Ladder, climber, view & transitional structures

[Edward theurj Berge]

Since we brought up this topic in the “conservative integralites” thread let’s dive a bit deeper here. First here’s the last few posts from that thread:

 

Theurj said:

 

”This is a key issue: What is transcended and included and what is transcended and replaced? I discussed this in the "capitalism" thread. According to Wilber, and with which I agree, worldviews are replaced, not included. (See footnote 7 here for example). So to me an integral worldview would not include bit and pieces of different views in some kind of synthesis-integration-inclusion but replace them altogether into creative novelty. Hence my dissatisfaction with the promotion of integral or conscious capitalism. And things like the latter tend toward a more conservative worldview, just dressed up in new clothing-jingo.”

 

Mary W said:

 

“It's possible that I don't fully understand what is meant by ‘worldview.’ But it seems to me that one could find some value in elements of a worldview that one no longer holds. I see the integral perspective as including not just random bits and pieces of amber/orange/green in a kind of synthetic hodgepodge -- but recognizing what is of value in them and allowing that to fuel a transformative process.

“For example: in healthy development one is said to move from ‘egocentric’ to "ethnocentric" to ‘worldcentric’ to ‘cosmocentric’ -- the spheres of love/concern become more widely embracing. The limitations of each of these levels are transcended as one develops, but the element of love/concern is retained. While worldcentric could be said to be a replacement (and a rejection, even) of ethnocentric, it retains the bit of gold that existed at the previous level.”

 

Theurj said:

 

“Wilber differentiates basic and transitional structures, the former being included while the latter are transcended. So it is a question of what is defined as each kind of strucutre. Here's an excert from “Ladder, climber, view” by Ingersoll and Cook-Greuter:

‘As the self develops (climbs the ladder and increases its altitude), each rung reveals a broader, deeper view or perspective that replaces previous views or perspectives…. In one sense, these views are permanent for the period that the self is on a given rung. In another sense, the views are transitional in that once the self moves from a given rung to the next rung on the ladder, the previous view is replaced by a new, expanded view.’

 

“Wilber references his own article ‘ladder, climber, view’ on p. 66 of Integral Spirituality but says he won't discuss it in the book. He says one can find it at his site (www.kenwilber.com) but when I searched for it I could not find it. Does anyone have its specific web address?

[Edward theurj Berge]

Relevant indeed, thanks. I'm guessing the author's first language isn't English and/or he isn't a scholar? I think he has some accurate intuitions but they weren't articulated more fully or coherently.

[rltruthseeker]

Wilber talks about 'ladder, climber, view on pgs 205 to 227 in the book A Brief History of Everything. Here is the link.

[rltruthseeker]

Hey theurj, I found a venn diagram for those who are confused. :)

theurj said:

This is also part of the problem with a strictly mathematical model of hierarchical complexity based on set theory. Phenomenon, including human cognitive structures, do not fit nicely into one “set” or category so that they can be completely included and subsumed into the next higher set or category. At best each phenomenon interacts with another more like a venn diagram, overlapping with some area in common, but other areas that are not included and subsumed in a higher synthesis. Which is why I wonder whether the formal study of postformal enactments in methods like the MHC is itself a formal or PF enactment. Or some venn combination between, sharing partial sets from both?

[Edward theurj Berge]

Piacenza also has a couple of articles at Integral World which pretty much reinterate his Integral Life comments. I was right in that his native country is Peru, hence the sometimes awkward phrasing. He is also heavily programmed in kenninlingus and hence vomits verbatim much of Wilber's ideas (aside from the cultural worldview mixing), especially concerning postmodernism. I'm becoming even more convinced that such kennilingus is not in the least post- postmodern but rather pre-postmodern, caught in its own pre-post fallacy. They really haven't grasped the deeper implications of those insights but rather only have a cursory, superficial apprehension misinterpreted from the strictly formal operational perspective, albeit in shiny new clothes-lingus.

[Steven Nickeson]

Edward,

Given the fact that Piancenza is a Masters level student in I-Theory at JFKU it is hardly surprising that he couches his entire argument in a pro-Wilber vocabulary. But if one looks behind that idiosyncrasy, the schizophrenic irony of both his Integral World essays is that he highlights (though fails to exploit) one of the most telling weaknesses in Wilber-Structure, which is its uncompromising Euro/U.S. ethnocentrism.

[kelamuni]

It strikes me that one reason Ken uses the "transcend and include" formula to describe stages of development is that it fits with Piaget's model: as a child moves to a new level of cognitive development s/he does not lose the capacities that s/he had at an earlier level.

But then we begin to notice that there is a discontinuity between so-called stages in the levels purportedly "beyond" formal operations.

To me, this can only mean one thing: we are talking about apples and oranges here. The so-called postformal stages are not the same kind of animals as the cognitive stages that Paiget describes. Changing one's perspective is not the same as language aquisition or learning to think abstractly. And this is a point I have been making for some time.

[Edward theurj Berge]

This post re-opened a line of thought for this thread. In the linked post I quoted Wilber as saying:

“The Graves/Beck system does not clearly distinguish between transitional and enduring structures, nor between basic and self-related structures. In my own system, the basic structures are enduring and remain fully active capacities available at all later stages, but most of the self-related streams (such as morals, values, and self-identity) consist of transitional stages which tend to be replaced by subsequent stages.”

What I didn't quote is what directly follows:

"Subpersonalities can exist at different levels or memes, however, so that one can indeed have a purple subpersonality, a blue subpersonality, and so on. These often are context-triggered, so that one have quite different types of moral responses, affects, needs, etc. in different situations.)”

In the latter he explains how one can express different levels dependent on context, something I discussed above. But generally, despite the variations, the 'center of gravity' is relatively consistent with responses coming from 25% below it and 25% above it, meaning we're about in the center half the time.* Although he offers no empirical evidence for this I did so to a limited degree above with some of Lakoff's and Fischer's research. But they don't frame it as sub-personalities.

* From footnote 19 of this source:

“To say that the self 'identifies' with a level is not to picture this in an all-or-none fashion. Even with the proximate self-sense (e.g., as investigated by Loevinger), research indicates that individuals tend to give around 50% of their responses from one level and 25% responses from the level above and below it. As suggested in the main text, the self is more a center of gravity than a monolithic entity. This also appears to include the existence of numerous subpersonalities (Rowan, 1990; Wilber 2000b).”

[Edward theurj Berge]

Also see this Integral Options post, where William quotes at length from Integral Psychology on sub-personalities. (The average person has at least 12!) Also see Wm's post on differentiating a 'core self' from one's sub-personalities. One of the methods mentioned for so doing was psychosynthesis. Here's an article on the latter as it relates to sub-personalities and Wilber's work. Note per this that the core self is as follows:

"One of the central assumptions in psychosynthesis is the notion that we are not the body, the emotions the mind or any of the manifold roles we are playing in life. Our true identity is the self – the point of pure self-consciousness and will. We call this self the conscious 'I' when dealing with the ordinary consciousness and the Transpersonal Self when we address higher and universal consciousness. This point of self-consciousness and will acts more or less consciously through the psychological functions and the subpersonalities and in doing so, it is participating in the evolutionary quest for self-realisation in cooperation with all the other beings on the planet."

Metaphysical?

[Edward theurj Berge]

Also see John Rowan's website. He is Wilber's source quoted above on sub-personalities. In this section on mystical experiences (at the end) he explores the differences between a causal and nondual state.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Also see Chapter 6 of Integral Spirituality on the shadow. Wilber also posits that the true self or I-I can integrate disowned sub-personalities via the 3-2-1 process. For example:

"You have dis-identified with everything and become one with everything, transcending and including the entire Kosmos" (158).

And when one transcends and includes all states and stages (and shadows) up to the present time in history:

"All states and stages are object of your subject, all I’s have become me and mine of the great I-I, the open Emptiness in which Spirit speaks, the nondual suchness of the Godhead of this and every moment, the Supreme Self that owns the Kosmos arising as One Taste" (170).

I guess at this point an integrated state-stage-shadow is no longer a transitional structure? Or maybe the stage aspect, given that evolution goes on, remains transitional, even at the highest level so far, indigo (or translucent)?

[Edward theurj Berge]

The above continues to raise questions. Questions asked before in various threads and repeated here. So apparently certain vertical structures (morals, worldviews) continue to transcend and replace previous stages altogether. Which means even the highest stage so far (indigo or translucent), which posits metaphysical universals (at least in kennilingus), must be replaced. However it doesn't appear the horizontal states continue to transcend and include, since the nondual is the ultimate state at the end of the line (surpassing the causal, by the way). Or is there further room for development beyond the nondual state? And per above it seems there is an ultimate stage that matches the ultimate nondual state, ultimately free from shadow altogether (if not subpersonalities), the end of the line so to speak in all areas.

See for example the section on the WC lattice in IS. He notes that “there are also 3 or 4 higher structures beyond the centaur, and they have similar-sounding characteristics as these 3 or 4 higher states, which made it almost impossible to spot the differences” (p. 112 in the linked source). Wilber discusses these higher structure-stages at p. 122 using Fowler:

“There are somewhere around 3 or 4 stages of faith beyond his stage 6 (which is roughly a turquoise-level faith), so we would expect to find that, being laid down now only thinly as Kosmic habits but still discernible (although less so the higher up you go in altitude on a mountain that is being co-created by its climbers), some version of indigofaith (at the same altitude as the trans-planetary mind, then violet faith (meta-mind), then ultraviolet faith (overmind)…, as faith itself becomes Fuller and Fuller and Fuller…, grounded in a Freedom and an Emptiness that never changes, that is timeless and eternal, the great Ground and Openness of the entire evolving display, that nonetheless is Witness to its own display evolving” (my emphasis).

[Layman Pascal]

Dear Fr. Neologism (XI degree),

Wilber's position from his interview on Habermas & Post-metaphysics: "My view has been summarized as "quadrants, waves, streams, states, types, self"--and of those, only waves and streams (or levels and lines) are essentially developmental or evolutionary."

So my take is this:

Where there is room for ongoing development seems to be in the interaction between these states -- which could generate an appearance of change.  If the non-dual, say, is by nature utterly indissociable from the dual, then all changes in the dual create ongoing changes in the way that the non-dual "shows up".  It becomes debatable whether or not to call this an evolution of the non-dual.  Yet if we look at the non-dual as an indiscernible or non-differential element then there is no chance of it differentiating into additional conditions.  However there is a chance of its increasing its "hold" on the other states by becoming their governing implication.  Does "embodied non-dualism" count as an advance of non-dualism itself?  We could suggest, but only half mean, that there is a naturalistic unfolding of emergent conditions which characterize the non-dual's patterning relationship (what Adi Da called "bleed-through") to the other states.

But we cannot expect any change in the relation of the non-dual to other states if the inter-state "whatever" is assumed to be the non-dual background.  Thus we have to jettison "background context" as a basic non-dual metaphor and attribute that instead to the causal.  But I digress...

Your quoting puts me in mind of the sense that the Hegelian End of History is not supposed to bring progress to a halt we should probably imagine that the attainment of the highest stage -- correlated to the fundamental integration of non-dual state into the complexifying psyche -- is a kind of End of History in the sense that all future mutations will be subjectively perceived as "more of the same".  This is the "fuller and fuller and fuller". 

But its eternal changelessness is a bit of a semantic game since it is defined as something fundamentally inseparable from all that is always changing. 

Here I am reminded of the implications the McKenna draws out of Sheldrake and Whithead to the effect that the "characteristic wave pattern of time" oscillates between Novelty & Habit in a manner which will eventually hit an exponential curve and zoom towards infinity.  Colloquially this is called "infinite novelty" but actually it looks more like the infinite habituation of novelty.  New becomes Standard.  Evolutionary change it itself locked down as a constant.  Inspirational reconfigurations become utterly reliable.  Etc.  The constant of the changing becomes so transparent that it ceases to partake of the quality of change.  In this "endzone" the top-level consciousness mutant is no longer capable of registering transformations of consciousness even thought this may externally coincide with an optimized pattern of ongoing shifts.