Reason vs New Age at dinner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WidsgIt3lfw

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

He is very talented.  :) I really enjoyed listening to him. A great poet and a great performance.

I think the title of the sketch would more accurately be “Orange vs. Green at dinner.”

At times the Green was explicit, such as the line, “You can't know anything. Knowledge is merely opinion.”

Perhaps unhealthy Green with the Amber astrology remark, if was meant seriously.

~       ~         ~

There are studies that have shown that homeopathy has worked, as I showed in this post.

It's also true that nearly all the studies about modern drugs are suspect because nearly all of them are funded by the pharmaceutical companies that sell them. The entire enterprise, also, excludes all unpatentable substances from their experiments (including herbs and homeopathic remedies), so the idea that there are so many more drugs with “proven effectiveness” (if you don't mind the side effects that include dizziness, palpitations, erectile dysfunction, and sudden death) than natural substances doesn't really work.

It's also interesting to see that many homeopathic and herbal remedies are used in material does in conventional medicine (I have mentioned some of this before but never quoted it in full):

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“I think the title of the sketch would more accurately be 'Orange vs. Green at dinner.'”

I thought about this, but to me it doesn't seem right to equate New Age with Green.

In my opinion, New Age is a toxic combination of a misunderstanding of Green cognition (probably due to being born in a culture with a Green CoG, but not having the mental capacity to grasp it cognitively), and a highly confused glorification of Magenta cognition.

Healthy Green to me is a beautiful, wonderful thing. New Age on the other hand is completely meaningless and, to put it mildly, an insult to human progress, and must be destroyed with a vengeance.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

I'm not sure that New Age is really such a scourge.  :)

I think there are healthy aspects of it, an openness that creates an opening beyond scientism and materialism, for example, an exploration, and then there are unhealthy aspects of it. I mentioned earlier that if someone were really serious about astrology it would indicate Amber, but a playfulness about it might not.

Unhealthy New Age would mean Green infected with Magenta (magic thinking, The Secret) or Amber (astrology, 100% pre-determination), kind of like the mean Green meme is Green infused with Red. There are other pathologies at Green as well, like excessive relativism that leads to a sort of nihilism that regresses into narcissism, amoral familism.

What aspects of the New Age exactly do you think need to be destroyed with a vengeance? Isn't materialism and scientism also an issue, like Amber fundamentalism?

But we're also talking about specific lines here, specific cognitive lines. One can be Green, for example, with Green ethics and politics but not very good scientific or philosophical skills, so when we see New Age it might not be pathology but just not very high development along one of these lines.

In the latter case it wouldn't be something to “destroy,” because destruction wouldn't necessarily move people higher along those lines. In many cases also it might just be that people haven't given these things much thought. They've been wrapped up in postmodern, relativistic, do-what-you-feel-like culture, and they've never thought deeply about these things or studied them with any kind of rigor.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“What aspects of the New Age exactly do you think need to be destroyed with a vengeance? Isn't materialism and scientism also an issue, like Amber fundamentalism?”

I can answer this question if you give me a context.

As to what aspects of the New Age I want to destroy, I'd say all of them. People who are insecure and afraid in our current, wonderfully developed society should force themselves to grow mentally instead of reverting back to pre-historic thinking. It helps no one and fulfills no purpose other than dumbing the population, causing a slow down in mental evolution.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

This thinking is hardly pre-historic.  It is a way of thinking that is largely predicated on how our minds work.  We understand things in patterns. We then notice things concurrent with those patterns, while ignoring other phenomenon.
This isn't something that is unique to new age. 
The phenomenon is well documented in terms of the homeopathic “evidence” that David was referring too in the book, “Snake-oil Science.”  Here a famous biostatician shows very clearly how all of these studies are very flawed scientifically.  Science itself is a new religion, because most people misunderstand it. Newspapers report flawed or incomplete studies in journals as though they are given by god.  This isn't the fault of the scientists, usually, but the way the whole process is misunderstood.

I think a better recent example though, is the current crisis in global markets.
I have to say, that compared to a few hippies with crystals, the mental processes leading to market bubbles, are more dangerous.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Believing that the world is centered around me, and that my thoughts are independent entities and that they have the power to influence the enviroment is based around the Magenta wave of development, which is pre-historic.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Rick: “I have to say, that compared to a few hippies with crystals, the mental processes leading to market bubbles, are more dangerous.”

Yep, far more dangerous methinks.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

David: “What aspects of the New Age exactly do you think need to be destroyed with a vengeance? Isn't materialism and scientism also an issue, like Amber fundamentalism?”

Dawid: I can answer this question if you give me a context… . As to what aspects of the New Age I want to destroy, I'd say all of them.


How about in the video? Do you think that everything other than conventional medicine is New Age, that only MDs with drugs manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and shown to be effective by tests conducted by those pharmaceutical companies can provide effective treatment?

We do need to establish some criteria if we are going to set out destroying things. We couldn't do it in an arbitrary, ad-hoc basis. That would be a like a government saying, “We are going to capture and incarcerate every terrorist, and if they won't be taken alive we will kill them.”

And then the press asking, “How do you define terrorism? How do you identify a terrorist?”

And then the government replying, “Oh well, you'll know a terrorist when you see us take someone and put him in jail, that is if you see us. Or if you see someone lying dead with government bullets in them. That's how you will know a terrorist. You will know terrorism then by seeing what they did.”

(Not saying that's what you're suggesting, just having a little fun.  :) )

We have to define what the “problem” is, in this case New Age thinking. Then analyze why it exists and for whom it exists, and then we would be able to take the appropriate action. Our response would probably be quite varied, I would imagine; it would probably differ from case to case, depending on the person and depending on the idea they were holding and why and in what context they were holding it in.



Rick: The phenomenon is well documented in terms of the homeopathic “evidence” that David was referring too in the book, “Snake-oil Science.”  Here a famous biostatician shows very clearly how all of these studies are very flawed scientifically.


This doesn't appear to be quite true, as far as I have been able to read the book at amazon.com. I read much of what he said about homeopathy.

He doesn't, as far as I saw, get into any particular studies. He reviews other reviewers whom he holds in high esteem, and then says, “Well, so you see, if he said it it must be true.” As far as I have read that is what it amounts to.

Also, even there he didn't say that all the studies were flawed. What he actually did as far as I could read was a meta analysis of meta analyses of homeopathic studies, so it was quite removed from actually looking at the studies. And the person he held in such high esteem actually found that two out of eleven meta analyses of homeopathic studies were legitimate.

So I don't know whether he was right or fair about the other nine, but even his favorite critic of homeopathy didn't pan every study entirely. Further, one of Bausell's criteria for a good study ruled out anything that was published in something other than a “high-quality, prestigious, peer-reviewed journal”—in other words, anything that wasn't published in a journal that he found “high quality” or “prestigious” was thrown out. This amounted to throwing out every study that was published in a journal that had any variation on the word “homeopathy” in its title and wasn't published in the U.S. Here is a quote (he was at least open about this):

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“How about in the video? Do you think that everything other than conventional medicine is New Age, that only MDs with drugs manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and shown to be effective by tests conducted by those pharmaceutical companies can provide effective treatment?”

As the guy says in the video. What do we call “natural” or “unconventional” medicine that has been proven to work… oh, yeah - medicine.

Let me just make this clear, I don't want to destroy any one individual. I want to destroy the new age meme. I have given a reason: it is a force of evolutionary stagnation; it dumbs down the population and in that process undermines Orange and thus our ability to transcend it. And I have given a definition: people in a culture with a Green cognition CoG who don't have the mental capacity to understand Green cognition so they - because of fear, insecurity, ignorance, etc - revert back to pre-rational cognition to find a solution to their existential angst.

Rick: ”I have to say, that compared to a few hippies with crystals, the mental processes leading to market bubbles, are more dangerous.”

There are many dangers in the world. Actually, all 1-tier structures poses potential danger. So the Orange processes you mention are very dangerous indeed, and need to be overcome, together with all the rest.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: And I have given a definition: people in a culture with a Green cognition CoG who don't have the mental capacity to understand Green cognition so they - because of fear, insecurity, ignorance, etc - revert back to pre-rational cognition to find a solution to their existential angst.


I think we need to analyse this more deeply. You say that “people who don't have the mental capacity to understand Green cognition so they … revert back to pre-rational cognition.” If they don't have it to begin with they can't revert; it is just a matter of their being lower on the spiral.

So we can have people who hold these New Age beliefs who are actually at Magenta or Amber, in which case there is nothing wrong with it; it is appropriate for them. And then there is the case where people are holding a Green worldview, generally, Green values, for example, but for some reason at times or on certain issues they are Magenta or Amber.

Why on some issues they are Magenta or Amber is an interesting question. It could happen because:

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“Believing that the world is centered around me, and that my thoughts are independent entities and that they have the power to influence the enviroment is based around the Magenta wave of development, which is pre-historic.”

By that logic Vegas, and the stock market are ipso facto “pre-historic.”  Our evolutionary need to be social and to care for our wounded and sick are not only pre-historic, but pre-fully modern human.

Again, new agers are mostly annoying, but are they as much of a problem as a president praying, and believing that his prayer will have real impact on world events?

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“As the guy says in the video. What do we call “natural” or “unconventional” medicine that has been proven to work… oh, yeah - medicine.”

That's true.  Medical researchers aren't evil people that with hold beneficial medicine for personal reasons.  If something is shown to work, it becomes legitimate medicine, and no longer falls under the rubric of alternative.

The greatest predictor of health is social and geographic location.  Where you are standing on the planet, and what social role you inhabit determine your state of health.  The reality of these truths were misunderstood for a very long time, and seemed like alternative views for epidemiology, but now they are simply understood as the way things are.

There was a Native American remedy for a tree bark that helped with pain. Chemists isolated the compounds involved and produced aspirin. Chemically identical to the native remedy, but there are people that won't take aspirin, but will eat the bark.  For over a decade medical anthropologists have worked with drug companies with indigenous shaman to isolate and study native medicine to find new drugs.  When they find something that works, it becomes medicine, not alternative medicine.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Rick: “Chemically identical to the native remedy, but there are people that won't take aspirin, but will eat the bark.”

That's something I find funny also. Why do people say that chemistry is not natural? Like, they say that LSD is not natural but magic mushrooms are, for example. Or that a pill isn't and a piece of bark is. Like, as if chemistry somehow falls outside the boundaries of nature.

The reificationist mind is truly a marvellous phenomenon.

Rick: “By that logic Vegas, and the stock market are ipso facto “pre-historic.””

Yes, if it wasn't for all the 1-tier subhumans, Vegas couldn't be. I do think that if a person sits by the one armed bandit and repeats a “holy mantra” (a ritual he has adopted to please the Gods of Luck) in his head, that is indeed a trace of our Magenta past.

And I can relate to that. When I was young I had plenty of these mantras/rituals which I used to repeat over and over again. Actually, I still have a few. Like drumming on tables and setting down utensils “just right”. In our Orange society they call it OCD - obsessive–compulsive disorder. :)

Anyway, an interesting discussion could be where Magenta cognition ends and where, perhaps, Amber cognition begins, and what the differences are. Because they both share a belief in unreason.

Rick: “Again, new agers are mostly annoying, but are they as much of a problem as a president praying, and believing that his prayer will have real impact on world events?”

As said, there are many dangers in the world.

David: “So we can have people who hold these New Age beliefs who are actually at Magenta or Amber, in which case there is nothing wrong with it; it is appropriate for them.”

I actually don't think it is appropriate for them. If you live in a highly advanced culture as say, Sweden's, whose CoG is stable around Green, and your conditions of living (the majority of the people in Sweden are all set for the Self-Actualization stage on Maslow's pyramid) are amongst the highest on the planet: then being at Magenta is simply unacceptable. So it's not simply about an inability to evolve, it is a refusal to evolve.

They actively choose not to listen to Orange arguments. They reject it. They do so because they crave meaning, consolation, security. Let me invent a new integral concept: I regard these people as cocs! - Cowards of Consciousness. :P

Then they are such hypocrites also, because we all know that as soon as a person with a good education writes a book on New Age, they all become very excited, really wanting to stress that he has a PhD, or whatever. And thereby they're confirming that it is indeed a positive thing to have an education, and to think rationally. (See pic.) So here again I prove my point that it's not these cocs can't understand Orange (like for example a forest tribe in the Amazon), or for some reason hate it through and through. Actually, they secretly look up to this structure of consciousness. Otherwise, why would they insist on writing out fancy titles and such?

So you cocs out there - embrace the fact that you are born in this time of enlightenment and not in a hut 10 000 years ago, where you would live 50 years shorter lives, be on the verge of war every day, be hungry every day, be scared every day, be confused every day, be sacrificed to the gods every day, be eaten alive every day, be hated by everyone except your tribe every day etc, etc.

Become a choc - a Champion of Consciousness instead!

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Is, my old Chemistry professor, Joe Schwarcz, always had the same complaint about natural versus not. He defied everyone to show him the difference between a chemically produced compound and a natural compound.

see the wiki on Joe here -  Joseph A. Schwarcz

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

At that level of abstraction, everything looks the same. But we don't live at that level. Well maybe a chemist does. :-)
Does a can of gasoline or Splenda exist in “nature”?

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Rick: The greatest predictor of health is social and geographic location.  Where you are standing on the planet, and what social role you inhabit determine your state of health.  The reality of these truths were misunderstood for a very long time, and seemed like alternative views for epidemiology, but now they are simply understood as the way things are.


I think you've covered the lower two quadrants with that. Genetics, in the upper right, would also be a big predictor, and there would be causation in the upper left as well.



Dawid: “As the guy says in the video. What do we call “natural” or “unconventional” medicine that has been proven to work… oh, yeah - medicine.”

Rick: That's true.  Medical researchers aren't evil people that with hold beneficial medicine for personal reasons.  If something is shown to work, it becomes legitimate medicine, and no longer falls under the rubric of alternative.


But there can be a lot of double standards in terms of what we decide works. For example, we will just ignore it that a certain drug gives a person side effects that may shorten their life or lessen the quality of the life or will stop working at a certain point.

And there can be tremendous resistance to the idea that some things work. New synthetic drugs are received with great openness while other modalities are treated with great skepticism or even hostility.

That is a tremendous methodogical bias, a tremendous methodological flaw, if we step back and look at the whole process: Billions of dollars goes to patentable substances, and a small fraction of that goes to nonpatentable substances, and then people say, “Oh gee, can you not see that patentable substances are more efficacious? They have hundreds, thousands of studies to prove that they work while those unpatentable substances and modalities have hardly any. Haha. How unscientific you are to think that the unpatentable substances are just as good!” 

If we didn't live in a profit-driven, capitalist LR system, the inherent bias against nonpatentable substances would not be there. The question would be not what can make us the most money but what will be most healing for people, with the least side effects? Not which substances and treatments will drain people of the most money but, if finances are considered at all, it would be which substances and modalities would drain people of the least money.

Right now, substances and modalities that aren't costly are ruled out from the very beginning by the mainstream system—just because they aren't costly! They want to offer the treatments with the biggest profit margin for their own bottom line; that is what they are trying to do.

And they are very hostile to anything else that threatens their share of the market.



Rick: There was a Native American remedy for a tree bark that helped with pain. Chemists isolated the compounds involved and produced aspirin. Chemically identical to the native remedy, but there are people that won't take aspirin, but will eat the bark.  For over a decade medical anthropologists have worked with drug companies with indigenous shaman to isolate and study native medicine to find new drugs.  When they find something that works, it becomes medicine, not alternative medicine.



There's some truth in what you say, of course, but for one thing they aren't simply taking herbs and barks out of the rainforest and selling them—some companies are doing that, the type that sell products in health-food stores and vitamin stores. But the big money is in drugs—if they can isolate something out of an herb and patent it or make a chemical analog, they can make millions.

But that doesn't mean the isolated substance is superior to the whole herb. It may be in some cases; it may be worse in some causes. I read recently that companies trying to market curcumin (from turmeric) are now adding other substances that occur in the turmeric because they help the curcumin get absorbed better. There won't be interest at Big Pharma to test turmeric because they can't make big money off that.

With regard to the “medicine” vs. “alternative medicine” signifier business, I call it “alternative” because that's the common name for it, no other reason than that. It simply means not the mainstream, orthodox medicine.

 I think the comedian/poet was Orange in the moment when he made that remark about things proven to work becoming “medicine” rather than “alternative medicine” because he seems to think there is some pre-given standard for what works and what doesn't work that every sensible person would agree upon, that it is very cut and dried whether something works or doesn't work. But it is very much open to interpretation.

A lot of the things that orthodox medicine believes “work” people who prefer different modalities don't think work well at all. They see all the side effects, how there is often no cure but simply suppression, added toxicity, no real transformation, drug dependence. The double-blind test at the pharmaceutical company may say that it works (for some people in the study, never everyone in the study; they often make some people in the study worse), but how the patient ends up feeling and evolving is another matter, and how many times have those drugs ended up killing or hurting people and being taken off the market? Lots of times.

If a person takes a medicine or treatment—any medicine or treatment under the sun without exception whether it has been tested successfully or not—and is satisfied with the result at the end of the day that medicine has worked. It doesn't matter whether the procedure can be repeated in anyone else or whether it was simply a placebo response. Of course making claims about something in the marketplace is another story, but the claims made by much of alternative medicine is often no more dubious than the claims made by pharmaceutical companies and sometimes less.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“Billions of dollars goes to patentable substances, and a small fraction of that goes to nonpatentable substances”

I presume that you'd rather have these billions go to jungle shamans, new age ladies and chinese herbalists instead of pharmaceutical companies all competing with eachother to produce the best medicine on the market?

If you could choose, if it were totally up to you, would you rather have it that way?

:P

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“If you live in a highly advanced culture as say, Sweden's, whose CoG is stable around Green, and your conditions of living (the majority of the people in Sweden are all set for the Self-Actualization stage on Maslow's pyramid) are amongst the highest on the planet: then being at Magenta is simply unacceptable. So it's not simply about an inability to evolve, it is a refusal to evolve.”

Does Sweden, or other Western European state, have a certain % of people who have a certain world view, because of of their own independent existence?  Let's not forget that the Dutch, Sweds, British, French, etc… all owe their material conditions to an imperialist and colonial past.  The ability to feel enough comfort in a person's life to pursue educational and spiritual goals, was built on the backs of others, and maintaining that lifestyle is still dependent upon the suffering of others.

It is because of US military hegemony that Europe, Japan, and other nations are able to invest in their infrastructure, rather than defense.  Those citizens didn't do much but get lucky enough to be born there.  When these enlightened people actually have to deal with hard issues like real multi-culturalism in government, violence, poverty, etc… they don't show themselves to be much better than others.

As far as a consciousness of 10,000 years ago, you have no idea what the consciousness of someone 10,000 years ago was. Whens the last time you talked with someone who can't buy decent food, has to live with fear, without healthcare, etc…  I respect your position, but remember that it is a position that is limited in geography. People aren't so black and white, and the way they think isn't either.

You also can't forget that many of the people that purpetuate new age philosophy are rational con artists, who don't believe what they are selling. I talk with brilliant environmental scientists who work for the government all the time, and when it comes to their ideas on human culture and society, they are like idiots. Their wrong headed beliefs and concepts aren't much different from any body elses.
I was trying to explain to one guy that you can't create ecologically sustainable development, without promoting socially sustainable development. He didn't really get it. Each stage has it's misconceptions.

The difference here is that the misconceptions of the poor and powerless don't affect you much. While, yours and mine can take people's homes, and enslave them.  When you create an us and them divide in your mind, and think of them as lesser human beings you make it possible to exploit other human beings. 

You might say that this isn't relavent to wealthy new agers in Europe, but once you can divide people up like that, the process becomes the same.  He create most of the world's problems, because we don't listen to people that we look down upon.  The peasant farmer in rural Mexico has nothing to teach the agro-scientists from ATM University in Texas. But, in ignoring that farmer they are ignoring the real expert, the person that knows the land better than any other human alive.

In the neighborhood I'm working in, the people in the community know exactly what's wrong with it, and they know how to fix it, but nobody asks them. When I ask and I report back to elites in government, they ask me if perhaps my empathy for “those people” is clouding my judgement, because I'm showing them how their plans are not going to be effective.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“I presume that you'd rather have these billions go to jungle shamans, new age ladies and chinese herbalists instead of pharmaceutical companies all competing with eachother to produce the best medicine on the market?”

That's a good point, and it also deals with what I'm saying about the other points in this thread.  If someone actually had HIV, malaria, gun shots, etc… who would they go to for treatment?
Is it not the fact that alternative medicine is a luxury for those with already good health?  In every study by a medical anthropologist I've ever read on the subject, it has been shown that the degree that the global poor utilize indigenous remedies, is directly correlated to their access to modern bio-medicine.  Whenever they have the opportunity to use one over the other, they prefer evidence based medicine.  It was long used as an excuse to medically ignore the global poor by saying they choose and prefer native healers, but that has never been shown empirically.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: That's something I find funny also. Why do people say that chemistry is not natural? Like, they say that LSD is not natural but magic mushrooms are, for example. Or that a pill isn't and a piece of bark is. Like, as if chemistry somehow falls outside the boundaries of nature.


Yes, I agree with this, generally. A skyscraper is natural. But it takes a very special talent to create something that even comes close to what nature has produced. How many buildings or sculptures do you know of that are as beautiful as trees or flowers? I don't know any. How many portraits of people (a natural occurrence) are as beautiful and amazing as the people that posed for the portrait?

Some amazing things can happen. Timeless or nearly timeless works of art can come into existence, but still I don't think it has equaled what the natural world has produced into terms of beauty.

With regard to healing agents I believe it is a very similar story. It takes a rare talent, a genius, to come up with a synthetic that equals the healing power of a natural substance. Albert Hoffman was one such genius; LSD is surely as amazing, arguably more amazing, than magic mushrooms (on a good day—the effects could also be worse than mushrooms on a bad day, yes?).

But even there LSD does have side effects that mushrooms do not have. There is a chemical after-feel that can last weeks, months or even years (depending on how much or how often it is taken; in extreme cases, usually with heavy users, there is some permanent damage, I believe, judging by anecdotal evidence). Also, Hoffman wasn't creating it out of a vacuum; he was working off natural substances.

Some of the most healing drugs may even be the illicit ones right now, LSD, ecstasy, which are taken very infrequently by users, rather than 3 x a day in large doses—orthodox doctors don't understand that at the very least many of these drugs work homeopathically—the body is reacting to a poison (LSD, magic mushrooms, MDMA, cannabis, and most homeopathic remedies are also all poisons).

I will give you an example of this, though I believe I have given it before: Wilber was taking a drug called Neurontin for chronic fatigue or immune enhancement. One of its applications is in the prevention of convulsions, though I am not sure that is why Wilber took it; he didn't say (I believe somewhere he said it was helpful for fatigue, but he didn't say why he took it in this blog).

And guess what? One of its side effects is … convulsions. To a homeopath this would all make perfect and simple sense. I do believe that this is one line of development that Wilber is not particularly developed on. Neurontin is helpful for preventing convulsions just because it will cause them in large or continued doses. That's why it works. And that's why, after Wilber “had been on this amount of Neurontin unchanged for several years” he one night had a dozen gran-mal seizures that nearly killed him.

Wilber seems oblivious to this perspective. “Several orthodox doctors believe it was caused by Neurontin,” he says, but “that never made sense” to him because “the primary reason Neurontin is prescribed is precisely because it's an anticonvulsant and reliably prevents seizures”—and he is just missing it, like virtually all of orthodox medicine, that it reliably prevents seizures because it has the ability to cause them; the drug gently (in small doses) informs the body: Protect yourself against seizures. I will inspire you to protect yourself against seizures by inspiring you to react to me in a very particular way.

But the body will get tired of reacting to this seizure-causing drug after several years of taking it (much like you would get tired of someone punching you gently on the arm constantly for several years) and eventually lose its ability to react in that particular way—and meanwhile, the drug will be building up (remember: one of the reported side effects is convulsions).

The greatest genius—some have said the only genius—in Western medicine, Samuel Hahnemann:

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: I presume that you'd rather have these billions go to jungle shamans, new age ladies and chinese herbalists instead of pharmaceutical companies all competing with eachother to produce the best medicine on the market?

If you could choose, if it were totally up to you, would you rather have it that way?


The point is this: If we want to be scientific about it and have as a motive healing people we need to be open in the beginning to all substances, not just the ones that can make us a lot of money. I am sure you can see how it skews the entire process when those substances that can't make a lot of money, that wouldn't have a large profit margin, are discarded at the outset only for that reason, not because they haven't been proven to heal people.

In fact, many herbs and such have been used in Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, and other cultures for hundreds of years, continued use, safe use in human beings—and rather than studying them and seeing if there isn't a reason why people have been using them for so many years the pharmaceutical companies ignore them from the outset because they won't turn a profit for them.

And mind: The same substances pop up in in these various systems: garlic, for example, used in Western herbalogy, has been also been used in Chinese, Indian, and Tibetan medicine for thousands of years: transliterated as rashona from Sanskrit, da suan from Chinese, sgog skya from Tibetan. Independently they discovered that it had the same sort of healing properties.

Does it make sense that Chinese, Indian, and Tibetan spiritual leaders were so brilliant but the doctors total idiots, just waiting for those brilliant doctors from the West to save them from their idiocy? Why have so many Western MDs dropped orthodox medicine and shifted to other modalities?




Dawid: I actually don't think it is appropriate for them. If you live in a highly advanced culture as say, Sweden's, whose CoG is stable around Green, and your conditions of living (the majority of the people in Sweden are all set for the Self-Actualization stage on Maslow's pyramid) are amongst the highest on the planet: then being at Magenta is simply unacceptable. So it's not simply about an inability to evolve, it is a refusal to evolve.


I think there is more to it than this. You have given an LL and LR analysis, attributed all the causation to the collective quadrants. Also very important are genetics and UL factors such as emotional development. Not everyone will have the ability to evolve that high on the spiral, even if they have all the advantages, grow up in an advanced country.

I am sure in Sweden there are autistic children and all sorts of others with developmental disabilities who won't make it to Orange or even Amber. In addition to those there will be more with subtle disabilities, not quite clinical but significant enough to prevent the highest development. And let's also remember that you are way ahead of the curve, with an exceptional ability to see perspectives, use logic, language, etc.

Still, I like your attitude. Very evolutionary, a sense of urgency. Reminds me of Andrew Cohen.  :)



Dawid: They actively choose not to listen to Orange arguments. They reject it. They do so because they crave meaning, consolation, security. Let me invent a new integral concept: I regard these people as cocs! - Cowards of Consciousness. :P


To some extent I think you may be objecting because people aren't at Teal. Green is a first-tier meme and doesn't like any of the other memes that much. To Green, every other meme without exception is pre-Green, including Orange, Teal, Turquoise. Orange just doesn't get it in Green's eyes. With Teal people will begin integrating Orange arguments again, but Green just finds Orange so judgmental, so ranking, so insensitive, so selfish, so egoic, so superficial.

Healthy Green will integrate Orange to some extent in the most crucial ways, as far as I have seen, but probably not in all ways.



Dawid: Then they are such hypocrites also, because we all know that as soon as a person with a good education writes a book on New Age, they all become very excited, really wanting to stress that he has a PhD, or whatever. And thereby they're confirming that it is indeed a positive thing to have an education, and to think rationally.


Yes, Greenies are enormous hypocrites. Very annoying.  :) Performative contradictions right and left.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Holden: “you have no idea what the consciousness of someone 10,000 years ago was.”
 
You don't believe Magenta existed/exists?

Holden: “The ability to feel enough comfort in a person's life to pursue educational and spiritual goals, was built on the backs of others, and maintaining that lifestyle is still dependent upon the suffering of others.”

Yes, that's why I said it's extremely arrogant to care only about new age, self-absorbed bullshit in developed societies, when we instead ought to be humble and grateful about our situation and use our fortunate situation to evolve and help.

When we have developed societies who indeed are built on the toil and suffering of others less fortunate, in those developed societies is produced the key to, in time, relieve that very suffering - technology, medicine, ideas about human equality, modern psychology, etc. These phenomena only arise out of developed societies (Orange), and will eventually extend to human beings outside those societies.

Since I believe these keys prosperous nations produce are the only way to eventually liberate all humans from unworthy living conditions, perhaps our exploitation of the population in developing countries are a necessary evil? A kinda controversial thought.

—

David, it all boils down to what Rick said:

If you tomorrow got HIV, malaria, or were shot in the street, would you go to a chinese herbologist or to the hospital? This is when the shit hits the fan. If you truly believe in what you're saying, then you should go to the chinese herbologist. But, somehow I'm not sure you would…? And why is that, really?

“Very evolutionary, a sense of urgency. Reminds me of Andrew Cohen.  :)”

And keep in mind I don't believe in an metaphysical force called Eros. Yet I still talk like Andrew Cohen, with the same passion, and without loosing any of the meaning. Isn't this interesting?

“Yes, Greenies are enormous hypocrites. Very annoying.”

Again, I must disagree. I don't think the new age people listening to slimy folk like Hagelin are at Green; I think - no, I know - they have not even integrated Orange. But as they are living in Green societies, they have naturally adopted some Green values, and give off a shine of Green that is actually not the altitude they're flying at.

I am of the belief that Green is not fully explored yet; it is still in the kosmic cooking pot of mental evolution. Let's remember that Green is a very high and advanced level on the spiral, and a meme that is there for a reason. We do ourselves a disfavour to think that we know all about Green, and that it is already transcended/included. I say, until people realize that things are without intrinsic, absolute meaning, they are not sailing in Green cognition, and by extension, can also not truly sail in Green morality.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: If you tomorrow got HIV, malaria, or were shot in the street, would you go to a chinese herbologist or to the hospital? This is when the shit hits the fan. If you truly believe in what you're saying, then you should go to the chinese herbologist. But, somehow I'm not sure you would…? And why is that, really?


If I got shot in the street, I would go to the emergency room, as I would if I broke my arm or anything else like that. But even there I would probably end up taking a homeopathic remedy that would help with the UL trauma and perhaps later another one to aid the UR healing.

If it were HIV or malaria I would consult a homeopathist. I wouldn't go to a Chinese herbalist for such a thing or an Ayurvedic doctor. That sort of herbology can be transformative, but I generally use it as an adjunct therapy.

The basic principles and typologies in Ayurveda and Chinese medicine are also extremely helpful in terms of food choices, spicing, etc. One of the things Western orthodox medicine sorely lacks is a more refined typology for both patient and drug. Western herbology also needs this sometimes.

A very simple typology, for example, would type people as “cold” or “hot” (thermally) and then medicines as “cooling” or “warming.” Give an herb or drug with bitter (cooling) energy to a “cold” person for an extended period of time, and you will not get a good result. It could even be very damaging. I think orthodox medicine makes some very gross mistakes sometimes, ending even in death, because they lack such a typology.



Dawid:  I don't think the new age people listening to slimy folk like Hagelin are at Green; I think - no, I know - they have not even integrated Orange. But as they are living in Green societies, they have naturally adopted some Green values, and give off a shine of Green that is actually not the altitude they're flying at.


I agree with you in large part about all this. There often is a narcissistic refusal to evolve, and it has become a cultural trait in many places. That needs to be straightened out for sure. I think it has to be shown that a refusal to evolve, a turning away from it, is not in the interest of one's happiness. They have to see that for themselves.

But it's not always a refusal to evolve. With entry Green, for example, they are busy negating Orange to some degree, so that would not be the time to get someone to try to integrate Orange ideas. They are probably integrating them sufficiently well at the moment to take care of their needs (not necessarily, but most likely they would be if they are really entry Green). But if they were exit Green they might need to start integrating some Orange perspectives.

I think you make a good distinction when you point out that they may have adopted some Green values. It is one thing to have Green values, another thing to be consistently Green on the logical-mathematical line, the verbal line, kinesthetic, etc. One can have Green values and not necessarily have a Green center of gravity (COG).

At any rate, a Teal cultural context rather than a Green cultural context is what we really need. It is with Teal that one begins to recognize the importance of the spiral, the importance of Orange, of Amber, of Green, of Red. Green does not explicitly integrate Orange because only Teal can do that.

Green, by definition, doesn't like Orange, though if they really are Green they will at least be carrying with them the bare essentials of Orange (one could harbor some New Age beliefs and still carry with them the bare essentials of Orange, enough so to use Orange in the most important situations).



Dawid: And keep in mind I don't believe in an metaphysical force called Eros. Yet I still talk like Andrew Cohen, with the same passion, and without loosing any of the meaning. Isn't this interesting?


It is interesting. I think you are strong in authenticity.

However, we have to be careful about declaring everything that doesn't sound Orange pre-Orange. Some of it is pre-Orange, but some of it will be post-Orange. Post-Orange doesn't always sound like the Orange worldview, especially as we know it today in the West.

How is your Law different from Eros? Doesn't it include something like Eros?

Doesn't the energetic dimension of life have some directionality, some telos, towards greater integration, complexity?



Dawid: I am of the belief that Green is not fully explored yet; it is still in the kosmic cooking pot of mental evolution.


I think you are right about this. There are a couple of things I want to explore a little more deeply, to start with. One is Boomeritis, which may have some postmodern insights we haven't discussed (I have read more of the Boomeritis sidebars and endnotes than the book), and also “Excerpt D: The Look of a Feeling” has some cool stuff I think we might look into some more.



Dawid: I say, until people realize that things are without intrinsic, absolute meaning, they are not sailing in Green cognition, and by extension, can also not truly sail in Green morality.


What do you mean by “realizing that things are without intrinsic, absolute meaning”? And how is that necessary for Green morality?

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“If it were HIV or malaria I would consult a homeopathist.”

Really? Wow…

“At any rate, a Teal cultural context rather than a Green cultural context is what we really need.”

In my mind, 2-tier can not exist without Green. If someone can't understand this (a good test top see if you're at Green cognition), how could 2-tier cognition and morality be available?

(The french reads: “This is not a pipe.”)

“How is your Law different from Eros? Doesn't it include something like Eros?”

I've explained this before. I observe that there is Law, because when I drop a pen, it falls down every time. It doesn't go in a different direction every time, or in no direction at all, or disappears, or duplicates infinitely, etc. But this is all I know. I for example don't know if it is goal-directed, like Andrew Cohen.

“Doesn't the energetic dimension of life have some directionality, some telos, towards greater integration, complexity?”

It seems like it.

A trap I won't fall into again is to lock this into a mental concept, which renders the mystery and beauty of life dead. As soon as you think you definitely know something, it is equivalent to tying a blindfold around your eyes. This I've noticed.

Say you walk down the street, and a mental concept of a Force of directionality, greater integration, complexity, etc comes up. What does it mean? Nothing, actually. Thinking about this and believing it, you are blind to life. What about the truth of the situation, which is what is called sensations, sounds, breathing, colours and shapes - the Body of Reality. This is all there is, actually. Extravagant spiritual fantasies completely break down.

“What do you mean by “realizing that things are without intrinsic, absolute meaning”?”

See the picture I linked above.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“Since I believe these keys prosperous nations produce are the only way to eventually liberate all humans from unworthy living conditions, perhaps our exploitation of the population in developing countries are a necessary evil? A kinda controversial thought.”

I don't know. I really don't have a big dog in this fight.  New Age is kind of funny to me, and alternative medicine doesn't really hurt anyone. Usually the placebo effect is just as effective as evidence based medicine for most things, and there are zero side effects. I think it would be presumptuous of me to say there is no benefit to ever modality or herb, because there probably is a little running around there.  If David thinks drinking water will cure him, then yeah for David.

I do think it's presumptuous to say that the suffering of others can be justified with a technology, cost-benefit analysis.  There is absolutely no need for the massive inequality that exists in the world.  I know you come from Europe, Dawid, so it's probably harder to understand the American viewpoint of inequality. We have living conditions here that simply don't exist there, probably on either end of the spectrum. 
There's a bit of circular logic to that argument as well. It assumes that the way things are, is the best of what could be; that the set up of the global economy is maximally efficient.  It was shown a while back that there is plenty of food to feed everyone, its just a matter of bad supply chains and produced poverty.

You have to understand the way the world is now, is not some natural product of non-human evolution.  We have produced this poverty and suffering. We produced it rather recently actually.  People aren't starving and suffering in Africa, because they are 1st tier.  You're conflating things that are mutually exclusive.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

The problem is not really that people in Africa are 1-tier, the main problem is that people in advanced nations are 1-tier.

Anyway, I think your reasoning will work really soon, when technologies especially like solar panel efficiency comes to the tipping point where they perform above other alternatives, and also cost less. (And that point will be here within 30 years, according to qualified predictions.)

Energy = money and money = energy, and since we currently have a limit on energy, we have a limit on money. And because 1-tier ego's want to accumulate as much money as possible, we get these massive chasms dividing those societies who have much, and those who have little. But eventually - because of technology - we will have unlimited energy, and therefore unlimited money/resources. And I think if there's enough high 1-tier and 2-tier in ruling positions by then, the work to liberate all humans from social injustice and unworthy living conditions will actually begin at a massive rate. Why? Because it will be possible in the face of 1-tier greed.

But, this won't be possible without the technology and mental evolution that creates it. And for these things to emerge, stable and rich societies is needed, and perhaps that simply cannot happen without exploitation? Perhaps that's just the way it is because 1-tier human beings essentially only care about themselves when resources are not abundant?

“…alternative medicine doesn't really hurt anyone.”

It won't hurt David if he drinks water to cure his HIV and Malaria?

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“And because 1-tier ego's want to accumulate as much money as possible, we get these massive chasms dividing those societies who have much, and those who have little.”

That statement is within a cultural vacuum.  For most of the history of human kind there was no money.  We know for certain that there were almost always limits on low tech. societies from accumulating wealth.  In cases where someone did accumulate massive wealth, there were usually mechanisms of great feasts and parties, where they gave almost everything away. 

You are thinking of tier-1 only within your cultural worldview.  It's like, 'I see behavior which I interpret as tier-1 in my society now, and I project that stereotype upon the sum of ancient society.'  You just can't do that.  As a matter of fact this was the thinking around 1900. The term “Animism” was produced at an early time in Anthropology, before people actually traveled around the world and lived in “exotic” places. There was a guy, E.B. Tyler, in the UK who was disgusted at the spiritualism movement (what became New Age), and he interpreted it as something he called a cultural “survival” of primitive culture.  He determined this from things he read about and assumptions.  This explanation wasn't questioned and remained a part of our collective assumptions for almost a century.  This isn't something new to Integral, you have to have a historical understanding of these ideas.  I don't think you realize that you're doing what E.B. Tyler did over a century ago.  New understandings of animistic worldviews shows that people understood things in more rational ways than we do today.  It's really complicated to understand why, but I'll do into it later. It still falls within the possible for Integral, just counter-intuitive to what people think.

For example, you come from a place that snows a lot and your society has adapted to very cold weather in certain ways.  That adaptation probably won't include shorts and t-shirts in the winter, so there are limits on the possible from the environment, but there is still an incredibly wide variety of ways to adapt to the cold.  That's kind of a metaphor for any tier.  A tier don't directly dictate culture any more than environment does. Certain things are possible and certain things aren't, but there is massive variation in there.

There were hunting and gathering groups that were sedentary and never moved around, because they didn't have to.  Much of the homogeneity you see in global culture is, 1. a recent product of global hegemonic capital, and,  2. Largely an illusion of appearance.   You can put a McDonalds in China, but that doesn't make the Chinese become Americans.  We used to think that it would, but we now know that people take cultural items and translate them seamlessly into their worldviews.

…alternative medicine doesn't really hurt anyone.

“It won't hurt David if he drinks water to cure his HIV and Malaria?”

If he did, it might kill him, but what can I do about that.  A big problem is people not getting vaccinated, because it keeps a virus spreading in a population. People don't realize that they might not die from a flu, but by allowing themselves to be carriers, they allow the virus to spread to someone that will be killed, 36,000 a year in the US.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid, money doesn't equate with energy, though energy does place a ceiling on the real-world value of money, or on the ability to produce.  Energy is the thing that makes matter work, so you need matter to use energy.  But not just any matter will do.  Your computer is matter organized in a highly complex way, and is powered by energy.  The ability to produce the complex organization called your computer is information.  Each of these three—material resources, information, energy—is essential to economic production, the trade in which money facilitates.  Having unlimited energy is of no use if one hasn't resource or information bases to productively use that energy.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

I agree, Tom.

In working societies however information technologies increase exponentially. And by the time/if a society manage to reach a point where it can harness the Sun's virtually unlimited energy, then that society will be a working society where information technologies flourish.

Many essential resources and material can be created by humans if we just have energy.

The daily question on Gaia some time ago was: “Is there such a thing as a free lunch?” The question is yes - our Sun is a totally free lunch. We don't have to do anything, but nature provides energy for us, for free! It's kind of amazing, if you think about it.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

I agree, there is no energy crisis in principle.  Beyond solar power, a gallon of water contains the fusion energy of 300 gallons of gasoline, and fusion byproducts can be useful heavier atoms.  We just need to get off hydrocarbons.  That will happen soon of necessity, though it's not settled in my mind whether we'll find an adequate substitute before that time hits.  We will eventually though.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

David: “At any rate, a Teal cultural context rather than a Green cultural context is what we really need.”

Dawid: In my mind, 2-tier can not exist without Green. If someone can't understand this (a good test top see if you're at Green cognition), how could 2-tier cognition and morality be available?


What is your understanding of that picture, and how is that understanding necessary for second-tier cognition and morality?



Dawid: A trap I won't fall into again is to lock this into a mental concept, which renders the mystery and beauty of life dead. As soon as you think you definitely know something, it is equivalent to tying a blindfold around your eyes. This I've noticed.

Say you walk down the street, and a mental concept of a Force of directionality, greater integration, complexity, etc comes up. What does it mean? Nothing, actually. Thinking about this and believing it, you are blind to life. What about the truth of the situation, which is what is called sensations, sounds, breathing, colours and shapes - the Body of Reality. This is all there is, actually. Extravagant spiritual fantasies completely break down.


You have an important point here, but there is more going on than sights and sounds and breathing, colors and shapes. There is more to work with than that.

One also doesn't have to attribute any goals such as greater complexity and integration to the Force. In fact, I agree with you that that could obscure or distort the Force itself, though if we descend to a conceptual level I think we have to give a translation such as that one.

Do you not believe in any higher Force than the ego, the personal self, or are you just staying openminded about what it is? I think it is fine to stay open minded about what it is, where it's going, etc. That is more in line with Almaas' approach, which I find interesting. However, I'm still not sure whether or to what degree Almaas is weighed down by his own metaphysical thinking in this case.



David: “If it were HIV or malaria I would consult a homeopathist.”

Dawid: Really? Wow…


With malaria it is a little more complicated. I was assuming you meant benign malaria in later stages, how I would deal with it then. But if it were in the initial stages I might choose an allopathic approach, depending on where I was and what was available. But even I chose an allopathic treatment in the initial acute stage, I would certainly turn to homeopathic remedies later.

I spoke to a person who had malaria not long ago. He is an Indian man who owns an apothecary here. He had a problem with insomnia. He eventually decided to see a homeopathist about it. It was thought that the insomnia was related to his malaria. The homeopath said, “If I am right, you will first have an aggravation of your symptoms, and then you will get better” (a “homeopathic aggravation”).

The man said that the day after he took the remedy he had full-blown malaria symptoms again, with sweating, fever, chills, and the like. But it only lasted for a day, and since then he said he has never had a problem with insomnia.

Allopathic drugs have a way of simply suppressing disease while homeopathic remedies can, in some cases, work the disease out of the person and be truly transformative. Allopathic drugs often just stuff the problem deeper into the body—remove the drug, and the symptoms return. Homeopathy does offer the possibility of real transformation in some cases.

There are documented cases like that of the Indian man I spoke to all over the place in homeopathic literature. You can say it is just the power of suggestion or the placebo response, but you would not be a scientific-minded person if you came to that conclusion at this point in time. You don't know that that is the case; you would simply be falling into scientism rather than enacting a scientific methodology, which at this point in time would require one to stay open minded about it.




David: “…alternative medicine doesn't really hurt anyone.”

Dawid: It won't hurt David if he drinks water to cure his HIV and Malaria?


There is no proof at this point that homeopathic remedies are “just water.” There may or may not be proof that they are more than water (I have cited tests that claim that they are more than water, and Randi seems to believe that they are more than water because he has backed out of the test for fear of losing his million dollars and his prestige), but one would have to be a dogmatist rather than a scientist to conclude right now that there was nothing to it.

A lack of proof for something does not mean that something is not true. If you want to read in greater detail how Randi backed out of the challenge by homeopathy, the most rigorous and organized effort ever to take him up on his challenge, you can read here.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“What is your understanding of that picture, and how is that understanding necessary for second-tier cognition and morality?”

If for example race existed absolutely and independently, it would be perfectly valid to treat various races differently, because then they would actually be inherently different. But since races and even species are just constructs of the mind, there is no reason at all to treat races differently, such as nationalists like to do when they say it is the Niggers or the Pakistanis fault that there is so much violence in their country these days. Or when they say that it is essentially better to be white, than any other skin colour.

Make no mistake, David. The cognition that asserts an independently existent table in the Analysis-thread is the very same cognition that asserts independently existent race, gender, species, state-of-sexual-preference, etc. Hence Green morality (human rights for all, feminism, animal rights, gay rights, etc) is not truly possible without understanding that there is no pipe in that picture.

“Do you not believe in any higher Force than the ego, the personal self, or are you just staying openminded about what it is?”

I don't believe the ego exists, but even if I did, Law is everything. Why would I need to stay open-minded or agnostic about Law? If I drop the pen it falls to the ground every time. I would be an idiot if I said that I won't decide to accept that.

The Buddha said only to accept that which you yourself can experience as true in this moment. Do I know in this moment, right now, that the pen without reasonable doubt will fall to the ground if I drop it? Yes. Is this principle praised by the wise? Yes. Does it lead to welfare and happiness? Yes.

Do I know in this moment, right now, that Law is a mysterious principle guiding the whole of the Kosmos to the point of Ultimate Kosmic Consciousness? No. Is this principle praised by the wise? No. Does it lead to welfare and happiness? No.

(Of course gravity is not absolute, there are other places where the pen won't fall to the ground, and so on, but I hope you get my point. The point is simply that Law is the reason why, within any conceptual realm, only one thing happens when one thing happens; no or all things does not happen when one thing happens.)

“You can say it is just the power of suggestion or the placebo response, but you would not be a scientific-minded person if you came to that conclusion at this point in time.”

Don't tell me I am unscientific if I don't accept that drinking water will cure diseases and pains.

Obviously water has nothing to do with it, there is some other power at work, and of course it is the human mind, and not some miniscule, infinitesimal fraction of dilutant. Wiki:

Claims of homeopathy's efficacy beyond the placebo effect are unsupported by the collective weight of scientific and clinical evidence.[8][9][10][11][12] While some studies have positive results, systematic reviews of all the published trials fail to conclusively demonstrate efficacy.[13][14][15][16][17] Furthermore, higher quality trials tend to report less positive results,[15][18] and most positive studies have not been replicated or show methodological problems that prevent them from being considered unambiguous evidence of homeopathy's efficacy.[8][11][19][20]

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: If for example race existed absolutely and independently, it would be perfectly valid to treat various races differently, because then they would actually be inherently different. But since races and even species are just constructs of the mind, there is no reason at all to treat races differently, such as nationalists like to do when they say it is the Niggers or the Pakistanis fault that there is so much violence in their country these days. Or when they say that it is essentially better to be white, than any other skin colour.


Let's leave aside race. You also mention species. So there is no reason to treat golden retrievers and pit bulls differently because they are both constructs of the mind? There is no reason to treat chihuahuas and doberman pinchers differently? Both just constructs of the mind, one like the other? I can treat a mountain lion the same way I can treat a goldfinch?



Dawid: The cognition that asserts an independently existent table in the Analysis-thread is the very same cognition that asserts independently existent race, gender, species, state-of-sexual-preference, etc. Hence Green morality (human rights for all, feminism, animal rights, gay rights, etc) is not truly possible without understanding that there is no pipe in that picture.


No one is arguing for an independently existent table in the analysis thread; I've been very clear about that.

The picture says, “This is not a pipe,” because it is not a pipe: It is an image of a pipe.

I don't think Green morality depends on this type of analysis. I think it depends simply on the ability to see things and feel things from the perspective of another group, to see a fourth-person perspective.



Dawid: Do I know in this moment, right now, that Law is a mysterious principle guiding the whole of the Kosmos to the point of Ultimate Kosmic Consciousness? No. Is this principle praised by the wise? No. Does it lead to welfare and happiness? No.


There is a very mysterious energetic aspect of our experience, as Shunryu Suzuki discusses here. It is praised by the most wise.



Dawid: Obviously water has nothing to do with it, there is some other power at work, and of course it is the human mind, and not some miniscule, infinitesimal fraction of dilutant. Wiki:


You have no way of knowing this; you have skipped the three strands and inserted orthodox dogma.

Wikipedia is a valuable source of information for facts, but when it comes to interpretation, not so much. It is Orange/Green, and all sorts of interest groups have their hands in those articles.

My position on alternative forms of medicine was exactly as yours is when I was your age. I scoffed at the very notion of it. If you want to know something here, like anything else, you need to take the injunction first. Reading the Wikipedia article isn't taking the injunction.

First you might get an appreciation for the reasoning behind homeopathic remedies. “Like cures like”—the remedy that improves the disease is the remedy that in material doses (or excessive homeopathic doses) will cause symptoms like the disease. It inspires the body to react in a way it hasn't been able to.

When Europeans came to the Americas they brought with them diseases that the native peoples had no history of and couldn't fight. Their bodies had no information about them. I am just using this as an example to illustrate the point: It is possible that if there were a homeopathist there he could give those people a remedy (which in material does would create symptoms like the disease they had) that their bodies would recognize and would be able to react to. Their reaction to that remedy could be close enough to the necessary response to the disease to cure them of the disease or at least modify it. Please contemplate that for a moment before you dismiss it. It is just about harnessing the bodies own defensive mechanisms, which is usually what allopathy does, though in a much cruder way.

In addition to that you might actually try a homeopathic remedy, for an acute ailment, for example (headache, anticipation, anger) and see if you don't feel something going on which doesn't seem likely to have been a placebo response. You can't weigh in on a scientific basis unless you take that injunction at least. This may not be the right time for it, however, since you are so set against it now.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“So there is no reason to treat golden retrievers and pit bulls differently because they are both constructs of the mind?”

Acknowledging that they are nothing but the projections of an imputing consciousness, we treat them as two conventionally different species, without any hesitation or doubt.

When we analyze to find the independent existence of golden retrievers, pit bulls or goldfish, we just can not find any.

“No one is arguing for an independently existent table in the analysis thread; I've been very clear about that.”

You may not notice it clearly. But asserting that a table exists - as you do - always entails that it exists independent of thought. If it did not exist independent of thought, you wonder: how could it be produced? How could it exist? How could it perform functions? And it doesn't matter if you say that it exists absolutely or relatively, you still assert that the table exists independent of thought.

“There is a very mysterious energetic aspect of our experience, as Shunryu Suzuki discusses here. It is praised by the most wise.”

If Shunryu Suzuki claimed to know in something that he could not possibly know, then I disagree with him on that topic, just like I disagree with Andrew Cohen when he claims to know what was goin' on before Creation, or when he claims to know the supposed intentions of Law.

“It is Orange/Green, and all sorts of interest groups have their hands in those articles.”

Thank God.

Anyway, if you want to believe that water has memory and that it can cure you of all kinds of diseases, go ahead. I feel I don't have the energy to argue about this.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: When we analyze to find the independent existence of golden retrievers, pit bulls or goldfish, we just can not find any.


What do you mean by “independent existence”? Do you mean inherently existing, eternal?



Dawid: Acknowledging that they are nothing but the projections of an imputing consciousness, we treat them as two conventionally different species, without any hesitation or doubt.


I think this is fine as long as we don't say that objects are any less real than the imputing consciousness in the gross realm. Interpretant and object arise together in each perspective, inseparably—one is as real or unreal as the other.

But I do think we can say that gross and subtle objects are less real than consciousness as such, turiya. The reason for this is that only consciousness exists in deep dreamless sleep, not subtle or gross objects, while that same consciousness (awareness) is also present in the dream state and waking state. That is not the absolute nondual truth but a relative truth.



Dawid: You may not notice it clearly. But asserting that a table exists - as you do - always entails that it exists independent of thought. If it did not exist independent of thought, you wonder: how could it be produced? How could it exist? How could it perform functions? And it doesn't matter if you say that it exists absolutely or relatively, you still assert that the table exists independent of thought.


I haven't said that the table exists independent of thought. If such a thing could occur, we wouldn't be able to know it. We might assume that objects existed 150, 000, 000 years ago before humans were even around (it doesn't make a lot of sense given our current paradigms if we don't), but that still isn't apart from thought; it is a part of thought; it is a perspective.

The absolute truth is that nothing exists; as Ramana Mahjarshi said, “There is neither creation nor destruction, neither destiny nor free will, neither bondage nor liberation. This is the final [absolute] truth.”

But we can't sit on the side of relative truths and say that there are signifiers, signified, semantics, syntax, but no referents. But a referent, as defined in the integral glossary, cannot exist outside of a developmental worldspace. There are no referents outside of developmental worldspaces (or no referents without an “I”).

Within each developmental worldspace, we can differentiate between subject and object, even though in truth they are inseparable. For example, we can consider a group of ex-motorcycle-gang members who became Christians but who still ride their motorcycles, even to church:

(3p, L/8, l/c, t/aq) X (Q3/Q4, L/4, t/mg)

I have not been saying that some inherently existing table can spring into existence outside of a developmental worldspace, just that within that developmental worldspace we need to consider both subject and object.



Dawid: If Shunryu Suzuki claimed to know in something that he could not possibly know, then I disagree with him on that topic, just like I disagree with Andrew Cohen when he claims to know what was goin' on before Creation, or when he claims to know the supposed intentions of Law.


He is just saying that his personal self has become an object in his awareness and that he can see it isn't ultimately the doer. He is just saying that there is a deeper nature than Shunryu, David, Dawid, Tom, e, Lisa, Bruce, Nicole, Rick, James, Rick James, etc.

If the only nature or doer were the personal, it would be a real free-for-all, and we would see human evolution heading in millions or even billions of different directions. But that is not the case. We have seen a trend towards greater complexification, and Shunryu and others have witnessed a deeper intelligence than the personal in their own phenomenological worldspace.



David: “It is Orange/Green, and all sorts of interest groups have their hands in those articles.”

Dawid: Thank God.


It is a dubious source when all these different interest groups, including intelligence agencies, corporations, corporate interest groups, get to write or edit those articles. There can be a severe conflict of interest. There can also be an exclusion of important perspectives, when Green, say, gets their hands on a controversial political topic.


Dawid: Anyway, if you want to believe that water has memory and that it can cure you of all kinds of diseases, go ahead.


I don't think the claim is far fetched. All it is saying is that substances can leave a trace in water that our instruments cannot yet detect. That is not a far-fetched claim. Four hundred years ago people would scoff at the idea of there being poisons in food or in the air that they couldn't see and that could harm them; it is a very similar thing.

And then there is immense phenomenological evidence from many cultures that the remedies do have an action. I'm not saying that it is been proven empirically beyond a shadow of a doubt, but that is what some people are in the process of trying to show. It just hasn't been decided one way or the other yet empirically.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

If the only nature or doer were the personal, it would be a real free-for-all, and we would see human evolution heading in millions or even billions of different directions.
Probably does head in a billion different directions but some directions (like the one Rick James took) are dead ends. Funny clip btw!

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“What do you mean by “independent existence”?”

I mean things that exist by way of their own character; existing without being brought into existence by thought. So a goldfish exists by way of its own goldfish:ness, not because I/we think about it.

“I haven't said that the table exists independent of thought.”

So when you walk out the kitchen, there is utterly no table in that room anymore?

If yes, it doesn exist: So nobody can use the table when you're not there? How is this not the solipsism of Magenta?
If no, it still exists: Then it exists independent of thought.

“If the only nature or doer were the personal, it would be a real free-for-all, and we would see human evolution heading in millions or even billions of different directions.”
 
But only someone at Amber or lower, or New Age would assert a supernatural, metaphysical (a skyhook cause) power to be responsible for items like human evolution.

Myself, I think people like Marx had a good point when he said that the LR were a huge factor (a crane cause) in human evolution. For example, think what would happen if you were kidnapped and forced to live in a Brasilian favela. What do you think would happen to your cognitive structure?

But obviously all quadrants play in. (As cranes, not skyhooks.)

“All it is saying is that substances can leave a trace in water that our instruments cannot yet detect.”

Fine.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

David: “What do you mean by “independent existence”?”

Dawid: I mean things that exist by way of their own character; existing without being brought into existence by thought.

Dawid, you could have stopped at “I mean.”  There's no sense to the words that follow.  Or do you disagree?

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: I mean things that exist by way of their own character; existing without being brought into existence by thought. So a goldfish exists by way of its own goldfish:ness, not because I/we think about it.


We cannot take either of these strong views, that the goldfish doesn't exist at all by way of its own character, that we simply think it up, or that the goldfish exists entirely by its own character.

The goldfish isn't inherently gold. It is gold because of a combination of factors involving the goldfish and how our eyes work. But every human being with healthy eyes will say it's gold and that the dolphin is blue/grey and the lemon is yellow, and the orange is orange.

The reason the lemon is yellow and the orange is orange has something to do with the referent for lemon and the referent for orange … and the way our eyes and brains work.

Listen to this video beginning at 2:10.




Dawid: When you walk out the kitchen, there is utterly no table in that room anymore?

If yes, it doesn exist: So nobody can use the table when you're not there? How is this not the solipsism of Magenta?

If no, it still exists: Then it exists independent of thought.


Yes, neither of these choices is quite right.

I think we can say that the table does subsist when we are not there, because it is always there when we get back. Saying it materially appears when we arrive and disappears when we leave is just solipsistic, as you say.



David: “If the only nature or doer were the personal, it would be a real free-for-all, and we would see human evolution heading in millions or even billions of different directions.”
 
Dawid: But only someone at Amber or lower, or New Age would assert a supernatural, metaphysical (a skyhook cause) power to be responsible for items like human evolution.


No one is saying that it is ultimately Other. It is not ultimately other. But it does appear to be Other from the perspective of the limited, personal self. This view is enacted at L/9 or so.

If someone were to say, “Hogwash! I'm the captain of my ship!” I would just say that they don't really know who they more deeply are or aren't, because most likely the “I” they are talking about would be the personal self.

But at the same time the ego is a function of those deeper energies when it appears, an expression of those deeper energies, albeit a filtered one. I understand how it sounds Amber; that is the usual response.

Wilber kosmic addresses this at one point in Integral Spirituality:

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

The general trend are the survivors that live longer. :-)
Yeah I saw part 2. Chappelle and his writers are whacked!! I lol'd the whole time. I guess Rick James OD on the funk. Man could he write some groves.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“Yes, neither of these choices is quite right.”

This was a direct question to you. If the table neither exists nor not exists, how on earth does it exist? As you talk about it, surely it must exist? Or what is going on?
 
“I think we can say that the table does subsist when we are not there, because it is always there when we get back. Saying it materially appears when we arrive and disappears when we leave is just solipsistic, as you say.”

I find it interesting that you don't realize that you just said that something can both exist and not exist at the same time. (Or neither exist nor not exist, whatever it is you're saying.) This is absurd. If things really existed this way, everything would be an utter chaos. Of course you believe that the table exists when you are not there.

About “subsist” and “exist” - these are just two words, they don't bring anything new to the table. (No pun intended.) If the table subsists, then it exists.

“We cannot take either of these strong views, that the goldfish doesn't exist at all by way of its own character, that we simply think it up, or that the goldfish exists entirely by its own character.”
 
I basically think the problem here is that your cognition is Orange at best, so you can't enact my perspective. Before we can have resonance on this topic, you need to have a breakthrough into emptiness. (Which we are trying to induce in the Analysis-thread.)

Seeing the world through the Middle Way is a completely different experience than seeing it through any of the two extremes.

(I know you'll be pissed off by this, and I hope so. I want a philosophical battle, not the pinky, rosy, cozy tip-i-ty-toe lame ass discussions we had on the last Integral pod a year ago. Those kinds of discussions are stagnating and absolutely horrific if we want to evolve. To evolve, we need fire.)

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

David: “Yes, neither of these choices is quite right.”

Dawid: This was a direct question to you. If the table neither exists nor not exists, how on earth does it exist? As you talk about it, surely it must exist? Or what is going on?


You seem to contradict yourself. I say that neither extreme is quite right, and you say here, no, it must be one way or the other, and then at the end of your post you say,

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“At any rate, I am guessing that what you mean by “seeing the world through the Middle Way” is a nonconceptual perception, right? Actually “seeing” emptiness. Am I right about that?”

The word nonconceptual is a bit tricky. Why? Because as we all read in Integral Spirituality, every phenomenon - no exception - is a perspective, meaning that it arises in the subject's mindspace. And that mindspace is always conditioned by factors in all quadrants. So therefore, as Tom keeps pointing out, to say that a thing is not a perspective (i.e. not conceptual) is pre-Green and therefore an outdated, irrelevant philosophy.

When/if I use the word nonconceptual, I do not use it in this way of the myth-of-the-given. Instead, what I am implying by nonconceptuality is a discrimination which discriminates that there is no discrimination of intrinsic existents or intrinsic nonexistents, coupled with a realization that there is no such thing as a person who does or have that discrimination. This is a healthy Green conceptual understanding of non-duality.

So it appears to someone not in a nonconceptual awareness that I am sitting here typing at the computer. But to someone in nonconceptual awareness, no such theory would arise. That person would see the truth: colours, shapes, sound - an infinite void. (Void in the sense that suchness is ungraspable by the mind, like a bubble in a river.)

“You're again arguing for a black-and-white position, but I think what you're really into is trying to prove emptiness through logic. Is that right?”

I am not trying to prove anything. I am simply pointing out the absurdity of something simultaneously existing and not existing. And every sane person would agree with this. How would it be if your TV or mother both existed and not existed at the same time? Can you even picture this in your mind?

“But I believe the Dzogchen view that ultimately  “only emptiness can understand emptiness.””

When concepts end, so does emptiness. Emptiness too is a construct of the mind, running frenetically between the two extremes.

It is this simple, David: when your reificationist mind ends, so does all these consequences and absurdities popping up when we speak.

“I think an integral enactivist analysis would ultimately be more liberating and leave us more deeply into emptiness.”

Core Integral philosophy (as presented in Wilber 5, understood by a subject at 2-tier, the cognitive line) and Prasangika align perfectly. It is not that Integral is right and Consequentialism is false or vice versa, but rather that the two support eachother harmoniously and without impediment.

“The integral view is that subject and object always arise together”

But do you understand this? No. For example, when the subject is not near the flower you mention, does it not exist? If subject and object really arose together, then the moment of production is the time when the two meet, and something that is produced can not exist before production, because then production would be senseless. So the flower can't exist before the subject is in the process of meeting with it. But, if the flower does not exist before subject and object meet, how could they possibly ever meet? The same analysis applies not only to the flower as object, but to the subject as well.

”[…] while subsist means that no holon has conscious awareness of it.”

But it still exists. Otherwise, how could a holon become conscious of it?

“No more dodges.”

You make it sounds like it is some kind of secret. It is not. I am just reluctant to make my perspective into a solid concept, because then you will become defensive and closed up as soon as you hear anything that sounds like it, and a break-through into emptiness (the end of suffering) will not be impossible.

Anyway, I have already told you my two givens. Then I am obviously much in favour of Integral philosophy. The middle way as propounded by Nagarjuna. The best of Orange. The best of Green. Etc. All this you know already, nothing new.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: The word nonconceptual is a bit tricky. Why? Because as we all read in Integral Spirituality, every phenomenon - no exception - is a perspective, meaning that it arises in the subject's mindspace. And that mindspace is always conditioned by factors in all quadrants. So therefore, as Tom keeps pointing out, to say that a thing is not a perspective (i.e. not conceptual) is pre-Green and therefore an outdated, irrelevant philosophy.


Yes, all we read in Integral Spirituality is a perspective, as Wilber believes as well, and every thing is a perspective as well, as Wilber made abundantly clear as well. But we can still speak of the nonconceptual in two respects: causal awareness, which doesn't involve thinking, and nonduality.

You conflate two ideas: “nonconceptuality” and “perspectives.” The causal witness or causal awareness is nonconceptual because there is no thinking there or rather the person is no longer identified with the thoughtstream (though thinking can arise in that empty field in the waking state and dream state), but it is still a perspective. It can be nonconceptual and a perspective at the same time.

Now, nonduality, by definition, is not a perspective. In order to have duality or a perspective we need a subject and an object; nonduality, by definition, is beyond that subject/object split, so clearly the nondual “experience” (in quotes because only subjects have experiences) is not a perspective.

It gets a little bit trickier when we talk about nondual trained states, whether plateau states or stage adaptations, because those involve training oneself around nonduality, aligning oneself with it. With regard to stage adaptations it involves also aligning oneself with the energetic aspect (“inmost nature,” in Suzuki's words). These realizations are built on all sorts of discriminations and conceptualizations, particularly a stage adaptation, which goes all the way up the vertical access, but that does not mean that nonduality is a discrimination or a perspective; if it were, it wouldn't be nondual (because, again, nonduality by definition is beyond the subject/object split, and perspectives involve a subject being aware of or considering an object).

So you can say you don't believe in nonduality if you like, that it only seems like nonduality and all nondual realizers have been kidding themselves and deceiving themselves about it really being nondual, but you cannot say nonduality is a perspective. It is like saying water is dry.



Dawid: So it appears to someone not in a nonconceptual awareness that I am sitting here typing at the computer. But to someone in nonconceptual awareness, no such theory would arise. That person would see the truth: colours, shapes, sound - an infinite void. (Void in the sense that suchness is ungraspable by the mind, like a bubble in a river.)


That's a reasonable description of causal awareness or causal nonconeptual awareness. It is not the absolute, nondual truth because there is still the perceiver and the perceived.



Dawid: I am not trying to prove anything. I am simply pointing out the absurdity of something simultaneously existing and not existing.


This is some sort of projection or misunderstanding on your part, because I have not been arguing that things can simultaneously exist and not exist in the way that you appear to mean, just that we cannot absolutely deny the objective aspect of perspectives, unless we are talking about the absolute nondual truth, which by definition is not a perspective (again, feel free to not believe in nonduality, if you wish).



Dawid: When your reificationist mind ends, so does all these consequences and absurdities popping up when we speak.


That's right, when turiya dissolves into turiyatita and the sadhak no longer makes a distinction between the three states (and doesn't revert to blacking out in dream sleep or deep sleep) then and only then does the reificationist mind end.



Dawid: But, if the flower does not exist before subject and object meet, how could they possibly ever meet?


Say you're out for a walk and you see a flower you've never seen before. It is logical to assume that the flower subsisted before it existed for you and perhaps existed for others. It wouldn't be logical to say the flower suddenly sprung into existence when you looked at it, because we know that flowers take some time to grow.



David: While subsist means that no holon has conscious awareness of it.”

Dawid: But it still exists. Otherwise, how could a holon become conscious of it?

It exists when a holon becomes conscious of it, but if it didn't spring into existence entirely in that moment, like a bubble someone you are talking to makes with a piece of gum, but rather like a deer that has obviously been alive for a few years, then we can assume that the deer subsisted out there in the gross realm before it wandered into our field or we into its, like the atom subsisted before human beings emerged.



David: You make it sounds like it is some kind of secret. It is not. I am just reluctant to make my perspective into a solid concept, because then you will become defensive and closed up as soon as you hear anything that sounds like it, and a break-through into emptiness (the end of suffering) will not be impossible.


Well, thank you, you are true bodhisattva.  :) But if you think it wouldn't hurt my breakthrough or continue my suffering please let me know about your perspective.  :) I would be interested to hear about it, and maybe that would be what effects both of our breakthroughs. 

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“The causal witness or causal awareness is nonconceptual because there is no thinking there or rather the person is no longer identified with the thoughtstream”

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that this concept of Causal Witness is an Amber construct. A Causal Witness exists out there independently, and that's that. Like a huuuuuuge eye, smeared out all across time and space like a kosmic dough of sentience! But by all means, if you want to believe in this, go ahead.
 
“empty field”

Cool choice of words. I like. Think I remember it used in a book I have called The Art of Just Sitting.

“It is not the absolute, nondual truth because there is still the perceiver and the perceived.”

It seems that way only because words can only be used dualistically. How can the Truth be other that this? (Colour, shapes, sounds, sensations, these are some pointers.) If it is other than this, it is thought. And this can not be expressed in words or thought. As soon as a sentence begins, subject and object seem to appear.

“This is some sort of projection or misunderstanding on your part, because I have not been arguing that things can simultaneously exist and not exist in the way that you appear to mean”

Nope. You said: ”subject and object always arise together”. You simultaneously believe that flowers exist (“subsists” as you call it) when you're not thinking about them. Therefore, for you, flowers both exists (because they “subsists” when you're not thinking about them) and they do not exist (because you claim that subject and object always arise together, and since subjects to not meet/think about/see flowers all the time, then they must not exist at those times.)

“It wouldn't be logical to say the flower suddenly sprung into existence when you looked at it, because we know that flowers take some time to grow.”

But that is what you say. Because you claim that subject and object always arise together. Therefore, the object must spring into existence when the subject closes in on it. Or is it the subject who springs into existence when the object… decides to appear? Or do they both spring into existence when… both appear? If so, where were they before that moment? And who is responsible for the “appear:ing”?

Or what do you mean?

“It exists when a holon becomes conscious of it, but if it didn't spring into existence entirely in that moment”

Don't you realize how silly this sounds? The flower doesn't exist before the holon becomes conscious of it, yet it still exists?

“I would be interested to hear about it”

I already said in the earlier post.  And you are hearing about it all the time in this thread. :P

(Also, I forgot to mention that I am really in favour of Hua Yen buddhism as well, which I consider to be edging on 3-tier cognition. But we can not discuss this yet, because the Hua Yen philosophy is built around the paramount concept of emptiness, and if emptiness is not known - be it directly or conceptually - then the philosophy won't make any sense at all. “-WTF do you mean the entire Kosmos is literally contained in the tip of my finger?”)

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: It is becoming increasingly clear to me that this concept of Causal Witness is an Amber construct. A Causal Witness exists out there independently, and that's that. Like a huuuuuuge eye, smeared out all across time and space like a kosmic dough of sentience! But by all means, if you want to believe in this, go ahead.


The phrase may have arisen in an Amber mind originally, certainly in an Amber cultural context, but just because it posits something with a relative existence doesn't mean its Amber. Orange does that, too, for one thing. The only ones who don't are the really extreme nondualists who don't want to use any nouns or pronouns or anything, but even they don't manage to stay clear referring to or at least implying things existing out there.

We can talk about zebras, lions, hippos, birds, turtles, etc. We can similarly talk about the causal witness. We can talk about it in the same way we can talk about any thing, even though it's not held to be either a subtle or gross object. But it's not radically nondual—to make things confusing, though, it is, in a way, nondual. Wilber speaks about that in BHOE, about two emptinesses talked about in the wisdom traditions. If there's not really a subject there it's not dualistic as we usually think of dualism, but since there is a subtle subject/object split it is not really nondual and sometimes called “the witness.” Some people really object to that, however, particularly Buddhists who don't want any “self” there. They have the same idea in Buddhism, couched in selfless terms.

The question is, is it a unicorn or can people actually realize the witness? And I think the answer is clear that it is not a unicorn; many people cross culturally have experienced or realized the causal witness, so we can speak of it like we can speak of other relative phenomena, though there is perhaps a better way to phrase it.

It's just one way of languaging it, of making sense out of stages of meditation. First thoughts and emotions are observed consistently in the waking state, then in the dream state, then deep sleep, if one chooses to pursue that line. Florian Schlosser talks about this a little, the capacity to observe or witness (I can't remember is exact wording; I've been meaning to watch the rest of it). The causal witness is still in the realm of relative phenomena, makyo, but one way to approach nonduality.

I thought that Florian had an interesting insight—that without the capability to witness things (I can't remember if he used that word specifically) we wouldn't even be able to tell people how we felt or how we are feeling. I think that is pretty interesting.

I actually think the phrase “witness” can be a little distracting—whenever I have tried that orientation my ego has just wanted to look around and “witness” things, but it still seems to be an important idea.



Dawid: Nope. You said: ”subject and object always arise together”. You simultaneously believe that flowers exist (“subsists” as you call it) when you're not thinking about them. Therefore, for you, flowers both exists (because they “subsists” when you're not thinking about them) and they do not exist (because you claim that subject and object always arise together, and since subjects to not meet/think about/see flowers all the time, then they must not exist at those times.)


I know what you mean, but sometime soon you will see a person you have never seen before, a person who has been alive for several years at least, maybe several decades, but this is the first time that person existed for you—how would you describe this person's ontological status, if any, before that person existed for you?



Dawid: But that is what you say. Because you claim that subject and object always arise together. Therefore, the object must spring into existence when the subject closes in on it. Or is it the subject who springs into existence when the object… decides to appear? Or do they both spring into existence when… both appear? If so, where were they before that moment? And who is responsible for the “appear:ing”?


I think it's fine to retroread like that—I never saw this particular bird or frog before, but now that I've seen it it is only logical to surmise that it existed for at least a little while before I saw it. That retroreading is an enactment, and we call that kind of existing before we were aware of it subsisting, but as we say it subsisted it is actually existing for us.

What happens when the subject makes an object out of itself?



Dawid: Don't you realize how silly this sounds? The flower doesn't exist before the holon becomes conscious of it, yet it still exists?


Only after we have become aware of it we realize that it must have existed—because there is Law, right? And the Law states that things take at least a little while to grow.

But time is a dream. It's one way to make sense of things. At the same time, to imagine oneself as a thing in time is suffering, yes?



Dawid: Also, I forgot to mention that I am really in favour of Hua Yen buddhism as well.


It sounds very similar in at least one respect to what we are doing in this analysis:

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“The causal witness is still in the realm of relative phenomena, makyo, but one way to approach nonduality.”

<applauds>

Yes. As a teaching device I have no doubt it is extremely potent. It destroys many core attachments. (I've noticed it is quite effective indeed in particularly eliminating the idea that we are bodies, clearly defined in space. As Bodhidharma said: “To have a body is to suffer”.) So yeah, I dig Advaita myself.

But it is important to remember the Witness is not the truth, it is exactly just a teaching device, a concept, like emptiness or the four noble truths or any other. With this in mind, we can then decide which teaching device is most logically accurate, or most effective to induce release, and I'd be happy to do so.

“I actually think the phrase “witness” can be a little distracting—whenever I have tried that orientation my ego has just wanted to look around and 'witness' things”

David, I must say it is absolutely wonderful when you talk about your own direct experience like this, instead of quoting Hokai, Wilber, Cohen or Almaas. I'd like to order more of that, please.

”[…] sometime soon you will see a person you have never seen before, a person who has been alive for several years at least, maybe several decades, but this is the first time that person existed for you—how would you describe this person's ontological status, if any, before that person existed for you?”

It depends on what side of the two truths-doctrine you ask from.

In reality, well, no words can describe the paramarthasatya.

In conventional reality, the reality of the world (samvrtisatya), I would meet a new independently existing person, complete with past and a future, a personality, dreams, desires, dislikes, secrets, views, subjective experience, a bodily form, etc. In other words, the meeting would be completely ordinary.

”[…] it is only logical to surmise that it existed for at least a little while before I saw it.”

Then it existed independently before the holon became conscious of it…

“At the same time, to imagine oneself as a thing in time is suffering, yes?”

…So then according to you, since things actually exist independently, suffering can not be overcome. So Buddha's third truth (Nirodha) cannot be correct. Damn!

—

Cool that you quoted that perticular book by Thomas Cleary, because it's actually the one I am reading at the moment.

:D

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

I'm going to repost this, because it's at the heart of Dawids argument and hasn't been discussed.

“And because 1-tier ego's want to accumulate as much money as possible, we get these massive chasms dividing those societies who have much, and those who have little.”

That statement is within a cultural vacuum.  For most of the history of human kind there was no money.  We know for certain that there were almost always limits on low tech. societies from accumulating wealth.  In cases where someone did accumulate massive wealth, there were usually mechanisms of great feasts and parties, where they gave almost everything away. 

You are thinking of tier-1 only within your cultural worldview.  It's like, 'I see behavior which I interpret as tier-1 in my society now, and I project that stereotype upon the sum of ancient society.'  You just can't do that.  As a matter of fact this was the thinking around 1900. The term “Animism” was produced at an early time in Anthropology, before people actually traveled around the world and lived in “exotic” places. There was a guy, E.B. Tyler, in the UK who was disgusted at the spiritualism movement (what became New Age), and he interpreted it as something he called a cultural “survival” of primitive culture.  He determined this from things he read about and assumptions.  This explanation wasn't questioned and remained a part of our collective assumptions for almost a century.  This isn't something new to Integral, you have to have a historical understanding of these ideas.  I don't think you realize that you're doing what E.B. Tyler did over a century ago.  New understandings of animistic worldviews shows that people understood things in more rational ways than we do today.  It's really complicated to understand why, but I'll do into it later. It still falls within the possible for Integral, just counter-intuitive to what people think.

For example, you come from a place that snows a lot and your society has adapted to very cold weather in certain ways.  That adaptation probably won't include shorts and t-shirts in the winter, so there are limits on the possible from the environment, but there is still an incredibly wide variety of ways to adapt to the cold.  That's kind of a metaphor for any tier.  A tier don't directly dictate culture any more than environment does. Certain things are possible and certain things aren't, but there is massive variation in there.

There were hunting and gathering groups that were sedentary and never moved around, because they didn't have to.  Much of the homogeneity you see in global culture is, 1. a recent product of global hegemonic capital, and,  2. Largely an illusion of appearance.   You can put a McDonalds in China, but that doesn't make the Chinese become Americans.  We used to think that it would, but we now know that people take cultural items and translate them seamlessly into their worldviews.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Could you please state your point more clearly, Rick? I don't really understand what you are arguing for. When I read your post I find myself agreeing with almost all of it.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Yeah our Rick has tunred into quite the intellectual hasn't he?! :-)

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: David, I must say it is absolutely wonderful when you talk about your own direct experience like this, instead of quoting Hokai, Wilber, Cohen or Almaas. I'd like to order more of that, please.


Well, thank you. That's very kind of you.  :) Only I like being complimented on my quoting as well.  :) I have some very good ones in mind right now.  :)



Dawid:  With this in mind, we can then decide which teaching device is most logically accurate, or most effective to induce release, and I'd be happy to do so.


It is going to be a type-specific thing to a certain extent, and of course it's also a stage-specific thing.

Self-inquiry is a particularly interesting one. We are fascinated with objects, generally, gross objects, subtle objects, abstract objects. Self-inquiry, as taught by Ramana Maharshi, turns the subject back on itself. It undercuts this “extroversion” at its root. It is extremely powerful.



Dawid: In conventional reality, the reality of the world (samvrtisatya), I would meet a new independently existing person, complete with past and a future, a personality, dreams, desires, dislikes, secrets, views, subjective experience, a bodily form, etc. In other words, the meeting would be completely ordinary.


I meant, before you met that person for the first time, did they exist?

It is interesting to contemplate the “did or does that object exist” question in light of dependent origination, particularly evolutionary dependent origination. When we view something it is more like a snapshot of a particular phase in dependent-origination evolution than an object. It is like a raindrop falling from the sky.



David: “At the same time, to imagine oneself as a thing in time is suffering, yes?”

Dawid: …So then according to you, since things actually exist independently, suffering can not be overcome. So Buddha's third truth (Nirodha) cannot be correct. Damn!


I don't know how you came out with that as a result of what I said. The ego, the separate-self sense, is something that imagines itself to be caught in time. I don't know how you go from that to my thinking that things exist independentally; I think they have a relative existence in evolutionary dependent origination, but that “relative existence” is simply a reification of a particular moment.

Once the final peg has been inserted, we call it an IKEA table. It will remain an IKEA table until it is modified or breaks. But it's a process rather than a noun. We take one snapshot of the process and call it a thing, consider it a referent with a noun for a signifier.

Of course, Nirodha had been discussed in the Upanishads before Buddha, as Nirguna Brahman. But the Buddha added many fine things, like dependent origination.



Dawid: Cool that you quoted that particular book by Thomas Cleary, because it's actually the one I am reading at the moment.


You must be a real believer in synchronicity by now.  :) 

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Rick: New understandings of animistic worldviews shows that people understood things in more rational ways than we do today.  It's really complicated to understand why, but I'll do into it later. It still falls within the possible for Integral, just counter-intuitive to what people think.


How could this be if rationality didn't emerge until much later?

When you were gone I quoted a few things from a debate within anthropology about just this subject. It involved how Captain Cook was killed by the Hawaiians. There was one camp who thought that the Hawaiians acted rationally, as we would, and another who thought they acted according to a mythic belief structure.

It was basically between a guy named Sahlins and a guy named Obeyesekere. Here is a summary of the debate and then a summary of the two views:

[1] The actions of the islanders toward the English can be explained in ways that are perfectly understandable in human terms [i.e., universal terms] without recourse to any structuralist [or poststructuralist] cultural theory. On Hawaii, the English were more warmly received from the outset, but a killing at the point of first contact taught the islanders the power and menace of the strangers. In both cases, once it became clear to the natives that the English were only visitors and not conquerors, things improved to the point where something like normal diplomatic relations between people from such divergent backgrounds could be established [because they share to various degrees the same universal world]. This is the commonsense view, so derided by [Sahlins, Dening, etc.], to which all the evidence clearly points. Why have structuralists been so reluctant to accept it? … . .

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

David: How could this be if rationality didn't emerge until much later?

What he means is they had an understanding of causality that allowed them to address their existential issues. If they wanted to hunt animals on the ground, they did not shoot at the sky.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“Could you please state your point more clearly, Rick? I don't really understand what you are arguing for. When I read your post I find myself agreeing with almost all of it.”

You may agree with it in principle, but you seem to be saying to opposite in this thread. You are saying that New Age is a cultural relic of a prehistoric time, but it isn't, it is a recent phenomenon in historic time.  It is the product of our imaginations. Our imaginations of what we think of the past.  We can trace the history of all of this.  I don't think it is either fair, or accurate to paint such a broad brush.  What group thought like this? What practices did they have?  These are things you have to know if you really want to understand any connection between New Age and our ancient past. 

I recommend two books, and you have to remember that it was me and E that recommended that you read Nagarjuna.

Escobar's, “Encountering Development: The making and unmaking of the third world.”  And, Adam Kuper's, “The invention of primitive society.” 

I'd also like to send you a pdf about animism, so could you send me your email address.

The crux of it, is that I don't think the comparison is at all accurate.  There is a profound difference between modern New Agers -and they have always been modern- and prehistoric peoples.  New Age involves fantasy and imagination. Rarely do New Agers live our their beliefs in concrete ways prescribed by their rhetoric.  There was no pretending for a prehistoric hunter/gatherer.  They didn't own a little book store and operate in a larger society, and have a bank account and go to school, and pretend to do magic. I think you're missing the “Deep Play” aspect of what's going on.

To the mind of an ancient human, their worldview was an accurate and stable understanding of their immediate situation. One anthropologist that lived with a group of hunters/gatherers, recalling how they understood each other used the term “dividuals.”
Our notion of an individual is completely inaccurate to our lived experience. I am never Rick, but I am Rick with this person or that person. I am Rick on the computer typing. Rick running. Rick reading. This is how they understood self hood.
They understood that this wasn't a one way street, that they affected and were effected by everything and everyone in ever moment.  This is more accurate than our modern dualistic view.  At the same time, they had ways of getting around the totality of such a worldview. In such a culture there is no private property, because there is no individual, only dividuals. So, they would often hide things from others.

Ken talks about this, actually. It is an an accurate worldview without any relative and scientific understanding.  The goal is to merge the current worldview into one that understand totally the notion of the dividual, but with greater relative understanding.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“How could this be if rationality didn't emerge until much later?”

I don't think whoever wrote that understood Sahlins.  In many ways Sahlins was a postmodern relativist.

Again, I think you have to more deeply explore the concept of rationality. Rationality in a real sense, is simply the consistent use of a epistemic and ontological cultural model.  If you have a particular belief, then it is rational to consistently act upon it. It is irrational to have no discernible pattern or belief system.
You use the term “we,” but you have to think about how rational we really are. We are a people that have a war every generation. What is rational about that?  Look at our current health care debate, and our inaction on global warming.  Consistently, the US is the single most irrational country in aggregate behavior. We are the largest economy, have the most powerful military, with the highest use of technology, yet we have massive inequality and irrationality to spare.

You don't find the rationality or the irrationality of a people in their books, you find them in their actions.

As far as the Hawaiians, they had a Chieftain society. It was rather complex, and had powerful “big men.”  It was also a warrior society, and violence was not uncommon.  Often our first impulse is to interpret the behavior of other in violent context, and I'm sure they did the same.  As far as eating prisoners, I don't remember any cannibal aspects to Polynesian culture. There was a symbology for it and threats of it, but only in a warrior context to inspire fear. In fact, there is no evidence that cannibalism has ever been practiced outside of a very rigid, ritual context.  The idea of putting a human on a pig spit is hyperbole.
You see that in Maori pre-battle rituals of showing the tongue. Like, “I'm gonna eat your heart and spit it back out.”  That inspires real fear, especially if you actually do it.

These were also cultures that were transformed by their encounters. Often, study of them didn't come about until massive transformations were already underway; especially, the disempowerment of females.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“I recommend two books, and you have to remember that it was me and E that recommended that you read Nagarjuna.”

I guess I have no choice but to instant-buy these two books. What if they have the same impact as the mentioned? :D

“You are saying that New Age is a cultural relic of a prehistoric time, but it isn't, it is a recent phenomenon in historic time.”

Well, I have not said that New Age actually is Magenta. I am well aware that it is a cultural phenomenon having emerging in modern times (with roots in the 1800s and 1900s spiritualism), and have based my arguments around this. What I have said is that the beliefs of New Age:ers are very similar to what Wilber's developmentalist researchers have classified as “Magenta” (magic) and also “Amber” (mythic) and that this is interesting to note. 

The similarities are that both believe that they can influence the Right Hand enviroment, as well as the UL of individuals, just by thinking. Also, both believe that various objects possess an individual and identifiable soul. (I.e. animism, strong reificationism.) This kind of cognition only cools down with the emergence of Orange.

“Rarely do New Agers live ou[t?] their beliefs in concrete ways prescribed by their rhetoric.”
 
They don't? Hell, most of them can even make a living out of it, that's how much they live it out.

(kasuskasus@hotmail.com)

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

David: How could this be if rationality didn't emerge until much later?

e; “What he means is they had an understanding of causality that allowed them to address their existential issues. If they wanted to hunt animals on the ground, they did not shoot at the sky.”

Yes, that's the word, “existential.”  There is often a conflating of worldview in integral in a way that is abstractly separated from the actual live experiences and practices of people day to day. 

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

I just want to get clear and precise about language. If you look up “rationality” you get referred to “reason.” It's actually hard to find a good definition in the dictionaries, but I think “logical” might be the best. At Orange people are logical.

Even at Infrared (Archaic, Beige), people don't go hunting for something in the wrong domain. Hawks don't go looking for mice in the sky, nor owls. Robins look for worms in the grass, not in the trees nor in the sky.

But none of them are doing this out of reason or logic. It is just instinct. Some might say it is the evolutionary intelligence at this particular wave for whichever species we are talking about.

It's a subject I have been contemplating recently because it seems to me that Amber and lower have something that's like reason and logic. They can say this happened and then this happened. They can tell a story, a sequence of events.

Here are a few charts from Integral Psychology:

Logical Mode (Baldwin)

Prelogical
quasilogical
logical
extralogical
hyperlogical


Level of Communication

actions and consequences of actions [think a small child learning the behavior that will get him or her rewarded or punished]

roles, systems of norms

principles


Erotic Relationships (Fortune)

physical
instinctual
emotional
concrete mental
abstract mental
concrete spirit—-these last two are Wilber IVish, placing states on top of stages
pure spirit


Empathy (Benack)

unwilling to assume others' perspective
unable to assume others' perspective
willing to assume others' perspective
able to assume others' perspective


Moral Stages (Gilligan)

selfish
care
universal care
hierarchical-integrative

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: David, I must say it is absolutely wonderful when you talk about your own direct experience like this, instead of quoting Hokai, Wilber, Cohen or Almaas. I'd like to order more of that, please.


Thank you, again. Actually, what I wrote that day was one sentence out of a couple of paragraphs, most of which I deleted at the last moment so it wouldn't be too long.

I think we could probably make a chart just in terms of awareness:

undifferentiated, no awareness
awareness of self
awareness of other
awareness of us
awareness of all of us

unaware
aware of feelings, sights
aware of emotions
aware of thoughts
aware of systems of thoughts
aware of self-nature, meaning the nature of the personal self


When people talk about witnessing it can mean all these things, but the higher stages of awareness (vertically) include the whole personal-self shebang. And what I began to discuss about that but dropped, partly because it's kind of complicated, is that that sort of awareness, that sort of witnessing is spontaneous. That is not something we could ever do. When we do something it is contraction; it is focus rather than awareness.

At the same time there is view and structure and doing absolutely nothing could be deevolutionary and turn things down toward unawareness. So I think you are right when you say they are both right and both wrong (the do-nothing camps and the do-something camps).

There is a leap that is difficult to account for, that spontaneity. You can do a spiritual practice, and then something can happen and show you something that you didn't know beforehand and didn't really follow logically from the practice you were doing. Suddenly we are aware of the subject, aware of the doer.

Self-inquiry is good for that because the self is chasing objects, going after goals, running away from things or to something else. There is a search. The inquiry turns that search back on itself. When that happens, something deeper gets a chance to rise or the mind is stilled enough for something else to rise, or, better maybe, the self gets a chance to drop.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“Only I like being complimented on my quoting as well.”

Heh. Two things generally about quoting, first, it keeps one from going deep within oneself, and second, it is boooring. My opinion. (Just because of this, I'm now determined to do alot of quoting below! :P)

“I meant, before you met that person for the first time, did they exist?”

Yes, I understood the question, and gave my response. I said, regarding the view of the world (samvritisatya): “…I would meet a new independently existing person, complete with past and a future…”
 
This is the basis of compassion. Yet, this compassion can not manifest if one does not realize that this is actually not reality, but a projection of mind; an illusion, a reflection, a mirage, a dream.

You asked me about my perspective, and I think this quote says it all (my emphasis):

“This combination of the following to [factors] barely occurs - (1) refuting, without residue, the object of negation [inherent existence] through reasoned analysis and (2) the feasibility of positing, as left after the negation, without loosing anything, all the functionalities of dependently arisen causes and effects as like illusions. Therefore, it is very difficult to gain the view of the Middle Way.”
-Tsongkhapa
 
(1) avoids the extreme of permanence, (2) avoids the extreme of nihilism. Interesting to note is that all spiritual schools have some version of 1 and 2, but none goes all the way such as the Consequentialists. All lower schools always maintain some version of inherent existence, be it extremely gross versions such as the Samkhya school of Hinduism, or extremely subtle versions as in Madhyamika Svatantrika, but still, they don't take it all the way because they are afraid that it will lead to nihilism.
 
Also, the über-master Chandrakirti in his commentary on Aryadeva's (disciple of Nagarjuna) “Four Hundred Stanzas on the Middle Way” writes:

“For that reason, when analyzed thus, the inherent existence of things is not established. Hence, just an illusory-like nature is left over as a remainder with respect to things individually.”

Medieval Tibetan scholar Jang-Gya clarifies: “It is called illusory-like because it appears to be inherently existent but is not.”
 
David: “I don't know how you came out with that as a result of what I said.”
 
You say things in reality exist independently, and simultaneously comment that to exist within time is suffering. Independent things (persons, phenomena and abstract phenomena) exist within time. Therefore, for you, suffering can not be avoided.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Here's my quoting. I think the Wikipedia analysis of rationality does a pretty good job.

Quality of Rationality It is believed by some philosophers (notably A.C. Grayling) and experts, that a good rationale must be independent of emotions, personal feelings or any kind of instincts. Any process of evaluation or analysis, that may be called rational, is expected to be highly objective, logical and “mechanical”. If these minimum requirements are not satisfied i.e. if a person has been, even slightly, influenced by personal emotions, feelings, instincts or culturally specific, moral codes and norms, then the analysis may be termed irrational, due to the injection of subjective bias.
It is quite evident from modern cognitive science and neuroscience, studying the role of emotion in mental function (including topics ranging from flashes of scientific insight to making future plans), that no human has ever satisfied this criterion, except perhaps a complete psychopath with a massively damaged amygdala. Thus, such an idealized form of rationality is best exemplified by computers, and not people. However, scholars may productively appeal to the idealization as a point of reference.
[edit] Theories of rationality The German sociologist Max Weber proposed an interpretation of social action that distinguished between four different types of rationality. The first, which he called Zweckrational or purposive/instrumental rationality, is related to the expectations about the behavior of other human beings or objects in the environment. These expectations serve as means for a particular actor to attain ends, ends which Weber noted were “rationally pursued and calculated.” The second type, Weber called Wertrational or value/belief-oriented. Here the action is undertaken for what one might call reasons intrinsic to the actor: some ethical, aesthetic, religious or other motive, independent of whether it will lead to success. The third type was affectual, determined by an actor's specific affect, feeling, or emotion - to which Weber himself said that this was a kind of rationality that was on the borderline of what he considered “meaningfully oriented.” The fourth was traditional, determined by ingrained habituation. Weber emphasized that it was very unusual to find only one of these orientations: combinations were the norm. His usage also makes clear that he considered the first two as more significant than the others, and it is arguable that the third and fourth are subtypes of the first two. These kinds of rationality were ideal types.
The advantage in this interpretation is that it avoids a value-laden assessment, say, that certain kinds of beliefs are irrational. Instead, Weber suggests that a ground or motive can be given – for religious or affect reasons, for example — that may meet the criterion of explanation or justification even if it is not an explanation that fits the Zweckrational orientation of means and ends. The opposite is therefore also true: some means-ends explanations will not satisfy those whose grounds for action are 'Wertrational'.
Weber's constructions of rationality have been critiqued both from a Habermasian (1984) perspective (as devoid of social context and under-theorised in terms of social power)[1] and also from a feminist perspective (Eagleton, 2003) whereby Weber's rationality constructs are viewed as imbued with masculine values and oriented toward the maintenance of male power[2]. An alternative position on rationality (which includes both bounded rationality (Simons and Hawkins, 1949)[3], as well as the affective and value-based arguments of Weber) can be found in the critique of Etzioni (1988)[4], who reframes thought on decision-making to argue for a reversal of the position put forward by Weber. Etzioni illustrates how purposive/instrumental reasoning is subordinated by normative considerations (ideas on how people 'ought' to behave) and affective considerations (as a support system for the development of human relationships).

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Also, one of the things many people in Integral need to do is to go to the source material. Too often, there is a real laziness about this, and people rely on 3rd party collectors of information. Ken Wilber is actually the top of that list. I recommend that if you really like a book, to go to the library or a bookstore and pick up a few of the main sources that are analyzed or quoted.

For example, Newton is persona non grate when it comes to an example of Orange science. A paradigm is named after him, the Newtonian view of physics on one side and quantum on the other.  What most people don't realize is that he was also a famous alchemist. More than half of what he wrote about concerned issues of the occult, and not negative writing either. 
So how is it that Newton is the personification of Orange rationality, inventor of calculus, and also an occultist, alchemist? 

Lesson? Context matters. History matters.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: Two things generally about quoting, first, it keeps one from going deep within oneself, and second, it is boooring. My opinion. (Just because of this, I'm now determined to do alot of quoting below! :P)


Valid points. However, quoting other authors can also help one to go deeper into oneself, stretch oneself, and advance the collective. We wouldn't want to be limited to the knowledge and phrasing of just the people here; there are many other authors out there to draw from and learn from.


Dawid: Yes, I understood the question, and gave my response. I said, regarding the view of the world (samvritisatya): “…I would meet a new independently existing person, complete with past and a future…” This is the basis of compassion. Yet, this compassion can not manifest if one does not realize that this is actually not reality, but a projection of mind; an illusion, a reflection, a mirage, a dream.

What do you mean by “independently existing”?



Dawid: (1) avoids the extreme of permanence, (2) avoids the extreme of nihilism. Interesting to note is that all spiritual schools have some version of 1 and 2, but none goes all the way such as the Consequentialists.


I don't buy it that the Madhyamikas are the only ones to avoid both permanence and nihilism. The Advaita of Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta, for example, also does this (though their choice of signifiers may not sound like it to some), as well as other Buddhist schools.

Even some of the early Advaita in the Upanishads avoided these extremes as I quoted earlier: “One without a second” is tantamount to emptiness (since “one without a second” is nondual and therefore not a thing), and they also spoke of compassion.

Of course not all of them were as explicit about it and explicated it as well, but we can see that the same basic idea is there. Some do avoid nihilism quite a bit better than these early Buddhists, for whom the main goal was simply getting off the wheel to avoid suffering rather than developing the life process around the four quadrants to hand it off to the next generation in a more evolved stage (in part to make it easier for them to get off the wheel).

We could also say that many of these enlightenment schools favor the masculine value sphere over the feminine value sphere as well. The feminine finds inherent worth in the life process. That is not inherently “lower”; in fact, I don't think it is lower. Attachment is lower, yes, but dedication to the life process is higher.


Dawid quoting Chandakirti: “For that reason, when analyzed thus, the inherent existence of things is not established. Hence, just an illusory-like nature is left over as a remainder with respect to things individually.”


I like the reasoning behind dependent origination and inherent existence, but I think we need to make a distinction between that and semiotics.

We cannot study a referent and say it does not inherently exist and therefore does not have any objective aspect to it unless we are talking about the absolute truth. The relative truth is that the referent is in part interpretative and part objective—integral semiotics successfully refutes the idea that objects don't define themselves at all on their own side, which is a study on the relative side of the street not having much or anything to do with the absolute truth.

Also, with the emphasis on no thing with inherent existence and no self, along with a lack of interest in the life process, it can be said that many of these Buddhist schools err on the side of nihilism. Metaphors for the absolute truth, also, err either on the nihilistic side or the permanent side, and the Prasangika's chosen metaphor and argumentation does err on the nihilistic side of the street. Metaphors and argumentation that err on the nihilistic side of the street are not inherently better than metaphors and argumentation that err on the positive side of the street—in fact, if the negative argumentation results in less dedication to the four-quadrant evolutionary process it will not be superior but the opposite of superior (you can guess what that is).

We have been over that before, of course. Daniel Ingram, by the way, has an excellent discussion of this issue (except for the evolutionary aspect) in his chapter titled “True Self vs No Self” starting on page 153. I said earlier that Ingram might be Orange (partly because Hokai had said that and partly because it seemed to be the case), but clearly his understanding of both sides of the paradox is well beyond that on this issue, maybe even Turquoise. (I think it's not only possible but very common for people to be Turquoise on one issue, Teal on another, Green another, even Amber or Orange or Red on others—I think people can be all over the map).



Dawid: You say things in reality exist independently, and simultaneously comment that to exist within time is suffering. Independent things (persons, phenomena and abstract phenomena) exist within time. Therefore, for you, suffering can not be avoided.


Nope, I do not! In fact, it was you who said that things exist independently in that very post!

I have just approached the analysis at times from a relative perspective of semiotics rather than a perspective of dependent origination and the absolute truth.

When we study signs, we have to admit that the objective aspect plays a role; when we take the perspective of dependent origination and the absolute truth, we see that everything is interdependent and therefore doesn't inherently exist.

But of course, the “experience” of nonduality itself is not one of “no inherent existence” but simply beyond all description.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

But of course, the “experience” of nonduality itself is not one of “no inherent existence” but simply beyond all description.
 the experience of “no inherent existence” = beyond all description

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Great quoting, Rick! 

Rick quoting Wikipedia:  It is believed by some philosophers (notably A.C. Grayling) and experts, that a good rationale must be independent of emotions, personal feelings or any kind of instincts. Any process of evaluation or analysis, that may be called rational, is expected to be highly objective, logical and “mechanical”. If these minimum requirements are not satisfied i.e. if a person has been, even slightly, influenced by personal emotions, feelings, instincts or culturally specific, moral codes and norms, then the analysis may be termed irrational, due to the injection of subjective bias.


I think it's interesting first of all that it's not easy to define. At any rate, I think that's a pretty good start for a definition. But it's interesting to note that often more than one rational explanation is available, and which one is chosen probably has a lot to do with emotions, personal feelings, instincts, subjective bias, cultural bias, etc.

The author writes that no one has ever satisfied the criteria of not being “even slightly” influenced by emotions, personal feelings, instincts, or culture, but I'm not sure that is the case. How is 2 + 2 = 4 influenced by emotions, feelings, instincts, or culture?



Rick: Also, one of the things many people in Integral need to do is to go to the source material. Too often, there is a real laziness about this, and people rely on 3rd party collectors of information. Ken Wilber is actually the top of that list.


In what case has Wilber relied on 3rd party collectors of information? He has integrated so many disciplines it wouldn't surprise me if there was a case, but it definitely wouldn't include the central issues we discuss, psychology, development, spirituality, etc. He claims to have read at a phd level in 22 disciplines or something.

I'm sure it would be interesting for us to go more into source material on occasion, but every time I've heard someone come in and said Wilber doesn't know about this or this because he gets the source material wrong, they've been mistaken.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“I think it's interesting first of all that it's not easy to define. At any rate, I think that's a pretty good start for a definition. But it's interesting to note that often more than one rational explanation is available, and which one is chosen probably has a lot to do with emotions, personal feelings, instincts, subjective bias, cultural bias, etc.”

It's also about power, which is usually an ignored elephant in the room.  How do power structures and modes of coercion interact to make one course of action rational, and another not.  It isn't rational to to strap a bomb to your chest and blow yourself and others up, but it is rational to strap a bomb to a plane and fly it to a target.  What is and what is not considered rational are often times about choices, and adaptive strategies.
In the 1960's, Oscar Lewis (anthropologist), coined the term, “culture of poverty.”
He was able to show that many of the dysfunctional practices of the poor, the 'irrational' practices, were in fact adaptive strategies that were developed culturally and passed along generationally to deal with poverty.  The practices seems irrational and strange to an outsider with more resources, like buying lottery tickets habitually, smaller, more expensive quantities of things, etc…, but that is because they aren't poor.  He felt that extreme poverty was a form of social abuse that affected people psychologically and culturally. 
Integral isn't just an evolutionary thing, but also a moment-to-moment thing, and I think we forget that. People can shift through various Vmemes in different situations. Often, Vmemes are Domain dependent.  It's like a Maslow's hierarchy of needs thing. You aren't going to care about conserving water if you are hungry and scared.  This is something I'm having a hard time getting the environmental scientists I'm working for to understand.

Domain dependence goes further though.  Empirical studies have shown that professors of statistical analysis usually fall for logical fallacies in statistically derived riddles, because they aren't framed in an academic way. They are in real world stories, and not in a text, and they fall for them just like everyone else.  It is no longer in the domain of their experience.
Sociologists of science, like Bourdieu, have also shown repeatedly that science rarely ever actually happens in the lab or field the way it is supposed to on paper. The scientific method is an ideal process, not often an actualized process.

Also, I knew that 2+2=4 in first grade. Ancient people also knew this, all before orange rationality.  Many of the guys in my urban fieldsite can do complex conversions of weight and volume, and most arithmetic in their heads, because they had to know how to do things like for the drug trade, even though they can barely read.  I think it isn't until the complexities of algebraic functions and statistics that orange logic become necessary.  And, then that orange logic fails us, because people don't know how to deal with non-linear functions, which causes suedo-science, like Neoliberal economics.

“In what case has Wilber relied on 3rd party collectors of information?”

Not Wilber, people that read Wilber. Wilber is a collector of vast amounts source data and puts them together for the reader.  We should always take some time to read a few of those sources, although he rarely cites, and see if we interpret them in the same way. 
I know that at this point in my education I have boxes of journal articles and decent little library to draw from. So, when I need to type out a paper in haste, I think about what I want to say and I simply cite what I need to to make that point. I'm supposed to do it the other way, but nobody actually does that.  There is so much information out there, that you can make it say whatever you want it to by selecting it properly.

“I'm sure it would be interesting for us to go more into source material on occasion, but every time I've heard someone come in and said Wilber doesn't know about this or this because he gets the source material wrong, they've been mistaken.”

I've called him out a few times myself, I've not been mistaken. This is inevitable for someone like Wilber. When someone tries to encompass such a wide breadth of knowledge, they are not going to get it all right. There are always more narrowly studied experts that will find fault with details.
For example, in the intro. to a Brief History of Everything, he mentions a study about testosterone, and says that the hormone has the function of, “kill it or fuck it,” and he feels women should be more understanding with us.  This is a misleading over generalization, because the effects of testosterone are dependent upon culture, and situation.  His thesis here fails, because he's trying to make it fit into a larger argument.  A meta-narrative requires that one shave off the rough edges of information, but the more shaving they do, the more holes in it there are.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

I must go to bed now but I'll just respond to this point quickly:

David: “What do you mean by “independently existing”?”

Some synonyms:

* The reality of the thing irrespective of culture or language or human consciousness.
* Objective existence.
* Self-existence.
* True essence.
* True establishment.
* True Existence.
* Existence as its own such-ness.
* Natural existence.
* Existence from the object’s side, as opposed to being imputed from the subject’s side.
* Existence through its own power.
* Existence able to establish itself.
* Existence right in the basis of designation.
* Existence in the manner of covering its basis of designation.
* Existence from the side of the basis of designation.
* Platonic essence.
* Real existence.
* Ontological existence.
* The thing as it really is.
* The thing in-itself. (Das ding an sich.)
* The is-ness of the thing.
* The beingness of the thing.
* The actuality of the thing.
* The Soul of the thing.
* The Spirit of the thing.
* Perseity.
* Self-sufficient being.
* Self-inclusive being.
* Essential being.
* Instantiation in reality.
* The subject of ontological commitment.
* The thing’s entificiation.
* The way it really is, regardless of what anyone thinks.
* The reality of the thing as opposed to its mere appearance.
* What science will eventually discover the thing to be.
* The way God intends the thing to be.
* ”It is what it is”.
* ”It’s like that - 'cause that’s the way it is.” as the rappers in Run DMC used to say.
 
David: “Nope, I do not! In fact, it was you who said that things exist independently in that very post!”
 
So things do not exist independently? When you're not looking at a flower or a chair it does not exist or subsist in any way?
 
If it does exist or subsist in any way, then it exists independently. If it does not exist or subsist in any way, then it does not exist independently. So which one is it? Obviously it must be either one of these.
 
I am fascinated by your mind's reluctance or incapacity to employ reason. It just can not decide on a very simple thing such as this. What's the matter?

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Rick: It's also about power, which is usually an ignored elephant in the room.  How do power structures and modes of coercion interact to make one course of action rational, and another not.


That is an interesting point. Have you read Foucault's book on power? I haven't read it, Discipline and Punish, but I might. Here is an excerpt from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that's interesting (it doesn't exactly follow from your point, but I must have a quote for this post or else it won't be complete):

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

“I think the matter is that you want to see these things in black and white terms and only want to look at them from a Prasangika, absolute-truth perspective.”

No, the problem is that you're dodging very simple and perfectly valid questions.
 
“Did it subsist before you laid eyes on it?”
 
It doesn't matter if we're speaking about reality or conventional reality. I still do not see an independently existing tree anywhere in that picture. I see some strange shapes and some colour. That's it.

(And I'm seriously not trying to be smug now or anything, I just don't see a tree there. I could understand that you believe you see a tree there and for communication's sake call the shape a tree, but I still don't see one.)

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

David “No inherent existence” is one metaphor, one that errs on the nihilistic side of the street.


This is your personal intellectual bias. When the personal is seen to not inherently exist, when the intellect stops judging everything dualistically, when the dot that is at the center of the totality dissolves…love is (not nihilism).

We can't say that “a description” = “beyond description.”


I didn't say that. 

–
It doesn't matter if we're speaking about reality or conventional reality. I still do not see an independently existing tree anywhere in that picture. I see some strange shapes and some colour. That's it.

There is a cool segment mid way thru. You will know it, even the scientists say..ah look…!! (Charlie Rose Brain Series Part 2)



 

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: No, the problem is that you're dodging very simple and perfectly valid questions.


I have not dodged a single question; I have just not answered them in the way that you have liked. Meanwhile, you keep some of your views hidden.


Dawid: It doesn't matter if we're speaking about reality or conventional reality. I still do not see an independently existing tree anywhere in that picture. I see some strange shapes and some colour. That's it.


I don't see any independently existing tree in that picture either. I also
don't see even a dependently evolved tree in the picture—I see the image of a dependently evolved tree in the picture.

Now, it does seem to me that the Prasangika view on such things is like the extreme Green view: that there is no objective aspect to a sign; it is all subjective. Is that true? For Pierce: a sign is triadic (sign, subject, object); for Prasangikas: a sign is dyadic, (sign, subject). Is that right?

That's what does not hold up in an integral analysis (which is quadratic, with referents arising only in evolved, developmental worldspaces as enactments). On the relative side of the street, the sign, as Varela said, is a dance between subject and object. We can't say that there is an independently existing tree even if we are standing right under it and looking at it because so much of what is going on is interpretative; it is a co-creation between human and tree, and we can't ultimately say where the tree and the human begin and end (ultimately, they are not-two).

The green spruce needles are not even green. There is a pigment in them, however, that, interacting with our eyes, creates the color green. The green is not in our eyes; the pigment is not in our eyes. It cannot be found there empirically. However, the pigment can be found empirically in the pine needle. Again, the pigment is not inherently or independently Green, but we cannot find that pigment in the iris or the pupil—it is nowhere to be found in the eye, nor in an orange, while it can be found in the spruce needle.

Finding that pigment as well, even if we understand it not to be inherently green but rather its greenness to be a product of enactment or interaction (pigment + human eye = green pine needle), finding that pigment is also an enactment (3p, L/5, l/c) X (Q/ 4, L/3, t/ss).

There is less attachment here than the Prasangika view, which drives a stake in the ground declaring, “There are no objects, only subjects! Only imputing minds!” That is something you can really grab hold of, but you can't grasp enactivism; it continually slips out of your fingers; I think that is why you think I have been dodging your questions, because I haven't given a “straight answer” that can be pinned to a wall. Enactivism is a dance, an ongoing inquiry or contemplation, rather than somewhere we can pitch a tent. We can't say where the tree begins and ends, but we also cannot say that there is no objective aspect to consider (we admit that there is an objective aspect to consider the moment we use the signifier tree).

I think the dependent origination analysis is terrific for state insight, and also I think the basic idea of this particular Prasangika analysis is great, as well as particular parts of it, but I do think it needs to be adjusted in light of certain insights from philosophers like Pierce, Varela, Wilber.


Dawid: I just don't see a tree there.


But you are seeing an “I” there; you are recognizing your own subjectivity. If you didn't, you wouldn't be able to write that. So you are saying that I exist, but the tree doesn't.

Now we can say that neither I nor tree exists, nor creation or destruction (the absolute truth), but if we are climbing a tree we cannot claim, “I am up here off the ground, but I don't see a tree anywhere.” If “I” has a relative existence, the tree also has a relative existence.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

David: “I have not dodged a single question; I have just not answered them in the way that you have liked.”

You dodge the question about whether the tree or the flower exists independently. If it exists independently, then your statement about “subject and object co-arises” is false. If it does not exist independently, then your statement about the flower subsisting outside consciousness is false.

So how's it going to be? You gonna dodge it again or just give me a plain answer?

“Now, it does seem to me that the Prasangika view on such things is like the extreme Green view: that there is no objective aspect to a sign; it is all subjective. Is that true?”

Of course not. That'd be one lousy middle way now wouldn't it? :P

The reason you believe that this is so is simply because you don't understand emptiness. Let go of all your opinions, and you will understand.

“Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

” Have you read Foucault's book on power? I haven't read it, Discipline and Punish, but I might.”

Yes, I have. Foucault was extremely influential on my discipline, because he singled it out in his writing.

The term he used for all that you cited was the, “gaze.”  So, when someone says, “the power of the gaze,” that's what they're talking about.  He outlines the history of it, and eventually power became something we always had and have to think about.  In a way, he helped bring back political economic theory.

I don't think this is a problem with integral theory, but a problem with the way many people visualize it in their minds. In human evolution, people visualize one species literally becoming another, in a very linear processes, but that is not what the data tells us. Just like this, people tend to think of cultural evolution in unilinear terms as well.  One culture becomes another through time, with gradually increasing use of energy and productivity, like an ever rising slope on a line graph in people's minds, but history doesn't show this.

The political economist, Eric Wolf, rallied against this way of thinking in 1982.

“But is algebra influenced by personal feelings and culture? Isn't it more universal than that?”

Well yes, but as you said, everything does, so it's relative. It is more universal that any specific culture. I was just saying that it isn't accurate to say that before orange centered societies, people were incapable of rational 2+2=4 thought.

” In medieval Japan, they killed with a samurai sword, in Spain at the same time with a slightly different kind of sword.”

No, he framed it as a causal agent, and it isn't.  It does not make men more violent, or sexual than women. It facilitates chemically, the neuro interactions that allow aggressive behavior to happen. Men are physically able to remain at heightened levels of aggression for longer periods of time than women.  Whether men reach those levels, or why they reach those levels, is socially and culturally based.  As, female aggression becomes less stigmatized, their numbers in prison increase in the US. 
Armies have to produced very special training environments, and try very hard to produce a warrior. Warriors are not born, they are made.  The US army has concluded that one-on-one, interpersonal, physical conflict is the most common, universal phobia; number 2 is snakes.   They first started studying this, when data was showing that only about 2% of the soldiers in WWII were responsible for most of the aggressive fighting.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Dawid: You dodge the question about whether the tree or the flower exists independently. If it exists independently, then your statement about “subject and object co-arises” is false. If it does not exist independently, then your statement about the flower subsisting outside consciousness is false.


I function according to the two-truth's doctrine; it is necessary if we are going to keep things straight. It is like an early version of the different zones, I was reflecting the other day.

It makes sense in a meditative context to say that nothing exists, nothing at all, neti neti, but when we are crossing the street that is entirely inappropriate. The bus not only appears to exist but it actually does exist, and you think so, too.  :)

In that moment, as you cross the street, the relative truth is more important than the absolute truth. This is why I think the absolute and relative truth should be given equal weight.

It doesn't really work to say the absolute truth (whether we conceptualize it as nothing inherently existing or absolute subjectivity) is more important or “reality” because you don't think so.  :) Nope. Not when you are crossing the street. In that moment the absolute truth is hogwash and the bus inherently exists, is as real as anything is real.

So, my answer is as it has always been, paradoxical: the bus doesn't exist as nothing exists, including all of creation and destruction, and the bus does exist. Many of my responses have explored the latter, the relative truth of the bus existing (its relative existence being an enactment that is partially interpretive and partly objective or a co-creation between subject and object—really, that is a crudely stated, though, as we can't really separate the two).

When we are unselfconscious about things there is that nonduality. When we become self-conscious and start looking around, that is one time when things really begin seeming dualistic.



Dawid: “Now, it does seem to me that the Prasangika view on such things is like the extreme Green view: that there is no objective aspect to a sign; it is all subjective. Is that true?”

David: Of course not. That'd be one lousy middle way now wouldn't it? :P


Originally the term “Middle Way” just referred to the middle way between atman and anatman, as far as I know. These days people use it to mean various things. I don't know that the Prasangikas ever used it to refer to semiotics. I kind of get the feeling that they didn't, that there simply was not a middle way when it came to semiotics. Their view, as far as I have been able to gather, is that it is all “dependent imputation,” all on the subjective side, much like the denial of some Green schools of objectivity, claiming everything is interpretive.

Okay, what is the difference then between the Prasangika view and the Green view that it is all subjective? Since you object whenever I mention any objective aspect it seems like the same thing, until of course we take up the absolute truth of nothing inherently existing—but you see, these two things, the relative view of semiotics and the absolute truth get mixed.



Dawid: This is your own interpretation, it has nothing to do with middle way consequentialism, which never states that “there is only X”, or “there is (inherently) not any X”. You state such things, and consequentialism destroys it. As long as there is any X or non-X, there is attachment, and as long as there is attachment there is suffering.


I think consequentialism is very interesting and good and I want to explore it more, but when it starts trying to debunk claims in all quadrants it goes too far. It then begins to resemble Green deconstruction debunking claims around the different zones, asserting consequentialism as the ONE TRUE LAW THAT EXISTS ETERNALLY FOREVER AND APPLIES TO EVERY SITUATION.

Consequentialism is a left-hand-quadrant approach—we cannot see logic. It's interesting and important, but we mustn't take it so far that it starts debunking truth claims of other perspectives, other methodologies.

What I would like to explore is where consequentialism is successful and good and where it oversteps. Of course, if we want to simply view it as a state-training exercise, that's fine. We can then apply it to everything whether it makes integral-methodological-pluralism sense or not. But we should be very much aware of it when we do that, or else we will simply start collapsing other methodologies. Not in the spirit of Hua-yen Buddhism!



Dawid: Perhaps there are what people call feelings, some pressure, some sounds, some movement, some shapes and colour, some thoughts, breathing, heartbeats, words being written right now, and that's it. I seriously can't see any I here. I can't even concieve of one. An I requires something permanent which it can exist within, but obviously there isn't anything permanent or impermanent here that I can find. Try to attach a rock to a raindrop, or try to claim ownership over a flash of lightning.


I think it's fine to put together some via-negativa formulation like that, no-I, etc. But that's meditative path again. Get rid of the “I,” as Wilber said, and you have a psychotic, not a sage. We want to see through the “I,” not totally get rid of it. We need it. It is crucial.

You needed to say “I” three times in the excerpt I quoted. There is an “I” there. Its relative existence is not permanent; it is transient. It is also in the upper-left quadrant; it cannot be seen empirically. But it can be “witnessed”; it can be seen rising and falling in one's awareness, and that is a startling moment. (1p, L/9, s/s,c) X (Q/UL, L/3, l/s)



Dawid: Maybe listening to some UG Krishnamurti would do your certain and reificationist mind some good, David. Or not.


Please don't listen to U. G. Krishnamurti, Dawid.  :) There might be some good in there—everybody's right—but he is a little irrational at times, a little nihilistic at times. Krishnamurti said he was “impossible.” Even Osho thought he was nuts, and Osho was nuts himself, so if Osho says he's nuts then he really must be nuts. :) Here is Osho on U. G. Krishnamurti:

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

That's interesting about “the gaze,” Rick. Doesn't it have to be backed up by threat of some kind of force to have any power? I suppose people can draw power in all sorts of ways. But I was thinking of the example of a sports stadium with guards watching—there is the threat of force. The connection between the gaze and that force is interesting, though.

Going back to your original point about rationality and power—as well as the point you often make about being able to construe information in various ways to make different arguments—it seems to me that when there is more than one rational choice, which one is chosen depends on power as much as anything else, often if not all the time.



Rick: No, he framed it as a causal agent, and it isn't.  It does not make men more violent, or sexual than women. It facilitates chemically, the neuro interactions that allow aggressive behavior to happen. Men are physically able to remain at heightened levels of aggression for longer periods of time than women.


That's an interesting distinction. What he said seems to have reflected the understanding prevalent at the time, however. I just happened to see this from a Newsweek article:

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

Yes, it does have to be backed up by actual force, but only at a meta level.  After generations of conditioning, the gaze alone often serves to dictate behavior.  A video camera doesn't have to work to keep people from stealing.

You are right that the hormone issue in male aggression, could easily be explained by the then current science. Explanatory theories are rarely hegemonic, but they can come very close.  Like I've said before: how long can the scientific community be wrong about something? A very long time.

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

It's interesting to consider some of the props that also go along with the gaze: a hat with an insignia, a white jacket, a uniform.

It makes sense about testosterone sustaining aggression. Pelle Billing wrote a blog last spring about testosterone and risk aversion:

Prior research has shown that testosterone enhances competitiveness and dominance, reduces fear, and is associated with risky behaviors like gambling and alcohol use. However, until now, the impact of testosterone on gender differences in financial risk-taking has not been explored.

The researchers, using an economic-based measure of risk aversion, found that higher levels of testosterone were associated with a greater appetite for risk in women, but not among men. However, in men and women with similar levels of testosterone, the gender difference in risk aversion disappeared. Additionally, the researchers reported that the link between risk aversion and testosterone predicted career choices after graduation: individuals who were high in testosterone and low in risk aversion chose riskier careers in finance.

A similar relationship between risk aversion and testosterone was also found using markers of prenatal testosterone exposure. [1]

Re: Reason vs New Age at dinner.

I'm familiar with that study. It is actually an on going research interest of that economics dept.  Unfortunately, economics has zero place in actual human behavior research, because they aren't trained to study human behavior outside simplified models.
Hormones, like most of human biology, is very plastic. It is assumed that hormone levels are causal in the relationship, but there is no evidence that they are both caused by other independent factors. It's very much an economics kind of thing to measure a single hormone and determine causality, but that's the kind of thing they do.