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]

Indeed, Multipli City (aka Syn City) is a kosmic address, so to speak. But even as such it is "not fixed creases," i.e., not a fixed address in the metaphysical sense but itself en/unfolded in each implicate/explicate fold in the suobject/field. Aka differance itself.

[Edward theurj Berge]

The following photo is a painting by a local friend of mine. It exemplifies the folded nature of nature. She calls it "wholeness is holiness." Her website is here.

[Ambo Suno]

Beautiful textures, contours, shapes, colors, and hints of deeper depths.

theurj said:

The following photo is a painting by a local friend of mine. It exemplifies the folded nature of nature. She calls it "wholeness is holiness." Her website is here.

[Edward theurj Berge]

This book seems more in line with this thread and not so much kennilingus transcend and include.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Free ebook of the above here. A video talk is below.

[Edward theurj Berge]

At around 30:00 in the video he discusses framing based on our context-dependent memory.

[Ambo Suno]

Yes, though I haven't spent enough time with this yet, Edwyrd, I think this excellent stuff about the effects of human memory on reasoning and other pivotal inner processes. I think he does a nice helpful job by pivoting around the word and phenomenon of "kluge" - so true, imo, about evolution's order and caprice.

Forgive me for emphasizing what I said in the past (link below) - yet I think/feel and was thinking/feeling why I usually can't place much truth/reality-weight on people's political preferences and opinions. Biases, framings, logics, and so on are often patently limited.

http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/a-progressive-... [May 31st post and the last Sunday May 12, post]

This man has a very nice manner of presenting and is so articulate in a sufficiently plain-spoken way. Of course, as you are alluding, there is great overlap, commonality, and synergy with Lakoff and others' work.

The emphasis on memory, here, makes me almost want to insert a small review on a, it seems to me, scientifically tight rendering as a novel on the crucial importance of memory in our functioning and related senses of self. Maybe I will say a few things about, "The Man Without A Shadow", by Joyce Carol Oates, in another thread. It is a fascinating story of a man coping with severely debilitating anterograde amnesia and some less important chunk of retrograde amnesia. His hippocampus was damaged via encephalitis so he could not form new declarative memories. Because of some special features of this man, he became an excellent "case" for psychological and neuropsychological experimentation and research. There was however some story tension around whether there might not be other domains of memory than of highly cognitive ones which were effecting his relationships.

This author is a very skilled writer, and she happens to be married to a neuroscientist. For those interested in this sort of science and self-theme and who don't mind a slower action pace, a good book!

[Edward theurj Berge]

Over at FB IPS Bauwens posted on the economic work of Karatani. An excerpt with comment follows:

"There are four types of mode of exchange:

• mode A, which consists of the reciprocity of the gift ;

• mode B, which consists of ruling and protection;

• mode C, which consists of commodity exchange; and

• mode D, which transcends the other three. 

Mode of exchange D is not simply the restoration of mode A — it is not, that is, the restoration of community. Mode of exchange D, as the restoration of A in a higher dimension, is in fact only possible with the negation of A."

It is a return of communal shareholding via the new 'nomadic' structure, i.e., via the internet we share and distribute resources in a world community, not just with our local tribe. It's much like Rifkin describes the collaborative commons new iteration.

I put it in this thread due to the 'return on a higher dimension' theme. We don't keep getting more and more complex (via deficient rationality) but we fold back into previous levels and more fully integrate them. It's a similar development to Spiral Dynamics, where the so-called second tier is in fact a higher dimension of the first tier. 2nd tier begins with yellow annotated A’-N’ to show its relationship with beige (A-N). Hence 2nd tier is in one sense a return to the 'origin' of beige but with a shift from the subsistence issues in the 1st tier to the 'being' issues in 2nd tier. The image used for this relation is the double helix, which recalls the same image used by Goddard (referenced earlier in this thread) in his similar notion of a return-integration of previous levels.

[Michael Schwartz]

Edwyrd, I deeply appreciate the model presented above. I would ask, to all engaged in this post, how might Michael Washburn's model come into play as such given the above model? - mainly, his distinction between structural-hierachical and spiral-dynamical lines of development in the psyche. This was presented in the JTPS in 2003, the essay located online at: http://www.atpweb.org/jtparchive/trps-35-03-01-001.pdf.

[Edward theurj Berge]

We've referenced Washburn earlier in this thread. See this Balder post, for example, and our discussion thereafter. We also have a thread on Washburn and meditation here, also addressing some of the same issues.

[Edward theurj Berge]

To briefly answer Michael, what's going on in this thread is a sort of hybrid of those types listed in your referenced Washburn JTPS article. A hierarchical mereology is maintained but more of the strange sort, as Morton or Bryant would say.

[Edward theurj Berge]

DavidM's post from another thread is also relevant to this one. It discusses Trump from a Gebserian perspective as a deficient magical structure. For this thread the point is the return of repressed prior structures in a "double movement," akin to the fold. The mental structure, when faced with this, has two options: 1) regress to the previous level and its deficient phase or 2) integrate it into a healthy integral-aperspectival awareness.