Gaia: The Integral Pod - Chapel Perspicacious - The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 00:39:00 GMT

Julian,

Thanks for your comments. I will take my response up to the new thread you've started, weaving them in when they relate to the points you have made in your opening post.

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 04:44:06 GMT

hey bruce

it makes perfect sense and it is lots of fun!

i don't find this kind of postmodernism particularly convining in it's application to anything except really fun intellectual hair-splitting.

i think what he has done in this section of the book unwittingly opens the door to a lot of solipsistic, so called "quantum" science fiction philosophy 101 thought experiment gone awry nonsense about what, when and how something exists.

of course atoms have always been here.

the word we use to name them and the level of consciousness that can percieve and think about them hasn't always been here though.

therefore '"atom" as a concept that we can think of, define and manipulate in our minds theoretically and act on experimentally - didn't "exist" but come on- this doesn't mean that everything wasn't still reducable to the thing that the the word "atoms" refers before we could percieve it and include it in a muthlovin' tetra-arising worldview.....

i am for certain aspects of the postmetaphysics and myth of the given material he is presenting in Integral Spirituality - but i think some of it is misleading in a problematic way.

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 02:34:02 GMT

Julian,

I agree with you that the book, Integral Spirituality, has certain problems and that its presentation is a bit confused. Of Wilber's books, it's one of my favorites in terms of content, but it's one of my least favorites in terms of "style" -- which seems to be all over the place. He says he deliberately chose a casual voice, but I don't think it's very successful. Some of the book is very chatty, some of it is more academic, some of it reads just like an advertisement for I-I, some of it is cloyingly written (with annoying phrases like "Welcome to second tier," "Welcome to Integral," repeated too often for my tastes).

As you probably know, this book isn't the first place he has introduced his Integral Math or his writings on perspectives. These ideas made their debut a few years ago in the excerpts that are published on the Shambhala site. I think, in some respects, they are more convincingly -- and comprehensively -- presented there.

Anyway, on to the question I was posing to you. (Did you ever read the thread I mentioned earlier, which I posted on my TSK pod?) It's clear, I think, that Wilber argues that the belief that there is "one way" that the world truly exists is still subject to the myth of the given. The question is, What exactly does Wilber mean by this? Is he saying that reality really is indeterminate, at all times, only appearing to coalesce into certain patterns given certain causes and conditions? Or is he saying that even if reality really IS a certain way, we will never know it, because we always access it from one "enactive" perspective or another and thus always play in a role in how it appears to us? This latter perspective is similar to Kant's position (as I understand it).

When I first read Wilber's argument that ecosystems did not exist 10,000 years ago, I thought it was a rather outrageous claim. Somewhat like his hyperbolic statement that Blue folks are all little Nazis. My first argument against it was simply that, even if no individuals could conceive of an ecosystem at that time, there still would have been that intersubjective/interobjective network of relationships among plants and animals that we call an ecosystem. But he anticipates that objection and says it isn't valid, from a post-modern, post-metaphysical perspective.

In his footnote, he makes a distinction between an object existing and subsisting in time. As I understand the argument, the idea is that the Kosmos has certain intrinsic features which can be said to subsist in AQAL space, but which do not yet ex-ist or stand out. However, if we assume that atoms are "really" there, but are simply recognized, we are stopping short of the full postmetaphysical perspective and are still indulging in the myth of the given, because we fail to recognize that "atoms" are, in part, products of our own level of cognition. Atoms are one way being presents itself or "stands forth," in an enactive dance with perceiving subjects. (Kosmic perichoresis, anyone?) But atoms do not, actually, have inherent self-existence, wholly independent of perceiving subjects. They appear only "in between," as tetra-enacted "objects" in AQAL space. They are, in part, imaginative products of our consciousness. It is not that we "create" atoms with our minds, but that there is no way to separate us-here (at whatever Kosmic address we happen to be standing) from that-there (the objects of a particular perspective). Whatever is "out there," an "atom" is always already a product of a perspective issuing from a particular Kosmic address.

I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of expressing this. What I'm saying is that any "picture" or model of the world at all (with its interrelated objects and subjects) is a contingent product which is arising in AQAL space, and which participates in the tetra-enaction of any particular worldspace.

What do you think? Have you followed what I'm saying? Does it make sense to you?

Best wishes,

Balder

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 20:40:37 GMT

always enjoy you keith. peace bro...

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://geomo.gaia.com — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:51:34 GMT

"the assertion that recognizing the myth of given means that ecosystems plain didnt exist before turquoise is pushing it.

were he more clear that this is a hyper deconstructive premise in a left hand quadrant thought excercise that would be great. but he isnt.

these ideas will be poorly applied, misunderstood and used in a reductionist way to “prove” some kind of co-creative quantum spiritual bunk…."

I think I understand what Ken is trying to do with his analysis, but I agree with Julian that he isn't doing it very well. At least, I can see (our would imagine be a better word...it would be a visionary concept, a whole concept that might defy linear description) how "ecosystems didn't exist" if they and all creations are somehow tied into conciousness, but I could hardly begin to explain what it is that I see. Certainly not by writing about it. Maybe a PowerPoint presentation;-) Maybe a New Age movie!

Keith

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 19:05:35 GMT

bruce:

ok so i am reading through the kosmic adddress section and it brings to mind what i find very problematic about Integral Spirituality.

the book can't decide who it's aimed at.

i feel like ken has made this atttempt at writing a definitive and easy to understand overview of his approach while at the same time including radical new intellectual perspectives.

the book in parts is oversimplified to the point of so thinly defining the deluge of jargon that i can only imagine a new reader being either consciously confused or unconsciously misinformed.

then he introduces integgral calculus and this cool new journey into the myth of the given and post metaphysics, going back and forth between this weirdly simple language and language that verges on the academic.

i loved reading this kosmic address section.

he is having a lot of fun.

hey ken just transcended and included postmodernism - yehaw....now what kinda tea did i want with my muffin?

the assertion that recognizing the myth of given means that ecosystems plain didnt exist before turquoise is pushing it.

were he more clear that this is a hyper deconstructive premise in a left hand quadrant thought excercise that would be great. but he isnt.

these ideas will be poorly applied, misunderstood and used in a reductionist way to "prove" some kind of co-creative quantum spiritual bunk....

of course ecosystems existed before turquoise. just like bacteria existed before sammmelweis and fucking atoms existed before we had electron microscopes.

yes they did not appear and could not be found in the llimited perspectives prior to their being discovered, but they were still there, in fact our very existence and evolution depended on them.....

were there antibodies before we understood the immune system, was dna encoding our existence before the human genome project!?

cammman!

ken is performing a kind of postmodern reduction here because he is having just too much fun in his thought experiment - which still makes tons of sense if limited left hand perspective 9it is a brilliant and elgant exploration of emergent worldviews), but actually does in some important ways amount to the solopsistic idealism he says it is not in one of his notes.....

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 07:23:51 GMT

colbert talks very cogently about symbols...

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 07:00:22 GMT

ok cool - thats page 289 in what i am looking at.... will get back, and look forward to your reply too!

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 04:43:07 GMT

Julian, what you are saying here is good, and I will respond to it soon, but it does seem that perhaps our copies of Integral Spirituality are laid out differently. The section I am talking about is in Appendix II, about a page into the section entitled "What Is The Address of An Object in the Kosmos?"

Is that what you were reading? It doesn't seem like it.

Thanks,

Balder

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 04:25:22 GMT

balder, as to Integral spirituality starting at page 250:

whew i am glad that the critique of the metaphysics of the great traditions begins on page 254, because the traditional schema being represented from 250 are awash with problems....

of course i start grooving here - pg 255:

" we want to keep as much as possible of the great traditional systems while jettisoning their unnecessarily metaphysical interpretations, interpretations that not only are not necessary to explain the same set of data, but interpretations that guarantee the spirituality will not get a fair hearing in the court of modern and postmodern thought.."

wilbers AQAL solution to the problem of matter being mispercieved as the lowest rung is brilliant - it's the right hand aspect of every level!

i am wondering though i f we are looking at different books. i have a manuscript that is perhaps ordered differently than the edition you are looking at.....

tell me the chapter heading you are referring to...

the section i am looking at is marvelous though, thanks!

ok - maybe you mean the section that starts with "integral post-metaphysics"?

"all of the traditional categories of metaphysics - including God, immortality, soul, mind, body, knowing - simply cannnot stand up to the scrutiny of critical thinking, not in their fundamental, pre-critical, ontological forms. In the modern and postmodern world , they are simply obsolete notions that are as embarassing to religion as, say, phlogiston, St. Vitus dance, and phrenology are to medicine."

phew good thing i didnt say that!

ok, so for the most part i hear wilber supporting what i have been saying so far viz the neccesity of a new post-metaphysical spirituality. cool.

with regard to your question:

"Seriously, I think this is the intuitive view for all of us: any worldview is either a poor or fairly good representation of the “world” as it truly exists.

But Wilber also says that believing that there is one way that the world truly is, which our worldviews represent more or less accurately, is part of the myth of the given.

How do you understand this claim, given what you've just written above?"

I think that this is a very complex question and that postmodern truths are much too easily overgeneralized.

i am no expert on the subject. however this much appears clear:

Right Hand Progress

as we have progressed from premodern to modern - basically with the advent of science and the rational enlightenment, we have come to deeper and more complete understandings of the right hand quadrants of everything from rocks to spiders, to amoebas, to galaxies, to bacteria, ro the human brain and so on...

this understanding keeps deepening with time as we get more and more scientifically sophisticated.

what we see empirically at each of these succesive leves has always been the case. we just couldn't perceive it yet.

bacteria always caused infections. even before we knew what an nfection was or what bacteria was. before sammelweis made his observation in 1840 that women in childbrith attended by medical students who had just been in autopsy class tended to die, the phenomenon was occuring...

sammelweis did not quaff that reality into being with his mind the moment he conceived of the idea. he intuited something that later turned out to be empirically true and had always been true.

darwin did not co-create the reality of evoluionary process - he observed and hypothesized and researched and discovered evidence that further proved and elaborated his hypothesis - revealing a truth that was there all along.

now of course there may be additional pieces, nay, hwole dimensions to the theory of infectious disease and evolution that continue to emerge as we develop bettter tools of perception, but these truths have been there all along, awaiting our discovery.

Left Hand Progress

when we get into the left hand quadrants it is an entirely different animal.

philosophical truth, ethical goodness, aesthetic beauty are all in the eyee of the beholder, and while we could argue for some of these being truer than others, we'd have a tough time proving it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

psychology, sociology, political theory, literarature, anthropology etc are all areas of study that are much more prone to social conditioning and interpretive bias than the hard sciences.

and it is in the left hand quadrants that the myth of the given must cast it's most prominent shadow.

in the parts of IS i have just been referencing, I see wilber critiquing the old world tendency to ascribe metaphysical certainty to left hand concepts.

ia lso have my own observation that as we progress from premodern to modern to postmodern, the reach of empirical science gets greater, the dominance of metaphysics ansd faith gets weaker and the arising of self-reflexive consciousness that can step back and observe it's own conditioning through psychotherapy, meditation*, marxism, existentialism, postmodernism etc ect gets more and more pronounced.

for me this is the truly powerful domain of the myth of the given realization.

it implies the ability to step back and critique what before you had taken as given.

this has some right hand import, but i think way less than on the left.

i think it is safe to say that:

1) in the progress from premodern to modern to postmodern both the empirical and rational gaze and the self-reflexive analytical gaze get stronger.... hence our perceptions of the reality already exerting a powerful influence on every aspect of our lives get clearer 9although more complex and potentially confusing)

2) in the progress from premodern to modern to postmodern the value of metaphysical interpretations diminishes as the grasp of science and rationality expands. this is healthy and appropriate, though it does sound an urgent wake up call for the spiritual traditions to update themselves and present us with a vision of the spiritual that is not at odds with what we now know about reality.

3) it is easy to confuse postmodern ideas (as well as quantum physics observations) in ways that make us think that everything is emerging out of consciousness and has some kind of relative plasticity and unreliability - or worse can just be reformulated by applying a certain kind of "consciousness" to it...

lastly, i like how the threads we've been in so far are sort of coalescing as we continue.

it's a cool theoretical framework we are building together.

peace to you
~julian

* i mention meditation here in the context in which it arises as a counter culture phenomenon in the west - not as a traditional phenomenon in the east. in the east meditation and the following of any of the hindu buddhist practices/beliefs tends to overwhelmingly be unquestioning of the myth of the given that it is associated with. in the west meditation or following any of the practices or beliefs from the hindu bhuddist tradition tends to be part of a deconstruction of the myth of the given that the couter culturalite is questioning!

as i have indicated elsewhere, the tendency of westrern students to then unquestioningly swallow the eastern myth of the given is ubiquitous and something i think is highly problematic - and ironic, given the counterculture questioning impulse that turned them eastward...

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:46:06 GMT

For more on how people's perceptions of reality can be distorted using rhetorical devices and the like, please see the article I just posted, Preparing Us for War with Iran. Quite interesting from a theoretical perspective - but with potentially horrific consequences in the world of flesh and stone.

arthur

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:03:56 GMT

mmmm i look forward to reading it up and getting back to you with a more nuanced understanding of what you are pointing out dharma brother. (as opposed to dhrama brother :O)

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 16:56:33 GMT

I believe one of the places Wilber makes this argument is in Integral Spirituality, starting on page 250.

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 18:16:29 GMT

Good spider sense, Julian! Pay attention when it tingles...

Seriously, I think this is the intuitive view for all of us: any worldview is either a poor or fairly good representation of the "world" as it truly exists.

But Wilber also says that believing that there is one way that the world truly is, which our worldviews represent more or less accurately, is part of the myth of the given.

How do you understand this claim, given what you've just written above?

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 18:08:17 GMT

mmmmm i sense a fishline in the water. :O)

but i will gladly take that bait.

yes absolutely.

the accuracy of our perception of the kosmos deepened, expanded and increased massively with modernity.

of course there is as wilber points out both dignity and disaster in modernity. but the movement in general is toward what i said above.

what is so exciting about wilber is his ability to bring together so much of what we know with what we have lost and propose a way to integrate it all more effectively.

this is also a great step forward.

postmodernism et al, another significant step.

all of course wioth their blindspots and omissions - poart of the organic process.

but yes - premodern belief held that certain illnesses were caused by evil spirits, modernity started to understand the microscopic and biochemical causes.

in almost every single discipline we could go through and demonstrate how modernity made more acurate the premodern view of things.

i believe this is also what wilber is saying in the quotes above where he says it no longer makes sense ontologically, psychologically or psychologically to take on the metaphysical baggage (his words) of the great wisdom traditions. we simple know better now.

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://brucealderman.gaia.com — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 17:43:52 GMT

Julian, or anyone who wants to reply:

Is there a particular way the world really is, which our worldviews approximate -- the pre-rational ones rather badly, and the rational ones more accurately? Has there been a progression in the accuracy of our worldviews, a closer and closer approximation of the true condition of the Kosmos?

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://singerseeker.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:15:28 GMT

Dear Julian,

I'm glad you quoted that about the leaving of god for God by Meister Eckhart, because I think this is the voyage of the spirit for each of us. Our past life is scattered with the discards of many gods, too small and crampled to be God... I believe the mystics always point the way to God beyond all these little gods that distract us still... Can we hear their voice and follow?

love and namaste,

nicole

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://singerseeker.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:11:25 GMT

Dear Julian, yes, I always find the discussions interesting! :)

Namaste,

Nicole

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://geomo.gaia.com — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:00:50 GMT

"respectfully i might add that i am beginning to think that part of the fuss has more to do with people not actually reading wilber, or knowing what these terms mean, than anything else."

Well, Julian, now you really are starting to sound like Wilber;-) I have not read as much as most. Did read most of the materials available on Integral Naked, also the advanced printing of Integral Spirituality that was available on the ISC website. I have a copy of SES, and have read some, but there is definitely a lot more to read. However, if I understand correctly, SES is really an academic support for the AQAL system, which I "believe" anyway without getting into SES. Besides, Wilber himself doesn't recommend SES unless one is intended on academically pursuing integral theory, which I am not, so that's my excuse with implicit endorsement by the BBG. I was a member of IN for over two years, but cancelled my membership recently. I suppose the internal struggles in I-I were a bit offputting, but also I found that the content, which is great, wasn't necessarily advancing my understanding of integral theory anyway. A full two years of maybe an hour or more of content per week and there wasn't much more to cover, imo. Oh yeah, last year I did read Grace and Grit. So, that's my integral pedigree, for what it's worth. And, yes, I do not always understand where Ken is coming from, or maybe I do and I just disagree based on my own experience.

Two points. One having to do with the quote above, and one random comment.

First, have you read Grace and Grit? It seems that Treya's story and particularly the ending, if it factual, which I have no reason to believe it is not, provides some real, emprical evidence that these things that are so-called myths, or that have been mythically treated by some traditions, do have some factual grounding. There is a lot of symbolism, but those are just interpretive tools, naturally conditioned by culture. There is something "there," and each tradition has it's own interpretation. The original interpretations get mytholigized and handed down and distorted over the ages, but I have no problem with that. Reading G&G and really listening to Ken's conclusions about the myth of the given leads me to believe he doesn't either. Rather, it seems he is trying to help people see past the mythical archetypes to the reality that all traditions may have in common. That reality, I contend, is real and not at all mythical, regardless of whether it is even possible to relate to it or communicate it via the linear thinking apparatus of the mind. The final scenes of G&G are really unbelievable and could be easily dismissed as poetic license by Ken, but I don't think that's the case. I think it really did happen the way it is reported in the book, and that reveals something profound and confirmed by many actual eye-witnesses, most notable of whom would be Ken.

Second....damn! I forgot the second comment. Maybe it'll come back to me.

Regards.

Keith

Re: The Myth of the Given and Post-metaphysics

http://julianwalkeryoga.gaia.com — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:16:57 GMT

point taken on the nature of group discussion nicole.

nonetheless, the title of the thread is the topic of discussion and i have included some references and quotes to help get us on track regarding some confusion around what the ideas are about.

i hope you found them interesting!

:O)