Dashh: A Day In The Integral Life

Flanagan, Wilber and Consciousness

There is some great discussion going on over at Julian Walker's blog on the Zaadz...umm I mean Gaia community site. Jim made a comment that has me thinking a lot about Owen Flanagan and Wilber's work - I've made a few posts (Natural Method, Janus, Integral Naturalism) about their similar approaches to consciousness and consciousness studies in the past. I posted this over on Julian's blog...

Jim said:

I think we say things like “if consciousness requires form to exist” and ”every level of interior consciousness is accompanied by a level of exterior physical complexity,” as Wilber says, because of a natural intuition that conscious states and physical states (brain states) are distinct.

When we say something like, “Victoria Beckham was accompanied by her husband David Beckham to the awards ceremony,” we know that we mean that Victoria and David are distinct individuals and that either could've shown up at the ceremony without the other. I wonder if Wilber chose his words carefully so that he could leave open the possibility that conscious states and brains states are distinct and can exist independently of one another?

It may be counterintuitive to think that conscious states are brain states, but it's possible that they are.

If conscious states are identical with brain states, then it makes no sense to say that conscious states “accompany” or “correlate” with brain states, nor does it make sense to say that brain states “give rise to” or “generate” conscious states.

Thanks for that Jim – this made me think much harder about Wilber’s stance on this. I have made a few posts on my blog about Owen Flanagan’s subjective realism and Natural Method and how they could relate to Wilber’s model. This area brings us a distinct difference in that Wilber doesn’t quite accept the token physicalist view that Flanagan describes. A few excerpts from each of them:

From Flanagan’s paper Subjective Realism and Phenomenal Consciousness:

A naturalistic theory of mind is not remotely adequate if it does provide an account of phenomenal consciousness. And it can. Token physicalism is the view that each and every mental event, each and every experience, is some physical event or other – presumably some central nervous system event. We can accept the truth of token physicalism, and thus reject the cartesian view that denies it, while resisting the conclusion that the essence of a mental event is revealed completely or captured completely by a description of its neural level realizer. The reason is this, and it applies uniquely to conscious mental events. Conscious mental events are essentially Janus-faced and uniquely so. They have first-person subjective feel and they are realized in objective states of affairs.

From Wilber’s Excerpt G:

By the way, there are no energy fields in the Left-Hand quadrants, of course, because those are aspects of holons that are first-person feelings, awareness, consciousness, and so on, whose exterior (or Right-Hand) correlates are mass and energy. All holons have four quadrants, which means all holons have interiors of consciousness and exteriors of form and energy (e.g., even subtle consciousness has a subtle body, and causal consciousness has a causal body, etc.), but consciousness is not itself energy, nor energy consciousness.

In fact with this next section from Wilber's Excerpt G, it seems to me Wilber rejects the token physicalist view with his view on reincarnation:

Reincarnation

We come now to the most controversial topic related to subtle energies, namely, reincarnation or transmigration. I am reluctant to even comment on it, because once you take sides in this issue, you alienate the other half of the audience.

My own belief is that reincarnation does occur; however, for the moment, I am more concerned with suggesting a proposed mechanism for such an occurrence, rather than arguing that it does or does not happen. Let us simply assume that it does, and then ask, how can that occurrence be squared with hypothesis #3, namely, that subtle energies are associated with complexifications of gross form? Upon death, clearly the gross form dissolves; what happens to the subtle energies if they are tied to those gross forms?

At this point, one simply chooses to decide whether reincarnation exists or not. If you believe that reincarnation does not exist, then the integral theory of subtle energies that I have presented thus far needs no further adjustments (not in relation to reincarnation, that is). If, on the other hand, you believe in reincarnation, then an integral theory needs to be able to incorporate that occurrence. It can do so if it adds one hypothesis, as follows:

#4. Complexity of gross form is necessary for the expression or manifestation of both higher consciousness and subtler energy.

Hypothesis #4 introduces the possibility that the higher forms of consciousness and energy (i.e., higher than the gross-family realm) are not tied to complexifications of gross form ontologically but rather as vehicles of the expression of subtler forms and energies in that gross realm itself. In other words, it is not that higher consciousness and energies are bound to the complexities of gross form out of ontological necessity, but that they need a correspondingly complex form of gross matter in order to express or manifest themselves in and through the material realm.

The question of whether or not that is true is one thing; but if it is true, something like hypothesis #4 must be entertained. To avoid that hypothesis is to avoid the entire issue. For example, Francisco Varela et al., in The Embodied Mind, attempt to derive a spiritually attuned theory of consciousness that anchors consciousness firmly in the sensorimotor body—so much so that reincarnation, by their theory, is impossible. They present their theory as consonant with an updated Buddhism, but clearly it avoids this difficult issue. There is no way around something like hypothesis #4 if one wants to entertain transmigration.

Wilber’s Hypothesis #4 is quite confusing to me now. It seems he is saying that complexity of gross form (e.g., the brain) is necessary for the expression but not the ontological existence of higher consciousness/subtle energy. Which would mean that consciousness (specifically Wilber’s higher consciousness UL) can exist without an UR correlate.

So a fundamental difference in views on consciousness…for Flanagan no brain, no consciousness…for Wilber no brain still subtle consciousness that can transmigrate. And yet Wilber argues for UL/UR correlates in his model.

I am just trying to flesh out Flanagan’s and Wilber’s views on consciousness as I thought they were quite similar in approach but there are major differences to be found as well…

Pretext, text and context

Excellent essay over at Integral World by David Lane called On Reductionism. It gives a good answer to my questions at the end of my last post...I found his paper right after making that post. Interesting...I wanted to post some of it here but please read the entire essay...the first part that sets up pretext, text and context is well worth the time.

From On Reductionism:

What is fairly obvious in understanding a book (pretext: alphabet/phonics) text: words/sentences/paragraphs/chapters; context: when was this book written? where was it published? what mood am I in when I read it?) can also be applied via analogy (literalists beware!) to consciousness: pretext: brain/neural net/connectionist/PDP; text: "I" consciousness, personality, "the lived through sense of me" context: in what city does this "I" live; what relationship do I have to my family, to my nation, to my religion, etc.

Given this simple scenario it becomes obvious that we can reduce consciousness down to its pretext (the brain) and we would be only partially correct. We would not--perhaps could not--understand the "qualia"--the phenomenology of my own lived through experiences (John Searle's "first person") if we merely stayed at the level of neurons. No doubt, we would understand a tremendous amount (and my biases lean, I should point out, with the Churchlands' for intertheoretic reductions whenever possible), but something would be lost in the reductive translation. We need text (read: the personality at its own level, at its own understanding, at its own self-reflections)

Moreover, there is something about consciousness that is not merely the brain, but also the body entity (as Descartes' Error strongly suggests). Additionally, consciousness--as such--arises within a larger field, that of family relations, societal relations, ecological niches, etc. It is this larger field which informs and shapes much of what we know about our consciousness and personality. This larger "context" is essential, especially when one considers the vast differences in cultures throughout time and place on this planet.

The above tripartite schema is clear enough and I would venture to guess that most would not disagree with it. Where we run into difficulty is when we start to think of consciousness as "transcending" physicality. Well, to be sure, there is a transcendence of sorts when the alphabet turns into words and words into sentences and so on. But it is not divorced from the prior structure. Indeed, each higher level is situated upon--sits upon--that former and under girding pretext.

Okay, the Great Gatsby transcends a mere random collection of letters (there is a point, there is meaning, there is character development), but take out those very letters at any stage and the entire superstructure of the "novel" collapses.

As Wilber would point out (or any good physicist for that matter), the alphabet is more "fundamental" than sentences, though sentences are more significant (convey more meaning, have more depth). So at each stage of explanation we are confronted with this situation: what is the pretext? (alphabet, the rudimentary symbols by which we comprise larger sets. Hint: this can be applied to anything: Atoms? Electrons/nucleus. Molecules? Atoms. Living Cells? DNA ... and so on)

What is the text? (This is actually quite arbitrary and it depends where and when we want to measure something, but once staked out it becomes the rallying point for pretext and context) what is the context? (In what larger field does the alphabet, the DNA, the atoms, the quarks, etc., arise?)

But here's the catch: none of these larger texts or contexts is divorced or separated from its predecessors. Indeed, in terms of genealogy, it is impossible to have a book, as such, without a rudimentary symbol system. It is impossible to have molecules without atoms. It is impossible to have a brain without neurons (A note of caution to my A.I. friends: this is merely an analogy; I am not denying that silicon chips could not in theory replace neuronal components .... Even then, there is still a pretext--sand!).

So when one speaks of consciousness without a brain, or beyond the body, or without physicality, it is naturally criticized by those conversant with neurology. They don't buy it, since they know that by understanding the pretext of the brain they can actually change how the brain functions. They know the code. And there is nothing to suggest that consciousness which arises in the brain can somehow fly away from the body or code without any restraint whatsoever.

But this is exactly the point about any physical or mental or spiritual thing--things arise from other things and those very things arise in fields of emergence. Yet, there is no absolute separation from the quantity of one thing into the quantity of another (or new thing).

I think remembering pretext, text and context is a good start to a methodology to study consciousness [ala Wilber's I/IT/WE or Flanagan's subjective realism, Varela's neurophenomenology, etc.].

More from Lane with some Wilber critique as well:

Yet, Wilber makes one huge "sky-hook" mistake (thanks Daniel Dennett) when he argues that Spirit is the basis of all matter. Wilber wants us to believe that Spirit is not based upon matter, but the reverse.

This is where he makes his leap and where any materialist worth his salt is going to have huge difficulties with Wilber. What Wilber should concede (he doesn't) is that he does not know what Spirit is ... (I don't either). Why? Because what Wilber really means by Spirit is the Context of every pretext/text/context.... That is the Infinity in which everything arises.

Well, I don't know what that is; Wilber does not know what that is; I would imagine nobody "knows" what that is. What we do know, partially, are limited frames of reference, and, as such, we can pontificate upon them--from quarks to atoms to molecules to cells to people to societies to nations.

But let's not go too far. There may be an astral plane, but we have no evidence--at this stage--to comprehend it. We only have limited symbols which may point to it. Yet, do we admit to this contextual impasse? Do we, in fact, say with humility, "there might be?" Yes and No.

When one reads Wilber or anybody (including almost all of my early writings) you get the impression that he/she/it has a lock on the ultimate truths. Woe, we just found out about DNA ... and that only explains the alphabet of life processes. Before the 50s we didn't know. So can we then take a huge leap from DNA to the fabulous inner regions of Sahans-dal-Kanwal?

We can, but my hunch is that we are merely "infusing" contexts that we do not as of yet know exist. And by doing such we "confuse" ourselves unnecessarily.

Dennett would say we are going for sky hooks, not cranes.... But it is cranes all the way up that produce the higher orders, the complex systems ... Not the other way around. What meditation may indicate is a higher context but that very higher context will, by necessity, be grounded in the text that precedes it. What is that? The brain. So there is no way around this--from a bottom up perspective--but to admit that everything is higher order materialism. I could say "spirit" but that would incline itself to meaningless gibberish.

When I say "matter is all there is," it tends towards reductionism and thus is more locatable in terms of its pretexts. It does not mean, of course, that I "know" what matter ultimately is. I don't. What it suggests is that we ground our speculations, as always, with the rudimentary tools that are available. Wilber and others with a Consciousness bent (read: Big Context takes Over ALL) will heartily disagree with my slant, thinking that I have sold my soul in exchange for quantum mechanics and neurology and evolution.

No, I have come to grips with the fact that whatever my soul may be is grounded in the pretexts/texts/contexts of everything that arises within my body and without it. Thus I think we will understand a lot more of what we mean by "soul" if we start with what we mean by "body,” by "brain," etc.

OBE's and the Brain

Very interesting post over at the Memeing Naturalism blog called Displacing the Inmaterial Self. It discusses a recent paper in Science that describes experiments that altered the subject's experience of being a self located in the body (similar to an OBE).

From the abstract:

…we designed an experiment that uses conflicting visual-somatosensory input in virtual reality to disrupt the spatial unity between the self and the body. We found that during multisensory conflict, participants felt as if a virtual body seen in front of them was their own body and mislocalized themselves toward the virtual body, to a position outside their bodily borders. Our results indicate that spatial unity and bodily self-consciousness can be studied experimentally and are based on multisensory and cognitive processing of bodily information.

Interesting implications here.

I remember watching some show a while back that was about OBE. There was some study that wanted to test subjects by writing a message on a piece of paper and putting it high above a subject. If the subject was actually out of the body according to these researchers then they would know the message after floating above their body. I can't remember all of the results but it seemed like there were some people that knew the message. I need to look it up to see if it was debunked in any way.

Ah the good ole mind - body debate is still alive and well. Manifest or scientific image of man? Both? Neither?

Whither Ken Wilber?

Please check out Jim Chamberlain's new essay Whither Ken Wilber?, that is posted over at Integral World. Excellent in my opinion...

From the intro:

My interest in getting a clearer sense of Ken Wilber's philosophical stance on certain open questions about the origin and evolution of life, the relationship between psychological events and physical events, and the relation of science and religion was piqued when I began to notice that more than a few Wilberians seemed to use terms such as "flatland materialism," "quadrant absolutism," and "gross reductionism" to characterize and thereby dismiss from serious consideration just about anything they didn't happen to agree with. It occurred to me that they may have been inspired to resort to this kind of rhetoric by reading and listening to Ken Wilber (given that this is his jargon). And so I tried to get a sense of what might be behind Wilber's rhetoric about certain issues. What, I wondered, does Wilber actually believe about certain things? It is easy to talk about going in a "post-metaphysical" direction, but I wanted something much more specific. In particular I wanted to get a clearer sense of where Wilber might stand on the question, "Can spirituality be naturalized?"[1]

Meditation Now or Never

I picked up Steve Hagen's latest book Meditation Now or Never last night at the local B&N. I am hoping it will help me to get back to a regular sitting practice. I have fallen off the wagon for a while now, but I'm ready to begin sitting regularly again.

Runaway horse

I sat last night for the first time in months it seems. My daily practice gave way to a move, vacation and lots of business that made it easy to avoid. But I returned to staring at a wall with only my breath and runaway thoughts.

I also picked up where I left off reading Living with the Devil by Stephen Batchelor. This is my second reading I believe...and the first few paragraphs of the next chapter really sunk in after my 20 minute sitting.

I wanted to share some of it because it describes so well our daily condition in this life:

“All the unhappiness of men” remarked Pascal, “comes from one thing: not knowing how to stay quietly in a room.” Sitting still on your own confronts you with the intolerable contingency of your existence. You feel the breath come and go, the heart thud, a jab of pain in the lower back, a ringing in the ear, another anxious cascade of thoughts. When Michel de Montaigne retired to his country estate in 1571, he hoped to leave his mind “in complete idleness to commune with itself, to come to rest, and to grow settled.” To his surprise it turned out to be “like a runaway horse” confronting him with “chimeras and imaginary monsters, one after another, without order or plan.”

Batchelor continues…

Rather than face the contingency of my existence, I flee it. This existential flight is the diabolic undercurrent of human life. It is that bewildered and fearful recoil against having been born and having to die, that brooding anxiety that is not anxious about anything in particular. Its quivering unease is like the lazy collision of two rings of ripples on water: one a reverberation from the shock of birth, the other an intimation of the shock of death.

I am divided against myself. Part of me remains aware of how weird it is to be this self-conscious animal; another part averts its gaze and flees to the security of what seems manageable. I succumb to an insatiable fascination with trivia and gossip. I crave stimulation and intoxication. I suffer an uncontrollable tendency to daydream, a chronic inability to remain focused on what matters most. In spite of lofty aspirations to pursue a path, I begin to suspect that I am spinning in circles.

35

I turn 35 today...the mid-point to 40 woohoo. Happy B-Day to Me!

I haven't been very motivated to blog lately due to just being plain busy with life. I'm realizing that sometimes you don't have to talk about what is going on in your life all the time - it is just fine to live it. The Lennon quote "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," comes to mind as I turn 35.

I always come back to writing of some sort though, as I seem to have a spark or itch to write often. All it takes is one post, let's say this one, to get me back in the mood. More to come I'm sure...oh and check out John From Cincinnati if you have the chance...great new show!

The Wilber Effect?

I received an Anonymous comment on my last blog post regarding Scott Parker's excellent essay Winning the Integral Game? which is posted on Integral World. This comment struck a cord with me and has me reflecting a lot on my experiences with Ken Wilber and his work. I have more to say soon, especially regarding where I was in my life when I got into Wilber's work. (Oddly enough I can answer "yes" to every question the Anon poster asks regarding when people got into Wilber's work. Very interesting indeed.) More later as I continue to reflect...

Comment from Anon:

Dash wrote:

(I was once a giddy fan of Wilber myself and when I took the first Integral theory course I was very excited to be able to actually ask Wilber a question on a conference call. Being drunk with integral, as Matt Dallman puts it, is a very powerful thing.)

It is very interesting that so many persons describe their early encounter with Wilberian Integralism as if it were an intoxicant--they use terms like 'giddy' 'drunk' 'fired up'

Scott Parker also mentions something else--the sense of superiority he felt.

Years ago, I read something by a person who wrote that science fiction, at least that from certain authors, can have a mood altering effect.

Its worth asking whether Wilber's material, or at least some of his more famous books have a mood altering effect.

Wilber may not consciously intend to write mood enhancing, intoxicating material, but some books,written by persons with powerful unconscious agendas, may have a fascinating impact, because the authors, pressued by unconscious material, insert all kinds of unconscious derivatives that speak powerfully and subliminally to readers who unknowingly have issues similar to the issues that unconsciously drove the author's act of creation--and drive that author's public career.

A text of this kind is like a waking dream, with conscious and unconscious material that set up a vibe.

The fascination produced by such a text comes because it speaks to something unconscious in us. But a text of this kind can tease us but it cannot wake us up. Once we wake up, the text remains interesting but loses its fascination factor.

The process of science and philosophy requires a state of mind that is alert and interested but not in this state of intoxicated, enthralled fascination.

***One reason why the language of academia is so calm and mannered is to ensure that people stay awake and lucid and AVOID the kind of verbal intoxciation that is incompatible with creating science and philosophy.

I remember getting very interested by General Systems Theory when in graduate school. It gave me a comprehensive understanding of things. But I dont recall feeling that my appreciation for GTS made me superior to those who preferred other frameworks. It was a tool that fit my hand. A carpenter doenst think he or she is superior because a particular tool works best.

In grad school we discussed the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) in very great detail, and other models of psychological development. But never at any time did the instructors encourage us to get 'fired up' or go into states of partisan loyalty concerning this material.

The instructors were appeciative and interested, but they did not act like 'fans' and never encouraged us to act that way.

I learned that science is a matter of interest, comraderie and good craftsmanship, but never included animosity, fan mentality or the slightist hint of elitism.

A sense of intoxication and a feeling of mastery, a feeling of belonging, shared with others who believe in 'The System', an urge to proslytize, a sense of superiority in relation to those who dont share one's beliefs that The System is salvation:

all this is characteristic of conversion to a mass movement, rather than the emotions felt by scientists or philosophers who are pleased to have found a helpful new set of tools.

Dash and Scott describe the deep discomfort they both felt when they eventually came to question Wilberism and feared the loss of the comfort they'd gained from the Wilberian material.

It might be helpful for those who feel puzzled why they became drawn to, even fascinated by Wilberian material to do the following:

Be a detective and look carefully and curiously at what your life was like and what your state of mind and emotion were in just before and at the time you got fascinated with the Wilber material.

Were you in a painful state of depression or anxiety? Were you isolated, with people who didnt quite share your aspirations? Were you overwhelmed by the complexity of information taught at the university level and desperately seeking mastery?

(I remember that one very painful thing in either the freshman year or first year of graduate school is finding yourself surrounded for the first time by persons as intelligent as yourself and suddenly fearing you may not have what it takes--a painful state of mind, and one where one becomes desperate to regain some kind of stability--ASAP.)

In such a state of mind, where we crave stablity, long for a sense of mastery, Wilberian material, which may, through its author's search for mastery, may contain unconscious derivatives that trigger a sense of mastery in those readers most yearning to feel that way.

IMO, power and mastery, and suppression of vulnerability may be unconscious but very important elements in Wilber's life and that he has unconsciously created writings which evoke feelings of power, mastery and supression of vulnerabilty, makign them appealing to anyone who wishs to feel that way--and that means these will appeal to a lot of people.

There may be an unintegrated strand of youthfulness in Wilber, what Jung termed 'Puer Aeternus' that may also make Ken and his output unconsciously intoxicating to young persons, especially those who are full of fire and who fear that traditional religoius and academic communities are forcing them to stifle their fiery, angry energy.
They may be attracted to Ken because he has created a social scene where you get to have your cake and eat it too--feel spiritual and highly developed, yet have permission to blast off and use foul, abusive language and claim that only inferior persons would be offended.

It may be that part of the pain of questioning Wilber's system is losign that sense of verbally induced certainty/mastery, losing that verbally induced feeling of power and instead, returning to a state of emotional vulnerablity that you were in before encoutnering the Wilber material--and that the mood enhancing nature of the Wiilber material temporarily suppressed that vulnerabilty.

Finally, (personal hunch) there seems to be something about Wilber's public personality and the narrative he has crafted and gives to the public about his own life that may be a part of the fascination.

Hard Core Wilberians have become just as invested in Wilber's version of his life story and in Wilber's personality as they are in his system. In this, he resembles Carlos Castaneda, another person who wrote intoxicating material with elements filched from academic sources then used in an anti-scientific manner.

No other scientific concept or philosophy has required that we get invested in the personality of the scientist or philosopher in question.

Wilber has not been content to create a body of writing. He has also encouraged and created an entire social scene around himself, not just an intellectual system--via the internet.

No scientific theory or philosophy that has academic recognition has ever required that we belong to a social scene.

But that social scene may be part of the appeal---it gives a sense of belonging, and that can be very hard to give up. But one loses kinship to the Wilber tribe as soon as one dares to become adult and autonomous in relation to his system and its social taboos.

IMO, Wilber's actual fascination is not with ideas or spirituality but with power.

He may also have some kind of unconscious fascination with power and distaste for human vulnerablity.

For it is very interesting that, despite his avid interest in science, Ken Wilber never made use of the findings of social psychologists such as Stanley Milgram (Obedience to Authority experiment) or Philip Zimbardo (The Stanford Prison Experiment) in his own study of cult leaders.

Wilber only seems interested in science when he can appropriate elements from it to support his fantasy of personal development into an invulnerable super-person, impervious to temptation.

What may make social psychology useless for Wilberian purposes is that findings from social psychology demonstrate that no matter how intelligent we are, we remain vulernable to social influence and can be corrupted by power imbalance. Even Stanford University students regressed into ghastly cruelty and abject submission to cruelty, when isolated (Zimbardo's Prison Experiment)

Wilber seems unable to see the relevance of Zimbardo's findings to his own work,despite having partipated in a seminar with Zimbardo in the 1980s, material from which was published in the book, 'Spiritual Choices, The Problem of Recognizing AUthentic Paths to Inner Transformation', edited by Dick Anthony, Bruce EckerKen Wilber, Paragon House, 1987. (Dr Zimbardo is listed on page 27 in footnote #9 a footnote as one of the participants.)

Yet depsite his being listed in that one footnote as a seminar participant, Philip Zimbardo's Prison Experiment findings were never discussed in the book--a very puzzling omission, for the purpose of that seminar was to assemble a team of top experts to discuss and find ways to distinguish between helpful tranformative new religious movements and potentially hazardous new religious movements.

Its as if one were to discuss Brothers Karamazov and omit any mention of hating one's father.

By contrast, a conscious and alert scientist not in thrall to an unconscious personal agenda would see the relevance of Zimbardo's findings and discuss them.

My hunch is that Wilber and possibly the other two editors could not face the relevance of Zimbardo's work because the outcome of the Prison Experiment findings demonstrated that even intelligent educated students, were vulnerable to social isolation, power imbalance and human vulnerability.

The Prison Experiment is probably painfully subversive for anyone who cherishes dreams of a grand system and set of spiritual exercises that would supposedly create super-evolved color coded persons who would be impervious to temptation.

Zimbardo's Prison
Experiment warns that Ken's hopes of becoming highly evolved, superhuman and invulnerable are a dead end dream, and that his grand project of beocoming an invulnerable human being is futile--sad news, indeed.

I suspect that because Wilber remains mostly unconscious, his work, though fascinating and cognitively stimulating, may keep his fans unconscious in relation to their own power issues because Wilber remains unconscous about his own power issues. And this may affect why Wilber keeps associating with teachers who reportedly have had difficulty using power responsibly. (eg Andrew Cohen)

IMO, Ken Wilber has loyalists because he has found a way to write about science and philosophy in a way that makes people get high and hopeful and then get addicted to him because he has made them feel good.

True science and philosophy cannot be practiced when one is clnging to hope, inspiration--one can only create true science and philosophy by NOT being in the state of mind that Wilber and his followers prize.

Winning the Integral Game?

I just read an excellent essay called Winning the Integral Game? by Scott Parker over at Integral World. After reading it this morning, I felt Scott was writing my exact experience with the work and world of Ken Wilber. What Scott describes as the transition from Wilber “fan” to Wilber “critic” is very similar to my own experience and description of the stages of Wilberism. And I have a feeling that we are not alone, as many have either moved to a more critical post-Wilber integral while others have just dug their heels in and take their stand as fanatics. This dichotomy of “fans” and “critics” as Parker describes it is very real in Integraland and a very interesting phenomenon to observe and experience. The key point for me is that you can be not just a fan or critic but a student-critic if one desires. The road to the post-fan, student-critic stance in regards to Wilber's work is becoming expressed more and more often these days.

There are many great points in this essay so I wanted to point out a few that really struck home for me.

Yet these are precisely the kinds of rhetorical games employed by and about Wilber. His defenders inevitably refer to themselves as “fans,” as if they are rooting for the home team in a crucial game against their cross-town rivals. Those rivals, of course, being the “critics.” With the sides exclusively drawn, the Integral conversation shifts from a dialogue, where we can engage and learn from one another, to a debate, where we can have only one winner.

I would say that debate is not even applicable since Wilber’s technique is to play more or less the Integral authority figure that sets the playing field for what is and is not integral (or capital “I” Integral for Wilber’s version of integral). I’d love to see Wilber actually debate with other philosophers of mind to see what could come of such a dialogue in terms of integral philosophy. I’d like to see him engage with John Searle, Owen Flanagan, Daniel Dennett, etc. instead of just dismissing them as reductionists (see this post). Instead, we get IN clips of giddy conference attendees who can talk the integral talk and want to get the Integral word from the authority on all things integral. They usually consist of a question and then a monologue of Wilber giving his position - the Integral position on the subject. (I was once a giddy fan of Wilber myself and when I took the first Integral theory course I was very excited to be able to actually ask Wilber a question on a conference call. Being drunk with integral, as Matt Dallman puts it, is a very powerful thing.)

Over the last several years, Wilber and his fans have become so fluent in the language of Integral, Integral-this and Integral-that, that they have effectively created an in-group/out-group scenario reminiscent of the blue meme's good and evil, that they are so (rightly) critical of. You're either for Integral or against it. (And if you have a different definition of Integral, it's wrong.)

This is very true. I would add that Wilber often notes that his version/model/theory of integral (Integral) is only one of many, but usually qualifies that by saying that he feels his is most comprehensive out there. What has happened over the years is that Wilber has created a brand with his version and that brand represents a very specific model called AQAL. If you do not include all the elements of AQAL then you are not Integral per se. You are integrally informed perhaps but not Integral. Then, if you do include all elements and meet Wilber’s “AQAL kosher”, as it once was put at IU, litmus test then you may get AQAL certified. Then you have levels of AQALness as well. This marketing/branding turn for Wilber is something that many, including myself, seem to care for less and less.

A more likely rebound for Integral will take place by the work of others, taking what of intellectual value can be found in Wilber's writing and removing it from the tragic context of the Integral movement. Integral-with-a-hyphen must be rebranded or debranded, losing the gimmicky marketing ploys altogether.

This is where I am at personally. There are some great ideas in Wilber’s work and I am at the place of trying to tease out those ideas and compare, contrast and synthesize them with other philosophers. Integral Review is an alternative to Wilber’s Integral worth checking out.

The process of developing that doubt was slow for me, much slower than my acceptance of Wilber had been previously. As these doubts first began to develop in me, I had a hard time admitting to myself that I was having them, so sincere was my devotion. With time, as the intellectual counter-arguments mounted, I had to face my psychological resistance to change. If I rejected (or at least took a step away from) Wilber, I would be left without the comprehensive view that had been such a comfort to me. I'd have to rethink everything I had come to know, redefine my place in the world. It was intimidating to relinquish that certainty, that confidence. Still, my doubts proliferated and were accelerated by criticisms I began to read and agree with, particularly those that brought Wilber's scholarship under heavy (and unanswered) question. It began to look to me like Wilber was cherry-picking his sources to support a particular story he wanted to tell, not using the method of orienting generalizations as democratically as he professed.

All I can say is that I could have written the jest of this paragraph myself as it mirrors my own experience so well. The irony is that Wilber’s own description of stage growth seems to apply with some people’s experience with Wilber and his work. You have the introduction/reading of Wilber, identification/embeddedness with Wilber and then dis-identification/transcendence of Wilber and his work. Interesting. So if that holds true we may see more people moving into the “critic” stage, even though that stage is really more of a “student-critic” position for some.

For whatever reason, I needed a comprehensive view of the world, which Wilber offers, and rightly points out is a comfort to postmodern fragmentation. But comfort is a psychological issue, not a philosophical one. Whether we accept or reject postmodernism or metaphysics, what Wilber provides is a description of reality. The comfort to be gained if Wilber's version is accurate does not outweigh the burden on him (or someone else) to prove that it is.

As I’ve detached myself somewhat from Wilber’s work and began to read more about naturalism, I felt the comfort begin to be challenged. It is always good to challenge and reflect on anything you think describes everything – theories included. Not that I’ve totally changed my model of reality. I feel that my desire for a comprehensive approach has been there for a long time and will continue to guide my experiences. Wilber’s work for me has been a great way to illustrate that approach and inform me that there are others who feel a similar approach to the world is possible.

What interests me, personally—and this is the Meyerhoffian turn—is what were the psychological reasons that I was so strongly drawn to Wilber's work and is my present skepticism of Wilber due strictly to shortcomings in his work or also to a deeper skepticism of comprehensive worldviews in general, discomforting as it may be to wonder? I ask (though I don't answer) these questions publicly, because I suspect that what drew me to Wilber is what draws most people and what turned me away is what is turning many away today.

I have thought about this often myself. Why was I so drawn to Wilber and his work? I think there are many reasons, several of which I am sure that I am not even aware of. I think there is certainly a very similar phenomenon/pattern that is associated with “fans” of Wilber as well as those that become “critics.” For me, the dynamics of that process are both fascinating and a little scary to reflect on personally.

Speaking for myself, I don't know what Integral philosophy is, let alone where it stands, apart from Wilber's shadow. I don't think it is a question that has been adequately answered yet

I’m with Scott on this one. Some days I wonder why I even call my blog a day in the integral life because I am uncertain at times what integral is anymore.

Dialogue is what separates philosophy from dogma.

Amen.

Subjective Realism - Integral Naturalism?

I found this essay by Owen Flanagan on subjective realism and phenomenal consciousness today. I believe it is actually an excerpt from his book The Problem of the Soul. I was re-reading a section on subjective realism in that book the other night and this essay sounded like the same text. Actually I just compared the text and the books has additional information so it looks like this essay was a basis for that particular section in the book.

Anyway, I wanted to post a few excerpts that have had me thinking a lot lately about conscious experience and the relationship of subject and object. Flanagan's mention of indexicals always reminds me of Wilber's use of pronouns with the quadrants and I think a certain correlation of Wilber's UL and UR can be made with Flanagan's subjective realism. I'm continuing to explore Flanagan's application of the Natural Method (again similar to Wilber's IMP) to study consciousness. Flanagan mentions in his book that the Janus-faced description of consciousness is not very common due to the lack of a conceptual framework to hold it. Flanagan writes that “there is something right about the point that first-person consciousness cannot, even in principle, be captured in the sort of third-person objective description that normal science relishes.” Of course Wilber writes of this often – just think of his UL “I” (phenomenology) versus UR “it” (neuroscience).

Flanagan goes on to say:

There is something right about this point, although it is implausibly used by many philosophers – the ones I dubbed “Mysterians” a decade ago – to argue that although the mind is a natural phenomenon we humans are not smart enough to ever grasp or make intelligible its nature. Why’s that? Because we have no conceptual resources, nor are they in the offing, to comprehend a phenomenon as both subjective and objective.

I think his subjective realism and Wilber's quadrants and IMP application are two of those conceptual resources/frameworks that can help us understand consciousness from the subjective-objective (and of course intersubjective-interobjective) points of view. It seems to me that Flanagan's subjective realism bridges a gap that exists between the strict physicalist on one side (Wilber's UR quadrant absolutist if you will) and the Cartesians (mind is nonphysical). Or at least is makes a good attempt in my opinion.

I'm very curious as to where Flanagan and Wilber would agree and agree to disagree on various issues. A debate between these two would be interesting to say the least. All of this leads me to one question I have now - can there be an integral naturalism? Or would Wilber possibly label it as reductionist and confine it to a particular level of development? I certainly think a synthesis of these two thinkers conceptual resources is worth looking into. If not a synthesis per se then definitely a drawing out of their complementary aspects. A naturalized quadrant meta perspective perhaps?

Some excerpts from Flanagan's essay:

- One thing many people fear about a naturalistic view of mind is that they think it will, in virtue, of identifying mind with brain make experiences a thing of the past. The worry goes something like this: The Cartesian picture of mind begins (and possibly ends) with recognition of the fact that we humans possess phenomenal consciousness, there is something-it-is-like first personally to be a subject of experience. We our not mere information processors. We have experiences. The scientific picture of mind identifies the mind with certain objective physical processes. But the subjective and the objective can't be meshed or melded. First-person phenomenal consciousness -- not only isn't -- it cannot even, in principle, be captured in the sort of third-person objective description normal science relishes.

- Conscious mental events are essentially Janus-faced and uniquely so. They have first-person subjective feel and they are realized in objective states of affairs.

- The objective states of affairs in brains that are conscious mental events are unique in producing first-personal feel -- phenomenality.

- The nature of conscious mental events is such that despite being perfectly natural, objective states of affairs, they have as part of their essential nature the subjective feel they have. Call the basic idea subjective realism. Subjective realism says that the relevant objective state of affairs in a sentient creature properly hooked up to itself produce certain subjective feels in, for, and to that creature.

- For many it produces a mental cramp to think the thought that mental events are neural events but that their essence cannot be captured completely in neural terms. Such is the power of objective realism, a doctrine that is true for most of the things and types of things in the universe, but that is not true for experiences. The cramping can be eased, I propose, by accepting that the subjective realist is claiming nothing mysterious. It is simply a unique, but nonmysterious fact about conscious mental states that they essentially possess a phenomenal side. Don't mention that, and possibly how, they appear first-personally and you haven't described one, possibly two, of their essential features. Your metaphysic is incomplete. See things in the Janus-way recommended and the intuition that gives rise to the thought that there is an unbridgeable explanatory gap between conscious mental states and their realizers is deflated, possibly it disappears. Or, so it seems to me.

- There is another, related way to make the point in favor of subjective realism. This way of making the point turns on paying attention to indexicals, in particular to pronouns. "I" is an essential indexical from the point of view of the subjective realist because it essentially and uniquely captures, or at least, it essentially marks the first-person feels that I have been discussing. Description and explanation in normal mind science is in an objective third-personal or impersonal idiom

- The subjective realist is a physicalist who claims that she can meet the plausible demand of the Cartesian to account for, or at least to leave ample space for -- phenomenal consciousness.

- It (subjective realism) explains everything the Cartesian view can explain but in a nonmysterious way that fits much better, than the Cartesian view, into a unified naturalistic picture of the world.