Ken Wilber's "Integral Theory"

@White_Taoist
I'm not sure why you want to prove that Integral Theory is scientific. Maybe Wilber himself insists on it? The human world is not amenable to the standards of the hard sciences. Fortunately some people still try to tackle it instead of worrying only about ballistic trajectories! For what I have seen Integral Theory is in fact not even exclusively descriptive; it is also a way to envision our personal and collective path in a prescriptive way -- which would be a sin for a scientific theory but is desirable in a complete world-view.

@Orderly you actually make a good point here which removes a lot of problems. But "complete world-view"or "theory of everything" are terrible terms for imaginary knowledge.

Btw back to tests: science is perfectly correct in world without humans, while religion is construction so empty that it almost doesn't exist outside of last 4000 years.
What about Wilber's theory?

@hal9k
Wilber's theory is not offered as a religion, but rather it is explicitly offered as a successor to both the modern world-view and the post-modern worldview. In short, he offers a candidate for a contemporary world-view that takes into account the whole history of Western culture. One original feature is that it integrates rather than reject the previous phases. Another one is that it articulates a historical dynamics of "growing up" and a personal dynamics of "waking up", which is also kind of appealing.

What e.g. @krasnaya does is affirming the modern credo, i.e. the mechanistic worldview of the 17th-century scientific revolution (see e.g. Bacon). That makes sense as he has yet to understand what happened since then, and prefers to stick to what he understands rather than jump into something he doesn't. We all need to "recapitulate" to some extent our collective past. And it's become so complex that not many people manage to reach the present time in their lifetime! Those who do can find some interest in examining Wilber's shot at a contemporary update.

[censored]

The evolution of thought and ideas... A Darwinian approach to history... A thought experiment that may make sense of wilber's clime: Imagine approaching the western canon from the perspective of the Chromosome; Gene; Rna; and Dna...What does Dna has/have to say about ancient greek civilization? or the industrial revolution? or post-modern art? It is the thought behind the thought that leads to source.

the same old story. A group of Cartesian people (conscious or not) and another group that knows that the Cartesian mentality initiated mainlly by descartes and bacon only exchanged the truth for sure (conscious or not).

It's very simple, folks, conventional science prides reality into just what you can be sure, where you can trace that truth in some planes and look objectively.

People who practice mysticism know that there is much more to it than that. The 'follies' that the mind can make really impresses. People can largely control their sympathetic and parasympathetic system and this in itself is something that science should be putting its focus on. But they do not put it because there is always someone resistant to investigating this territory in a personal way. Science insists on investigating meditation by looking objectively at the brain, but no scientist himself meditates and learns to enter the 4 states of consciousness already accepted by neuroscience.

And from what I see, whenever the meditator tries to bring his experiences to help the scientist he refuses.

I think if everyone can have an experience, but can only know it empirically, this is real enough, no matter if it will not appear on the whiteboard between some orotogonal axes lol: the problem is when some do not want to have the experience .. .

Curious because matematics is not a empirical knowlodge... In this case, the human being need evolve to new levels beyond the logic / reason of mathematics, there are other levels and we are just beginning to touch these new levels.

To make all this interesting, it is speculated that this evolution also has its physical / biological counterpart. Okay, that gives scope for racism, since it would be possible to classify people between 'old generation' and 'new generation' if it were proven that a particular 'piece' of the body is apprehending in these new ones and not in the old models lol...

danger, danger, danger!!! We are all equals, no way think in evolution in human species! Mainlly if that evidences is from subjectivity of psychology and stranger mystics experiments....

> And from what I see, whenever the meditator tries to bring his experiences to help the scientist he refuses.

Brain and consciousness study goes nowadays into it's golden age, technology already can put electrodes into single brain neurons of live brain and register single impulses. Whole mind models (with 1mm precision, which is now good enough yet) are done too. This is very active, interesting and supported area.

Any, even small progress in this area will be revolutionary. Therefore you can skip any doubts - problem is not in science area, problem are people who too weak to reject fake constructions like religion or UFO's. Or who make money or power or "first lines" on these fake constructions.
(Worth mention, Wilber sell a lot of books)

What clearly must be added to all this discussion:
- religion in some special cases can bring harmony and joy; but then person must ask if he wants to live in lying joy or with strict cold truth
- not all religions were created for traditional mass control purpose; Daoism is one of this special cases. There is no doubght it made world better, a lot of lives more happier, and may contain some real layers, but it's still thing created from air without enough strictness and proof and Occam's filter and cannot be near "what is our world" question.

---> Brain and consciousness study goes nowadays into it's golden age, technology already can put electrodes into single brain neurons of live brain and register single impulses. Whole mind models (with 1mm precision, which is now good enough yet) are done too. This is very active, interesting and supported area.

You still do not understand. Saying we have alphas, gamma, beta, delta waves is completely different from you meditating and entering empirically into the experience. From what I know only mysticism has an interest in investigating in this way the 'powers of the mind'. The scientist does not meditate, he does not look with the eyes of first-person consciousness, he looks with the eyes of collective consciousness. He evaluates using objective data and does it using what he has learned, the legacy of human knowledge about what to think about X or Y.

See, no matter how science describes the taste of an apple, it is by eating and tasting the apple that you will come in contact with the actual knowledge about 'apple tastes'.

And considering that mysticism deepens, even dangerously, in the fields of self-hypnosis, autosuggestion, vizualization and imagination, besides the practices of self-healing using psychophysiology of psychosomatic affections, is practically the only human endeavor that seeks to understand this 'world'.

Science does not do it right because it is embedded in concepts that deny empiricism. This is already known and discussed (though without much change), the man has decided that he should not trust his mind, a great choice in the past, but now we are no longer 'children', we do not need to go out saying we see God just because we different states of consciousness, so it is the right time to open the doors of the world of the mind to all with improved mental practices and a more public study of the subject so that we can use this also in the objective and social world.

@White_Taoist said (#17):
> - The terms were pretty well defined in my extensive quotation
> of the article I think, i.e. “green” as postmodern” and “orange”
> as modern

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that hardly is a rigorous definition by any scientific standards. What you call "definition" is just name-dropping - and a rather inconsistent name-dropping, for that matter. For instance: mentioning Derrida and Foucault in one sentence as if they had been writing essentially the same ignores the fact of "Cogito and the History of Madness" (Derrida, 1963) and that the two men were sworn enemies ever since, critizising everything the respective other wrote (i.e. "The Order of Things", Foucault 1966; "The Archeology of Knowledge", Foucault, 1969). To lump them simply together is a grave misrepresentation of both their work.

Furthermore, they both didn't call themselves "postmodernists", this is just an epitheton you (or whoever you quoted) labelled them with for convenience. You might call Lyotard a "postmodernist", because he used the term himself, i.e. "La Condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir" (The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, 1979). Again, Derrida critizised Lyotard (especially "The Differend: Phrases in Dispute", 1983) heavily in "On Touching, Jean-Luc-Nancy" (2005).

> - The “expert” (or more accurately the only one with any
> seemingly plausible claim of knowledge of KW’s work) here is
> clearly not me, but osdeving8.

I have neither said nor implied its you. I have used the term "local expert" because of the very reason you said: the seemingly best knowledge about whatever Ken Wilbur has written.

> My simple suggestions here are that a) rude dismissals of ideas
> without proper investigation are not conducive to productive
> conversations

Sorry if i hurt your tender feelings. If you don't want me to call bullshit, then refrain from advancing some. It seems that i have at least read a lot of the authors you just name, so it seems that i have done a lot more of the "proper investigation" you want to see done. Otherwise you wouldn't have written what i above critizised (misrepresentation of Foucaults and Derridas writings), because you would have known better.

@Orderly said (#19)
> You have not dismantled anything, instead you have just
> shown your ignorance. "Postmodernism" is only undefined in
> your mind because you lack the relevant education.

See above. And a question to @White_Taoist: is this the less rude approach you are advocating? And if so: how am i supposed to react to that? Call him a "layman" or translate it to greek?

@Orderly (#19)
> The hard sciences tackle simple and idealized processes that
> can be tackled rigorously because of their simplicity.

> What e.g. @krasnaya does is affirming the modern credo, i.e.
> the mechanistic worldview of the 17th-century scientific
> revolution (see e.g. Bacon). That makes sense as he has yet to
> understand what happened since then, and prefers to stick to
> what he understands rather than jump into something he
> doesn't.

Well, what can i say? I'll let Mr Wittgenstein answer that for me:

6.53 Die richtige Methode der Philosophie wäre eigentlich die: Nichts zu sagen, als was sich sagen lässt, also Sätze der Naturwissenschaft – also etwas, was mit Philosophie nichts zu tun hat – , und dann immer, wenn ein anderer etwas Metaphysisches sagen wollte, ihm nachzuweisen, dass er gewissen Zeichen in seinen Sätzen keine Bedeutung gegeben hat. Diese Methode wäre für den anderen unbefriedigend – er hätte nicht das Gefühl, dass wir ihn Philosophie lehrten – aber s i e wäre die einzig streng richtige.
(Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1918)

Translation (Pears/McGuinness):
The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science - i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy - and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person - he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy - this method would be the only strictly correct one.

I am so truly sorry that i ever read this dimwit who can't hold a candle against scientific luminaries like @Orderly and was even deluded enough to think that 1918 was not part of the 17th century. My fault.

@osdeving8 said (#26):
> the same old story. A group of Cartesian people (conscious or
> not) and another group that knows that the Cartesian mentality
> initiated mainlly by descartes and bacon only exchanged the
> truth for sure (conscious or not).

> People who practice mysticism know

Oh, yes! Whenever i get around to breath deeply for world peace i suppose i will understand. Until then i take the liberty to call that superstition. Really "superstition"? Here we are:

> Science insists on investigating meditation by looking objectively
> at the brain, but no scientist himself meditates

"Doctor, what do you know about my cancer?"
"Well, to know anything about it i would have to have cancer too, which i do not. So there is nothing we can do for you."

So let us sum up: the only way this "Integral Theory" can thrive is by misrepresenting first the people it asserts to be based upon - and then misrepresent the critics: where have i advocated a "mechanistic worldview"? Up to now i have advocated nothing at all, just taken apart whatever you said - again: just some logic and epistemology 101 every philosophy student could quote after first semester.

In fact (that is just one more misrepresentation by the advocates of this ... whatever it is, i don't want to step on @White_Taoist's tender toes) modern science is everything else than "mechanistic": modern physics in fact outrightly denies the possibility of a mechanist world. Uncertainty principle, wave-particle-dualism in physics, Gödels Incompleteness theorem in math - it seems the only one stuck in 17th century, where physics were Newtons laws of motion are you.

krasnaya

Hey @krasnaya

Regarding postmodernism, you claim you received no "rigorous definition by any scientific standards". But that is a ridiculous expectation to have for such a concept, as I already explained to you. Modernity itself doesn't lend itself to such a definition. Do you want to claim that therefore we shouldn't talk about modern culture, the modern mindset, modern political philosophy, etc.? There are hundreds of authors who have used this concept and have contributed in shaping it. If you are educated about it, your grasp of this concept is very rich, and you can use it despite the fact that it's not part of physics. (This is really true of most of the concepts you yourself use as would be easy to show.)

The modern turn is very salient in our history, while notoriously difficult to define simply. It starts toward the 15th century and among other things it includes a vastly increased reliance on reason and science, a valuation of autonomy and freedom, a trust that man can improve his condition by his own efforts, etc. Post-modernism, as its most basic level, means a skepticism or rejection of the modernist innovations, which has been voiced by many authors in the 20th century and even before. So you see, we already have a usable concept. Of course it's not very rich and deep (as you learn more it will become richer and deeper), but that's a usable concept all the same that can serve you as a starting point.

The Integral framework shares some of the criticism post-modernism has for modernism, but it also tries to improve on post-modernism. It won't help you to compute ballistic trajectories, but that is not its aim. Its aim is to help us human beings make sense of our life and our history. If you're not interested in life, history, and human beings, that's OK, you can work on ballistic trajectories. But my guess is you might be as interested as the next guy; you are just young and uneducated and therefore can't get a grip on these complex things. That is fine, you will learn. But don't say everything you find difficult to grasp is nonsense as you are only making a fool of yourself.

Regarding your Wittgenstein quote. The Tractatus is a reference for logical positivism, which is a form of modern scientism. So there is in fact some continuity from Bacon to the Tractatus. By the time Wittgenstein wrote it (in this twenties!) however Nietzsche had already written a monumental critique of modernism. To realize the limitations of the Tractatus, you could just read the later Wittgenstein as he completely changed approach, claiming instead that ordinary language was perfect as it was. But my advice would be to drop Wittgenstein (which is a kind of language fetishism on which you won't build any understanding of anything) and read Nietzsche instead.

Best of luck in your philosophical studies.