And it starts with being able to hold the entire Kosmos in your awareness without shutting out so much as a single item. Absolutely everything entering your field of awareness, with no exceptions whatsoever, is fully and totally embraced, saturated with love, radiating from the infinity of your own heart-space, streaming from the radical fullness of your very own being, and reaching out to each and every thing and event, in each and every direction in the known ends of the Kosmos itself. There is simply nothing anywhere, at any time, on the outside of this awareness. It is “one without a second.” And having no outside, it has no inside either, but simply is.

To contract at all in the face of this undivided wholeness awareness, this total painting of all that is existing in this timeless all-inclusive present, is to set in motion the self-contraction, the separate self-sense that latches onto the relative, finite, conventional small self – a necessary functional entity for this manifest world created by the True Self itself, along with the rest of creation – but latches onto that small self, or “I”, as if it were itself the True Self, or “I-I”, thus setting in motion the entire train of events known as ignorance, illusion, Maya, deception, the fallen world, the world of the lie. This is transmitted in each and every lower structure present, and the radically enlightened nature of Supermind becomes lost and obscured in wave after wave of avoidance.

And that avoidance rests on this, what we might call “primordial avoidance” – the very first subtle looking away. If we go back to the single, indivisible, total painting notion, there is some element, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, that for whatever reason I don’t want to look at, to be aware of, to notice, to allow into my awareness – that single, primary turning away, looking away, moving away. That primordial avoidance sets in motion the events that are, at this level, the dominant cause of the world of Maya, illusion, ignorance, deception. And every level, top to bottom, is infected with this delusion."

–Ken Wilber, Supermind and the Primordial Avoidance

[Ambo Suno]

Andrew, maybe we could say that though "supermind" designation be possibly grandiose (especially when ken seems to include in his descriptions of supermind a oneness with all that is beyond "mind" and yet what he includes apparently in the word "Mind", All), Ken approaches more closely than almost anyone, "Super-UL." :)

I hope I haven't said this out of meanness - I suspect out of my own frustrations and confusions and good humor.

Thanks on the well wishes for ribs and bod. I have been back in the water for a few weeks and wearing a wake boarding impact vest to hold the rib cage together and padded.

Day before yesterday I had maybe my most stoking ride in this very elementary surfer's history. There was a nice swell and there were only a few of us on the water in the early morning. My surf buddy Rich was sitting inside a bit on a shorter board for a steeper take-off - I was on a long board catching the wave a little further out in its more early rolling phase. At this location at this time the waves would jack up steeply pretty fast once you got on them. When it is steep, my strategy and one common strategy, if you don't want the big airdrop is to angle the board - this ameliorates the steepness with a lesser inclined traverse. I do this almost always. On Sunday, Rich was sitting exactly where I needed to angle through as a wave came that I decided was mine. To take it, and not run Rich over, I needed to drop down straight on this 2-3 foot overheard wave with a big mass of water in it. I made the drop and cranked a hard bottom turn with out pearling my board and was off along this fast moving aqueous ridgeline. Sweeeett! TMI :) ?

Yet it is an ongoing body-mind dance between injuries, fleeting signs of latent or potential injury, and ongoing vulnerabilities. Etc, for the old guys, eh?

I just finished a dynamic novel with a sci-fi element to it about a genetic mutation that occurred in Africa allowing the birth of a child with superhuman mental capacities. The description of huge mentally integrative holistic pattern containment had strong resonance with the supermind theme on the table. If I get to it I will quote some passages and briefly recap some of the storyline of this thriller. Genoside Of One, by Kazuaki Takano. It was strong in science, politics, social-psychology, the possible accommodation of 'lesser' minds into a world of more like superminds, and more that gave an almost integral treatment of this hypothetical situation.

Thanks, ambo

[Edward theurj Berge]

"Visser has said that Wilber is very strong when it comes to the upper left ; now I would think Ken is super-strong!"

Superhuman, in fact. I know, some will say that he's being metaphorical, or that it's a teaching strategy or some other rationalization. I'm not buying, either the course, the hype or the apologetics. (I'm not referring to you here Ambo but to the FB IPS thread on this.)

[andrew]

Hard to read when packaged in an infomercial format. There is an inherent dissonance here between the most advanced state/stage a human can attain and the method of said deliverance. 

Putting that aside: how does this differ from L. Ron Hubbard's psychological clearing methods? At the very least there seems to be a wedding here between modern psychological principles and Buddhist epistemology/ontology. If this is true then it is fairly easy to see how god gets dispensed with or becomes solely identify with being a human being ( the onto theological fallacy) concomitant with the subtle privileging of one tradition over another. This is not the road to pluralistic peace, imo.

BTW., theurj: the last thing I would ever accuse you of is being dogmatic. You've laid out a ton of evidence and argument for your particular take on Integral which I've come to view as more logically consistent than Wilber's.  That I might not agree with the 'sternness ' of your conclusions about the nature of reality does not prevent me from having an appreciation of your knowledge in this area. 

[Ambo Suno]

In the book, Genoside Of One's first description of the child, a letter spoke briefly of him:

"...Soon after I arrived at the kanga band's camp I saw a creature I had never seen before. It's difficult to describe it in words. It has the body and limbs of a human infant, but its head is very different. Especially if you look at its eyes you can see that it belongs in a different category than human beings...

I learned that the child was born three years before to a Mbuti couple. As I observed the child I saw that, while its physical body functioned normally, it has an intelligence far exceeding its age.

For several months after that I was able to see the startling intellectual powers of this child. It's nothing other than superhuman. I'll provide all the details after I am home but for here let me give just a couple of examples.

I taught the child English and it mastered everything, including reading and writing, in two weeks. It can argue politics, economics, and other complex issues. Though it's three years old, it's pharynx isn't developed yet and it can't converse using sound. Instead it uses the keyboard of a laptop computer.

Its abstract mathematical reasoning really stands out, and I was astounded by how easily it could do prime factorization... Considering the hyperdeveloped forehead - anatomical observation suggest neoteny - this is a different race of human being, resulting from a sudden mutation in the cerebral neocortex. There's a high possibility that we are looking at an instance of human evolution..."

This sounds a bit hokey and far-fetched to be sprung into this, though it is page 200 in the book and there has been some story building priorly, eh. I'll probably transcribe more shortly.

[Ambo Suno]

A mission has been underway, and a soldier has met in the jungle the guardian of this prodigy who wrote the letter:

"What is that child? It doesn't look human."
Pierce, ever the scholar, answered crisply. "The child has undergone a mutation. But it is not handicapped. A genetic mutation took place, and it has a brain that is superior to ours."
"Superior to ours?"
"Superior to that of anybody else on earth. The White House is afraid of the child's intellect because it can break any code, including military encryption. That's why they hired you to kill it.
"Hold on a minute," Myers said...
"It means mankind has evolved."

[Ambo Suno]

In Japan where a related plot is unfolding:

"As he walked down the streets of Setagaya, Kento pulled his copy the Heisman Report out of his pocket. The report said that when 'superhumans' appeared they would 'possess an intelligence that vastly surpasses ours.' Regarding the properties of this intelligence, the report had stated, 'They will have the ability to perceive a fourth dimension, to immediately grasp complex wholes; they will have a sixth sense, and infinitely developed moral consciousness - mental qualities that are incomprehensible to us.'

Kento was especially struck by the fact that they would be able to *grasp complex wholes*. For a scientist such an ability was a kind of dream. Within a cell, for example, there are there are many signal transmissions connected to the mechanisms that produces PAECS. The thousands of interconnected biochemical reactions were so complex that it was impossible for humans to grasp even the entire workings of a single cell. It was beyond human intellect..."

[Ambo Suno]

Some scientists are beginning to learn about this child and are questioning:

"...'We should go back to the Heisman Report," Gardner said...linking his hands behind his head and gazing up at the ceiling. 'The hypothetical abilities quoted for this super race in the report - the ability to perceive a fourth dimension and a sixth sense - these are all nonsense. If Nous [the child] tries to think about the fourth dimension and beyond he'll still have to depend on mathematical abstractions. And a sixth sense is the realm of the occult. As a scientist I have nothing to say about that.'
Rubens felt the same way.
'And about infinitely developed moral consciousness, anyone like that would be like God. this isn't an issue scientists debate.'
Again, Rubens agreed.
'What is correct, though, are the two remaining points...'
'Rubens was Happy to know that he and the science adviser saw things the same way. 'The ability to grasp complex whole?' he asked.
'Exactly. This short phrase says a lot. Skepticism about reductionism, the ability to foresee people's confusion in the face of chaos. The kind of ability scientists of the second half of the last century hoped the next generation would have. But didn't you study this field?'
'At the Santa Fe institute I did research on complex adaptive systems, so I'm familiar with the subject.'
'If Nous has the ability to immediately grasp complex wholes, what, precisely, would he be capable of?'
'He might be able to predict conditions that we see as unpredictable - what we label chaos. In other word there would be another paradigm shift in the field of complex systems.' As he spoke Rubens became acutely aware of how markedly different this next generation of human was from present-day man. 'If so, he could construct accurate simulation models for all kinds of things, not just natural phenomena but psychological and social phenomena. Specifically, there would be a dramatic leap in understanding of biological phenomena and much more accurate forecasts of economic trends, earthquakes, long-range weather predictions, and the like...'
'A question arose in Rubens' mind. Was Nous more moral than humans? Or more cruel? Would he permit an intellectually inferior race to coexist with him, or would he set out to wipe us out? Even if he allowed us to coexist, we would still be under his control...'"

Later in the book as the child comes to be known more, after dropping a tree leaf onto an exact spot, he says, "I understand the movement of the leaf."

[Ambo Suno]

As I transcribe these snippets without the context of the full book, I begin to wonder if this will sound almost comic book dorky. Maybe it is a bit dorky, but I enjoyed the imagining into what a supermind might be like, within the framework of an adventure novel.

[andrew]

Oh, yeah, for sure, Ambo, if the question is if super mind is possible. I always liked the Taltos in Rice's books. But possibility, to me, doesn't change how anyone goes about verifying real life claims. Really, anyone can claim this and there doesn't seem to be any way to falsify anyones claims to super mind. And then the question of efficacy again. Humanity, counter to popular opinion, is about to enter a !@#$%storm in the next 50 years if we don't solve the 'black tar' issue. I don't see how these two issues are irrelevant here. 

Anyway, good to hear that you're on the road to recovery. I'm still laid up for a bit longer so I get to continue being a gadfly here!lol