Jean Gebser

[DavidM58]

From a link I found on this site from theurge - a Google Doc, (p. 11 (2009) devoted to an old discussion about Jean Gebser:

"Shifting gears, out of left field, in simultaneity: “Gebser reprogrammed: suppose an emerging cyber consciousness” by William Miller, Integral Explorations Volume 5, 1998.

Abstract:

Gebser's vision of an emerging integral consciousness may well have been the product of his own mental/rational grand theory. A child of his time (as are we all) he wrote before witnessing the effects of television and the computer, the Web/Internet, virtual communities and virtual identities, the rise of the

information society, and post-modernity. Drawing on insights from Marshall McLuhan, Howard Rheingold, Paul Virilio, Arthur Kroker, and the consciousness brain/mind theories of Marvin Minsky and Daniel Dennett, perhaps instead of the integral we can posit an emerging cyber consciousness of virtual realities and virtual identities, cyborg-like machinic bodies, technological extensions, and hyper-experiences of instantaneity and virtual space. Instead of the integral's Picasso, for an image of this emerging consciousness we might well turn to the cybernovel Neuromancer."

OK, now read this excerpt from possibly Jean Gebser’s last writing, published Jan. 1974 shortly after his death, from an article entitled “The Integral Consciousness”:

“Our conception of what we call reality depends upon our mode of consciousness. For example, reality, as it is understood by many Asiatics, Africans, American Indians and other non-European peoples, is not the same as it is for Westerners, because they do not see the world as the correlate of their own ego. We, on the other hand, regard everything from the point of view of our ego-consciousness. For us, the world is a tangible reality which confronts us: Here am I, there is the world. We believe ourselves capable of managing this world by means of external techniques because we are strongly conscious of our position in space and time—we must be conscious of our stance, for without this conscious knowledge we should be egoless, indeed timeless, as are the representatives of those non-European cultures just mentioned. Their consciousness is to a certain extent dreamlike; it knows little of ego or of time. The same could also have been said of Europeans several thousand years ago, before we awoke to an awareness of the ego in the world, and thereby learned to regard time and space as tangible values. Thanks to this mental and ego-centered waking awareness we were able to shape our reality anew: We saw reality as objective to ourselves as subject, and thereby created science and made technology possible.

Yet. in spite of all the so-called progress we have made, in spite of all our achievements, we are threatened by a danger which becomes greater and more apparent day by day and which cannot be over-stressed: the danger that our identification with the ego may become too strong—that it may harden and degenerate into egocentricity, until we lose the ability to fructify conscious human relations and may even, eventually, become inhuman. Many people today feel that ego-development is leading to a fatal imbalance, even to the point of threatening our whole Western culture. The threat arises from the fact that excessive ego-centricity, which is associated with unbridled possessiveness and lust for power, results in a corrosive materialism and a ruthless disregard for the essential quality of human life. It leads finally to loss of the ability to apprehend those transcendent values which Asia still knows better than we do.”

 

Therefore, I would argue that Miller’s idea that we might cite an emerging cyber consciousness in place of integral would be exactly what Gebser warned of: that science and technology in service of ego development eventually hardens us into inhuman cyborgs with machinic bodies.

At any rate, this is important, mature thought of Gebser on The Integral Consciousness.

[DavidM58]

To keep Peter Pogany's ideas in the mix here, and to give me a place to park this...

Folks should be interested to check this out:

Tributaries to Gebser’s Social Thought by Peter Pogany (essay presented to the International Gebser Society, October 2013)

 Blurb:

"Gebser’s archeology of consciousness with its unstoppable gravitation toward its natural immanence contains a vital core of social philosophy.

He despised both Nazism and Communism without becoming an ideological spokesman of Western-style consumer capitalism. He saw crisis coming “big time,” ushering in renewal.

Mutation toward universally “intensified awareness” (Gebser, 1984 -- henceforth EPO -- p. 335) means the liberation of the individual from anxiety (EPO, pp. 360 and 361) and alienation manifest in “isolation and collectivism” (EPO, p. 358). How could such a portentous transformation occur without a change in the substance and form and politics, without new, hitherto unseen social and economic institutions, without a new statecraft, without a new form of global self-organization? Despite his occasional beatific overtones and his generally theoretic-aesthetic disposition, Gebser was not a pessimistic quietist."

See pdf attachment for the full paper.

[Ambo Suno]

EHi, David - This is an interesting sentence: "Mutation toward universally “intensified awareness” (Gebser, 1984 -- henceforth EPO -- p. 335) means the liberation of the individual from anxiety (EPO, pp. 360 and 361) and alienation manifest in “isolation and collectivism” (EPO, p. 358)." Normally "alienation" is associated with "anxiety." Without hearing some distinguishing or clarifying comment, I'm left with some cognitive dissonance. Not necessarily a bad thing. Or maybe I missed something.

Reading the intro piece you posted above, though I think he may overly generalize, exaggerate, or reify this distinction between east and west, I do like this identifying the risk of hypertrophied ego-consciousness, wielding the ego and self as a tool, along with the material world and all utilizable mental constructs as tools or objects of manipulation that man encounters. We have gone beyond important human proportions and balances to the point of not seeming human as we have come to distinguish ourselves.

I sometimes feel that one of my ego/self-facilitative tasks is to rehumanize me/I. At the moment this seems to involve allowing my impressions and even general intentions to reside in a more dream-like fluidity and this shows up sometimes in language, communication, gestures and actions that are odd. I suppose it is partly allowing our native creativity to act, to flower (or seemingly wreak havoc over our habitual self-perpetuating patterns) and our capacities to re-perceive what is in front of us novelly. It can feel scary to be carried by new waves, relatively unknown. Part of that scariness is to be seen by our collectives as making mistakes, being irrational, losing it, going around the bend - being unworthy of association, thereby alienated and isolated.

I have developed, for example, a fairly tidy self-truth-assuring and probably self-protective inclusion of overt pluralistic and relativistic cautions in what I say. I am recently more likely, sometimes [not this instant :)], to make categorical statements, presumably on the post-conventional (in this case conventional is the pluralistic awareness and strategy) side of a learning curve and not regression to the pre-conventional.

Similarly, I expose myself more often to appearing childish, silly, shallow, developmentally arrested, without me knowing for sure if it is pre or trans, and without the listener/viewer/interactor knowing either, many of them suspecting the pre, or the conventional, which may be all they know.

If an important moral, aesthetic, and sometimes functional feature of being "human" (and if being human is grokked as an essential value) is to operate more often in pre or non rationality and ego-looseness-fluidity within psychic and social milieus, then maybe we need to, we could, put ourselves at greater risk and into an uncertainty of not knowing, of falling (within gravity and asleep) towards uncertainty, of non-self-assuredness, and such. Maybe it is controlled exploration and experimentation, since the risks seem high. Maybe we learn to dance and trip in the undulating light.

Ahem.



DavidM58 said:

To keep Peter Pogany's ideas in the mix here, and to give me a place to park this...

Folks should be interested to check this out:

Tributaries to Gebser’s Social Thought by Peter Pogany (essay presented to the International Gebser Society, October 2013)

 Blurb:

"Gebser’s archeology of consciousness with its unstoppable gravitation toward its natural immanence contains a vital core of social philosophy.

He despised both Nazism and Communism without becoming an ideological spokesman of Western-style consumer capitalism. He saw crisis coming “big time,” ushering in renewal.

Mutation toward universally “intensified awareness” (Gebser, 1984 -- henceforth EPO -- p. 335) means the liberation of the individual from anxiety (EPO, pp. 360 and 361) and alienation manifest in “isolation and collectivism” (EPO, p. 358). How could such a portentous transformation occur without a change in the substance and form and politics, without new, hitherto unseen social and economic institutions, without a new statecraft, without a new form of global self-organization? Despite his occasional beatific overtones and his generally theoretic-aesthetic disposition, Gebser was not a pessimistic quietist."

See pdf attachment for the full paper.

[Ambo Suno]

In response and clarification of what I have just said, vis a vis, for example, being confidentially categorical in our assertions, for me, this can get out of hand if it is actually regressive rather than a post rational-pluralistic accomplishment. That's one of my gripes. So, ... so, ah, hmm, ah, yikes, ehm, I dunno.

[DavidM58]

Hi Ambo,

I'm not sure if I'm understanding you in a left-brain way. And I'm not sure you are understanding Pogany or Gebser.  And whether they are in turn were correctly understanding reality is unknown. 

Perhaps this is all as it should be, and we are left "dancing and tripping in the undulating light."

Let's just start with your first paragraph:

Ambo Suno said:

EHi, David - This is an interesting sentence: "Mutation toward universally “intensified awareness” (Gebser, 1984 -- henceforth EPO -- p. 335) means the liberation of the individual from anxiety (EPO, pp. 360 and 361) and alienation manifest in “isolation and collectivism” (EPO, p. 358)." Normally "alienation" is associated with "anxiety." Without hearing some distinguishing or clarifying comment, I'm left with some cognitive dissonance. Not necessarily a bad thing. Or maybe I missed something.

If this helps, I believe what Pogany is talking about the liberation of the individual from anxiety AND alienation.  Said anxiety and alienation tends to manifest as both isolation and collectivism. To obtain such liberation will require a change in the substance and form of politics and new "hitherto unseen social and economic institutions."

Pogany outlines some broad ideas about where he thinks all of this could go as a "Global System 3," but he is careful, especially in his "Havoc" book to state that nothing is guaranteed, and that what actually emerges will not be anything we can forecast with clarity (else it wouldn't really be "emergence").

In regards to confident categorical assertions, you're absolutely correct, and we should be careful to distinguish heuristics, etc. Sometimes we forget that, and sometimes we don't make all of the disclaimers for sake of brevity.

In specific regards to what was said in the opening post on this thread (which I'm guessing is partly what you're referring to), I would have to come back another time and re-read that. 

[Ambo Suno]

SGood, David - yes, that is how the sentence reads. Liberation from anxiety and liberation from alienation, of course. My inner cadence of that moment, maybe bumped by the parenthetical side bar, as an imagined comma, glitched and got stuck. Thanks.


I'm not sure if I'm understanding Pogany and Gebser adequately either.

I suspect that I took emphasis being given by them on politics and economic system, and by you in this instance, and refocused on another meaning of dehumanization, and then rehumanization. That meaning was more about the interior (LUQ) of individuals and how maybe to deal with the anxiety and alienation that flows not just out of systems but out of fixed patterns of thinking and feeling and the biopsychocultural substrates of those in our individual selves.

Wanting to, intending to and trying to accomplish structural change is almost necessarily, in our "western" minds and egoic vehicles, objectifying and we can come to think sort of formularily. Do something like A + B, tweak C, inhibit D, start from scratch with E, recast the equation as Y into imagined context X, and voila. This seems to be our strength, it has seemed to work well and ok in some eco human situations, and it shows up pretty much everywhere, including IPMS. If in fact the faculty of mind that visualizes change and improvement in this way has lost its human way by losing its human roots and proportions, then apparently, as suggested, we aren't going to do well as "Man The Manipulator" (remember that 1960's book?)

So my mind goes to, what can I do within myself to get freedom from my invisible constraints and my grooves, surface and deeper, that predisposes me to continue to try to control my mind and world in similar ways, ad destrucsion?

What is suspect, I suspect, about what I suggested about *trying* and experimenting to loosen my and our grips and structures, albeit with perhaps lighter more fluid intentionality and self-intervention, is that it may still be more of the same. How does one levitate out of one's human, in this case speculated dehumanized, ways, without efforting with one's own mental, obsessive-compulsive, ego-centric bootstraps.

It has been suggested within the integral work that "meditation" and other forms of cleaning our slates, relatively, at least, we may come to vantage points and fresh styles of action that might not simply perpetuate itself in more complex and maybe subtle ways.

This is the territory of conundrum for me, given my flexy, flowy, floppy, sometimes flakey ability to grasp the territory adequately.

Time to stop the yada. What do you think, David? Is this somewhat in the area of discussion? And, frankly, have I gotten lost down a favored riffing cul d sac?



DavidM58 said:

Hi Ambo,

I'm not sure if I'm understanding you in a left-brain way. And I'm not sure you are understanding Pogany or Gebser.  And whether they are in turn were correctly understanding reality is unknown. 

Perhaps this is all as it should be, and we are left "dancing and tripping in the undulating light."

Let's just start with your first paragraph:

Ambo Suno said:

EHi, David - This is an interesting sentence: "Mutation toward universally “intensified awareness” (Gebser, 1984 -- henceforth EPO -- p. 335) means the liberation of the individual from anxiety (EPO, pp. 360 and 361) and alienation manifest in “isolation and collectivism” (EPO, p. 358)." Normally "alienation" is associated with "anxiety." Without hearing some distinguishing or clarifying comment, I'm left with some cognitive dissonance. Not necessarily a bad thing. Or maybe I missed something.

If this helps, I believe what Pogany is talking about the liberation of the individual from anxiety AND alienation.  Said anxiety and alienation tends to manifest as both isolation and collectivism. To obtain such liberation will require a change in the substance and form of politics and new "hitherto unseen social and economic institutions."

Pogany outlines some broad ideas about where he thinks all of this could go as a "Global System 3," but he is careful, especially in his "Havoc" book to state that nothing is guaranteed, and that what actually emerges will not be anything we can forecast with clarity (else it wouldn't really be "emergence").

In regards to confident categorical assertions, you're absolutely correct, and we should be careful to distinguish heuristics, etc. Sometimes we forget that, and sometimes we don't make all of the disclaimers for sake of brevity.

In specific regards to what was said in the opening post on this thread (which I'm guessing is partly what you're referring to), I would have to come back another time and re-read that. 

[Ambo Suno]

Aha - my iPad with Safari had not been able to access this PDF several times. I just tried it again and now I got it. I'll probably read it or scan it in full now.



DavidM58 said:

To keep Peter Pogany's ideas in the mix here, and to give me a place to park this...

Folks should be interested to check this out:

Tributaries to Gebser’s Social Thought by Peter Pogany (essay presented to the International Gebser Society, October 2013)

 Blurb:

"Gebser’s archeology of consciousness with its unstoppable gravitation toward its natural immanence contains a vital core of social philosophy.

He despised both Nazism and Communism without becoming an ideological spokesman of Western-style consumer capitalism. He saw crisis coming “big time,” ushering in renewal.

Mutation toward universally “intensified awareness” (Gebser, 1984 -- henceforth EPO -- p. 335) means the liberation of the individual from anxiety (EPO, pp. 360 and 361) and alienation manifest in “isolation and collectivism” (EPO, p. 358). How could such a portentous transformation occur without a change in the substance and form and politics, without new, hitherto unseen social and economic institutions, without a new statecraft, without a new form of global self-organization? Despite his occasional beatific overtones and his generally theoretic-aesthetic disposition, Gebser was not a pessimistic quietist."

See pdf attachment for the full paper.

[Ambo Suno]

OK, David - I finally actually read the thing :)

I'm glad I did, for it educated me more on Gebser's passion and sensitivity for deep integration of, as Ken maps, left and right, up and down, inner and outer, individual and collective. It educated me more on the historical 'traditional' roots of political-economic systems of Marxism and communism, with some of the major social philosophical players and current events and contexts of the time. It educated me more on the relative delicacy, I'll say, of how Gebser was able to hold various dichotomies that others grasped with somewhat clenching fervor. This helps me also to want to bridge the gap between philosophy and pragmatics and to continue to try to be honest about where I really am with my integrative capabilities along many 'lines', again Ken.

I think Pogany [btw, how do you pronounce that? I find myself wanting to give an Italian shushing softness, like Poshjany] does his comparisons and contrasts well and represents enough of Gebser's spirit to allow me to feel warmly towards Gebser's, what I'll call, generosity.

In this finely integrative quote of Pogany, I'm fantasizing that he is slightly skewing in his own affectively charged languaging the dominant current social political economic system, where Gebser would not come up with such a sort-of violent image and word, which I asterisk: "If, and only if, the expectation of unceasing growth in material welfare is *excoriated* from individual behavior and institutions, competition yields to cooperation, indifference to acquiescence; isolation to responsible sociability, unlimited hunger for consumption to spiritual strength, stubborn dogmatism to integrative open-mindedness, would the global community be in reality mode and find equilibrium in planet-wide sustainability." Correct me if you think I'm mistaken - as I skew it back toward my way (and maybe Gebser's.)

David, here is the lead-in to the above quote that I imagine is somewhat in sync with your own enthusiasms of world critique:

"Now let us have a glance at the “Big Picture” -- the state of the world.

The dramatically exponential economic and demographic growth of the past two centuries is nearing its end. But while the cost of energy rises, several economically vital nonrenewable resources are becoming depleted, and rampant environmental damage is turning into an imminent source of danger; telluric occupancy is still on the rise. The planet’s population, currently seven billion, could easily reach 10 billion by the hundredth anniversary of EPO’s publication. And everybody on God’s green earth wants to dine on gourmet foods, drive a Mercedes, and sport Louis Vuitton accessories.

Our civilization is colliding with its ecological constraints, yet its form of self-organization, the direction of its technological advancement, its common values, beliefs, and coercions; its ethics, culture and politics -- all concrete dimensions of mental consciousness -- are such that it cannot stop this massive élan from turning into a full-blown historic crisis. How ironic! Rationality, believed to be the acme of objective thinking, the mental force that can cast a glaring light on any problem, keeps reality in a thick fog [5]."

Thanks, David. WDYT?

[DavidM58]

Hi Ambo,

I pronounce it "Poe-ga-knee," but who knows if that is correct.

Yes, you're right that the quote at the end of your post is in sync with my own interests and concerns. Pogany has his own agenda, but connects the dots of these ideas to relevant passages in Gebser's EPO. 

The last part of the quote, that you printed first ("...competition yields to cooperation, indifference to acquiescence; isolation to responsible sociability, unlimited hunger for consumption to spiritual strength, stubborn dogmatism to integrative open-mindedness..."), I think Pogany has used in a few places to describe the coming integral consciousness.  I think I used this in my ITC paper.  The only quarrel I might have with it is that he is perhaps too much in either/or mode, whereas Gebser would point out that we're currently very much skewed to one side, and need to bring the polarities into equilibrium (or as we'd say in PatternDynamics, find the appropriate balance for the situation with the Competition/Cooperation polarity pattern). And as you note, "excoriate" is a pretty violent word.

BTW, changing subject a bit, are you familiar with the book "The Master and His Emissary" by Ian McGilchrist?  I've not read the book, but have been struck by the number of times other people I respect recommend it.  Some of your musings in your previous posts above remind me of what seem to be ideas relevant to this book.

"This book argues that the division of the brain into two hemispheres is essential to human existence, making possible incompatible versions of the world, with quite different priorities and values....The left hemisphere, though unaware of its dependence, could be thought of as an 'emissary' of the right hemisphere, valuable for taking on a role that the right hemisphere - the 'Master' - cannot itself afford to undertake.  However it turns out that the emissary has his own will, and secretly believes himself to be superior to the Master.  And he has the means to betray him.  What he doesn't realize is that in doing so he will also betray himself."

[DavidM58]

Oh, did I mention that I've created a page devoted to Peter Pogany on my website?

https://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/peter-pogany/

[Ambo Suno]

I've only heard the title, The Master and His Emmisary. His metaphor using almost archetypal images sounds plausibly useful in explaining how we function in these two prominently identified different modes of mental activity. The anatomical-functional division of the brain, as you know, is also favored by those who like to emphasize and talk in the language of feminine and masculine, particularly in Jungian, post-Jungian, and new-age traditions.

Since it certainly is such an obvious split, and though communication and integration of the two rather distinct hemispheres is almost caricaturized (to my mind, within an also apparent uber complex webbing of nervous-endocrine-energetic-plus system) by the visibly intervening structure of the corpus callosum, I don't know why I haven't become as enamored by this division of labor as others have as a way to type and characterize different facets of human behavior.

Maybe it is because I get bored and eventually annoyed by the generalizing, the glib typologizing that carries some science-seeming cred with it, the reifying, and the cultural parroting of the partial and therefore comic book-like renderings of how things work. Whew, that was strong :)

Maybe also it is my scientific, statistical-checking "lobe" of my mind (joke) that almost reflexively wonders about tests for internal consistency and general reliability and even validity.

Or maybe I want to be special.

Luckily it doesn't matter very much the idiosyncracies of what and how I think, and, if I were to give more time and receptivity to these vivid analogies, I might come to value them and appreciate them. I notice that there are surprise moments when I suddenly get why people do things that I didn't quite get before :)

Cool, David, that there is someone like Pogany who speaks so effectively and authoritatively on this subject that you can speed people, via your attractive seemingly specialty website, to his broadly relevant ideas.




DavidM58 said:

Hi Ambo,

I pronounce it "Poe-ga-knee," but who knows if that is correct.

Yes, you're right that the quote at the end of your post is in sync with my own interests and concerns. Pogany has his own agenda, but connects the dots of these ideas to relevant passages in Gebser's EPO. 

The last part of the quote, that you printed first ("...competition yields to cooperation, indifference to acquiescence; isolation to responsible sociability, unlimited hunger for consumption to spiritual strength, stubborn dogmatism to integrative open-mindedness..."), I think Pogany has used in a few places to describe the coming integral consciousness.  I think I used this in my ITC paper.  The only quarrel I might have with it is that he is perhaps too much in either/or mode, whereas Gebser would point out that we're currently very much skewed to one side, and need to bring the polarities into equilibrium (or as we'd say in PatternDynamics, find the appropriate balance for the situation with the Competition/Cooperation polarity pattern). And as you note, "excoriate" is a pretty violent word.

BTW, changing subject a bit, are you familiar with the book "The Master and His Emissary" by Ian McGilchrist?  I've not read the book, but have been struck by the number of times other people I respect recommend it.  Some of your musings in your previous posts above remind me of what seem to be ideas relevant to this book.

"This book argues that the division of the brain into two hemispheres is essential to human existence, making possible incompatible versions of the world, with quite different priorities and values....The left hemisphere, though unaware of its dependence, could be thought of as an 'emissary' of the right hemisphere, valuable for taking on a role that the right hemisphere - the 'Master' - cannot itself afford to undertake.  However it turns out that the emissary has his own will, and secretly believes himself to be superior to the Master.  And he has the means to betray him.  What he doesn't realize is that in doing so he will also betray himself."

[Ambo Suno]

This is for David, and for myself to catalyze loosening of my apparent resistance to giving right/left brain function awareness its due.

Here is a research bit that shows a clear distinction between right and left brain - probably of many researched distinctions and differences:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160119141749.htm

Ambo Suno said:

I've only heard the title, The Master and His Emmisary. His metaphor using almost archetypal images sounds plausibly useful in explaining how we function in these two prominently identified different modes of mental activity. The anatomical-functional division of the brain, as you know, is also favored by those who like to emphasize and talk in the language of feminine and masculine, particularly in Jungian, post-Jungian, and new-age traditions.

Since it certainly is such an obvious split, and though communication and integration of the two rather distinct hemispheres is almost caricaturized (to my mind, within an also apparent uber complex webbing of nervous-endocrine-energetic-plus system) by the visibly intervening structure of the corpus callosum, I don't know why I haven't become as enamored by this division of labor as others have as a way to type and characterize different facets of human behavior.

Maybe it is because I get bored and eventually annoyed by the generalizing, the glib typologizing that carries some science-seeming cred with it, the reifying, and the cultural parroting of the partial and therefore comic book-like renderings of how things work. Whew, that was strong :)

Maybe also it is my scientific, statistical-checking "lobe" of my mind (joke) that almost reflexively wonders about tests for internal consistency and general reliability and even validity.

Or maybe I want to be special.

Luckily it doesn't matter very much the idiosyncracies of what and how I think, and, if I were to give more time and receptivity to these vivid analogies, I might come to value them and appreciate them. I notice that there are surprise moments when I suddenly get why people do things that I didn't quite get before :)

Cool, David, that there is someone like Pogany who speaks so effectively and authoritatively on this subject that you can speed people, via your attractive seemingly specialty website, to his broadly relevant ideas.




DavidM58 said:

Hi Ambo,

I pronounce it "Poe-ga-knee," but who knows if that is correct.

Yes, you're right that the quote at the end of your post is in sync with my own interests and concerns. Pogany has his own agenda, but connects the dots of these ideas to relevant passages in Gebser's EPO. 

The last part of the quote, that you printed first ("...competition yields to cooperation, indifference to acquiescence; isolation to responsible sociability, unlimited hunger for consumption to spiritual strength, stubborn dogmatism to integrative open-mindedness..."), I think Pogany has used in a few places to describe the coming integral consciousness.  I think I used this in my ITC paper.  The only quarrel I might have with it is that he is perhaps too much in either/or mode, whereas Gebser would point out that we're currently very much skewed to one side, and need to bring the polarities into equilibrium (or as we'd say in PatternDynamics, find the appropriate balance for the situation with the Competition/Cooperation polarity pattern). And as you note, "excoriate" is a pretty violent word.

BTW, changing subject a bit, are you familiar with the book "The Master and His Emissary" by Ian McGilchrist?  I've not read the book, but have been struck by the number of times other people I respect recommend it.  Some of your musings in your previous posts above remind me of what seem to be ideas relevant to this book.

"This book argues that the division of the brain into two hemispheres is essential to human existence, making possible incompatible versions of the world, with quite different priorities and values....The left hemisphere, though unaware of its dependence, could be thought of as an 'emissary' of the right hemisphere, valuable for taking on a role that the right hemisphere - the 'Master' - cannot itself afford to undertake.  However it turns out that the emissary has his own will, and secretly believes himself to be superior to the Master.  And he has the means to betray him.  What he doesn't realize is that in doing so he will also betray himself."

[DavidM58]

Jeremy Johnson's presentation on Meta Matrixes at last year's Gebser conference is worth watching.  Jeremy lets Wilber and Gebser and William Irwin Thompson speak to one another, framed within Jeremy's own comments. I especially like the Gebser quote above: "What is gaining importance now is the spiritual light reigning between objects - the tension and the relation between them."

All of the presentations at that conference can be found here: http://www.gebser.org/2015-program-1