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]

And this source is quite relevant: "Alegebras, geometries, and topologies of the fold: Deleuze, Derrida and quasi-mathematical thinking (with Leibniz and Mallarme)" by Arkady Plotnitsky. More later.

[Edward theurj Berge]

From the last source, quoting Deleuze on Heidegger, relevant to my earlier musings on clearly distinguishing the compliments, yet using the tension between them (boundary) to 'unite' them.

"The 'duplicity' of the fold has to be reproduced from the two sides that it distinguishes, but it relates one to the other by distinguishing them: a severing by which each term casts the other forwards, a tension by which each fold is pulled into the other"  (105).

Plotnitsky then quotes Deleuze on the change from Leibniz's monadology to his own nomadololgy. Of interest is the refutation of the 'dominant monad,' a key concept in kennilingus. Which relates to the type of mereology found in kennilingus (and the likes of the MHC) in favor of a more 'democratic' mereology found in Bryant, heavily influenced by Deleuze.

"To the degree that the world is now made up of divergent series (the chaosmos) [...] the monad is now unable to contain the entire world as if in a closed circle that can be modified by projection. It now opens on a trajectory or a spiral in expansion that moves further and further away from a center. A vertical harmonic can no longer be distinguished from a horizontal harmonic, just like the private condition of a dominant monad that produces its own accords in itself, and the public condition of monads in a crowd that follows the lines of melody. The two begin to fuse on a sort of diagonal, where the monads penetrate each other, and modified, inseparable from the groups of prehension that carry them along and make up as many transitory captures [...] do not allow the difference of inside and outside, or public and private, to survive" (105).

[Edward theurj Berge]

All the material of late is relevant to the project of this thread. At this point I'm just intuiting tenuous connections that have yet to solidify into organized articulation. It revolves around the fold, which stated as an exploration of how later stages of human development fold back to earlier ones for a more complete integration instead of just flying off into ever more complex (complicated) rational structures. My first intuition is how this is accomplished by a suobject's endo-relational structure, which apparently where the withdrawn resides according to Bryant. But my own later questioning of this notion via Clark, with hints from Morton, now sees this thing called the fold also at the boundaries between suobjects. There is still an autonomy to a suobject but not without a communion. There is still a suobject's endo-relational structure, but it too changes in response to its communions and participation within assemblages. Granted the withdrawn pertains to the unmanifest reserves of endo-relations, but also applies to the same withdrawn in not only other suobjective endo-relations but in the Fold between inner and outer, singular and plural, epistemology and ontology. The Fold even folds in/out upon itself so that there is no essence to it, like Emptiness.

Now how all this relates to memory and folding might be found in Cilliars with 'distributed' brain processing on the 'inside,' which also relates to how this is distributed with the 'outside' environment, also using Clark (and Derrida) as a source. Not surprisingly, we again see this characteristic of distribution being one of those in the emerging paradigm, also expressed in socio-economics like the recent thread on anti-capitalism.

[Edward theurj Berge]

From the beginning of chapter 6 of Complexity and Pomo on self-organization:

"Most philosophical positions throughout the Western intellectual tradition have been sceptical about the spontaneous emergence of order and structure. In the absence of a rational explanation for such emergence, some kind of organising agent—God (as the ultimate designer) or some other a priori principle—was usually postulated. Yet self-organisation is neither a mystic process nor a random one, and should not be in conflict with any of our normal sensibilities. That is what I hope to show in this chapter" (89).

It seems clues are here to a structure's endo-relations in response to its environment.

[Edward theurj Berge]

"Where does the neural net come from?  In a sense this is the same problem with the idea of archetypes as Image Schema.  If Image Schema come from the experience of the baby and its environment and primary caregivers, there still remains the question of where did the baby's ability to process experience come from in the first place?"

From a long process of evolution that does just fine without any skyhooks or involutionary givens including archetypes. I think you'll find more of the 'general' complexifiers, including Cilliars, have no need for such contraptions, that evolution is sufficient for the process, including genetics. The latter also evolved and is not an a priori given, and is still evolving.

[Edward theurj Berge]

See Pomo and Complexity, the section "learning through selection" starting at 100. E.g.:

"It should be clear that the ‘informational’ approach depends heavily on the notion of predetermined structure—on abilities the system is ‘born’ with, rather than on abilities the system could acquire. Furthermore, it assumes a hierarchical, rule-based, representational model of the brain. This is not merely an assumption about the inner workings of the nervous system, but in fact a more basic ontological assumption about the fabric of the universe. It enacts a nostalgia to reduce the world to logical relationships that can be tracked down. It should come as no surprise that this approach is intimately linked to the rule-based approach to the modelling of complex systems" (100).

At 103 he notes that certain brain structures are hard-wired, do not change by experience and are passed on by genetics. But these in turn evolved and 'selected' over long periods for survival, not some pre-determined given.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Note for this thread: See this post and several following that are of relevance here.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Here's a post from the old Open Integral blog I got from the Wayback Machine:

Is integral a level?

January 28th, 2008 (posted by Edward Berge)

This is from an interview with Bill Torbert (2002) at Integral Leadership Review:

Q: When you speak of action logic what model are you referring to?

A: It’s the phrase that I’ve come to use for what other people call developmental stages. I think the notion of stages is very abstract and raises all sorts of problems about it, especially at the later developmental action logics. The latest action logics aren’t stage-like in their nature. They don’t capture you in the way the earlier ones do. In Kegan’s notion of subject and object, in each movement towards a later developmental position you take the action logic you were formerly subject to and turn it into object. You manipulate it by yourself. This moves us to a place where we can be so alert and awake that we recognize that our every thought is simply an expression of a particular action logic. We’re not caught by any of our action logics or we’re caught for shorter periods of time. We’re able to swim back upstream again. We experience that part of the problem we just created was by getting identified or stuck in a particular action logic.

Below are some quotes from other authors highlighting this. For example, this from Washburn (1988):

“The perspective of this book is dynamic in that the primary focus is on the ego’s interaction with dynamic life, the source of which is referred to as the Dynamic Ground.

“The perspective of this book is triphasic in that it divides human development into three principle stages. These are the pre-egoic, egoic and transegoic stages….the transegoic stage, which corresponds to later adulthood…is seen as a period in which a strong and mature ego is resubmitted to and integrated with the Dynamic Ground.

“Principle among the features or the transegoic, or integrated, stage are: transcendence of the major dualisms that plague the mental ego…and the transformation of these dualisms into harmonious dualities, higher syntheses of opposites.”

Goddard (2007) elaborates:

“While Wilber’s pre-trans distinction is valid in one sense, transcendence of the ego level actually implies a re-encounter with the original ground unconscious. Transformation beyond the dualistic mental-ego lies through a re-encounter with the original matrix, which is not so in Wilber’s model. Grof’s findings in particular suggest that there is no sharp distinction between these dimensions and that the transformational encounter with the unconscious is not restricted to the personal biographical level ‘this side’ of the transpersonal level. According to Grof (1985), Wilber’s emphasis on linearity and on the radical difference between pre-phenomena and trans-phenomena is too absolute a distinction. He writes:

‘The psyche has a multidimensional, holographic nature, and using a linear model to describe it will produce distortions and inaccuracies…My own observations suggest that, as consciousness evolution proceeds from the centauric to the subtle realms and beyond, it does not follow a linear trajectory, but in a sense enfolds into itself (my italics). In this process, the individual returns to earlier stages of development, but evaluates them from the point of view of a mature adult. At the same time, he or she becomes consciously aware of certain aspects and qualities of these stages that were implicit, but unrecognized when confronted in the context of linear evolution. Thus, the distinction between pre- and trans- has a paradoxical nature; they are neither identical, nor are they completely different from each other. When this understanding is then applied to the problems of psychopathology, the distinction between evolutionary and pathological states may lie more in the context, the style of approaching them and the ability to integrate them into everyday life than in the intrinsic nature of the experiences involved (p.137).’”

Hampson (2007) elaborates on this section of Grof used by Goddard above:

“The latter understanding-that Authentic and post-Authentic consciousness enfolds into itself-would specifically problematise Wilber’s theorizing of levels specifically for Green and beyond.”

Goddard, Gerry (2007). Transpersonal Theory and the Astrological Mandala: An Evolutionary Model. Chapter 3. From his site.

Hampson, Gary (2007). “Integral reviews postmodernism,” Integral Review 4, p. 144

Torbert, Bill (2002). Interview in Integral Leadership Review, Volume 2, Number 7, August

Washburn, Michael (1988). The Ego and the Dynamic Ground. New York: Suny Press, pp. 4-5

[Edward theurj Berge]

Recall Torbert is the last post: "The latest action logics aren’t stage-like in their nature." Instead we get this folding where we can be any stage or state without identification as needed. We enact this plurality of voices and views, which is not itself a particular view or stage. One might even say this is postmetaphysics, or after the identification with any particular metaphysics. Hence the integrality of being all of them at times and none of them all the time. This is not anything goes at any time relativism but something specific goes depending on the time and place perspectivism. It is also a-perspective in that there is not any assholon perspective that sees or knows it all and centers all action-logic. Integral-aperspectival in a nutshell.

[Edward theurj Berge]

This sounds similar to the Lingam in this post. To reiterate:

"The net result, at supermind, is that all of the basic rungs or basic structures—and all of the major states—are still in existence, and now  fully integrated [….] and is grounded in ever‑present pure Presence […] and all that remains is the freely arising, self-manifesting, self-liberating structures and states of consciousness, which plug the individual into all of the realms (worldviews, domains, states, conditions, and levels) of the entire Kosmos. The Awakened individual’s Kosmic Address includes the Kosmic Address of every phenomenon in the universe."

The difference is, as stated in that post, that of the metaphysics of presence in kennilingus, or the 'know it All'-ness, i.e., an assholonic perspective.

[Edward theurj Berge]

As also stated earlier in this thread, meditative discipline indeed confers expertise in disidentifying with any particular view. But only to a point, since meditative traditions typically frame 'nondual' states within a metaphysics of presence projected ontologically to the ontic itself. Hence we see the Lingam carry this banner from his own traditional training. My arguments are that so-called second tier requires not only state training to experience nonduality but an integral-aperspectival or postmetaphysical acknowledgement of no super Assholon experience and Reality. And that is only the beginning, not the end.

[Edward theurj Berge]

From this post in the Torbert thread:

Also from above one can see that while the higher action-logics in a sense transcend and include the lower ones the latter are not completely subsumed, because there is yet another aspect, this attentional focus,* that keeps up triple-looping around even the highest (as yet), transformational level so that one can consciously choose what level(s), and to what degree(s) and or mixtures, one might enact from among them depending on the unique particulars of a given circumstance.** This sounds much more akin to Gebser's integral-apersectival as I pointed out in the real/false reason thread.

* The intentional attention (which can be distinguished from the other three territories, can experience all three simultaneously...

** The singular event, in Caputo/Derrida terms. See this for example.