States, stages, the WC lattice and the fold

[Edward theurj Berge]

I decided to move this post over to its own thread to work on this. I'll also move other related past posts over from other threads to riff on later.

The last post reminded me of something I've been working on using Bergson via Bryant. It's not completely thought through yet, with gaps still, but I thought I'd get it down here and then work on it further.

Now where Bryant might be akin to something like the MHC is in his endo-relational organizational structure. Recall in TDOO his distinction between exo- and endo-relations, and its correlation with intensional and extensional relations in a set (212). Endo-relations reside in the structural organization of its elements, the elements themselves not being autonomous entities. Hence the elements of this set cannot be otherwise; they must be in a relatively fixed pattern to maintain an entity's autonomy (214).

Bryant uses Bergson's diagram on memory to show how endo-relations are maintained (232).

It is similar to hierarchical nests but not quite. ABCD shows the unfoldment of an entity over time. A'B'C'D' show the memory of the entity, which feeds back into its unfoldment and also allows for future anticipation. But what is unfolded and remembered-anticipated is how an entity selectively organizes its structural elements in relation to its environment. This can and does change in response to these relations, but even when it changes it maintains a relatively stable endo-relational structure to maintain autonomy.

Where Bryant didn't go with this, and I do, is in relating this to the Wilber-Combs lattice. As I've laid out in different posts and threads, we might loosely correlate A'B'C'D' with our early development using MHC's stages with Gebser's, from pre-operational/archaic (D') to primary/magic (C') to concrete/mythic (B') to abstract-rational (A'). Formal rationality begins at A, which can be then trained to retrieve through focus and memory to integrate the previous levels throuch meditative or contemplative methods.

But here is where it diverges with the MHC and uses a twist or fold in the W-C lattice. I've claimed that the MHC continues to get more complicated with it's postformal stages, not fully remembering and then integrating the previous stages by not taking into account how the meditative process works. When integrated via meditation there is a fold or twist in both the W-C lattice and in Bergson's diagram above. Hence we get something more akin to Levin's bodies as the integrative process unfolds in reverse order, the prior magic and mythic becoming the transpersonal and the prior archaic becoming the ontological.

This relates to the W-C lattice in that the higher stages are the meditative integration of earlier state-stages in reverse order: gross-abstract, subtle-magic/mythic, causal-archaic. These are the third tier in the lattice. But whereas the lattice continues to differentiate states from stages in postformal levels a la the MHC, the states and stages undergo a transformation in the fulcrum of formal operations with meditation. i.e., they are heretofore more fully integrated and that differentiation is now replaced a la Gebserian IA awaring and the prior analysis-synthesis (de-re) above.

Relating this back to Bryant's endo-relational structure, the endo-relational elements are structurally organized in a specific and nested way akin to transcend and include. Wilber senses that there is a difference between enduring and transitional structures akin to Bryant's endo- and exo-relations. Wilber even uses Luhmann in ways similar to Bryant but not in this way, since Wilber's enduring structures are cogntive like pre-formal to concrete to rational. These would be more akin to Luhmann's independent and autonomous exo-relations.

[Edward theurj Berge]

A few things from the above excerpt stand out relating to previous posts in the thread. The boundary of a suobject both divides and unites in that while it has autonomy it is always connected to the field outside it. Hence while a dyad it is not a monad or duality, not one, not two; not so much an ontology as a plitology. Also it is a relationship between the virtual and the actual, so that even the virtual is not a timeless essence, while the actual is not a strictly material reduction. All of which is "the folding of their difference," aka differance, khora and the objet (fuckin) a.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Cool gif I saw on FB today:

[Edward theurj Berge]

Bryant continues on the theme of folds in this recent post with reference to knowledge. He denounces epistemological foundationalism and the thing in itself. But this one is paramount: "Techne always precedes episteme and not the reverse, and that it is always on the basis of a praxis that any theoria can be produced at all." It is by an embodied enactment and folding between the subject and its field (aka suobject) that we come to know anything at all.

[Ambo Suno]

T, this blog post of Bryant about thing and field and fold, and turbulence and vortices, the very dynamic metaphors through which he sees manifestation, is beautiful. I suppose his seeing-imagining/rendering, his writing/written involves more than metaphor, but also something of schema and framing and such, though I haven't sorted all that out.

What he is saying in starting out the post, about the dynamics of process writing that results in a written thing that becomes fixed and can be used by others and self to call for a fixed accountability, sounds true. Who among us doesn't sometimes, maybe often, go, "I wrote that?!"

He speaks of the walking dead of this above human situation. Others do also. Since I have just read the memoir I referenced recently, about J Krishnamurti, I'll mention that this is one of his recurring themes, repeated often and enjoined into all aspects of life, not just writing. Can one die to the past, the changing now, the future? Also referenced as 'freedom from the known', and such.

I hadn't been to Bryant's blog for awhile and it is good to enter the aesthetics of his spare site.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Marty Keller has a new Integral World article, "What is integral?" Balder also started a FB thread on it here. My response so far:

I'm in partial agreement with Marty. As I argued in [in this thread], second tier is incipient when we've more thoroughly integrated the so-called lateral states in the WC lattice via some form of meditation or contemplation. But instead of them being atop the so-called 2nd tier levels as 3rd tier a la the lattice, they are (en)folded under and within the 1st tier stages.

At the same time though we cannot interpret these states metaphysically like the traditions but rather posmetaphysically or postformally. The latter are the lateral extensions of formal logic in systemtic, metasystemic, paradigmatic and cross-paradigmatic according to the model of hierarchical complexity. I replace the lateral states on the WC lattice with these lateral extensions of formal logic, while speculating that at least the systemic notion of postmetaphysicality, along with the integration of the states, is the very beginning of 2nd tier or integral-apersectival awareness per Gebser.

[Edward theurj Berge]

By the above I do not mean to imply that the MHC's postformal 'levels' are by any means postmetaphysical. My lengthy inquiry in the real/false reason thread concludes they are not so in themselves. Postmetaphysics itself takes a turn or fold from metaphysical formal operations and doesn't necessarily follow the MHC trajectory.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Another Bryant post on the fold.

[Edward theurj Berge]

I was reading the conveyor belt thread this morning on another matter and was reminded of this article, which has a section on the cognitive twist. I will read it and comment if it has relevance for this thread.

[Edward theurj Berge]

From this reference in the last link:

"The aim in this exploration is to recognize how twistedness works and the conditions under which its complexity is of 'positive', as opposed to 'negative', significance. This argument aims to clarify the nature of more complex forms of understanding that may appear 'twisted' to others and may, or may not, indeed be usefully associated with 'richer' or 'higher' forms of cognitive insight --whether exemplified by 'holiness' or 'perversion'."

Holy shit!

[Ambo Suno]

Agreed, t, holy shit.

I haven't finished my working through these few references, but have spent some time with them.

They are rich with information, with co-relating natural processes, with explicitly pointing to metaphors' bases, with intimations and suggestions of the deep origins of image schema, and such. These are integrated in a very helpful way to my ears.

Anthony Judge may deserve to be called a visionary - amazing intentionality, persistence, brightness in holding and bringing things together. What a life of work and apparently passion.

On ILC a few times over the years I mentioned my reservations about the 'conveyor belt' metaphor's use and the often, perhaps, non-helpful reductiveness of its strong image.

https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/musings/conveyor.php#cogn
"Why should an appropriate metaphor not have non-linear qualities to be of requisitely imaginative complexity?"

Back to root natural non-linear (to say the least) processes, here is a bit that caught my eye, among many:

https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs00s/coils.php
"Cosmology and solar dynamics: As noted by L. H. Ford (Twisted scalar and spinor strings in Minkowski spacetime, 1980) with respect to the organization of spacetime, twisted field configurations in Minkowski spacetime are normally associated with a nonsimply connected space. however, it is shown that it is also possible to construct such configurations in a simply connected space.
According to C. R. DeVore (A quantitative accounting of the magnetic helicity released in solar eruptive events. 2000), the helicity, or twistedness, of magnetic fields appears to be a key component of explosive activity on the Sun, manifesting itself in both eruptive prominences and delta sunspot flares. Simulations show the buildup of helicity in the solar corona due to the nonuniform rotation of the Sun, in amounts consistent with those observed to depart in the form of magnetic clouds imbedded in the solar wind." [emboldening mine]

Good stuff, t. Worth spending more time with.

theurj said:

From this reference in the last link:

"The aim in this exploration is to recognize how twistedness works and the conditions under which its complexity is of 'positive', as opposed to 'negative', significance. This argument aims to clarify the nature of more complex forms of understanding that may appear 'twisted' to others and may, or may not, indeed be usefully associated with 'richer' or 'higher' forms of cognitive insight --whether exemplified by 'holiness' or 'perversion'."

Holy shit!

[Edward theurj Berge]

"The interior of things: the origami of being" by Bryant. A brief excerpt:

"Everything transpires as if the being of beings were a sort of origami. There are only folds: plaits, pleats, creases, waves, crevices, knots, and caves. And within each of those folds? Other fold! There are only folds coiled within folds radiating to infinity in both time and space. And if this is not enough, these folds are not fixed-crease folds, but rather are mobile folds. The wave is a better image of the fold than the envelope. A wave is a fold that perpetually folds itself, that traverses a field and that maintains its identity through the repetition of a process that is the unity of both difference and sameness. The folds of being are not fixed creases, but rather being never ceases to everywhere fold and unfold itself. Being is everywhere an undulation of folds and of undulating folds. Folds envelop one another, enfolding other folds within them. On other occasions and in other places, planes or fields undergo processes of invagination through which the surface becomes textured and riddled with crevices forming something akin to caves. On yet other occasions, that which is folded unfolds. In unfolding, that which is folded does not become a smooth or flat surface. This, of course, sometimes happens as well, though perhaps the flat surface or plane is the most folded being of all. More often, however, that which unfolds configures itself as a new formation of folds like a blooming flower."

[Balder]

Ah, I'm glad you saw this today; I was going to share it with you.  Consonant with a number of themes we've explored, from "the fold" in this thread to Keller's multi-pli-city to (I would argue) the ways I've attempted to frame withdrawal in relational/prepositional terms.