Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Wilber in the “Does Physics Prove God?” audio at Integral Naked:

Actual nondual Spirit is the suchness of everything that’s arising. It doesn’t cause anything to do anything. So it’s the actual isness or suchness or emptiness of every single thing, anywhere in the Kosmos, simultaneously. So pure emptiness leaves everything exactly the way it finds it. It doesn’t push or pull anything, because it’s not separate from anything. And one of the analogies is, you can talk about the ocean and its waves, and then there’s the wetness of the ocean and the wetness of the waves. And wetness is equally present in all the waves. A big wave is not wetter than a small wave. Nor does wetness cause one wave to do something and another wave to do anything else. Wetness is simultaneously all present in every single part of all the ocean at all times. Wetness does not give rise to the ocean, wetness is not the quantum potential…and so their fundamental mistake is to make Spirit a dualistic entity.


I don't think this could be any clearer. Wilber's Spirit or God “doesn't cause anything to do anything.” If we follow his analogy that Spirit is to arisings as wetness is to the ocean and its waves, we obviously wouldn't say that wetness gives rise to or causes oceanic life and the intelligence of dolphins. This is not what most people mean by God (I honestly don't know what most people mean by Spirit), and Wilber is quick to admit this in another Integral Naked discussion.

Nathaniel Branden asks Wilber to explain what he personally means by words like “Spirit” and “God.” After Wilber tells him, Branden says, “I don't think you would disagree, as ninety nine and nine tenths percentage of Westerners understand the concept of God, you are an atheist based on what you've just been saying.” And Wilber says, “In the spirit of what you mean by that, that's correct. Yes, yes.”

I think it would be silly to suggest that the God that ninety nine and nine tenths percentage of Westerners speak of is on the level of a “mythic-magical” Santa Claus type story. Suggesting that would imply that anyone who doesn't conceive of God as an ancient king with a long beard is at some higher level of evolution than most everyone else. There are lots of people who believe in God, who do not believe in a God that can be characterized as “magical-mythical,” and who unlike Wilber do not conceive of God as analogous to the wetness of the ocean or to emptiness.

Emptiness is not God, of course.

As Stephen Batchelor puts it, things do not “‘arise’ from emptiness and then ‘dissolve’ back into it, as if it was some kind of formless, cosmic stuff,” because the word “emptiness” as it's used in Tibetan Buddhism doesn't mean anything like that. 

In the book Essence of the Heart Sutra by the Dalai Lama, edited and translated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa, Wisdom Publications, 2002, the authors write:

It is important to clarify that we are not speaking of emptiness as some kind of absolute strata of reality, akin to, say, the ancient Indian concept of Brahman, which is conceived to be an underlying absolute reality from which the illusory world of multiplicity emerges. Emptiness is not a core reality, lying somehow at the heart of the universe, from which the diversity of phenomena arise. 


…emptiness – is not independent of form, but rather is a characteristic of form; emptiness is form's mode of being. One must understand form and its emptiness in unity; they are not two independent realities.


And in the Wisconsin Public Radio interview of Wilber by Steve Paulson the transcript of which was later published at Salon, Wilber says:

Part of it is that if we just take for example the notion of emptiness that we’ve been talking about, and one of the real kind of definitions of emptiness and one of the ways that it’s experienced is that it’s universally held to be strictly nondual. And nondual is a very very radical concept, ‘cause most people apply nondual only superficially, they don’t realize how deep it goes. And even people like Deepak Chopra do this. These are good people, I know that they’re just wonderful people, but I think they’re deeply confused here, and a lot of people agree with me. 


They want to say that there’s sort of the quantum field potential, and you’re right, the weirdness begins; but there’s the quantum field potential and that it gives rise to these manifest particles… … And so they want to say the quantum field potential, that’s emptiness, that’s the Absolute, and then when it gives rise to the manifest domain, that’s the relative world. So here in a sense we see a version of Spirit giving rise to the manifest world. But emptiness doesn’t mean that. Those are both dualistic concepts. They set up the fact that there is the non-local field and there’s a local event, there’s an unmanifest something, and then there’s a manifest something. Those are both dualistic concepts. 


Emptiness is neither of those, nor both of those, nor neither and both combined, and so on. They’re very very clear; it’s not any dualistic concept. All of these things, The Tao of Physics and so on, are all trying to take unqualifiable emptiness and give it a quality. It’s categorically wrong in a really profound way.


In a post in the Wilber and the Evolution Problem Part 2 thread, Balder writes that Wilber “calls his story of involutionary, creative Spirit a 'useful myth,' so he acknowledges its mythological nature and seeks to maintain it 'outside' of the demands of a strict post-metaphysical or emprical-scientific perspective.”

I think that also applies to the I-Thou relationship to God or Spirit that Wilber calls “God-in-2nd-person.” I would call that a useful myth or a useful story, a story that many find deep meaning in and which I myself have found deep, profound meaning and sustenance in at times and may again (I never close my options on that one). But I don't consider the I-Thou or “2nd-person” God a metaphysical notion at all, and therefore I think it would be silly for anyone to try to support or undermine it with reason, argument, and evidence.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Jim, to begin this thread seeing somewhat eye to eye, could you say what you mean by 'metaphysical' in your final paragraph?

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Tom, Good question. When I use the terms “metaphyscial” and “post-metaphyhsical” at this pod, I use them in what I think is the sense in which Wilber uses them. This is an example of what he apparently means by “metaphysical” and “post-metaphysical”:

For example, we saw that the traditions often conceived the planes of reality as being the terrestrial, the intermediate, the celestial, and the infinite. These were usually believed to be actual territories existing “out there,” populated with mythic beings walking around and talking and having experiences on a different type of actual, concrete territory. The Buddhist “six realms of existence,” for example, are clearly of this nature. They are said to be actual places inhabited by hungry ghosts, titans, animals, demigods, angels, and so on. Now, when modern Buddhist teachers look at those realms, they almost always interpret them as actually referring to six major psychological states that humans can experience. Trungpa Rinpoche does this, for example, in his many books. He says that the hungry ghost realm actually means states of psychological jealously and envy. The titan realm actually means states of egoic inflation and narcissism. The god realm actually means states of meditative bliss, and so on. Well, that is exactly a switch from metaphysical to critical—a switch from postulating these realms as separate ontological realities that can be known only by speculation, to seeing these realms as actually being structures of the perceiving subject—that is, as being psychological states of being that can be directly known and experienced by a shift in consciousness—and therefore directly investigated by a phenomenological science (or deep science) of shared introspection and confirmed by a reconstructive science of those who have demonstrated competence in those consciousness shifts. Thus, some of the major tenets or ideas of the great wisdom traditions can still be generally valid, but only if they are reconstructed along modern and postmodern lines, just as Trungpa and so many other sophisticated present-day teachers (in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.) are already doing. My work is simply giving a philosophical foundation and methodology for doing so—for moving from a metaphysical to a critical, postmetaphysical, and more integral spirituality.


So when in my last paragraph I say that I don't consider the I-Thou or “2nd-person” God a metaphysical notion,' I mean that I do consider it a psychological notion (“structures of the perceiving subject”), and do not conceive of “God-in-2nd-person” in the sense in which Wilber refers when he talks about the “metaphysical” sense of Buddhist realms as being “'out there,'” etc. Also, in retrospect I should've put scare quotes around “metaphysical” in my last paragraph to indicate that I was using the term in Wilber's somewhat idiosyncratic way.

What Wilber apparently means by “out there” is what analytic philosophers call “mind-independent.” Wilber's “2nd-person” God sounds quite a bit like Jung's notion of God. Richard Dawkins cites Jung in The God Delusion as a “strong believer” because Jung famously said on BBC radio when asked if he believes in God that “I don't believe, I know.” What Dawkins (and his editors) apparently didn't know when he wrote that is that Jung was explicit that he could only speak of God in a “post-Kantian” sense, in which he can say that he knows God as an archetype in the psyche and  beyond that cannot say.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Jim,
Thanks for the first paragraph…I didn't read any further because it compelled me to jump in before the punch line which I am sure lurks a little ways down below…but, I get a kick out of Wilber and his wetness of the ocean analogy because it shows what can happen if one just runs off at the mouth without a lot of thought. The ocean is such a superb archetype that sometime it demands one do so and we all can see by now that Wilber is such a sucker for the unexamined archetype and his working knowledge of phenomenology extends no farther than you and I could throw the man.

This from an old blog post (slightly enhanced):

“The presence of God (a.k.a. Spirit) in The All of Everything is like the wetness of the ocean.—This is the essence of Ken Wilber’s testimony in Jim Chamberlain’s essay, “Whither Ken Wilber” recent on the Integral World site. Ever since I rode into Integral Province (to see how the civilian population handled the Wholeness Perspective–the object of my fascination) I have wondered why the language here rarely corresponds with something one can touch with their hands, that one can sense. But in that brief disquisition on God, Wetness, and the Ocean I finally got what I had wanted, so I am satisfied to a point. I suspect it is as good as one will get around The Province where there is little considered analysis of the manifest and sense-able. I spend a sizable portion of my time in the sense-able consideration of the manifest and manifesting so while Chamberlain and probably most others in The Province rolled without a second thought across the analogy, immediately my instincts said, “wrong.” The ocean in and of itself isn’t wet. (Enhancement: If I am out on the briny deep (A) with a cup of water (B) in my hand and a wave of whatever size sweeps under my dinghy and I throw B into A…does A wet B, or does B wet A? Neither.)  But if I touch A with my hand, my hand gets wet because my hand is not the ocean. I could guess that the obverse of this is that the surface of the ocean that engages with my hand becomes something of myself that the ocean isn’t, but I won’t; the transitory quality of the ocean in this instance is of no consequence because the ocean is not the measure of anything, nor is wetness, nor is God, while man, as the man said, is the measure of it all.

“From the sensual perspective on the ocean analogy the nature of Wilber’s God/Spirit descends to something of a dualistic presence instead of retaining the non-dual “universalist grandure” (Richard Rorty’s phrase) that Wilber wanted to imply with the image. But that is not the point here. Wilber can harbor his God anywhere he wants, fashion It any way he wants; it is after all his creation. Likewise I see no problem with him retaining the detachment from the apparently solid Here and Now that subverts his efforts to write something about it that is as considered and effective as what a sensualist would write of the same thing. This lack of consideration, however, makes for a comic lop-sided and ineffective imperialist movement, if an expanding sphere of influence is what the civilians of the Integral Province really want; a lack that will keep maintaining this territory as a faltering little isolationist district like…I don’t know–Paraguay?”

Thanks for the use of the soap box. I'll be reading on as soon as I post this.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

You untranscended dualistic point-oner you, Steven, would ya get with the wetsuit program?

Listen, I had a shower last night—first one in eight days given my recent romp with the cougars (these kind)—and during it, I felt *so wet.*  It was amazing, I mean, I felt so such, you know?  Then I started speaking in tongues to the Holy Holon Non Dual Ain't This Nor That You F***ing Moron-Point-Oner pie in the sky, then ate the whole thing.  What a rush.  Man, I'm goin' back for more cougars.

So as I crawled into bed, my partner asked, “What were you bellowing in the shower?  Sounded Paraguayan.”

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Tom,

You've got to tell us this cougar story! It will have to be the first non-recycled text this pod has seen in the last four months.

P.S. Tom, that gets my vote for Post of the Year. One good vote deserves another.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

I agree with Steven…

Tom, you must post a seperate blog of your Cougar escapades!  With pics and all…

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Tom, I think I kinda get what Steven is saying…when you took a shower, YOU got wet…water can't get wet cause water is wet…we can't get awareness, we are awareness kinda thing…

Now when you got wet, did you take the wet out of water?  
LOL…thank all of you for a very stimulating converstation…*

HOLY SH*T!!!  Did I just agree with KW?  I thought I was understanding what Steven was saying, but maybe not…LOL…more contemplation is needed…*

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Eating the whole Pie in One Taste and resting in the non-dual Wetness as the supreme practice. I'll go along with that.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

One Wet Taste

sounds like a good T-shirt…lol

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Steven, I remember reading the old blog post way back when. I'll read it again when I get a chance. (My son-in-law's doing something with my laptop now and tomorrow I'll be driving all day.)

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Jim,

Two things:

First, you wrote: What Dawkins (and his editors) apparently didn't know when he wrote that is that Jung was explicit that he could only speak of God in a “post-Kantian” sense, in which he can say that he knows God as an archetype in the psyche and  beyond that cannot say.

There are the same misunderstandings re: The Tao as there are about Emptiness. It is easy to read the first chapter of the Tao te Ching and think there is a something out there that is the passive womb for the mating of Yang and Yin that produces the manifestation of all we can behold. “The One creates the two which create the 10,000 things”…sort of simplistic ontology. The sages that wrote this stuff knew a whole lot better then that…or at least we like to think they did. But if we are wrong on that count it doesn't matter because they are all dead and we are alive, so what we say now counts for everything. The past, as Carl Sandburg wrote, “is a bucket of ashes”…and we will burn our own fuel to ashes as we see fit today.

The Tao, for all our intents and purposes, is that which lies beyond the boundary of our current understanding and that is why it cannot be named…grammar school logic. It is the same as Derrida's “Other” and it is not the illusionary, empty quantum field womb that sits beyond the scan of Hubble just like Heaven. Now there are those who wish to entertain themselves with endless debates on what this dead Chinese fellow said about that dead Indian's point of view and vice versa, and if they can make a living out of this type of show biz, all the more power to them. It is irrelevant to me. Nagarjuna is dead. We are not,  so we can play without him.

Second, you wrote: I remember reading the old blog post way back when. I'll read it again when I get a chance.

Thanks, but it is probably not all that necessary or informative. The two paragraphs quoted above are the only two that relate even tangentially to this thread. The rest are concerned with the fact that until Bruce introduced Francisco Verela here to Balderville the Integral Province was the least sensual and the most bloodless territory on the map. At least now we have some cerebral embodiment that, although not embodied embodiment, is better than the previous levels of abject dessication.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Steven.

Yeah, “Tao” and “Emptiness”* have become empty buzzwords (e.g., those books with titles like “The Tao of This” and “The Tao of That”), used by many to elicit some emotional response in readers that has nothing to do with how these terms were used by those from whom they've been appropriated.

*”Shunyata (emptiness) is rendered into English as ‘the Void’ by translators who overlook the fact that the term is neither prefixed by a definite article (’the’) nor exalted with a capital letter, both of which are absent in classical Asian languages. From here it is only a hop, skip, and a jump to equating emptiness with such metaphysical notions as ‘he Absolute’ ‘the Truth’, or even ‘God’. The notion of emptiness falls prey to the very habit of mind it was intended to undermine.” - Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs, 1997

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

there seems to be as many definitions concerning these concepts as there are books written about them, or maybe even people that believe…

how can anything be absolute?  

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Emptiness refers to the essence of all things,  would this not also include, God, Brahman, Allah, Buddha, Christ, Spirit, You, Me, Universe, etc…?

But not necessarily be those things in the Absolute since?

just some thoughts…trying to re-establish this concept from that one again…lol

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Star.

Because emptiness is an ambiguous term, I should've specified that when I quoted Batchelor, I was referring to Nagarjuna's emptiness, which today is the emptiness of the Tibetan Buddhist Middle Way School to which the current Dalai Lama belongs.

In that school a distinction is made between conceptual understanding of emptiness and non-conceptual realization of emptiness, and it is said in that school that non-conceptual realization of emptiness is impossible unless it is preceded by correct conceptual understanding of emptiness.

There are of course other schools, movements, and individuals who use the word emptiness or “Emptiness” in ways that have little or nothing to do with the Nagarjunian/Middle Way School use of the term. In that school, emptiness most definitely does not refer to any kind of “essence,” but that is just that school and again, I should've been specific about that when I started tossing the term around here.

~ Jim

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

And of course even within Tibetan Pransangika Madhyamaka there is disagreement between correct conceptual understanding and its relation to nonconceptual realization. See for example the references to The Two Truths Debate in the “letting daylight into magic” thread, and how this debate plays out even today in the Wilber v. Batchelor notions and practice of emptiness.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hey Jim,
Reading back I think I want to amend what I said about “simplistic ontology” in my previous post re: The One that creates the Two which create the 10,000 Things.

If we translate through the typical Taoist cryptograms, we can say “The One” (a sly attempt to name the Tao) is that which lies beyond understanding–it can be as large as beyond the universe or smaller than a grain of Yangzi sand. But the fact that this something is at least thought to exist–a something beyond the veil at the edge of understanding has always existed as an almost fatally compelling lure to two species: cats and human beings. And the premise is that through the play of Life and Essence (yang and yin respectively), or Heaven and Earth (yang and yin respectively) or any other pairing of the Two (code words for pushing forward but being alway receptive) both species nibble away at the One (which in reference to Yeats cannot increase–or decrease–an ounce or an inch) and the crumbs of our two-species-feast are the 10,000 things that we like to think we understand.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Interpreting Wilbee. Turn common sense upside down, then tell eveyone that they are missing the point.

In other words. start from the so-called universal perspective. In the beginning everything was one, then it became many, and now we are crawling back to everything. (You don't say).

So if you get the drift. then everything is in actuality just the big “one”. (At this point you just call the Universe = God).

Wilber is not going to claim this perspective of course (too ego-ridden) , but those enlightenment beings did, whether they were realized it or not.

But who in reality can really take that perspecitve?  God?

But the key here is to just turn common sense on its head. Then claim something. Enlightment?

It's the universal stupid . Get it?

Gaddy



   

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Now from this perspective you can find out who you are? And back to the ancient Greeks we go.

Is man by nature communal or independent? And now it sounds some what political. Does the universal make sense or is it nothing more than man's desire for community when it doesn't exist? (Athens or Greeks?).

In other words, the religious message has always been, “please be a universal community and seek peace”. But man seems to reject that. In other words, it never quite happens.

But saying everything is universal doesn't make it happen. Actually it doesn't make anything happen.

Nor does Wilber show this in his real life. IMO, he seems like an independent guy who would like there to be a universal family but not an individual one. Kids? Are you kidding?   

I think the universal takes more than talk or meditation. ;-).

Gaddy  

      

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

As the ancient Roman Sage Cicero saw it, we are independent beings who have joined together for no other reason than personal protection and for the reason that two heads are better than one. Otherwise we'd be by ourselves or with our own families.

Like Confucius said, we gather due to reciprocity. Tit or tat - or do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In other words, there is NO universal solution. That is for religious visionaries only. Who see a universe were none exists. As K used to say, the mischief makers.

And the political battle goes on and on with man thinking he's a communal being when he is not. Such foolishness.

Gaddy     


   

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Tit or tat - or do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Also known as karma.

Gotta go, off to do my weekly status reports.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

…never mind, I'm gonna let it slide again.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hey Gadfly, going back to the ancient greeks might not be all bad…lol…I wanted to tie this in with my post about God being Spirit manifested thru matter…so thnx for giving me the perfect opportunity…

The truly ancient greek did not separate spirit from matter.  In fact, they did not even have a word for matter.  Their word 'physis' meant the essential nature of all things, which included matter.  This word physis is also where our word (and many of the ideas behind it) physics comes from…

In sixth century B.C., science, philosophy and religion were not separated.  The Milesians, were called 'hylozoists', or 'those that think matter is alive', b/c they saw no distinction between animate and inanimate, spirit and matter.  Thales saw the universe as a kind of organism which was supported by 'pneuma', the cosmic breath, in the same way as the human body is supported by air…

All this info was gleamed from Tao of Physics.  It would not let me post it directly, but here is the link.

I find all this fascinating!  I agree that it takes integrating the talk and meditation into our living experience, but we all are doing that at some level…and probably the best we can…even KW…lol…joy*

Dang!!!  seems it did post…lol

If physics leads us today to a world view which is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning, 2,500 years ago. It is interesting to follow the evolution of Western science along its spiral path, starting from the mystical philosophies of the early Greeks, rising and unfolding in an impressive development of intellectual thought that increasingly turned away from its mystical origins to develop a world view which is in sharp contrast to that of the Far East In its most recent stages, Western science is finally overcoming this view and coming back to those of the early Greek and the Eastern philosophies. This time, however, it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.

The roots of physics, as of all Western science, are to be found in the first period of Greek philosophy in the sixth century B.C., in a culture where science, philosophy and religion were not separated. The sages of the Milesian school in Ionia were not concerned with such distinctions. Their aim was to discover the essential nature, or real constitution, of things which they called 'physis'. The term 'physics' is derived from this Greek word and meant therefore, originally, the endeavour of seeing the essential nature of all things.

This, of course, is also the central aim of all mystics, and the philosophy of the Milesian school did indeed have a strong mystical flavour. The Milesians were called 'hylozoists', or 'those who think matter is alive', by the later Greeks, because they saw no distinction between animate and inanimate, spirit end matter. In fact, they did not even have a word for matter,since they saw all forms of existence as manifestations of the 'physis', endowed with life and spirituality. Thus Thales declared all things to be full of gods and Anaximander saw the universe as a kind of organism which was supported by 'pneuma', the cosmic breath, in the same way as the human body is supported by air.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Jim,

The first time I read that post (the first one) I was happy to see that Wilber isn't equating “spirit” with a crude form of Fichtean presence or a Platonic source.

Then I remembered all the time I've heard him say things like “rest in awareness.”  But if spirit/awareness/God/ect. is emptiness, or the suchness of reality, then how exactly can one rest in it?  If that analysis is correct – and personally I think suchness is the only to make sense of words like “God” – then we are just as much “resting” in suchness when brushing our teeth in the morning whilst still half-asleep as we are during an especially lucid and potent meditational experience.

What are your thoughts on this, because Wilber's language is still as confusing to me as ever.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Then I remembered all the time I've heard him say things like “rest in awareness.”  But if spirit/awareness/God/ect. is emptiness, or the suchness of reality, then how exactly can one rest in it?

I know this isn't addressed to me, but I see your confusion as being state related.  When I hear “rest in awareness” it evokes the practice of being (meditation), which in its purest formless form is the suchness of nondual awareness.  That which is said above to leave everything the way it is.  It doesn't push or pull anything because it is not separate from anything.  So even though nondual suchness is a staple of reality (always present), a person's own awareness is not necessarily consciously engaged with it.

Again, this only where I see your confusion in what's being said.  I'm not an expert nor am I necessarily pointing to my own views here.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi infimitas,

Wilber does contradict himself on this. For example, he says in reference to “nondual awareness”:

“No entering this state, no leaving it.”

and

“My EEG readings now indicate that I've entered this state.”

Peter Fenner tells an interviewer:

“The experience [of nondual awareness or One Taste or whatever term one might prefer] has no structure, so it can’t come and go. But, for me this experience does arise and then cease. This is the paradox.”

My preferred way of resolving this paradox - if that's what it is - is to make the kind of distinction Wilber (unintentionally?) makes in A Brief History of Everything when he writes:

“Same with the Nondual condition of One Taste. You are looking right at it, right now. Every single bit of the Nondual condition is fully in your awareness right now. All of it. Not most of it, but absolutely all of it is in your awareness right now. You just don't recognize it. So somebody comes along and points it out, and you slap your head - Yes, of course, I was looking right at it all along.”

The distinction that Wilber is making here, intentionally or not, is between x being “fully in your awareness right now” and recognizing that x is fully in your awareness right now. I would refine this to say that x is always already the case regardless of whether there are potential recognizers around, and sometimes potential recognizers recognize x.

Wilber told science writer John Horgan several years ago that if the only life in the universe is on Earth and all life on Earth is wiped out, Spirit would still exist. Following that, I think Wilber would have to distinguish between Spirit as that which is always already they case, and recognition of or “resting in” Spirit, which can only be the case when there are potential recognizers (or realizers or resters or abiders) like us around.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Jim,

Actually, this “resolution” of the “paradox” can be found already in Madhyamika, Yogachara, Advaita Vedanta, and Kashmiri Shaiva writings. Wilber appears to be making use of it here, referring to it. T.R.V. Murti also makes use of the idea, in a half-hearted manner, when he says that in Madhyamika enlightenment “the change is epistemic not ontological.”

The “useful myth” idea is related to the former notion, and it goes back to the distinction between “metaphoric” language and literal language (nitartha/neyartha) used by these same traditions to systematize, rank, and “harmonize” disparate teachings. Shankara, at several points in his writings, says, following the Gaudapada Garika, that teachings concerning creation and emanation are merely propaedeutic (avatarana) and for beginning or not-so-swift students. And yet, he is required by tradition to acknowledge the truth of creation, or emanation, since that was one of the cornerstones of the Vedanta teaching, one of the central issues that distinguished it from the Samkhya, viz., that the world is created from intelligent “spirit.” Wilber seems to be stuck in the same dilemma as Shankara: he wants to acknowledge the teachings of perennialism, Hegelianism, etc., and yet has an allegiance to the more “radical” teachings of Advaita and the Mahayana schools in which there is no real creation; the issue is made even more complex by his (attempted) acknowledgement of post-modernism and the search for the perfect bread machine recipe.

The two issues — creation and its reverse, enlightenment — are related since in the teachings, change, 'real' change, belongs to the domain of samsara, so there can be no “real” change, either in terms of creation, or in terms of “entering” the “enlightened” state. At several points in his writings, Shankara says that moksha is not “becoming one” with brahman; nor is the path in any sense a “going” to brahman. It can only be “always-already” (nitya). The entire “paradox” of enlightenment arises from the need for the sage to be modelled upon the absolute: there can be no real change in the absolute, therefore there can be no 'real' change in the sage, since he is 'one' with the absolute. To admit that there is real change in the sage, is to admit that he is not one with the absolute, and Andrew Cohen would be loath to admit that.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Kela, Thanks. I remember reading a hard copy essay on Shankara's philosophy that pointed out some problem with his attempt to deal with the “dilemma” you refer to concerning creation.

I didn't think my “resolution” was new. I just wanted to suggest a way to demystify what Fenner et al consider a paradox. Jane is always already one or nondual with Spirit but doesn't recognize it. Maria is one with Spirit and recognizes it. What difference that makes I don't know. Maria will never need antidepressants? She's fundamentally happier in a way that makes a tangible difference in her life? She's a better lover than Jane? A better driver? A better parent, friend, gardener, swimmer, salesperson, or Mahjong player? She has a better long- and short-term memory?

I'm not being cynical (or kynical, well maybe I am being kynical in that I'm just playing). I'm just wondering aloud how people who speak in terms of “nondual realization” conceive of the difference between someone who recognizes their always already oneness or nonduality with Spirit and someone who doesn't. Is it like James's conversion, and if so, what happens when the honeymoon is over or the high wears off or becomes one's normal condition?

In other words, what does it mean to reach the stage that the final Zen oxherding picture is meant to depict? Wilber has equated “the return to the marketplace” with “embrace the Many as the One,” and he has suggested that this is a condition of 24/7 “constant consciousness” or lucidity “through waking, dreaming, and deep dreamless sleep,” and he has said that there are “right-hand quadrant correlates” (i.e., neural correlates) for this. Others, such as Zen teacher Barry Magid, will have none of that, suggesting instead that there is literally “no trace” (or “stink”) of enlightenment to be found in one who has “returned to the marketplace.”

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Gee, if I can interject here, I think the real Buddha, that Gotama guy, meant that One Taste (like tasting salt in the ocean - and maybe an alluding to the Upanisads - who knows?)  was the harmony between his “dharma” and one's behavior (discipline = Sangha). It was not enough to grasp the intent or the philosophy but one had to live it.

Now one can call this non-dual if they want but I don't recall the Sutta's making a big issue of that but maybe they did.

But I think the later dudes made a big deal of this and ran off with the horses.

In other words the real challenge is living the moral and ethical life. To say we have to see or experience something really really deep and complicated maybe the work of later scholastic Monks (with not enough to do) and those who wanted to grasp something that only they understood and could possess. Me me me.         

Methinks the non-dual challenge may be a goal impossible to actually achieve except by those who rationalize it a/o just claim it and turn what's supposed to be a universal message into something held by only a few and which has more to do with power than than any integration.

Gaddy       

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Wilber:  Actual nondual Spirit is the suchness of everything that’s arising. It doesn’t cause anything to do anything. So it’s the actual isness or suchness or emptiness of every single thing, anywhere in the Kosmos, simultaneously. So pure emptiness leaves everything exactly the way it finds it. It doesn’t push or pull anything, because it’s not separate from anything. And one of the analogies is, you can talk about the ocean and its waves, and then there’s the wetness of the ocean and the wetness of the waves. And wetness is equally present in all the waves. A big wave is not wetter than a small wave. Nor does wetness cause one wave to do something and another wave to do anything else. Wetness is simultaneously all present in every single part of all the ocean at all times. Wetness does not give rise to the ocean, wetness is not the quantum potential…and so their fundamental mistake is to make Spirit a dualistic entity.

So wetness is God, huh. I JUST KNEW WILBER WAS AN IDOLATOR!

This is his analogy of the omnipresence of Spirit or God. Its all right, but hardly earth shattering.

I do appreciate this post of Jim’s because I always question people when they through around words like God and Spirit, and want to know what is there definition of those commonly used terms.

This concept of emptiness is also interesting to me. People through it around so much. Ask ourselves what this is pertinent to, and all we may get is that it is a metaphysical term relating to the non dual.

I personally think this definition, even if it is true, is irrelevant, because the important thing is that it, if it has value, has to relate to issues of life and the path.

Therefore I question the common understanding of non dual, and emptiness being thrown around like God and Spirit.

These concepts to me have to relate to the inner being in order to have any real importance.
Non dual means in this sense that God is everything

Hallaj’s “I am truth” Or the understanding that the “ devil” is as relevant to God as any Angel.
　
Emptiness is relative to this aphorism

“Blessing only descend on the empty house ”

That consciousness that expels conditioning, dogma and indoctrination is an emptiness that Buddha could relate to.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Zak…is it not more logical to say that  God is manifest in Man through the Spirit?  How can you disconnect them?  Would it not be much like trying to say Awareness could survive without the Body?  Or that the Body could survive without the Life Force/Spirit, that connects Mind to Body?

You speak of Spirit not moving, then you make an analogy to ocean and waves…but we know, in this reality…waves move…yes?  So does Spirit/energy…

It's like saying the Big Bang could of happened without the energy it took to manifest it, or without the black/hole nothingness that was it's womb…in a sense God was the womb…Spirit gave birth/feminine…to humanity and earth…”In God we move and have our Being.” Acts 17:28 or, in Emptiness Form Dances…or Awareness awakens within Consciousness…

It is like trying to say that any one of the trinity could stand alone…that is not logical and what continues to get us into trouble and confounds our lack of understanding concerning an Emptiness that Dances into Form…or an Awareness whose energy reflects as matter…they are not seperate…Samsara IS Nirvana…

Maybe we could consider that it is Consciousness/God evolving/creating (by Spirit which holds all possibility yet to be realized due to lack of brain structure) Awareness/Human…just b/c science/physics cannot measure the component (Spirit) that holds all potential and possibility does not mean that it does not exist…we know it does b/c we live…*

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Starlight dear, I apologize, I didnt format my post propely. The above paragraph is not my words, but I think Wilbers. I was quoting that to respond to it. All the wave stuff is Wilbers words.
My words at the bottom of the quote are:
“So wetness is God, huh. I JUST KNEW WILBER WAS AN IDOLATOR!”
The rest is my commentary on the above quote that starts with:
“Actual nondual Spirit is the suchness of everything that’s arising…
I agree with what you wrote regarding the spirit

 

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

I just edited it for you, Z, to make it clearer which words are Wilber's.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

OK…cool…

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Jim, I must admit to some lack of clarity on my part regarding Wilber's position on this.  I agree that the passages you quoted seem pretty clear, but elsewhere he seems to contradict them.  For instance, while Wilber says in the quote above that Emptiness or Spirit doesn't do anything – it is just the isness or suchness of everything – he does use more active, agentic language in other places.

For instance, from this note to his online Excerpts, he says the following:

“As Spirit throws itself outward (that's called involution) to create this particular universe with this particular Big Bang, it leaves traces or echoes of its Kosmic exhalation….”

“Eros basically is derived from one fact: Spirit creates the entire manifest world and every holon in it; in fact, every holon is Spirit-in-itself playing at being Other (e.g., the great nest of morphogenetic potential often summarized as matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit is actually Spirit-as-matter, Spirit-as-body, Spirit-as-mind, Spirit-as-soul, and Spirit-as-spirit)…  At some point in this spiral of development and evolution, a holon becomes complex enough, differentiated-and-integrated enough, conscious enough, that it can begin to awaken to its ever-present Ground, even as the finite display continues on its agitated round of unifications. In that holon, Spirit then continues its play of manifestation, but now as a conscious, felt, vividly present Presence, a ray of infinity hooking out from that holon on the world that it created.”

 

[…] then one among the necessary routes [for realizing Ayin or Emptiness] is to take up a concentrative form of meditation and learn to be able to keep [one's] mind focused unwaveringly on an object for at least 30 minutes. […] Once [one] can do that […] then [one] need[s] to look in an unbroken fashion at the nature of phenomenal reality as it arises moment to moment and see if there is, as directly seen or cognized in [one's] own consciousness, anything that appears to be an empty ground to all of them. And then [one] need[s] to compare this reality with [one's] ordinary state of consciousness and decide which seems more real. Although exact numbers are hard to come by, a clear majority of those who complete this experiment report that the signifier Ayin or Emptiness has a real referent as disclosed by injunctive paradigm. That is, those who are qualified to make the judgment agree that it can be said that, among other things, Spirit(!) [the (!) signifies that we are dealing with an injunctive statement about Spirit] is a vast infinite Abyss or Emptiness(1-p, S/c) [i.e. which is experienced through first-person perspective in a causal state], out of which all things arise.

Put bluntly, even the staggering genius of these great pioneers could not escape their own cultural embeddedness enough to see that much of what they called “universal pregiven levels of being” were actually particular, socially constructed surface features. That is, most of what they ascribed to involutionary givens were really evolutionary inheritances. Not forms eternally given by Spirit on its way to material manifestation, but inherited forms of past manifestation on its return to Spirit. This is why we are attempting to construct a post-metaphysical, post-postmodern spirituality that honors the essentials of these masters, while setting them in a context more adequate to today's self-understanding (i.e., the form of Spirit's self-prehension at this particular wave of its own playful unfolding).
      Still, these blindingly brilliant, philosophical avatars of Eros saw one, overwhelming, awe-inducing fact: Spirit is your own Original Face. It is not something that is socially constructed, or that is created for the first time when you happen to stumble on it, or that pops out at the end of a temporal sequence, or that is nothing but some sort of Omega that can only be realized at the end of the universe. Spirit is your own ever-present, radically all-inclusive, always-already-the-case reality, which is why some notion of involution, or return to a Spirit that was never lost, is an inescapable part of the theoria of every great philosopher-sage, bar none. There is one, staggering, screamingly undeniable involutionary given: the ever-present Ground of all grounds, Nature of all natures, Condition of all conditions….

COHEN: Most of the people who are either teaching or interested in enlightenment these days are still working with the static nondual model. They may have some experience of the ground of being, which has had a big transformative impact on them, but they rarely have any sense of the evolutionary dynamic you've been speaking about. And then there are a whole bunch of folks who are very excited about evolution. I've noticed that people who awaken to the deep-time, developmental context also experience a kind of spiritual awakening. They awaken to the evolutionary context and it's like a religious experience. But one without the other is not the whole picture because often the people who are very much on fire with evolution are not grounded in the realization of emptiness.

WILBER: That's right.
 
COHEN: And therefore the expression or the manifestation of their understanding is lacking the already free perspective, even though the ecstatic urgency of evolution, and the promise of it, is living through them in a very powerful way. But ultimately if enlightenment and evolution are not balancing each other, it's not a whole or integral picture.
 
WILBER: Yes, I agree entirely. And it really does tend to be one or the other. Those who have an understanding of ground, because they've often gotten it through a traditional path that doesn't have an understanding of evolutionary manifestation, are taught to express their realization in rather static forms—oneness with nature as is, or oneness with the now moment—all of which is fine. But it's really not an up-to-date version of what that satori could be. And so they tend not to get stages, and they don't get the evolutionary unfolding. It's a “one taste,” but it's a very static kind of one taste.

And then, on the other hand, if people get the evolutionary unfolding, they usually haven't had that experience of prior emptiness or of the unborn or the changeless ground. And because of that, they tie their realization to an evolutionary stage. “I have to be at this stage; then I can realize.” And that's not it at all, because that ever-present state is ever present, and you can have that realization virtually at any point. But in order to stabilize and ground it, you do indeed have to then grow and develop. So they just understand the evolutionary side of form, and the other folks tend to have the emptiness understood, but very rarely do you get emptiness together with evolutionary form.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Whew, wow, I got through all that Wilber in one sitting (“blindingly brilliant, philosophical avatars of Eros” and all), and I agree with you, Bruce.  And speaking of Wilber's metaphysical representationalism, this statement of his emits some light:

Emptiness has a real referent  …

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

ditto!  LOL…concerning reading KW…but I loved your input Bruce and the way you clarify and expand on KW's view…*

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Wilber The Edited:

Put bluntly, even the staggering genius of  [T]hese great pioneers could not escape their own evidence a certain cultural development embeddedness enough to see that much of in what they called “universal pregiven levels of being” were actually particular, socially constructed surface features. That is, most of what they ascribed to involutionary givens were really evolutionary inheritances. Not forms eternally given by Spirit on its way to material manifestation, but inherited forms of past manifestation on its return to Spirit. This is why [W]e are attempting to construct a post-metaphysical, post-postmodern spirituality that honors the essentials of these early theoreticians masters, while setting them in a context more adequate to today's self-understanding (i.e., the form of Spirit's self-prehension at this particular wave of its own playful unfolding).
      Still, these blindingly brilliant, philosophical avatars of Eros saw one, overwhelming, awe-inducing fact: Spirit is your own Original Face. It is not something that is socially constructed, or that is created for the first time when you happen to stumble on it, or that pops out at the end of a temporal sequence, or that is nothing but some sort of Omega that can only be realized at the end of the universe. Spirit is your own ever-present, radically all-inclusive, always-already-the-case reality, which is why some notion of involution, or return to a Spirit that was never lost, is an inescapable part of the theoria of every great philosopher-sage, bar none. There is one, staggering, screamingly undeniable involutionary given: the ever-present Ground of all grounds, Nature of all natures, Condition of all conditions….

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Bruce said…”It seems to me that the argument in both of these passages – that there is a non-contextual, non-historical Ground of Being that can be directly and immediately contacted, as it is, in its unchanging and ever-present Suchness, at all levels of development – is essentially a metaphysical claim, and exactly the sort of claim that postmodernism critiqued as 'the philosophy of the subject.' 

Does anyone disagree with this?”  


I don't disagree that the experience of this ever-present Suchness is a metaphysical experience simple b/c it is 'felt' and there is nothing tangible to put your hands on and say 'this is it'…but can we not also 'claim' that our experiences of the tangible or matter are metaphysically based?  It doesn't make them any less real, tempory, tangible or not.  I am interested in knowing what is meant by what you stated after, about postmodernism critique 'the philosophy of the subject'. I am not familiar with that.  *


 

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Star, the philosophy of the subject is related to what Wilfred Sellars described as the 'myth of the given.'  Wilber and Andrew Cohen talk about it here, which would probably be a good place to start.  Wilber recognizes the problem, and has tried to update his model in response to it, but it seems there are places where it still persists.  We also have a number of threads on this forum which discuss 'the myth of the given' and the 'philosophy of the subject,' from various angles.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

thnx Bruce, enjoyed reading it, but they need to 'holla' at TT…lol

btw,  I would prefer to hear 'your' explaination, esp. b/c I know it will be colored with your own visional tsk tinges…I can't wait till you have the time to do that…*

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Star:
“but can we not also 'claim' that our experiences of the tangible or matter are metaphysically based?”
“…does not post-metaphysical include metaphysical as well?”

I like this line of questioning.

To the extent that our experiences are mediated by conceptual schema, they are “metaphysically based,” and to the extent that post-modernism acknowledges this, the “post-metaphysical includes the metaphysical.”

Here's my take. Each tradition has a metaphysical superstructure attached to it. Think, for example, of the metaphysical premises offered in various sutras of the Yoga Sutra, “purusha is the nature of pure cit,” etc. The metaphysical superstructure underpins the teaching associated with a tradition, it informs the practice, and influences the interpretation, if not the actual structure, of experiences that can be obtained by practising a particular tradition. Traditionally, metaphysics and cosmology were not meant to be studied on their own in an antiseptic merely academic manner. One lived one's life in accordance with a teaching that was informed by a particular metaphysic; to this extent metaphysics and ethos were connected.

The question is the extent to which this is possible today in this post-modern world.

But to get back to a line of interpretation we were exploring in the “re-embracing magic” thread, or whatever it was, the attempt to purge all metaphysics strikes me as a very modern pose. Shouldn't metaphysics, here interpreted as the conceptual scheme underpinning or associated with a teaching, be acknowledged? To be honest, I am of two minds here, as I said in the magic thread. But Star has got me thinkin' on this again.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

glad to be of service!  lol…*

in my experience, any experience that does not include the 'magic of the real' is a very restricted experience indeed!

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Balder.

Wilber does seem to make contradictory statements, and I think this may be due to his tendency to use ambiguous language. Surely he's aware that unless one takes a lot of poetic license with the term “emptiness” as it's used in the Tibetan Buddhist Middle Way School, there is just no way it can be equated with any kind of metaphysical ground out of which things arise, and no way it can be used synonymously with “the Self,” “Spirit,” “God,” “Brahman,” etc. But Wilber often if not typically does take a lot of poetic license.

I started this thread after reading the comment you made to Zak that I quote in my/the first post in this thread. You say that Wilber “calls his story of involutionary, creative Spirit a 'useful myth,' so he acknowledges its mythological nature and seeks to maintain it 'outside' of the demands of a strict post-metaphysical or emprical-scientific perspective.”

In the post by you that I'm writing in reply to, you admit to “some lack of clarity” about Wilber's position. Because you sounded so clear in what you said to Zak, I took that ball and ran with it when starting this thread. But as it turns out, it's difficult to discern what is “useful myth” for Wilber and what is “higher science.” Maybe even Wilber isn't all that clear about this, or maybe he is vague on purpose in hopes that as many readers as possible will “resonate” with his ideas. (Like when at beliefnet dot com several years ago he posted a “short and simple list” of what “[m]ost of the great wisdom traditions agree” on, and asks, “Does a list something like that make sense to you?” [italics in orig.]. He goes on to say that “if there are these general spiritual patterns in the cosmos, at least wherever human beings appear, then this changes everything. You can be a practicing Christian and still agree with that list; you can be a practicing Neopagan and still agree with that list.” He casts a wide net.)

I agree with you that Wilber makes what “is essentially a metaphysical claim” in the passages you quote near the end of your post. (I can't say anything about “the philosophy of the subject” because I don't know what the hell it is. I'm thinking of switching to a forum where people exchange bread machine recipes. ;-)

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hey Jim, I could use a good homemade wheat/grain bread recipe, but don't have a machine!  lol…

I found this interesting…

This Ultimate Reality is known in some traditions of Buddhism as Emptiness. This is the ultimate nature of all reality; it is the real nature of everything. Thus God can be identified with Emptiness, and since Emptiness is just another word for Nirvana, God and Nirvana are in fact one and the same. The goal of the Christian is to become “one” with God, and the goal of the Buddhist is to realize Nirvana, which in other words is to become “one” with it too.


in it's entirity…


and, imo…'does physics prove God?'  that depends on what your concept of God is and whether or not you want it to prove it…


imo, physics is still missing something and unable to explain what they cannot understand…

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Starlight!

I got a brand new bread machine from a thrift store for $6! I love it, because I'm too lazy to bake bread the old fashioned way. When I use whole wheat flour I usually use half whole wheat and half white flour in order to get a lighter textured loaf.

I looked at the piece you linked to. It appears to be by a university professor in Thailand named Soraj Hongladarom. What he says is consistent with the way many understand the perennial philosophy, but I don't think that too many religious studies scholars (like Kela, who is that among other things) would agree that “since Emptiness is just another word for Nirvana, God and Nirvana are in fact one and the same,” and that “The goal of the Christian is to become 'one' with God…”

Here in rural western KY - the Bible Belt - my neighbor to the west is a Baptist preacher (he and his wife are former missionaries in their 70's and they are great, good-natured neighbors), and I seriously doubt that he would agree that the goal of the Christian as he understands Christianity is to become “one” with God. (And of course some might say that my neighbor is at a lower “vMeme” and is “not integral” and that therefore his understanding of his own faith doesn't really count. Maybe no one would say that, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone would.)

You wrote, “imo, physics is still missing something and unable to explain what they cannot understand…”

I don't think physics is meant to explain or include everything (like the meaning of a piece of music, a painting, or a mystical experience). Do you have anything particular in mind when you refer to “what they cannot understand”?

~Jim

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Jim!

I love thrift stores and yard sales!  They are the bomb.

The concept of God and the Christian goal within the New Testament is for Christians to become one IN Christ, as Christ is one IN God, the Father (that was the prayer of Jesus, John 17:1-26) .  To 'put on Christ', 'become a new man', 'rise in the newness of life', 'awake from death'.  Now whether or not individual's understand this doctrine is another thing all together, however, that is the teaching within the New Testament scriptures. 

If we look at what that 'oneness' is, it is one with the Spirit; what is the Spirit?  God, Christ, Love, Light, etc. (verification of these teachings can be found all throughout the New Testament, esp. in all the books of John including the Gospel that bears his name.)  

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Gal. 5:22,23).

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi, Jim,

I think you hit the nail on the head (for me) with this:

But as it turns out, it's difficult to discern what is “useful myth” for Wilber and what is “higher science.”

I think this is one of the issues that is giving me pause.  When he writes about “useful myth” in the note on involution that I mentioned, it seems like a clear, helpful distinction.  But then when you come across other writings or statements, it's not really clear where “useful myth” ends and “higher science” begins; they are blurred, and it ends up seeming as though he is saying that higher science, in fact, empirically confirms what earlier was identified as a “myth.”

I agree with you that Wilber makes what “is essentially a metaphysical claim” in the passages you quote near the end of your post. (I can't say anything about “the philosophy of the subject” because I don't know what the hell it is.

Well, I said, “philosophy of the subject,” but what I was really looking for was, “metaphysics of presence.”  The example I gave is really more of an example of the metaphysics of presence.

Best wishes,

B.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Bruce: … it ends up seeming as though he is saying that higher science, in fact, empirically confirms what earlier was identified as a “myth.”


That's my read.  Wilber is anything but provisional about his assertions regarding Spirit.  


Speaking more generally about the issue, I have reservations on whether there truly can exist a science of inner experience.  Yes, you can garner correlations in what people call what they say they've experienced, but you cannot compare in any real scientific way whether what is called by the same name is the same experience, nor do correlations one manages to obtain get anything close to agreement with others who choose to call their experiences by other terms.  Calling a subset of correlations 'science' doesn't cut it in my books.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Perhaps this article by Commons might be relevant? It was referenced in the “states and stages” discussion in the Adult Development Yahoo forum.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Great question Bruce:  “Does contemplative experience prove that Empty Spirit caused the Big Bang and created the physical universe?)”

To which my own answer is: “Contemplative experience indicates that human beings have very similar neural hardwiring capable of sustaining a state which feels like  Empty Spirit to those inclined to interpret it in such a way.”

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

I beg everybody  to read my book. The cosmology there explains all of this.Buy an eBook of it, it’s cheaper. Therein are all mysteries answered

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Zak, why don't you just use quotes from your own book  to explain what you mean?  I have your book, read it sometime back,  so I will need to refresh my memory and maybe re-read it, but I would find it very interesting and helpful to discuss it in a setting such as this…especially if you were to tie your information into what is being discussed here.

While it might be a challenge for you to do, it might be helpful to others and increase your sells as well…*

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Bruce,

I think you are making a similar point I was trying to make, namely that if “spirit” is not a thing, but the thingness of all things, i.e. existance, then it makes no sense to pick out a certain state as resting in it.  A stone “rests in” existance as much as a Buddha. Presumably though, a Buddha knows that, and has stabalised his awareness in that experiential state.  But I think such a process is best explained cognitively, as a sort of inferance, not a contact with a genuine, ontological spirit, God or emptiness.

Wilber seems to want to have it both ways, that spirit is a thing to be experienced and causes stuff like the big bang, and is not a seperate thing at all.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

i: But I think such a process is best explained cognitively, as a sort of inferance, not a contact with spirit ot emptiness.


I agree, i.  Contact language thingifies.  And I think you're right to say Wilber wants it both ways.  He IMO wants a transcendent, so expostulates some outthereness as the anchor point of his theory.  But then he attempts to say it's all nondual, form is emptiness etc., which then generates a certain, how to say, tension.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Tom & i…could one of you guys give an example by explaining such a process cognitively, as a sort of inferance?

seems to me that duality has to be included in non-duality…and once that is understood…no tension?

having said that, does not post-metaphysical include metaphysical as well?  if we are talking about expanding and integrating, than do we not need to continually adjust our thinking and understanding of these concepts to do the same?  

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

…is this not nearly the same as Bertrand Russell's Paradox? It appears that way to me…


[Edited by Cultivator to fix the link.  Subsequent posts about the technical issue have been deleted.]

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Your right Star. The only problem is that what I know is so unique it is a challenge to explain.

Also I think, with all due respect, those here are too intellectual

They want to see God with there own eyes.

And in order to explain my cosmology I have to appear dogmatic, and that is the least thing I am.

Anyway there is a time and place for anything, and when I start spreading it, it probably will be too late.

But I will try by using one sentence to clarify things:

UNCREATED is the word we are looking for, not emptiness

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

There is nothing absolutely empty, as there is nothing absolutely dense
E=MC2, REMEMBER
God is that which is uncreated, it has nothing to do with emptiness or non dual, two overused, and highly misunderstood terms.
Remember Buddha said
Break the cycle of creation - life and death
Thats scary stuff, isnt it?
Energy has form, and form has energy
Wilber may be over-intellectualizing metaphysical
terms

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hi Starlight,

“… does not post-metaphysical include metaphysical as well?”

Hrmm, well this is how I see it…   The word “metaphysics” gets defined slightly differently, depending on what dictionary or encyclopaedia one reads, but, generally speaking, it means something like any fundamental description or analysis of reality.

Martin Heidegger showed that we have to separate ontology from the ontic, and this is what I take Wilber to mean when he argues that spirituality today has to take Heidegger into account.  Ontology is the study of being, or existence; ontic is the study of a particular thing.  For example, ontically, a ball is round, etc.  But the being of a ball is just the suchness of the ball… well, not the ball specifically, but everything, existence in general, Being-as-such, the thingness of things – being qua being.  Any attempt to describe “spirit” as a something that in some sense causes manifest reality and holds it up reduces Being to the ontic level – Heidegger called this the metaphysics of presence.  (I’m deliberately simplifying things here, hopefully not too much.)

Unfortunately, for various reasons, the metaphysics of presence has been confused with metaphysics in general, so post-metaphysics should really be “post-metaphysics-of-presence.”  To think that we might somehow get beyond metaphysics in general is just a fantasy.  If we open our mouths, sooner or later we will betray metaphysical beliefs.

That means Heidegger has a problem, because he can’t say anything about Being without risking immediately contradicting himself.  But he thinks that to abandon the project entirely is to show a lack of philosophical imagination.  That’s why he introduces so many strange terms.  Wittgenstein said something to the effect of how Heidegger is coming up against the limits of language.   So perhaps we can forgive Wilber for using the language of metaphysics-of-presence if he’s using it to point to a genuinely trans-dual (non-dual) metaphysics?  Unfortunately, Wilber only half-succeeds in this, and sometimes completely falls back into those old-fashioned metaphysics of presence.

 It’s a tricky business, and I certainly respect Wilber’s stated aims.  He just can’t pull it off, and doesn’t seem to realise this failure, and his smugness and hyperbole only serve to make it worse; plus, he’s convincing a lot of other people that his metaphysics-of-presence is really trans-dual.

That's why I think realisation of spirit is an inference, not something experienced or contacted, not something we can rest in.  But I'll get to that later.
 

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hello Infimitus!


limits of language.



This might very well be the culprit causing all the misunderstanding…until we are able to see beyond these restrictions that we incorporate ONto our language, we will fight to the death, and have, and continue to do so,  for the meanings we place on words…we are still so emotionally 'attached' to 'meaning' that we are unable to see the forrest for the trees so-to-speak…and that prevents us from discovering freedom from being enslaved by our own words…I thought integral meant that we were moving forward and including…seeing the truth in all things, opening it up and expanding on it…*shrugs…lol


thnx for taking the time to post all that In…I am slowly but surely gaining a better understanding of integral theory through all the many perspectives, and finding truth in all of them…lol…*

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Wilber  in the phrase “Post-Metaphysics,” it seems to me, is using it in a colloquial sense. Metaphysics in common usage has come to mean the science of the spiritual laws that governs reality.

He is defining it in terms of local worldly, religion and spiritual lore , not the literal meaning of metaphysics outside of  common religion and spirituality,  In that way he could get away with the concept because he is comparing IPM to established error prone religion and spirituality.

Wikipedia definition:
Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world.[1] Someone who studies metaphysics would be called either a “metaphysician” or a “metaphysicist”.[2]

If Wilber is using it in a literal sense then HE IS CRAZY.

For if the above definition is correct, there can be no post aspect of it.

Reality does not cater to time centered local phenomena, like Spiral Dynamics and stages of consciousness.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

I said I'd talk about infering spirit, so here goes…

When we boil water in the kettle and a few minutes later hear the click or whistle or whatever-our-kettle-does, we infer that it contains hot water.  We have no direct sensory evidence for that belief, but – based on other sensory experiences – we make the assumptions.  As humans we are typically good at making inferences about things at the day-to-day level, though when it comes to abstract, metaphysical issues, our inferences are prone to errors, e.g. witnessed by people who see the face of Jesus or Krishna in bread or potato chips.

Because spirit is not a thing, we can't have direct sensory experience of it, so “resting in spirit” must be understood as a poetic description of a state of the inference of spirit, which is felt in a deep, immediately experiential way.  The reasons for that inference are, I would suggest, best investigted by cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists.  But they can only tell us how the inference was made, not whether or not it is true – and I think it is true.  I mean, I think the world really is a non-dual “spirit.”

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

the world really is a non-dual “spirit.”

dancing duality!  lol…

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

What about feeling good. All this INTELLECTUAL [ I WANT TO BE A JUNIOR KEN WILBER] gets a little tired
You know what I mean

ORIGINALITY WONT BITE, BE YOURSELF!!

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

“ORIGINALITY WONT BITE, BE YOURSELF!”

There's only one self, Zak.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hey,

You write: “There's only one self…”

Exactly! And that one self is my own. I have nothing but hearsay evidence and and unsubstantiated (and therefore inadmissible) reports from the fringes of superstition and metaphysics that there is anything else.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Hey Steven …
It's always a delight to read your postings. You reminded me some while back of Tor Nørretranders book, The User Illusion. I feel this passage might manage to shed some light on the dialogue (even if in this instance 'science' may be seen as a 'religious' practice)….

“…. [E]veryday life and its language make their mark on
scientific thought nevertheless, even when far simpler problems than those of
everyday life are involved. On the issue of the depth of the everyday world
compared to the scientific one, Bohr and Einstein were completely in accord:
“We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and
what is down,” Bohr said. His point was that in the final analysis, science is
about what we say to each other in an unambiguous way. Actually this fact constitutes what is
characteristic of science: It is about everything we can say to each other in an
unambiguous way.


 
That is not much, compared to everything we experience
sense, and think––not to mention what we feel. Science is a collective project
aimed at knowing the world in a way we can tell each other about. Knowledge
becomes scientific knowledge only after it is told in a way that allows other
people to reproduce that knowledge. In an unambiguous way.
 
Other human cognitive activities have not submitted to this
restriction. Art is also about what we can share, but not about whether we can
share it in an unambiguous way. That is why these other cognitive activities
have not been subjected to the massive demand for expressibility, the ability to be explicit, that is characteristic
of science.
 
This demand makes it impossible for science to abandon the
language of everyday life when dealing with phenomena that are hard to express
in everyday language, such as that electrons simultaneously have the properties
of waves and particles. Certainly, a great deal of science appears quite
outlandish in its choice of language, but the premise is always that a new
generation of scientists can learn these signs and symbols in an unambiguous
way; that ten years at university will be enough to know what is being talked
about. Therefore science cannot just abandon concepts and words from everyday
life when atomic phenomena refuse to correspond to them. What is learned in
science has to be explicable in the language of a young student.
 
A word to be learned is not necessarily learned by thinking
long and deeply about it; rather, it is learned, perhaps, by using it. “After all, strictly speaking, conscious
analysis of any idea excludes its immediate application,” Bohr wrote.
 
A scientific education consists, then, of working one’s way
through a vast number of experiments, calculations and arguments so that the
student knows what others mean by these activities. In an unambiguous but not
necessarily conscious way, everyone who performs the same experiment achieves
the same result, even if the details are not all, or cannot all be, completely
identical.
 
The relationship between conscious learning and nonconscious
skills is alike when one compares science and ballet. Both involve hard work in
order to learn something that at bottom one cannot put into words but that one
can share with a lot of other people nevertheless.
 
Precisely the fact that our everyday knowledge is not
trivial but very deep means that we can never be rid of it but must trace all
our cognitive activity back to it. This backward tracing problem is the real problem of the philosophy of quantum
physics: “we are hanging in language,” but it cannot say what we want to say.
 
We cannot abandon language, because then we would not be
able to talk to each other. Nor can we say what we would like to say, because
we have only language with which to get our message across.
 
The problem of science, the problem of backward tracing, is due then to a more ordinary factor: The
bandwidth of language is far lower than the bandwidth of sensation. Most of
what we know about the world we can never tell each other.
 
The problem of quantum physics is just a particularly acute
version of an ordinary factor: Our sociolinguistic fellowship with one another
is based on exchanges at a bandwidth of sixteen bits a second. Our
direct-natural fellowship with the world is based on exchanges via a bandwidth
with a capacity of many millions of bits per second.
 
Therefore we can only talk about what matters when we do not
talk but act. We can show things to one another, feel things together, learn
from each other’s green thumbs, take pleasure in one another’s skills. But we
cannot describe them in detail to one another.
 
The I may say, “I can
ride a bike.” But it cannot. It is the Me that can.
 
As Lao-tzu, the Chinese savant who founded Taoism, put it as
he rode into the mountains to die, “Those who know do not talk. Those who talk
do not know.” Pages 307 - 309
 The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size, Tor
Nørretranders

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Dave,

I could kiss you for what you just posted…especially all of that on top of this: “(even if in this instance 'science' may be seen as a 'religious' practice)….”

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Dave, I second Steven's remarks.  That's a helluva quote.  Good on him for diving so deeply, and honestly, into the difference between saying it and being it.

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

Dave, this is very well done, but wouldn't it be more accurate to say science aims at unambiguity? Because of language, perceptual and other constraints, science as practised and discussed is far from unambiguous.

Thanks, fascinating contribution,

Nicole

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

“Those who know do not talk. Those who talk
do not know.” Pages 307 - 309
Lao Tzu
Those who know don’t talk because they realize those around to listen are too stupid to understand.
Anyone listening to anyone else for guidance is a fool
Those who talk do not know because reality can only be realized by the heart not verbal communication
Wilber calls this “monological awareness”
　
Lao Tzu also said:
Men should become more like woman
And I am sure he didn’t mean for men to walk around with mascara on

Re: Wilber's Post-Metaphysical Spirit (God)

LOL…ROTF…between you and Bruce today…looks like I am gonna be ROTF for a minute…OMG…too funny…*