Introducing Ken Wilber: Concepts for an Evolving World
By Lew Howard
Kindle $15.39
Paperback $40.64
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
(2 ratings)
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Contents
Chapter 1 THE BIG PICTURE
Chapter 2 THE FOUR QUADRANTS
Chapter 3 HOLONS EVERYWHERE
Chapter 4 THE QUADRANTS REVISITED
Chapter 5 POST-METAPHYSICAL SPIRITUALITY
Chapter 6 THE KOSMOS
INTRODUCTION TO PART II
Chapter 7 PEOPLE DEVELOP
Chapter 8 GRAND TOUR OF THE MEMES
Chapter 9 SOCIETIES DEVELOP
Chapter 10 WORLDVIEWS DEVELOP
Chapter 11 STATES AND STAGES
Chapter 12 INTEGRAL PSYCHOLOGY
INTRODUCTION TO PART III
Chapter 13 SPIRITUAL EXPLORATION
Chapter 14 ARE SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES REAL?
Chapter 15 THE SUBTLE
Chapter 16 CAUSAL EMPTINESS
Chapter 17 THE NONDUAL
Chapter 18 SPIRITUAL TRUTH, OR JUST WORDS
Chapter 19 MEDITATION
Chapter 20 FLATLAND
Chapter 21 BOOMERITIS
Chapter 22 THE GROWING EDGE
Chapter 23 INTEGRAL INSTITUTE
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About this ebook
Ken Wilbers revolutionary thinking is beginning to shift the orientation of Western culture. Wilber combines his knowledge as mystic, scientist, psychologist and philosopher to create comprehensive concepts for understanding our world and our place in it. This integral approach is much needed in a world torn by conflicts of religion, culture, and ideology.
Lew Howard says, I wrote this book to make the work of Ken Wilber accessible to the average person. Wilbers integral understanding (which is an interlocking whole) is broken down into concepts that can be individually understood. These understandings result in an integral conception of the Kosmos. Wilbers insights revolutionized my spiritual practiceand can do the same for you.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherAuthorHouse
Release dateMay 17, 2005
ISBN9781463481933
Author
Lew Howard
Lew Howard is a retired nuclear reactor engineer. His engineering career included reactor operations, research and development, nuclear fuel contract management, and consulting regarding uncertainties in cost and schedule for construction of nuclear power plants. His expertise includes mathematical modeling of complex operations using probabilistic analysis. This career was Lew’s vehicle for developing advanced logical skills and the ability to teach complex concepts to the average person.
Lew’s lifelong study of spirituality and psychology led him eventually to a seven-year study of the work of Ken Wilber. He desires to make Wilber’s academic work understandable to the general public. Lew lives in Albuquerque, NM, with his wife, Ti Howard, and their seven-year-old grandson.
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Roy Gibbon - Author of An Offering of Light
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Introduction to Ken Wilber
Reviewed in the United States on 23 February 2024
Verified Purchase
==
Roy Gibbon - Author of An Offering of Light
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Introduction to Ken Wilber
Reviewed in the United States on 23 February 2024
Verified Purchase
This book summarizes Ken Wilber's Integral Philosophy for the spiritual seeker. Not only does the author manage to explain Ken Wilber's complex ideas simply and clearly, but he also makes them relevant to those interested in self-improvement and spiritual growth. That's quite a feat!
Report
Paul R. Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars Best way to understand Wilber
Reviewed in the United States on 23 February 2011
Verified Purchase
As a pastor, teacher, and author who is passionate about integral philosophy I have longed for an easy to read introduction to Wilber's exciting but dense works.
This is it! This is the book I recommend to my friends and others that captures the essence of integral theory and practice. Howard covers the whole territory in one book for those who want to understand a more transcendent way to view the world and a practice to enter that transforming path.
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Mark Howard
5.0 out of 5 stars An on-ramp to Wilber's works
Reviewed in the United States on 16 April 2015
Verified Purchase
It is very difficult to read Ken Wilber directly. This introductory text was very helpful to me and served as an on-ramp to Wilber's voluminous work. Clear wording, clear explanations. Much appreciated.
Report
Report
Mark Howard
5.0 out of 5 stars An on-ramp to Wilber's works
Reviewed in the United States on 16 April 2015
Verified Purchase
It is very difficult to read Ken Wilber directly. This introductory text was very helpful to me and served as an on-ramp to Wilber's voluminous work. Clear wording, clear explanations. Much appreciated.
Report
PREFACE I wrote this book to make Ken Wilber’s work accessible to the average person. Wilber’s basic ideas are not hard to understand, but they are new to most of us. We need to have new ideas presented in small bites—lest we choke on a bite that is too large. I have created—step by step—a bridge from where we are to the contents of Wilber’s books. It is a bridge of simpler language. My desire to write this book has developed over a period of years. When I was introduced to the works of Ken Wilber about seven years ago, I found his ideas to be interesting and inspiring. I read more of his books, and when his Collected Works were published, I bought and read them all—which took me a couple years. This evolved into a serious study of all of Wilber’s works. Ken Wilber opened an integral worldview that was new to me. I changed my approach to spiritual practice. I began to see relationships and principles behind what I read in the newspaper or saw on TV. I began to see the deeper basis of disagreements between individual people—and between collective groups. I was, and am, deeply moved by the glimpses of Wilber’s personal life as revealed in his books, Grace and Grit and One Taste. Wilber’s intimate sharing of details of his loves and losses, his growth and pains, joys and struggles, and his passion for spiritual realization, give me a sense of personal relationship to him. Wilber expresses his rich feelings and he is an authentic person, who shares his real-life experiences. He tells of his being overwhelmed by the task of care giving while his wife struggled with cancer, and his great sorrow at her death. Appendix A is a heart-felt, brief biography. In my enthusiasm for Wilber’s ideas, I talked to my friends. I led a 10-week discussion group on his book, A Brief History of Everything. I found many people just did not understand it, or see how it applied to them. Others could not see how to fit Wilber’s ideas into their current belief system. At that time, I could not explain Wilber’s concepts in a meaningful and convincing way. The discussion group attendance dwindled significantly and I felt frustration in being unable to interest many people in exploring ideas that seemed, to me, to be extremely relevant and life changing. I observed that Wilber’s writing is often at an academic level and he expresses himself with big words from the academic discipline of philosophy. His sentences are long. He has the philosopher’s desire to make his argument airtight and he covers all the subtle nuances of his subject. This makes his work inaccessible to the average person. Wilber’s editor at Shambhala, Kendra Crossen Burroughs, put it this way: “But despite Wilber’s skill in explaining complex philosophical ideas, much of his work is written for a professional or academic audience and remains beyond the reach of more casual readers.”¹ Another complication for a newcomer is that Wilber’s ideas have evolved. He refers to his various stages of understanding as Wilber-1, Wilber-2, Wilber-3 and Wilber-4. Wilber-2 expresses a developmental view that is a significant change from the “Romantic” view of Wilber-1. Wilber describes his evolution of understanding in the Introduction to his Collected Works.² For the sake of brevity and clarity, I do not describe Wilber’s phases 1 through 3, but go directly to Wilber-4, which is the culmination of his work published to date. I condense the Wilber-4 concepts—published in 1995 and after—into a single, simpler book. This book avoids excessive technical terminology, yet is intended as an accurate introduction to the Wilber-4 work. A key element of the book design is that Wilber’s integral understanding (which is by definition an interlocking whole) is broken down into smaller concepts that can be individually understood. These concepts are presented in a sequence that enhances the reader’s understanding—step by step—and leads the reader to an integral conception of the Kosmos. This is a teaching process. When
technical vocabulary is required, it is introduced gradually, at a rate a more casual reader can absorb. Wilber’s ideas have great relevance to many of the big and very complex problems we encounter every day. Wilber has much to offer for the resolution of a great number of these problems—gender issues, ecology, science versus religion, religion versus spirituality, the very difficult problems between contending ethnic groups, and the urgent need for resolution between conflicting ideologies. These conflicts threaten to engulf and destroy us all. Wilber exhibits a remarkable ability to point out ways to resolve conflicting points of view—while honoring all the parties. Recently, some close friends and I had a discussion group based on the draft of this book. The group made very valuable suggestions regarding clarity, and finding my typos. It was a gratifying experience to confirm that this book made Wilber’s work much more accessible to them. More than that, the group was inspired to meditate, to study, and to leave behind old self-concepts now seen as inadequate. All the group members are using Wilber’s ideas to deepen their spiritual lives. Writing this book has been a spiritual experience for me. Every time I read or re-read Wilber’s descriptions of the higher states of consciousness, I feel deeply moved and inspired. I have to stop, wipe my eyes, meditate and internalize what I have just read. This is a great adventure. Please join me in exploration of fascinating new territories. The experience will reward you for your efforts to understand. This is an introduction to the work of Ken Wilber and I hope it will be your entrance into Wilber’s more complete presentation. The footnotes will guide you to the sources of greatest interest to you. Lew Howard Albuquerque, New Mexico September 2004
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--PREFACE
I wrote this book to make Ken Wilber’s work accessible to the average person. Wilber’s basic ideas are not hard to understand, but they are new to most of us. We need to have new ideas presented in small bites—lest we choke on a bite that is too large. I have created—step by step—a bridge from where we are to the contents of Wilber’s books. It is a bridge of simpler language. My desire to write this book has developed over a period of years. When I was introduced to the works of Ken Wilber about seven years ago, I found his ideas to be interesting and inspiring. I read more of his books, and when his Collected Works were published, I bought and read them all—which took me a couple years. This evolved into a serious study of all of Wilber’s works. Ken Wilber opened an integral worldview that was new to me. I changed my approach to spiritual practice. I began to see relationships and principles behind what I read in the newspaper or saw on TV. I began to see the deeper basis of disagreements between individual people—and between collective groups. I was, and am, deeply moved by the glimpses of Wilber’s personal life as revealed in his books, Grace and Grit and One Taste. Wilber’s intimate sharing of details of his loves and losses, his growth and pains, joys and struggles, and his passion for spiritual realization, give me a sense of personal relationship to him. Wilber expresses his rich feelings and he is an authentic person, who shares his real-life experiences. He tells of his being overwhelmed by the task of care giving while his wife struggled with cancer, and his great sorrow at her death. Appendix A is a heart-felt, brief biography. In my enthusiasm for Wilber’s ideas, I talked to my friends. I led a 10-week discussion group on his book, A Brief History of Everything. I found many people just did not understand it, or see how it applied to them. Others could not see how to fit Wilber’s ideas into their current belief system. At that time, I could not explain Wilber’s concepts in a meaningful and convincing way. The discussion group attendance dwindled significantly and I felt frustration in being unable to interest many people in exploring ideas that seemed, to me, to be extremely relevant and life changing. I observed that Wilber’s writing is often at an academic level and he expresses himself with big words from the academic discipline of philosophy. His sentences are long. He has the philosopher’s desire to make his argument airtight and he covers all the subtle nuances of his subject. This makes his work inaccessible to the average person. Wilber’s editor at Shambhala, Kendra Crossen Burroughs, put it this way: “But despite Wilber’s skill in explaining complex philosophical ideas, much of his work is written for a professional or academic audience and remains beyond the reach of more casual readers.”¹ Another complication for a newcomer is that Wilber’s ideas have evolved. He refers to his various stages of understanding as Wilber-1, Wilber-2, Wilber-3 and Wilber-4. Wilber-2 expresses a developmental view that is a significant change from the “Romantic” view of Wilber-1. Wilber describes his evolution of understanding in the Introduction to his Collected Works.² For the sake of brevity and clarity, I do not describe Wilber’s phases 1 through 3, but go directly to Wilber-4, which is the culmination of his work published to date. I condense the Wilber-4 concepts—published in 1995 and after—into a single, simpler book. This book avoids excessive technical terminology, yet is intended as an accurate introduction to the Wilber-4 work. A key element of the book design is that Wilber’s integral understanding (which is by definition an interlocking whole) is broken down into smaller concepts that can be individually understood. These concepts are presented in a sequence that enhances the reader’s understanding—step by step—and leads the reader to an integral conception of the Kosmos. This is a teaching process. When
technical vocabulary is required, it is introduced gradually, at a rate a more casual reader can absorb. Wilber’s ideas have great relevance to many of the big and very complex problems we encounter every day. Wilber has much to offer for the resolution of a great number of these problems—gender issues, ecology, science versus religion, religion versus spirituality, the very difficult problems between contending ethnic groups, and the urgent need for resolution between conflicting ideologies. These conflicts threaten to engulf and destroy us all. Wilber exhibits a remarkable ability to point out ways to resolve conflicting points of view—while honoring all the parties. Recently, some close friends and I had a discussion group based on the draft of this book. The group made very valuable suggestions regarding clarity, and finding my typos. It was a gratifying experience to confirm that this book made Wilber’s work much more accessible to them. More than that, the group was inspired to meditate, to study, and to leave behind old self-concepts now seen as inadequate. All the group members are using Wilber’s ideas to deepen their spiritual lives. Writing this book has been a spiritual experience for me. Every time I read or re-read Wilber’s descriptions of the higher states of consciousness, I feel deeply moved and inspired. I have to stop, wipe my eyes, meditate and internalize what I have just read. This is a great adventure. Please join me in exploration of fascinating new territories. The experience will reward you for your efforts to understand. This is an introduction to the work of Ken Wilber and I hope it will be your entrance into Wilber’s more complete presentation. The footnotes will guide you to the sources of greatest interest to you. Lew Howard Albuquerque, New Mexico September 2004
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PREFACE I wrote this book to make Ken Wilber’s work accessible to the average person. Wilber’s basic ideas are not hard to understand, but they are new to most of us. We need to have new ideas presented in small bites—lest we choke on a bite that is too large. I have created—step by step—a bridge from where we are to the contents of Wilber’s books. It is a bridge of simpler language. My desire to write this book has developed over a period of years. When I was introduced to the works of Ken Wilber about seven years ago, I found his ideas to be interesting and inspiring. I read more of his books, and when his Collected Works were published, I bought and read them all—which took me a couple years. This evolved into a serious study of all of Wilber’s works. Ken Wilber opened an integral worldview that was new to me. I changed my approach to spiritual practice. I began to see relationships and principles behind what I read in the newspaper or saw on TV. I began to see the deeper basis of disagreements between individual people—and between collective groups. I was, and am, deeply moved by the glimpses of Wilber’s personal life as revealed in his books, Grace and Grit and One Taste. Wilber’s intimate sharing of details of his loves and losses, his growth and pains, joys and struggles, and his passion for spiritual realization, give me a sense of personal relationship to him. Wilber expresses his rich feelings and he is an authentic person, who shares his real-life experiences. He tells of his being overwhelmed by the task of care giving while his wife struggled with cancer, and his great sorrow at her death. Appendix A is a heart-felt, brief biography. In my enthusiasm for Wilber’s ideas, I talked to my friends. I led a 10-week discussion group on his book, A Brief History of Everything. I found many people just did not understand it, or see how it applied to them. Others could not see how to fit Wilber’s ideas into their current belief system. At that time, I could not explain Wilber’s concepts in a meaningful and convincing way. The discussion group attendance dwindled significantly and I felt frustration in being unable to interest many people in exploring ideas that seemed, to me, to be extremely relevant and life changing. I observed that Wilber’s writing is often at an academic level and he expresses himself with big words from the academic discipline of philosophy. His sentences are long. He has the philosopher’s desire to make his argument airtight and he covers all the subtle nuances of his subject. This makes his work inaccessible to the average person. Wilber’s editor at Shambhala, Kendra Crossen Burroughs, put it this way: “But despite Wilber’s skill in explaining complex philosophical ideas, much of his work is written for a professional or academic audience and remains beyond the reach of more casual readers.”¹ Another complication for a newcomer is that Wilber’s ideas have evolved. He refers to his various stages of understanding as Wilber-1, Wilber-2, Wilber-3 and Wilber-4. Wilber-2 expresses a developmental view that is a significant change from the “Romantic” view of Wilber-1. Wilber describes his evolution of understanding in the Introduction to his Collected Works.² For the sake of brevity and clarity, I do not describe Wilber’s phases 1 through 3, but go directly to Wilber-4, which is the culmination of his work published to date. I condense the Wilber-4 concepts—published in 1995 and after—into a single, simpler book. This book avoids excessive technical terminology, yet is intended as an accurate introduction to the Wilber-4 work. A key element of the book design is that Wilber’s integral understanding (which is by definition an interlocking whole) is broken down into smaller concepts that can be individually understood. These concepts are presented in a sequence that enhances the reader’s understanding—step by step—and leads the reader to an integral conception of the Kosmos. This is a teaching process. When
technical vocabulary is required, it is introduced gradually, at a rate a more casual reader can absorb. Wilber’s ideas have great relevance to many of the big and very complex problems we encounter every day. Wilber has much to offer for the resolution of a great number of these problems—gender issues, ecology, science versus religion, religion versus spirituality, the very difficult problems between contending ethnic groups, and the urgent need for resolution between conflicting ideologies. These conflicts threaten to engulf and destroy us all. Wilber exhibits a remarkable ability to point out ways to resolve conflicting points of view—while honoring all the parties. Recently, some close friends and I had a discussion group based on the draft of this book. The group made very valuable suggestions regarding clarity, and finding my typos. It was a gratifying experience to confirm that this book made Wilber’s work much more accessible to them. More than that, the group was inspired to meditate, to study, and to leave behind old self-concepts now seen as inadequate. All the group members are using Wilber’s ideas to deepen their spiritual lives. Writing this book has been a spiritual experience for me. Every time I read or re-read Wilber’s descriptions of the higher states of consciousness, I feel deeply moved and inspired. I have to stop, wipe my eyes, meditate and internalize what I have just read. This is a great adventure. Please join me in exploration of fascinating new territories. The experience will reward you for your efforts to understand. This is an introduction to the work of Ken Wilber and I hope it will be your entrance into Wilber’s more complete presentation. The footnotes will guide you to the sources of greatest interest to you. Lew Howard Albuquerque, New Mexico September 2004
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INTRODUCTION Ken Wilber is a revolutionary thinker. His work is beginning to shift the thinking of Western culture. This book is your ticket for a journey of exploration into a new concept of the universe and your place in it. Wilber’s uniqueness as a person and as an intellectual innovator stems from his combining the experiences of a mystic, and the rigorous mind of a scientist, psychologist, and philosopher—together with his creative genius. Ken Wilber, the Mystic Wilber began with a study of the great world religions—especially their esoteric, hidden or secret aspects. He has studied and meditated with spiritual masters from many of these religious traditions. He has practiced meditation for over thirty years. Although he is primarily Buddhist, he has included many other approaches—Christian mysticism, Vedanta, Zen, Transcendental Meditation, Kashmir Shaivism, Kabbalah, Daism, Sufism and more. Wilber’s writing began as his attempt to piece together for himself a common map of the highest levels of mystical experience. Wilber’s perspective is supported by his own direct experience of the highest levels of spiritual consciousness, but he also draws upon a thorough understanding of traditional sources. He has access to the state of nondual consciousness, where spiritual realities are integrated with the ordinary world. He remains conscious as the “Witness” during waking, dreaming and deep sleep. While he is meditating, his brain waves show the characteristics of waking, dreaming and deep sleep simultaneously—which is highly unusual. He meditates daily for one or two hours, as he wakes up from sleep. From his own experimental results, his own direct experience, he perceives that the entire universe is Spirit. There is only Spirit—and that Spirit manifests as matter, body, mind, soul and spirit. That is the experience of the Nondual level—which is the highest level of spiritual realization. Wilber often emphasizes that this level of experience is available to any person who conducts the experiment of the practice of meditation for a sustained period of time—many years. Just as it takes many years to master a musical instrument, or become fluent in a foreign language, or earn a Ph.D. in physics, it takes many years of sustained practice to master meditation. Ken Wilber, the Scientist Wilber is a scientist and approaches everything with a rigorous scientific mind. Some thirty years ago, as he was nearing completion of a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry, he decided to switch to a subject he considered more interesting—the spectrum of human consciousness. Wilber has always read voraciously. When he is doing research for one of his books, he reads many hundreds of books, as many as four a day. He incorporates ideas from these many sources. He seeks to include and honor all branches of knowledge. Wilber has been a prolific author for over 30 years, producing eighteen books, numerous essays, interviews, forewords to a number of books, and many articles and interviews posted on his website. Wilber integrates various worldviews. He does not just give us yet another worldview; he shows how all the worldviews fit together in a unified system. He shows us a deeply spiritual perspective compatible with a rigorous scientific approach. And he honors both spirit and science by showing how they fit together. He titled one of his books The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion. Wilber also gives much attention to the philosophical question of how we know that “what we know” is really true. “The evidence … is grounded at every point in direct experience that can be confirmed or rejected by any who adequately follow the interior experiments in consciousness. These experiments, generally known as meditation or contemplation, cannot be dismissed on the ground that they are ‘merely subjective’ or ‘interior’ apprehensions—after all, mathematics is ‘merely subjective’ and ‘interior,’ but we don’t dismiss it as unreal or illusory or meaningless. Just so, the contemplative sciences have amassed an extraordinary amount of phenomenological data—direct experiences—relating to the … soul and spirit levels.”³ Wilber bases his argument on the steps followed by the scientific method, which he also calls the “three strands of all valid knowing.”⁴ • Specify the experiment to be performed. “If you want to know this, do this.” • Perform the experiment (meditation or contemplation in this case), and observe the results—the data. • Check the results with others who have competently done the same experiment. Then you can join in the communal confirmation (or rejection) of the results. Wilber applies this approach to the higher levels of mysticism and meditation as well as the realms of science, psychology, and philosophy. “And if you want to know if this data is real, all you have to do is follow the experiment—contemplation—and see for yourself. Of those who adequately do so, the majority report a simple conclusion: you are directly introduced to your True Self, your Real Condition, … and it is none other than Spirit itself.”⁵ Ken Wilber, The Psychologist Wilber has developed a new and comprehensive view of psychology. His view does not eliminate any previous valid psychological knowledge, but it places psychology in a much broader context. Wilber sees a broad sweep of human development from infancy to adulthood to the spectrum of spiritual stages. He also examines the possible pathologies at each stage and the appropriate therapies to correct these problems. Wilber’s psychological work is introduced and summarized in Parts II and III. Ken Wilber, the Philosopher Wilber’s “Integral Vision” is a project of phenomenal scope, complexity and importance: building a “world philosophy.” This is A Theory of Everything, as he titled a recent book. He also calls this an integral point of view. He is not so much building a new philosophy as he is creating an over-arching system of understanding that can contain and organize the many diverse fields of human thought. His system includes places for the physicist, linguist, psychologist, political scientist, sociologist, historian, medical researcher, systems theorist, anthropologist, and the great mystics of the world’s religions, as well as others. Wilber’s still-evolving “Theory of Everything” is built on several basic concepts that he calls holons, quadrants, levels, lines, states, types and the self-system. These concepts come together as an “All Quadrants, All Levels” (AQAL) conceptual structure that forms a basic framework for his views—which will be explained as this book unfolds. The goal of this book is to develop a description of this map, or Theory of Everything, its components, vocabulary, and ways of applying it to real-world situations. The Glossary at the end of the book explains Wilber’s specialized vocabulary. Revolutionary Comprehensiveness The comprehensive nature of Wilber’s work is one of its greatest virtues. Jack Crittenden’s Foreword to Wilber’s The Eye of Spirit, is titled What Is The Meaning of “Integral?” Crittenden says, “But it is exactly the comprehensive and integral nature of Wilber’s vision that is the key to the sometimes extreme reactions that his work elicits.”⁶ I want to focus on what is actually involved in the debate. Because, make no
mistake, if Wilber’s approach is more or less accurate, it does nothing less than offer a coherent integration of virtually every field of human knowledge.⁷ Michael Murphy, Dr. Larry Dossey, Roger Walsh and many others with a broad perspective have given Wilber’s work very high praise. In 1997, Wilber invited 400 academic scholars and writers to join him in formation of the Integral Institute that is dedicated to the application of Wilber’s integral vision to the world at large (Chapter 23). These experts are organized into a dozen core teams. The teams function as crucibles in which the concepts are hashed out and fused into integral applications. The critics have also been numerous and very vocal. Crittenden continues, “Most critics have taken umbrage at Wilber’s attacks on their own particular field, while they condone or concede the brilliance of his attacks on other fields. Nobody, however, has yet presented a coherent critique of Wilber’s overall approach. The collective outrage, as it were, is astonishing, but the criticism has been little but nitpicking.”⁸ Is it any wonder, then, that those who focus narrowly on one particular field might take offense when that field is not presented as the linchpin of the Kosmos? … I suggest that the critics who have focused on their pet points in Wilber’s method are attacking a particular tree in the forest of his presentation. But if we look instead at the forest, and if his approach is generally valid, it honors and incorporates more truth than any other system in history.⁹ Wilber insists, “You can’t honor various methods and fields, without showing how they fit together. That is how to make a genuine world philosophy.”¹⁰ Physical Sciences and Interior Sciences One criticism of Wilber’s work comes from the worldview that “the physical world is all that is real.” According to this viewpoint, the inner worlds of ideas, psychology, emotions, meaning, culture, and spiritual awareness are all “just neurons firing” in a physical brain. This is a major viewpoint in our era. This perspective denies the validity of our interior experiences as conscious beings. This subject is explored in Chapter 20, “Flatland.” Wilber’s concepts make room for both physical and interior truth. There is a place for truths obtained by observing the physical behavior of people (and their DNA, neurons and biochemistry). There is also a place for truths obtained by dialoguing with people about their interior experiences. Thus, the interior world is granted validity within its domain equal to the validity of the exterior world within its domain. Wilber’s integral viewpoint offers us a global map that organizes the different kinds of truth that come from diverse fields of study. Wilber’s All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) map orients us to different kinds of knowledge and gives a viewpoint from which to see interrelationships between the interior and exterior realities. Orienting Generalizations Wilber has accomplished his task by assembling very basic conclusions, which he calls orienting generalizations, from thousands of books representing various disciplines, including philosophy, religion, science, ecoscience, systems theory, medicine, neurophysiology, art, poetry, aesthetics, psychology, psychotherapy, meditative traditions, and mystical experiences. He includes writers both ancient and modern, from East and West, North and South. The orienting generalizations are the basic and broad conclusions from each of these many fields of study. These conclusions are truths generally accepted by scholars in these many fields—but may be relatively unknown outside that field. Though experts in the specific fields may disagree about details, they basically agree about these generalizations. These conclusions orient us to the general terrain of human knowledge. Wilber’s orienting generalizations provide a way to integrate the different fields. These generalizations provide a context for understanding everything. Wilber has emphasized the importance of context in determining meaning. When information is viewed in a larger context than previously used, the meaning is changed—enhanced.¹¹ What’s In This Book? The volume and complexity of Wilber’s writing constitute an obstacle to a newcomer. I developed a sequence of presentation intended to introduce, step by step, the basics of Wilber’s concepts. I suggest reading the material in the order presented. This book has four parts: • Part I summarizes “Wilber’s Integral Vision.” Wilber has a very comprehensive vision of how the various aspects of the universe fit together in a three-dimensional grid which he calls “All Quadrants, All Levels” or AQAL. His concepts culminate in a new understanding of the ultimate nature of the Kosmos (Chapter 6). • Part II describes “Integral Psychology,” in which Wilber provides a fresh look at psychological development. Wilber has strongly argued that psychology alone is just part of the story of our development—the story is completed by adding the spiritual levels. • Part III explores “The Spectrum of Spiritual Experience,” in which Wilber provides spiritual perspective based on his study of the world’s greatest mystics and his own extensive spiritual practice. Wilber has also emphatically argued that the spiritual levels taken alone are just part of the story—the spiritual story is completed by adding the psychological levels. He seeks “the integration of Freud [Western psychology] and Buddha [Eastern spirituality]”—the marriage of “depth psychology” with “height psychology.”¹² • Part IV presents “Obstacles and Opportunities.” “Flatland” and “Boomeritis” constitute the primary obstacles to the further evolution of our consciousness both individually and collectively. “The Growing Edge” chapter includes examples of applications of integral concepts to current world situations. Wilber’s Integral Institute is developing integral solutions for problems in areas such as politics, medicine, law, business, education, psychology, and spirituality. Summary of Wilber’s Integrative Concepts Ken Wilber’s integrative concepts are summarized here, and are developed and explained through the rest of the book. • Wilber has examined hundreds of different worldviews—how the world looks from different perspectives. He argues that these different worldviews all have something to teach us. He has worked to tease apart these conflicting points of view in order to incorporate the parts that are “on target” and discard parts that are off the mark. Wilber says, “Everybody is right”—but only partly right. When we were in school, we knew a person had to be quite smart to score 100 percent on a true-false test. Wilber points out a person would also have to be quite smart to score zero on a true-false test. Wilber says, “Nobody is smart enough to be 100 percent wrong.” So, Wilber builds his world philosophy from the “accurate parts” of many diverse worldviews. Chapter 22 includes discussion of this concept in terms of developmental levels. • Wilber has surveyed the history of human development from two interacting points of view: First, he considers the psychological and spiritual development of each individual person in the course of their lifetime. Second, he considers the
INTRODUCTION
Ken Wilber is a revolutionary thinker. His work is beginning to shift the thinking of Western culture. This book is your ticket for a journey of exploration into a new concept of the universe and your place in it. Wilber’s uniqueness as a person and as an intellectual innovator stems from his combining the experiences of a mystic, and the rigorous mind of a scientist, psychologist, and philosopher—together with his creative genius.
Ken Wilber, the Mystic
Wilber began with a study of the great world religions—especially their esoteric, hidden or secret aspects. He has studied and meditated with spiritual masters from many of these religious traditions. He has practiced meditation for over thirty years. Although he is primarily Buddhist, he has included many other approaches—Christian mysticism, Vedanta, Zen, Transcendental Meditation, Kashmir Shaivism, Kabbalah, Daism, Sufism and more. Wilber’s writing began as his attempt to piece together for himself a common map of the highest levels of mystical experience.
Wilber’s perspective is supported by his own direct experience of the highest levels of spiritual consciousness, but he also draws upon a thorough understanding of traditional sources. He has access to the state of nondual consciousness, where spiritual realities are integrated with the ordinary world. He remains conscious as the Witness during waking, dreaming and deep sleep. While he is meditating, his brain waves show the characteristics of waking, dreaming and deep sleep simultaneously—which is highly unusual. He meditates daily for one or two hours, as he wakes up from sleep.
From his own experimental results, his own direct experience, he perceives that the entire universe is Spirit. There is only Spirit—and that Spirit manifests as matter, body, mind, soul and spirit. That is the experience of the Nondual level—which is the highest level of spiritual realization.
Wilber often emphasizes that this level of experience is available to any person who conducts the experiment of the practice of meditation for a sustained period of time—many years. Just as it takes many years to master a musical instrument, or become fluent in a foreign language, or earn a Ph.D. in physics, it takes many years of sustained practice to master meditation.
Ken Wilber, the Scientist
Wilber is a scientist and approaches everything with a rigorous scientific mind. Some thirty years ago, as he was nearing completion of a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry, he decided to switch to a subject he considered more interesting—the spectrum of human consciousness.
Wilber has always read voraciously. When he is doing research for one of his books, he reads many hundreds of books, as many as four a day. He incorporates ideas from these many sources. He seeks to include and honor all branches of knowledge. Wilber has been a prolific author for over 30 years, producing eighteen books, numerous essays, interviews, forewords to a number of books, and many articles and interviews posted on his website.
Wilber integrates various worldviews. He does not just give us yet another worldview; he shows how all the worldviews fit together in a unified system. He shows us a deeply spiritual perspective compatible with a rigorous scientific approach. And he honors both spirit and science by showing how they fit together. He titled one of his books The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion.
Wilber also gives much attention to the philosophical question of how we know that what we know is really true. The evidence … is grounded at every point in direct experience that can be confirmed or rejected by any who adequately follow the interior experiments in consciousness. These experiments, generally known as meditation or contemplation, cannot be dismissed on the ground that they are ‘merely subjective’ or ‘interior’ apprehensions—after all, mathematics is ‘merely subjective’ and ‘interior,’ but we don’t dismiss it as unreal or illusory or meaningless. Just so, the contemplative sciences have amassed an extraordinary amount of phenomenological data—direct experiences—relating to the … soul and spirit levels.³
Wilber bases his argument on the steps followed by the scientific method, which he also calls the three strands of all valid knowing.⁴
• Specify the experiment to be performed. If you want to know this, do this.
• Perform the experiment (meditation or contemplation in this case), and observe the results—the data.
• Check the results with others who have competently done the same experiment. Then you can join in the communal confirmation (or rejection) of the results.
Wilber applies this approach to the higher levels of mysticism and meditation as well as the realms of science, psychology, and philosophy. And if you want to know if this data is real, all you have to do is follow the experiment—contemplation—and see for yourself. Of those who adequately do so, the majority report a simple conclusion: you are directly introduced to your True Self, your Real Condition, … and it is none other than Spirit itself.⁵
Ken Wilber, The Psychologist
Wilber has developed a new and comprehensive view of psychology. His view does not eliminate any previous valid psychological knowledge, but it places psychology in a much broader context. Wilber sees a broad sweep of human development from infancy to adulthood to the spectrum of spiritual stages. He also examines the possible pathologies at each stage and the appropriate therapies to correct these problems. Wilber’s psychological work is introduced and summarized in Parts II and III.
Ken Wilber, the Philosopher
Wilber’s Integral Vision is a project of phenomenal scope, complexity and importance: building a world philosophy. This is A Theory of Everything, as he titled a recent book. He also calls this an integral point of view. He is not so much building a new philosophy as he is creating an over-arching system of understanding that can contain and organize the many diverse fields of human thought. His system includes places for the physicist, linguist, psychologist, political scientist, sociologist, historian, medical researcher, systems theorist, anthropologist, and the great mystics of the world’s religions, as well as others.
Wilber’s still-evolving Theory of Everything is built on several basic concepts that he calls holons, quadrants, levels, lines, states, types and the self-system. These concepts come together as an All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) conceptual structure that forms a basic framework for his views—which will be explained as this book unfolds.
The goal of this book is to develop a description of this map, or Theory of Everything, its components, vocabulary, and ways of applying it to real-world situations. The Glossary at the end of the book explains Wilber’s specialized vocabulary.
Revolutionary Comprehensiveness
The comprehensive nature of Wilber’s work is one of its greatest virtues. Jack Crittenden’s Foreword to Wilber’s The Eye of Spirit, is titled What Is The Meaning of Integral? Crittenden says, But it is exactly the comprehensive and integral nature of Wilber’s vision that is the key to the sometimes extreme reactions that his work elicits.⁶
I want to focus on what is actually involved in the debate. Because, make no
mistake, if Wilber’s approach is more or less accurate, it does nothing less than offer a coherent integration of virtually every field of human knowledge.⁷
Michael Murphy, Dr. Larry Dossey, Roger Walsh and many others with a broad perspective have given Wilber’s work very high praise. In 1997, Wilber invited 400 academic scholars and writers to join him in formation of the Integral Institute that is dedicated to the application of Wilber’s integral vision to the world at large (Chapter 23). These experts are organized into a dozen core teams. The teams function as crucibles in which the concepts are hashed out and fused into integral applications.
The critics have also been numerous and very vocal. Crittenden continues, "Most critics have taken umbrage at Wilber’s attacks on their own particular field, while they condone or concede the brilliance of his attacks on other fields. Nobody, however, has yet presented a coherent critique of Wilber’s overall approach. The collective outrage, as it were, is astonishing, but the criticism has been little but nitpicking."⁸
Is it any wonder, then, that those who focus narrowly on one particular field might take offense when that field is not presented as the linchpin of the Kosmos? …
I suggest that the critics who have focused on their pet points in Wilber’s method are attacking a particular tree in the forest of his presentation. But if we look instead at the forest, and if his approach is generally valid, it honors and incorporates more truth than any other system in history.⁹
Wilber insists, You can’t honor various methods and fields, without showing how they fit together. That is how to make a genuine world philosophy.¹⁰
Physical Sciences and Interior Sciences
One criticism of Wilber’s work comes from the worldview that the physical world is all that is real. According to this viewpoint, the inner worlds of ideas, psychology, emotions, meaning, culture, and spiritual awareness are all just neurons firing in a physical brain. This is a major viewpoint in our era. This perspective denies the validity of our interior experiences as conscious beings. This subject is explored in Chapter 20, Flatland.
Wilber’s concepts make room for both physical and interior truth. There is a place for truths obtained by observing the physical behavior of people (and their DNA, neurons and biochemistry). There is also a place for truths obtained by dialoguing with people about their interior experiences. Thus, the interior world is granted validity within its domain equal to the validity of the exterior world within its domain. Wilber’s integral viewpoint offers us a global map that organizes the different kinds of truth that come from diverse fields of study. Wilber’s All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) map orients us to different kinds of knowledge and gives a viewpoint from which to see interrelationships between the interior and exterior realities.
Orienting Generalizations
Wilber has accomplished his task by assembling very basic conclusions, which he calls orienting generalizations, from thousands of books representing various disciplines, including philosophy, religion, science, ecoscience, systems theory, medicine, neurophysiology, art, poetry, aesthetics, psychology, psychotherapy, meditative traditions, and mystical experiences. He includes writers both ancient and modern, from East and West, North and South.
The orienting generalizations are the basic and broad conclusions from each of these many fields of study. These conclusions are truths generally accepted by scholars in these many fields—but may be relatively unknown outside that field. Though experts in the specific fields may disagree about details, they basically agree about these generalizations. These conclusions orient us to the general terrain of human knowledge.
Wilber’s orienting generalizations provide a way to integrate the different fields. These generalizations provide a context for understanding everything. Wilber has emphasized the importance of context in determining meaning. When information is viewed in a larger context than previously used, the meaning is changed—enhanced.¹¹
What’s In This Book?
The volume and complexity of Wilber’s writing constitute an obstacle to a newcomer. I developed a sequence of presentation intended to introduce, step by step, the basics of Wilber’s concepts. I suggest reading the material in the order presented.
This book has four parts:
• Part I summarizes Wilber’s Integral Vision. Wilber has a very comprehensive vision of how the various aspects of the universe fit together in a three-dimensional grid which he calls All Quadrants, All Levels or AQAL. His concepts culminate in a new understanding of the ultimate nature of the Kosmos (Chapter 6).
• Part II describes Integral Psychology, in which Wilber provides a fresh look at psychological development. Wilber has strongly argued that psychology alone is just part of the story of our development—the story is completed by adding the spiritual levels.
• Part III explores The Spectrum of Spiritual Experience, in which Wilber provides spiritual perspective based on his study of the world’s greatest mystics and his own extensive spiritual practice. Wilber has also emphatically argued that the spiritual levels taken alone are just part of the story—the spiritual story is completed by adding the psychological levels. He seeks the integration of Freud [Western psychology] and Buddha [Eastern spirituality]—the marriage of depth psychology with height psychology.¹²
• Part IV presents Obstacles and Opportunities. Flatland and Boomeritis constitute the primary obstacles to the further evolution of our consciousness both individually and collectively. The Growing Edge chapter includes examples of applications of integral concepts to current world situations. Wilber’s Integral Institute is developing integral solutions for problems in areas such as politics, medicine, law, business, education, psychology, and spirituality.
Summary of Wilber’s Integrative Concepts
Ken Wilber’s integrative concepts are summarized here, and are developed and explained through the rest of the book.
• Wilber has examined hundreds of different worldviews—how the world looks from different perspectives. He argues that these different worldviews all have something to teach us. He has worked to tease apart these conflicting points of view in order to incorporate the parts that are on target and discard parts that are off the mark.
Wilber says, Everybody is right—but only partly right. When we were in school, we knew a person had to be quite smart to score 100 percent on a true-false test. Wilber points out a person would also have to be quite smart to score zero on a true-false test. Wilber says, Nobody is smart enough to be 100 percent wrong. So, Wilber builds his world philosophy from the accurate parts of many diverse worldviews. Chapter 22 includes discussion of this concept in terms of developmental levels.
• Wilber has surveyed the history of human development from two interacting points of view: First, he considers the psychological and spiritual development of each individual person in the course of their lifetime. Second, he considers the
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PART I WILBER’S INTEGRAL VISION--
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Chapter 1 THE BIG PICTURE
We look first at the cosmos—the universe. Wilber points out that these words are now commonly used to mean the physical universe. He sees such usage as being very narrow. There is more to the cosmos than the physical cosmos! Kosmos Wilber re-introduces the original Greek word Kosmos to convey the inclusion of everything that exists—matter, body, mind, soul and spirit.¹³ The Kosmos includes the physical cosmos, and the study of the Kosmos is called Kosmology, and that is what we are now exploring.
Wilber calls the All, the Kosmos.
Natural Hierarchies Wherever we look in the Kosmos, we find hierarchies. A hierarchy is defined as “a body of entities arranged in a graded series,” and hierarchy is a natural characteristic of the Kosmos. Wilber distinguishes natural hierarchies from dominator hierarchies. Dominator hierarchies occur when one of the entities in the hierarchy assumes an unjustified importance or control. This is a pathological condition that we will discuss later. Natural hierarchy can be illustrated by some examples: • In the physical realm, we are familiar with the sequence in which atoms combine to form molecules, molecules combine to form cells, cells combine to form organs and tissues, which are constituents of organisms—such as people. Each stage physically incorporates the prior stage. It is a natural progression. • Wilber uses as an example this hierarchy: letters are combined to make words, words are combined to make sentences, sentences are combined to make paragraphs, and paragraphs are combined to make books. We notice that the entities are arranged as a hierarchy that is natural and inescapable. You cannot use paragraphs to make words. You cannot use letters to make paragraphs without also making words and sentences. Sentences are not “dominating” words or letters. Each has its natural place. • In subsequent chapters we will investigate the stages of development of consciousness in a person, the stages of development of societies, and the stages of development of worldviews. We will find in each of these cases that the stages constitute natural hierarchies. Hierarchies are inescapable, because all developmental patterns evolve by a process of increasing wholeness and inclusion (See Chapter 3.). This creates a natural ranking by holistic capacity. The higher stages incorporate more of the Kosmos. The higher stages provide a “glue” or pattern that unites and links the lower stages into a coherent whole.¹⁴ Dominator Hierarchies Dominator hierarchies disturb people, and well they should be disturbed. When any part in a natural hierarchy “attempts to dominate the whole, then you get a pathological or dominator hierarchy—a cancerous cell dominates the body, a fascist dictator dominates the social system, a repressive ego dominates the organism, and so on.” The cure for these pathological hierarchies is not to get rid of hierarchy as such. The cure is to arrest the arrogant element and integrate it back into its rightful place. Some people hesitate to do this, because they are reluctant to make the value judgments involved, and are reluctant to disturb the “peace” by arresting the offending element. However, if the pathological condition is not corrected, the pathology can destroy the entire entity. Some people claim that in getting rid of hierarchies they are being holistic. But actually, the only way to reach holism is to recognize the hierarchic nature of the situation. Without hierarchy, you simply have heaps, not wholes. If there is a dominator hierarchy, then treat the offending element as pathology—and fix it.¹⁵ Each element in a hierarchy is a “whole” at one level, and then is a “part” at the next higher level. The trouble comes when the element that is supposed to be a part at a particular level gets “puffed up” and acts as though it is the whole—the boss. If an employee gets puffed up and attempts to give orders to the boss, he is being pathological—and is in danger of being fired. This attempt to dominate the hierarchy is inappropriate and is pathological, an illness, a disease. This applies to all kinds of hierarchies—physical, social, cultural and spiritual.¹⁶
The Kosmos exhibits intrinsic processes of development that proceed in stages that constitute hierarchies. Natural hierarchies are unavoidable stages of development. Dominator hierarchies are a pathological form in which one element appropriates unjustified importance or control. Such pathologies must be corrected.
The Four Spheres The physical world emerged first. Wilber calls it the physiosphere. This is simply the physical realm of galaxies, stars, planets, continents, mountains, rocks, oceans and atmosphere. Then, after a rather long time, there emerged the biological world—plants and animals. Wilber refers to this as the biosphere. Next, after another long time, there emerged the sphere of mind—the noosphere. The word is based on the Greek nous or mind. The noosphere is a development of human minds. Then, the mind of mankind (noosphere) became aware of the sphere of Spirit or God, which Wilber refers to as the theosphere that is the Ground of all the other spheres. Theosphere means God-sphere. Of course, God or Spirit was present before the physiosphere—because Spirit is the ground, or basis, of all creation. (See Part III) Why is this hierarchy important? It is important because it is necessary to keep in mind the hierarchic arrangement of these four spheres. Otherwise, some rather strange (and false) conclusions can be drawn.¹⁷ One of Wilber’s basic concepts is that, at each stage of evolution, the higher stage transcends and includes the lower stage. The higher stage goes beyond the lower stage (transcends it) and also includes the lower stage as one of its components. As an example, remember the sequence of atoms, molecules and living cells. We can apply the “transcend and include” concept to the sequence of the spheres: • The physiosphere, the physical universe, comes first. This level provides the foundation for emergence of plants and animals. • The biosphere, plants and animals, including mankind as an animal, comes next. The biosphere transcends and includes the physiosphere. Thus, the physiosphere is the lower part of the biosphere. Plants and animals physically include parts of the physiosphere—atoms and molecules. And the biosphere is also very dependent on various parts of the physiosphere—the sun for heat, and water, air and minerals for plant growth. There are complex cycles of interaction between the physical and biological realms for such things as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and
water. • The noosphere, the realm of human mind, transcends and includes the biosphere. The biosphere is the lower part of the noosphere. The biosphere is in the noosphere, not the other way around. The biological realm includes the reproduction of bodies through sexuality and the social organization of family and small groups—as seen in animals. The noosphere moves social organization up to human villages, cities and states and this transcendence of the biosphere creates culture and society. “The noosphere is not in the biosphere.”¹⁸ Culture, with its symbols and toys and tools, rests on the biological base, but cannot be reduced to, explained by, or contained in that base. • The theosphere, the realm of God or Spirit, is the Ground or basis of all of the levels of the Kosmos. The theosphere includes the noosphere, biosphere and physiosphere. (See Part III) Wilber uses a mind experiment to test the order of a hierarchy. If we imagine that one level of a hierarchy is destroyed, then all higher levels of the hierarchy are also destroyed. This demonstrates which levels are higher than others. For example, if the physical earth were destroyed, the biosphere and noosphere would also be destroyed—showing that the biosphere and noosphere are higher than the physical earth. If the biosphere were destroyed, all human minds would be destroyed, along with human bodies and all plants and animals. The physiosphere would continue to exist quite well—the mountains and oceans would remain—thus showing the biosphere is higher than the physiosphere. If all human minds were destroyed, the biosphere would get along just fine. The elephants, jungles, cockroaches and ecosystems would not miss us—showing that human mind (noosphere) is higher than the biosphere. In contrast, ecological philosophers tend to use a hierarchy as follows: Even the eco-philosophers, who abhor hierarchies that place humans on the top of the evolutionary scale, have their own very strong hierarchy: … subatomic elements are parts of atoms, which are parts of molecules, which are parts of cells, which are parts of organisms, which are parts of ecosystems, which are parts of the biosphere. They thus value the biosphere above particular organisms, such as man, and they deplore man’s using the biosphere for his own selfish and ruinous purposes. All of that comes from their particular value hierarchy.¹⁹ The fallacy in the logic of the eco-philosophers mentioned above is explored in Chapter 3 under the heading of social holons. [The] startling fact is that ecological wisdom does not consist in how to live in accord with nature; it consists in how to get subjects [people] to agree on how to live in accord with nature. This wisdom is an intersubjective accord [accord between people] in the noosphere, not an immersion in the biosphere.²⁰ Wilber is, of course, interested in preserving the environment and ecosystems of the earth. But he wants to see it done for what he considers the right reason. The level of mind, human mind, has the biosphere as one of its components—thus, for humans to destroy the biosphere is simply suicide.
The four Spheres form a hierarchy: * The physiosphere came first. * The biosphere transcends and includes the physiosphere. * The noosphere transcends and includes the biosphere. The biosphere is in the noosphere. * The theosphere includes the physiosphere,biosphere and noosphere.
The Great Nest of Being Wilber has sought to identify the common basis of all the major world religions. He begins with an ancient concept called the Great Chain of Being—matter, body, mind, soul and spirit. This is a hierarchy of being and knowing. Wilber traces this “perennial philosophy” back to Plotinus and Plato and beyond as summarized by Wilber in The Marriage of Sense and Soul. The core of the premodern religious worldview is the Great Chain of Being. Huston Smith’s Forgotten Truth points out that this is the view of virtually all the premodern religions. In this view, Reality consists of interwoven levels reaching from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit. Each level transcends and includes its junior levels. And all are enveloped by Spirit, by God, by Goddess, by Tao, by Brahman, by the Absolute. This stunning unanimity of deep religious belief led Alan Watts to state flatly that “We are hardly aware of the extreme peculiarity of our own position, and find it difficult to realize the plain fact that there has otherwise been a single philosophical consensus of universal extent. It has been held by [men and women] who report the same insights and teach the same essential doctrine whether living today or six thousand years ago, whether from New Mexico in the Far West or from Japan in the Far East.”²¹ Wilber points out that the term Great Chain of Being is a misnomer, because the actual view is of a Great Nest of Being with each senior dimension enveloping its junior dimension. “This is why the Great Nest is most accurately portrayed as a series of concentric spheres or circles…”²² This is diagrammed in Figure 1-1. The letters “A” and “A + B” and “A + B + C” emphasize the inclusion of the prior stage as the stages move from matter to life to mind to soul to spirit. (“Spirit is both the highest level (causal) and the nondual Ground of all levels”²³—represented by the paper on which the figure is drawn, as discussed in Chapter 17.) Each stage “transcends and includes” the prior stage. The labels, physics, biology, psychology, theology and mysticism are, of course, the names of the disciplines that study the different levels. An “integral approach” must include all of these levels.²⁴--
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Figure 1-1. The Great Nest of Being—Illustrating Greater Depth ²⁵ Wilber emphasizes that each level includes its junior level and adds new qualities:²⁶ • The body adds sensations, feelings and emotions that are not found in rocks. • The mind includes emotions, and adds higher cognitive abilities—reason and logic. • The soul includes mind, and adds higher cognitions and affects such as archetypal illumination, vision, love and cosmic consciousness. Figure 1-2. The Great Nest of Being—Illustrating Less Span²⁸ Modernizing the Great Nest of Being Wilber starts with the traditional Great Nest of Being—and then “modernizes” it. First, he notes the distinction between depth and span. In the progression from matter to spirit, each level embraces more of the Kosmos—and we call this greater depth. Each level contains fewer individuals—and we call this less span. This is true of all hierarchies—greater depth and less span.²⁷ Some theorists confuse depth and span and the result is confused hierarchies and confused theories. The diagram of the Great Nest can also be drawn to emphasize the “less span” aspect. There are fewer people at the higher stages and we can visualize this as a conical “mountain” that people climb as they grow upward through this hierarchy. Figure 1-2. You may ask, “Now, which way is it? Figure 1-1 or 1-2?” It is both ways! Each diagram illustrates a certain aspect of the situation. Both diagrams are correct in their own way. Figure 1-1 illustrates the truth that the successive stages (matter, life, mind, soul and spirit) include more and more of the Kosmos (increasingly larger circles). Figure 1-2 illustrates the truth that the successive stages (matter, life, mind, soul and spirit) have fewer individuals (less span) at each stage (increasingly smaller circles). Development, or evolution, is a central concept in Wilber’s work. He views the Nest as a developmental sequence (not a pre-given system). This is a sequence for society as a whole as well as for each of us as individuals. The earth has evolved first as matter—the physical earth—the physiosphere. Then came evolution of life or body, starting with primitive organisms and progressing to humans—the biosphere. Then, we began the process of development of mind, the noosphere. And humanity as a whole is still in the process of evolution of the noosphere or mind. (See Chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10.) We can anticipate that in the future we will see movement into the soul level—some individuals are already living in the soul level, and we can expect more people to move to this level. The concepts for modernizing the Great Nest of Being (to include modern and postmodern insights) are developed further in Chapter 5, “Post-Metaphysical Spirituality.”²⁹
The Great Nest of Being is a premodern spiritual conception from antiquity: Mater, Life, Mind, Soul and Spirit. Wilber “modernizes” it to see a developmental sequence.
Lines of Development We sometimes speak of the stages of development as though a person moved his whole being from one stage to another. Wilber points out that development occurs in various lines of development and these lines are somewhat independent. You are familiar with the idea that people can have lines of development such as musical skills, mathematical talent, athletic ability or emotional intelligence. Wilber lists twenty-five or so different lines, including “cognition [thinking], morals, self-identity, psychosexuality, idea of the good, role taking, socio-emotional capacity, creativity, altruism, several lines that can be called ‘spiritual’ (care, openness, concern, religious faith, meditative stages), communicative competence, modes of space and time, affect/emotion, death-seizure,
needs, world views, mathematical competence, musical skills, kinesthetics, gender identity, defense mechanisms, interpersonal capacity, and empathy.”³⁰ I have used the terms stages and lines of development. Wilber also uses the terms waves and streams to emphasize the fluid and flowing nature of these terms. Waves are the same as stages, and streams are the same as lines. The streams, or lines, develop in relative independence. Current research is being conducted to establish the relationships between the streams. In some cases, the cognitive line is necessary (but not sufficient) to support some other streams. For example, cognitive [thinking] development is necessary to support moral development.³¹ “A person can be at a relatively high level of development in some streams, medium in others and low in still others. Overall development, in other words, can be quite uneven.” Wilber has emphasized in Integral Psychology that it is important to not confuse stages of development with lines of development. Wilber has described the role of the “self,” or self-system, as being the “juggler” that coordinates and harmonizes these lines and stages as explained in Appendix C. The uneven development is illustrated in Figure 1-3. Wilber calls this diagram an “integral psychograph.” Spiritual development is shown occurring in parallel with psychological development.³² Figure 1-3. Individuals Usually Develop Unevenly.³³ The figure indicates a person who is most developed in the cognitive (thinking) line, less developed in the interpersonal line and the affective (emotional) line, and still less developed in the moral and spiritual lines. If we think about people we know, we recognize that the athlete with superb physical abilities may (or may not) be a brilliant thinker. The successful and brilliant businessman may (or may not) have high moral development. The figure illustrates only five of the streams of development. The waves (stages) of development are a nested hierarchy and the same type of information can be shown as in Figure 1-4. The lines of development are not linear but are a fluid, flowing and spiraling process and could be better represented by spiraling lines.³⁴
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1-1. The Great Nest of Being—Illustrating Greater Depth ²⁵
Wilber emphasizes that each level includes its junior level and adds new qualities:²⁶
• The body adds sensations, feelings and emotions that are not found in rocks.
• The mind includes emotions, and adds higher cognitive abilities—reason and logic.
• The soul includes mind, and adds higher cognitions and affects such as archetypal illumination, vision, love and cosmic consciousness.
Figure 1-2. The Great Nest of Being—Illustrating Less Span²⁸
Modernizing the Great Nest of Being
Wilber starts with the traditional Great Nest of Being—and then modernizes it. First, he notes the distinction between depth and span. In the progression from matter to spirit, each level embraces more of the Kosmos—and we call this greater depth. Each level contains fewer individuals—and we call this less span. This is true of all hierarchies—greater depth and less span.²⁷ Some theorists confuse depth and span and the result is confused hierarchies and confused theories.
The diagram of the Great Nest can also be drawn to emphasize the less span aspect. There are fewer people at the higher stages and we can visualize this as a conical mountain that people climb as they grow upward through this hierarchy. Figure 1-2.
You may ask, Now, which way is it? Figure 1-1 or 1-2? It is both ways! Each diagram illustrates a certain aspect of the situation. Both diagrams are correct in their own way. Figure 1-1 illustrates the truth that the successive stages (matter, life, mind, soul and spirit) include more and more of the Kosmos (increasingly larger circles). Figure 1-2 illustrates the truth that the successive stages (matter, life, mind, soul and spirit) have fewer individuals (less span) at each stage (increasingly smaller circles).
Development, or evolution, is a central concept in Wilber’s work. He views the Nest as a developmental sequence (not a pre-given system). This is a sequence for society as a whole as well as for each of us as individuals. The earth has evolved first as matter—the physical earth—the physiosphere. Then came evolution of life or body, starting with primitive organisms and progressing to humans—the biosphere. Then, we began the process of development of mind, the noosphere. And humanity as a whole is still in the process of evolution of the noosphere or mind. (See Chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10.) We can anticipate that in the future we will see movement into the soul level—some individuals are already living in the soul level, and we can expect more people to move to this level.
The concepts for modernizing the Great Nest of Being (to include modern and postmodern insights) are developed further in Chapter 5, Post-Metaphysical Spirituality.²⁹
Lines of Development
We sometimes speak of the stages of development as though a person moved his whole being from one stage to another. Wilber points out that development occurs in various lines of development and these lines are somewhat independent. You are familiar with the idea that people can have lines of development such as musical skills, mathematical talent, athletic ability or emotional intelligence. Wilber lists twenty-five or so different lines, including "cognition [thinking], morals, self-identity, psychosexuality, idea of the good, role taking, socio-emotional capacity, creativity, altruism, several lines that can be called ‘spiritual’ (care, openness, concern, religious faith, meditative stages), communicative competence, modes of space and time, affect/emotion, death-seizure,
needs, world views, mathematical competence, musical skills, kinesthetics, gender identity, defense mechanisms, interpersonal capacity, and empathy."³⁰
I have used the terms stages and lines of development. Wilber also uses the terms waves and streams to emphasize the fluid and flowing nature of these terms. Waves are the same as stages, and streams are the same as lines.
The streams, or lines, develop in relative independence. Current research is being conducted to establish the relationships between the streams. In some cases, the cognitive line is necessary (but not sufficient) to support some other streams. For example, cognitive [thinking] development is necessary to support moral development.³¹ A person can be at a relatively high level of development in some streams, medium in others and low in still others. Overall development, in other words, can be quite uneven. Wilber has emphasized in Integral Psychology that it is important to not confuse stages of development with lines of development.
Wilber has described the role of the self, or self-system, as being the juggler that coordinates and harmonizes these lines and stages as explained in Appendix C.
The uneven development is illustrated in Figure 1-3. Wilber calls this diagram an integral psychograph. Spiritual development is shown occurring in parallel with psychological development.³²
Figure 1-3. Individuals Usually Develop Unevenly.³³
The figure indicates a person who is most developed in the cognitive (thinking) line, less developed in the interpersonal line and the affective (emotional) line, and still less developed in the moral and spiritual lines. If we think about people we know, we recognize that the athlete with superb physical abilities may (or may not) be a brilliant thinker. The successful and brilliant businessman may (or may not) have high moral development.
The figure illustrates only five of the streams of development. The waves (stages) of development are a nested hierarchy and the same type of information can be shown as in Figure 1-4. The lines of development are not linear but are a fluid, flowing and spiraling process and could be better represented by spiraling lines.³⁴
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--Figure 1-4. Uneven Development Displayed on the Great Nest of Being.³⁵
Wilber points out: This model sheds considerable light on the fact that … some individuals—including spiritual teachers—may be highly evolved in certain capacities (such as meditative awareness or cognitive brilliance), and yet demonstrate poor (or even pathological) development in other streams, such as the psychosexual or interpersonal. This also allows us to spot the ways in which the spiritual traditions themselves—from shamanism to Buddhism to Christianity to indigenous religions—might excel in training certain lines or capacities, but fall short in many others, or even be pathological in many others. A more integral transformative practice might therefore seek a more balanced … approach to transformation… ³⁶
Development proceeds along various Lines that are partly correlated but are partly independent. The concept of Lines allows us to spot uneven development of both spiritual teachers and the traditions themselves.
What Difference Does It Make? Understanding the distinction between natural hierarchies and dominator hierarchies enables identification of pathological or dominator hierarchies—which require our corrective action. The pathological hierarchies must be healed before they destroy the greater whole. This correction opens the way for further evolution and healthy development. Understanding the four spheres enables us to sort out our relationship to each of the spheres. The biosphere is part of the level of mind (noosphere). The level of mind (noosphere) is part of the God-sphere (theosphere). It is a process of “transcend and include.” Wilber modernizes the concept of the Great Nest of Being to meet the requirements of the modern and postmodern mind in Chapter 5, “Post-Metaphysical Spirituality.” The Great Nest is seen as a developmental sequence of stages of awareness and consciousness. The concept of Lines of development is one of the foundations for an “integral transformative practice” to promote more even development of the lines. Chapter 19. Summary Wilber calls the All, the Kosmos. The Kosmos exhibits intrinsic processes of development that proceed in stages that constitute hierarchies. Natural hierarchies are unavoidable stages of development. Dominator hierarchies are a pathological form in which one element appropriates unjustified importance or control. Such pathologies must be corrected. The four spheres form a hierarchy: * The physiosphere came first. * The biosphere transcends and includes the physiosphere. * The noosphere transcends and includes the biosphere. The biosphere is in the noosphere. * The theosphere includes the physiosphere, biosphere and noosphere. The Great Nest of Being is a premodern spiritual conception from antiquity: Mater, Life, Mind, Soul and Spirit. Wilber “modernizes” it to see a developmental sequence. Development proceeds along various Lines that are partly correlated but are partly independent. The concept of Lines allows us to spot uneven development of both spiritual teachers and the traditions themselves.
Figure 1-4. Uneven Development Displayed on the Great Nest of Being.³⁵
Wilber points out:
This model sheds considerable light on the fact that … some individuals—including spiritual teachers—may be highly evolved in certain capacities (such as meditative awareness or cognitive brilliance), and yet demonstrate poor (or even pathological) development in other streams, such as the psychosexual or interpersonal.
This also allows us to spot the ways in which the spiritual traditions themselves—from shamanism to Buddhism to Christianity to indigenous religions—might excel in training certain lines or capacities, but fall short in many others, or even be pathological in many others. A more integral transformative practice might therefore seek a more balanced … approach to transformation… ³⁶
What Difference Does It Make?
Understanding the distinction between natural hierarchies and dominator hierarchies enables identification of pathological or dominator hierarchies—which require our corrective action. The pathological hierarchies must be healed before they destroy the greater whole. This correction opens the way for further evolution and healthy development.
Understanding the four spheres enables us to sort out our relationship to each of the spheres. The biosphere is part of the level of mind (noosphere). The level of mind (noosphere) is part of the God-sphere (theosphere). It is a process of transcend and include.
Wilber modernizes the concept of the Great Nest of Being to meet the requirements of the modern and postmodern mind in Chapter 5, Post-Metaphysical Spirituality. The Great Nest is seen as a developmental sequence of stages of awareness and consciousness.
The concept of Lines of development is one of the foundations for an integral transformative practice to promote more even development of the lines. Chapter 19.
Summary
Wilber calls the All, the Kosmos.
The Kosmos exhibits intrinsic processes of development that proceed in stages that constitute hierarchies.
Natural hierarchies are unavoidable stages of development.
Dominator hierarchies are a pathological form in which one element appropriates unjustified importance or control. Such pathologies must be corrected.
The four spheres form a hierarchy:
* The physiosphere came first.
* The biosphere transcends and includes the physiosphere.
* The noosphere transcends and includes the biosphere. The biosphere is in the noosphere.
* The theosphere includes the physiosphere, biosphere and noosphere.
The Great Nest of Being is a premodern spiritual conception from antiquity: Mater, Life, Mind, Soul and Spirit. Wilber modernizes it to see a developmental sequence.
Development proceeds along various Lines that are partly correlated but are partly independent. The concept of Lines allows us to spot uneven development of both spiritual teachers and the traditions themselves.
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Chapter 2 THE FOUR QUADRANTS Throughout this book we will be discussing hierarchies of development. The dictionary definition of hierarchy is “a body of entities arranged in a graded series.” These hierarchies of development must somehow fit together. But how? Origin of the Concept of Quadrants This is a dilemma Ken Wilber faced in 1991. Wilber wanted to write a book outlining an integral philosophy. He sought a way to “believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world’s great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details—that is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations: a way to suggest that the world really is one, undivided, whole, and related to itself in every way: a holistic philosophy….”³⁷ Here is Wilber’s account of the dilemma and his eventual solution of the dilemma. His experience was in some ways like a three-year Tibetan meditation retreat. Three years later, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality was the result. During that period I lived the hermit life; I saw exactly four people in three years (Roger Walsh, who is an M.D., stopped by once a year to make sure I was alive); it was very much a typical three-year silent retreat (this period is described in One Taste, June 12 entry). I was locked into this thing, and it would not let go. The hard part had to do with hierarchies. … Everybody seemed to have some hierarchy, even those who claimed they didn’t. The problem is, none of them matched with the others. None of the hierarchies seemed to agree with each other. And that was the basic problem that kept me locked in my room for three years. At one point, I had over two hundred hierarchies written out on legal pads lying all over the floor, trying to figure out how to fit them together. There were the “natural science” hierarchies, which were the easy ones, since everybody agreed with them; atoms to molecules to cells to organisms, for example. They were easy to understand because they were so graphic: organisms actually contain cells, which actually contain molecules, which actually contain atoms. You can even see this directly with a microscope. That hierarchy is one of actual embrace: cells literally embrace or enfold molecules. The other fairly easy series of hierarchies were those discovered by the developmental psychologists. ... The names varied, and the schemes were slightly different, but the hierarchical story was the same—each succeeding stage incorporated its predecessors and then added some new capacity. This seemed very similar to the natural science hierarchies, except they still did not match up in any obvious way. Moreover, you can actually see organisms and cells in the empirical world, but you can’t see interior states of consciousness in the same way. It is not at all obvious how these hierarchies would—or even could—be related. And those were the easy ones. There were linguistic hierarchies, contextual hierarchies, spiritual hierarchies. There were stages of development in phonetics, stellar systems, cultural worldviews, autopoietic systems [systems that can reproduce], technological modes, economic structures, phylogenetic unfoldings [evolutionary development of plants, animals or societies], superconscious realizations. ... And they simply refused to agree with each other. G. Spencer Brown, in his remarkable book, Laws of Form, said that new knowledge comes when you simply bear in mind what you need to know. Keep holding the problem in mind, and it will yield. … I believe that any competent person is capable of bearing problems in mind until they yield their secrets; what not everybody possesses is the requisite will, passion, or insane obsession that will let them hold the problem long enough or fiercely enough. I, at any rate, was insane enough for this particular problem, and toward the end of that three-year period, the whole thing started to become clear to me. It soon became obvious that the various hierarchies fall into four major classes (what I would call the four quadrants [see below]); that some of the hierarchies are referring to individuals, some to collectives; some are about exterior realities, some are about interior ones, but they all fit together seamlessly.³⁸ Wilber did not just sit and think. He read over 800 books as the basis for Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. He expanded upon his previous theories—Wilber-1, Wilber-2 and Wilber-3. Figure 2-1 shows the realization born of Wilber’s three-year gestation. The hierarchies all fall into one of the four categories.
Figure 2-1. Wilber’s Four Quadrants Organize the Spheres of Knowledge.³⁹ Description of the Quadrants What is a quadrant? If you cut an apple in half, and then cut each piece in half, and you pick up one of the pieces—that is a quadrant of an apple. It is just one fourth of the apple. However, Wilber’s quadrants are much more complex than the quadrants of an apple, because the quadrants are the inside and outside, singular and plural. After Wilber points it out to us, the four-quadrant idea is simple. The left side is interior. The right side is exterior. The upper parts are individual. The lower parts are communal or collective. Perhaps you are asking yourself, “These are interior, exterior, individual and collective quadrants of WHAT?” Please stay with me; your question will be answered in a few pages. These four quadrants (Figure 2-1) are marked, UL for Upper Left, UR for Upper Right, LL for Lower Left, and LR for Lower Right. Wilber uses these initials to designate the quadrants in later discussion. These are all recognizable realities, expressed universally in human language as I, WE and IT. The Upper Left is marked “intentional”; this means whatever an individual experiences inside himself or herself—including perceptions, thoughts, feelings, intentions, and ideas about the self. When we talk about this quadrant we use the word “I.” I think this, or I feel that. This is the interior of the self. The Upper Right is marked “behavioral,” which means whatever can be observed from outside the individual—what he or she does, the appearance of his body, her muscles, bones, blood, brain, enzymes and neurotransmitters. We talk about this quadrant as an outside observer, the detached scientist, and we use the word “It.” It is a body (a machine) that has a deficiency of a certain enzyme. This is the exterior of the self. The Lower Right is marked “social (system).” This is the realm of systems of social organization—the primary economic activity, and types of government organization. We speak of “Its” (plural of it). Its social systems are very sophisticated. This is the exterior of the collective. The Lower Left is marked “cultural (worldspace).” This is the realm of relationships between people, and of our worldviews (how we view our relationship to people). We speak in terms of “We.” We have a respectful relationship. This is the interior of the collective. Wilber often speaks of the “Left Hand” (LH) by which he means the Upper Left and Lower Left quadrants that are both the interior areas. And he speaks of the “Right Hand” (RH) by which he means the Upper Right and Lower Right that are both exterior areas. Now that we know about the quadrants, Wilber fills them in as in Figure 2-2. A more complex version of this diagram is presented and discussed in several of Wilber’s books.⁴⁰
Chapter 2
THE FOUR QUADRANTS
Throughout this book we will be discussing hierarchies of development. The dictionary definition of hierarchy is a body of entities arranged in a graded series.
These hierarchies of development must somehow fit together. But how?
Origin of the Concept of Quadrants
This is a dilemma Ken Wilber faced in 1991. Wilber wanted to write a book outlining an integral philosophy. He sought a way to "believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world’s great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details—that is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations: a way to suggest that the world really is one, undivided, whole, and related to itself in every way: a holistic philosophy…."³⁷ Here is Wilber’s account of the dilemma and his eventual solution of the dilemma. His experience was in some ways like a three-year Tibetan meditation retreat.
Three years later, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality was the result. During that period I lived the hermit life; I saw exactly four people in three years (Roger Walsh, who is an M.D., stopped by once a year to make sure I was alive); it was very much a typical three-year silent retreat (this period is described in One Taste, June 12 entry). I was locked into this thing, and it would not let go.
The hard part had to do with hierarchies. …
Everybody seemed to have some hierarchy, even those who claimed they didn’t. The problem is, none of them matched with the others. None of the hierarchies seemed to agree with each other. And that was the basic problem that kept me locked in my room for three years.
At one point, I had over two hundred hierarchies written out on legal pads lying all over the floor, trying to figure out how to fit them together. There were the natural science hierarchies, which were the easy ones, since everybody agreed with them; atoms to molecules to cells to organisms, for example. They were easy to understand because they were so graphic: organisms actually contain cells, which actually contain molecules, which actually contain atoms. You can even see this directly with a microscope. That hierarchy is one of actual embrace: cells literally embrace or enfold molecules.
The other fairly easy series of hierarchies were those discovered by the developmental psychologists. ... The names varied, and the schemes were slightly different, but the hierarchical story was the same—each succeeding stage incorporated its predecessors and then added some new capacity. This seemed very similar to the natural science hierarchies, except they still did not match up in any obvious way. Moreover, you can actually see organisms and cells in the empirical world, but you can’t see interior states of consciousness in the same way. It is not at all obvious how these hierarchies would—or even could—be related.
And those were the easy ones. There were linguistic hierarchies, contextual hierarchies, spiritual hierarchies. There were stages of development in phonetics, stellar systems, cultural worldviews, autopoietic systems [systems that can reproduce], technological modes, economic structures, phylogenetic unfoldings [evolutionary development of plants, animals or societies], superconscious realizations. ... And they simply refused to agree with each other.
G. Spencer Brown, in his remarkable book, Laws of Form, said that new knowledge comes when you simply bear in mind what you need to know. Keep holding the problem in mind, and it will yield. … I believe that any competent person is capable of bearing problems in mind until they yield their secrets; what not everybody possesses is the requisite will, passion, or insane obsession that will let them hold the problem long enough or fiercely enough. I, at any rate, was insane enough for this particular problem, and toward the end of that three-year period, the whole thing started to become clear to me. It soon became obvious that the various hierarchies fall into four major classes (what I would call the four quadrants [see below]); that some of the hierarchies are referring to individuals, some to collectives; some are about exterior realities, some are about interior ones, but they all fit together seamlessly.³⁸
Wilber did not just sit and think. He read over 800 books as the basis for Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. He expanded upon his previous theories—Wilber-1, Wilber-2 and Wilber-3. Figure 2-1 shows the realization born of Wilber’s three-year gestation. The hierarchies all fall into one of the four categories.
Figure 2-1. Wilber’s Four Quadrants Organize the Spheres of Knowledge.³⁹
Description of the Quadrants
What is a quadrant? If you cut an apple in half, and then cut each piece in half, and you pick up one of the pieces—that is a quadrant of an apple. It is just one fourth of the apple. However, Wilber’s quadrants are much more complex than the quadrants of an apple, because the quadrants are the inside and outside, singular and plural.
After Wilber points it out to us, the four-quadrant idea is simple. The left side is interior. The right side is exterior. The upper parts are individual. The lower parts are communal or collective. Perhaps you are asking yourself, These are interior, exterior, individual and collective quadrants of WHAT? Please stay with me; your question will be answered in a few pages.
These four quadrants (Figure 2-1) are marked, UL for Upper Left, UR for Upper Right, LL for Lower Left, and LR for Lower Right. Wilber uses these initials to designate the quadrants in later discussion. These are all recognizable realities, expressed universally in human language as I, WE and IT.
The Upper Left is marked intentional; this means whatever an individual experiences inside himself or herself—including perceptions, thoughts, feelings, intentions, and ideas about the self. When we talk about this quadrant we use the word I. I think this, or I feel that. This is the interior of the self.
The Upper Right is marked behavioral, which means whatever can be observed from outside the individual—what he or she does, the appearance of his body, her muscles, bones, blood, brain, enzymes and neurotransmitters. We talk about this quadrant as an outside observer, the detached scientist, and we use the word It. It is a body (a machine) that has a deficiency of a certain enzyme. This is the exterior of the self.
The Lower Right is marked social (system). This is the realm of systems of social organization—the primary economic activity, and types of government organization. We speak of Its (plural of it). Its social systems are very sophisticated. This is the exterior of the collective.
The Lower Left is marked cultural (worldspace). This is the realm of relationships between people, and of our worldviews (how we view our relationship to people). We speak in terms of We. We have a respectful relationship. This is the interior of the collective.
Wilber often speaks of the Left Hand (LH) by which he means the Upper Left and Lower Left quadrants that are both the interior areas. And he speaks of the Right Hand (RH) by which he means the Upper Right and Lower Right that are both exterior areas.
Now that we know about the quadrants, Wilber fills them in as in Figure 2-2. A more complex version of this diagram is presented and discussed in several of Wilber’s books.⁴⁰
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Figure 2-2. The Four Quadrants Show Relationships Between Aspects of People.⁴² The Upper Left (UL) quadrant shows the meme hierarchy (beige, purple, red, blue, orange, green, etc.) to be described in Chapters 7 and 8. They are arranged starting from the center and going outward. This hierarchy can be extended further as higher stages are activated, and this is indicated by the words “transpersonal waves” that will be described in Part III. This is the quadrant of all individual subjective consciousness including “altered states of consciousness,” which are temporary experiences of higher states of consciousness to be discussed in Chapter 11. (A technical note: In subsequent writing, Wilber has stated that the memes are not exclusively an UL characteristic of a single individual, but memes are more properly understood as having four quadrants. That is, each meme has aspects that appear in the four quadrants. For Wilber, a meme is “a mental-cultural quadratic holon.”⁴¹ See further discussion of memes in Chapters 7 and 8, and Boomeritis chapter heading “Intersubjective Research Finds Intersubjective Stages.”) The Lower Left (LL) quadrant shows the worldview hierarchy (archaic, magical, mythical, rational, and so on) to be described in Chapter 10. They are arranged from the center outward. The relationship to another naming system is also indicated—premodern, modern, and postmodern. The Lower Right (LR) quadrant shows the hierarchy of economic bases (foraging, horticultural, agrarian, industrial and informational) to be described in Chapter 9. The corresponding types of social systems are also shown: survival clans, ethnic tribes, feudal empires, early nations, corporate states, value communities, integral commons, and holistic meshworks. The Upper Right (UR) quadrant for “brain and organism” is not completely filled in. This quadrant includes the hierarchy discussed above: atoms, molecules, cells, organs, organisms, etc. The quadrant also includes the whole universe of knowledge of the physical aspects of medicine, biology, physics, chemistry, and so on. This Upper Right knowledge correlates with the experiences in the Upper Left quadrant, and the other quadrants. The number scale in each quadrant indicates the correlations between the quadrants. Wilber’s articulation of his original concept of the quadrants is a very powerful framework in which to understand the relationships among various types of knowledge. The remainder of this book builds on the concept of quadrants. Wilber calls the All, the Kosmos.
Natural Hierarchies Wherever we look in the Kosmos, we find hierarchies. A hierarchy is defined as “a body of entities arranged in a graded series,” and hierarchy is a natural characteristic of the Kosmos. Wilber distinguishes natural hierarchies from dominator hierarchies. Dominator hierarchies occur when one of the entities in the hierarchy assumes an unjustified importance or control. This is a pathological condition that we will discuss later. Natural hierarchy can be illustrated by some examples: • In the physical realm, we are familiar with the sequence in which atoms combine to form molecules, molecules combine to form cells, cells combine to form organs and tissues, which are constituents of organisms—such as people. Each stage physically incorporates the prior stage. It is a natural progression. • Wilber uses as an example this hierarchy: letters are combined to make words, words are combined to make sentences, sentences are combined to make paragraphs, and paragraphs are combined to make books. We notice that the entities are arranged as a hierarchy that is natural and inescapable. You cannot use paragraphs to make words. You cannot use letters to make paragraphs without also making words and sentences. Sentences are not “dominating” words or letters. Each has its natural place. • In subsequent chapters we will investigate the stages of development of consciousness in a person, the stages of development of societies, and the stages of development of worldviews. We will find in each of these cases that the stages constitute natural hierarchies. Hierarchies are inescapable, because all developmental patterns evolve by a process of increasing wholeness and inclusion (See Chapter 3.). This creates a natural ranking by holistic capacity. The higher stages incorporate more of the Kosmos. The higher stages provide a “glue” or pattern that unites and links the lower stages into a coherent whole.¹⁴ Dominator Hierarchies Dominator hierarchies disturb people, and well they should be disturbed. When any part in a natural hierarchy “attempts to dominate the whole, then you get a pathological or dominator hierarchy—a cancerous cell dominates the body, a fascist dictator dominates the social system, a repressive ego dominates the organism, and so on.” The cure for these pathological hierarchies is not to get rid of hierarchy as such. The cure is to arrest the arrogant element and integrate it back into its rightful place. Some people hesitate to do this, because they are reluctant to make the value judgments involved, and are reluctant to disturb the “peace” by arresting the offending element. However, if the pathological condition is not corrected, the pathology can destroy the entire entity. Some people claim that in getting rid of hierarchies they are being holistic. But actually, the only way to reach holism is to recognize the hierarchic nature of the situation. Without hierarchy, you simply have heaps, not wholes. If there is a dominator hierarchy, then treat the offending element as pathology—and fix it.¹⁵ Each element in a hierarchy is a “whole” at one level, and then is a “part” at the next higher level. The trouble comes when the element that is supposed to be a part at a particular level gets “puffed up” and acts as though it is the whole—the boss. If an employee gets puffed up and attempts to give orders to the boss, he is being pathological—and is in danger of being fired. This attempt to dominate the hierarchy is inappropriate and is pathological, an illness, a disease. This applies to all kinds of hierarchies—physical, social, cultural and spiritual.¹⁶
The Kosmos exhibits intrinsic processes of development that proceed in stages that constitute hierarchies. Natural hierarchies are unavoidable stages of development. Dominator hierarchies are a pathological form in which one element appropriates unjustified importance or control. Such pathologies must be corrected.
The Four Spheres The physical world emerged first. Wilber calls it the physiosphere. This is simply the physical realm of galaxies, stars, planets, continents, mountains, rocks, oceans and atmosphere. Then, after a rather long time, there emerged the biological world—plants and animals. Wilber refers to this as the biosphere. Next, after another long time, there emerged the sphere of mind—the noosphere. The word is based on the Greek nous or mind. The noosphere is a development of human minds. Then, the mind of mankind (noosphere) became aware of the sphere of Spirit or God, which Wilber refers to as the theosphere that is the Ground of all the other spheres. Theosphere means God-sphere. Of course, God or Spirit was present before the physiosphere—because Spirit is the ground, or basis, of all creation. (See Part III) Why is this hierarchy important? It is important because it is necessary to keep in mind the hierarchic arrangement of these four spheres. Otherwise, some rather strange (and false) conclusions can be drawn.¹⁷ One of Wilber’s basic concepts is that, at each stage of evolution, the higher stage transcends and includes the lower stage. The higher stage goes beyond the lower stage (transcends it) and also includes the lower stage as one of its components. As an example, remember the sequence of atoms, molecules and living cells. We can apply the “transcend and include” concept to the sequence of the spheres: • The physiosphere, the physical universe, comes first. This level provides the foundation for emergence of plants and animals. • The biosphere, plants and animals, including mankind as an animal, comes next. The biosphere transcends and includes the physiosphere. Thus, the physiosphere is the lower part of the biosphere. Plants and animals physically include parts of the physiosphere—atoms and molecules. And the biosphere is also very dependent on various parts of the physiosphere—the sun for heat, and water, air and minerals for plant growth. There are complex cycles of interaction between the physical and biological realms for such things as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and
water. • The noosphere, the realm of human mind, transcends and includes the biosphere. The biosphere is the lower part of the noosphere. The biosphere is in the noosphere, not the other way around. The biological realm includes the reproduction of bodies through sexuality and the social organization of family and small groups—as seen in animals. The noosphere moves social organization up to human villages, cities and states and this transcendence of the biosphere creates culture and society. “The noosphere is not in the biosphere.”¹⁸ Culture, with its symbols and toys and tools, rests on the biological base, but cannot be reduced to, explained by, or contained in that base. • The theosphere, the realm of God or Spirit, is the Ground or basis of all of the levels of the Kosmos. The theosphere includes the noosphere, biosphere and physiosphere. (See Part III) Wilber uses a mind experiment to test the order of a hierarchy. If we imagine that one level of a hierarchy is destroyed, then all higher levels of the hierarchy are also destroyed. This demonstrates which levels are higher than others. For example, if the physical earth were destroyed, the biosphere and noosphere would also be destroyed—showing that the biosphere and noosphere are higher than the physical earth. If the biosphere were destroyed, all human minds would be destroyed, along with human bodies and all plants and animals. The physiosphere would continue to exist quite well—the mountains and oceans would remain—thus showing the biosphere is higher than the physiosphere. If all human minds were destroyed, the biosphere would get along just fine. The elephants, jungles, cockroaches and ecosystems would not miss us—showing that human mind (noosphere) is higher than the biosphere. In contrast, ecological philosophers tend to use a hierarchy as follows: Even the eco-philosophers, who abhor hierarchies that place humans on the top of the evolutionary scale, have their own very strong hierarchy: … subatomic elements are parts of atoms, which are parts of molecules, which are parts of cells, which are parts of organisms, which are parts of ecosystems, which are parts of the biosphere. They thus value the biosphere above particular organisms, such as man, and they deplore man’s using the biosphere for his own selfish and ruinous purposes. All of that comes from their particular value hierarchy.¹⁹ The fallacy in the logic of the eco-philosophers mentioned above is explored in Chapter 3 under the heading of social holons. [The] startling fact is that ecological wisdom does not consist in how to live in accord with nature; it consists in how to get subjects [people] to agree on how to live in accord with nature. This wisdom is an intersubjective accord [accord between people] in the noosphere, not an immersion in the biosphere.²⁰ Wilber is, of course, interested in preserving the environment and ecosystems of the earth. But he wants to see it done for what he considers the right reason. The level of mind, human mind, has the biosphere as one of its components—thus, for humans to destroy the biosphere is simply suicide.
The four Spheres form a hierarchy: * The physiosphere came first. * The biosphere transcends and includes the physiosphere. * The noosphere transcends and includes the biosphere. The biosphere is in the noosphere. * The theosphere includes the physiosphere,biosphere and noosphere.
The Great Nest of Being Wilber has sought to identify the common basis of all the major world religions. He begins with an ancient concept called the Great Chain of Being—matter, body, mind, soul and spirit. This is a hierarchy of being and knowing. Wilber traces this “perennial philosophy” back to Plotinus and Plato and beyond as summarized by Wilber in The Marriage of Sense and Soul. The core of the premodern religious worldview is the Great Chain of Being. Huston Smith’s Forgotten Truth points out that this is the view of virtually all the premodern religions. In this view, Reality consists of interwoven levels reaching from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit. Each level transcends and includes its junior levels. And all are enveloped by Spirit, by God, by Goddess, by Tao, by Brahman, by the Absolute. This stunning unanimity of deep religious belief led Alan Watts to state flatly that “We are hardly aware of the extreme peculiarity of our own position, and find it difficult to realize the plain fact that there has otherwise been a single philosophical consensus of universal extent. It has been held by [men and women] who report the same insights and teach the same essential doctrine whether living today or six thousand years ago, whether from New Mexico in the Far West or from Japan in the Far East.”²¹ Wilber points out that the term Great Chain of Being is a misnomer, because the actual view is of a Great Nest of Being with each senior dimension enveloping its junior dimension. “This is why the Great Nest is most accurately portrayed as a series of concentric spheres or circles…”²² This is diagrammed in Figure 1-1. The letters “A” and “A + B” and “A + B + C” emphasize the inclusion of the prior stage as the stages move from matter to life to mind to soul to spirit. (“Spirit is both the highest level (causal) and the nondual Ground of all levels”²³—represented by the paper on which the figure is drawn, as discussed in Chapter 17.) Each stage “transcends and includes” the prior stage. The labels, physics, biology, psychology, theology and mysticism are, of course, the names of the disciplines that study the different levels. An “integral approach” must include all of these levels.²⁴--
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Figure 1-1. The Great Nest of Being—Illustrating Greater Depth ²⁵ Wilber emphasizes that each level includes its junior level and adds new qualities:²⁶ • The body adds sensations, feelings and emotions that are not found in rocks. • The mind includes emotions, and adds higher cognitive abilities—reason and logic. • The soul includes mind, and adds higher cognitions and affects such as archetypal illumination, vision, love and cosmic consciousness. Figure 1-2. The Great Nest of Being—Illustrating Less Span²⁸ Modernizing the Great Nest of Being Wilber starts with the traditional Great Nest of Being—and then “modernizes” it. First, he notes the distinction between depth and span. In the progression from matter to spirit, each level embraces more of the Kosmos—and we call this greater depth. Each level contains fewer individuals—and we call this less span. This is true of all hierarchies—greater depth and less span.²⁷ Some theorists confuse depth and span and the result is confused hierarchies and confused theories. The diagram of the Great Nest can also be drawn to emphasize the “less span” aspect. There are fewer people at the higher stages and we can visualize this as a conical “mountain” that people climb as they grow upward through this hierarchy. Figure 1-2. You may ask, “Now, which way is it? Figure 1-1 or 1-2?” It is both ways! Each diagram illustrates a certain aspect of the situation. Both diagrams are correct in their own way. Figure 1-1 illustrates the truth that the successive stages (matter, life, mind, soul and spirit) include more and more of the Kosmos (increasingly larger circles). Figure 1-2 illustrates the truth that the successive stages (matter, life, mind, soul and spirit) have fewer individuals (less span) at each stage (increasingly smaller circles). Development, or evolution, is a central concept in Wilber’s work. He views the Nest as a developmental sequence (not a pre-given system). This is a sequence for society as a whole as well as for each of us as individuals. The earth has evolved first as matter—the physical earth—the physiosphere. Then came evolution of life or body, starting with primitive organisms and progressing to humans—the biosphere. Then, we began the process of development of mind, the noosphere. And humanity as a whole is still in the process of evolution of the noosphere or mind. (See Chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10.) We can anticipate that in the future we will see movement into the soul level—some individuals are already living in the soul level, and we can expect more people to move to this level. The concepts for modernizing the Great Nest of Being (to include modern and postmodern insights) are developed further in Chapter 5, “Post-Metaphysical Spirituality.”²⁹
The Great Nest of Being is a premodern spiritual conception from antiquity: Mater, Life, Mind, Soul and Spirit. Wilber “modernizes” it to see a developmental sequence.
Lines of Development We sometimes speak of the stages of development as though a person moved his whole being from one stage to another. Wilber points out that development occurs in various lines of development and these lines are somewhat independent. You are familiar with the idea that people can have lines of development such as musical skills, mathematical talent, athletic ability or emotional intelligence. Wilber lists twenty-five or so different lines, including “cognition [thinking], morals, self-identity, psychosexuality, idea of the good, role taking, socio-emotional capacity, creativity, altruism, several lines that can be called ‘spiritual’ (care, openness, concern, religious faith, meditative stages), communicative competence, modes of space and time, affect/emotion, death-seizure,
needs, world views, mathematical competence, musical skills, kinesthetics, gender identity, defense mechanisms, interpersonal capacity, and empathy.”³⁰ I have used the terms stages and lines of development. Wilber also uses the terms waves and streams to emphasize the fluid and flowing nature of these terms. Waves are the same as stages, and streams are the same as lines. The streams, or lines, develop in relative independence. Current research is being conducted to establish the relationships between the streams. In some cases, the cognitive line is necessary (but not sufficient) to support some other streams. For example, cognitive [thinking] development is necessary to support moral development.³¹ “A person can be at a relatively high level of development in some streams, medium in others and low in still others. Overall development, in other words, can be quite uneven.” Wilber has emphasized in Integral Psychology that it is important to not confuse stages of development with lines of development. Wilber has described the role of the “self,” or self-system, as being the “juggler” that coordinates and harmonizes these lines and stages as explained in Appendix C. The uneven development is illustrated in Figure 1-3. Wilber calls this diagram an “integral psychograph.” Spiritual development is shown occurring in parallel with psychological development.³² Figure 1-3. Individuals Usually Develop Unevenly.³³ The figure indicates a person who is most developed in the cognitive (thinking) line, less developed in the interpersonal line and the affective (emotional) line, and still less developed in the moral and spiritual lines. If we think about people we know, we recognize that the athlete with superb physical abilities may (or may not) be a brilliant thinker. The successful and brilliant businessman may (or may not) have high moral development. The figure illustrates only five of the streams of development. The waves (stages) of development are a nested hierarchy and the same type of information can be shown as in Figure 1-4. The lines of development are not linear but are a fluid, flowing and spiraling process and could be better represented by spiraling lines.³⁴
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1-1. The Great Nest of Being—Illustrating Greater Depth ²⁵
Wilber emphasizes that each level includes its junior level and adds new qualities:²⁶
• The body adds sensations, feelings and emotions that are not found in rocks.
• The mind includes emotions, and adds higher cognitive abilities—reason and logic.
• The soul includes mind, and adds higher cognitions and affects such as archetypal illumination, vision, love and cosmic consciousness.
Figure 1-2. The Great Nest of Being—Illustrating Less Span²⁸
Modernizing the Great Nest of Being
Wilber starts with the traditional Great Nest of Being—and then modernizes it. First, he notes the distinction between depth and span. In the progression from matter to spirit, each level embraces more of the Kosmos—and we call this greater depth. Each level contains fewer individuals—and we call this less span. This is true of all hierarchies—greater depth and less span.²⁷ Some theorists confuse depth and span and the result is confused hierarchies and confused theories.
The diagram of the Great Nest can also be drawn to emphasize the less span aspect. There are fewer people at the higher stages and we can visualize this as a conical mountain that people climb as they grow upward through this hierarchy. Figure 1-2.
You may ask, Now, which way is it? Figure 1-1 or 1-2? It is both ways! Each diagram illustrates a certain aspect of the situation. Both diagrams are correct in their own way. Figure 1-1 illustrates the truth that the successive stages (matter, life, mind, soul and spirit) include more and more of the Kosmos (increasingly larger circles). Figure 1-2 illustrates the truth that the successive stages (matter, life, mind, soul and spirit) have fewer individuals (less span) at each stage (increasingly smaller circles).
Development, or evolution, is a central concept in Wilber’s work. He views the Nest as a developmental sequence (not a pre-given system). This is a sequence for society as a whole as well as for each of us as individuals. The earth has evolved first as matter—the physical earth—the physiosphere. Then came evolution of life or body, starting with primitive organisms and progressing to humans—the biosphere. Then, we began the process of development of mind, the noosphere. And humanity as a whole is still in the process of evolution of the noosphere or mind. (See Chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10.) We can anticipate that in the future we will see movement into the soul level—some individuals are already living in the soul level, and we can expect more people to move to this level.
The concepts for modernizing the Great Nest of Being (to include modern and postmodern insights) are developed further in Chapter 5, Post-Metaphysical Spirituality.²⁹
Lines of Development
We sometimes speak of the stages of development as though a person moved his whole being from one stage to another. Wilber points out that development occurs in various lines of development and these lines are somewhat independent. You are familiar with the idea that people can have lines of development such as musical skills, mathematical talent, athletic ability or emotional intelligence. Wilber lists twenty-five or so different lines, including "cognition [thinking], morals, self-identity, psychosexuality, idea of the good, role taking, socio-emotional capacity, creativity, altruism, several lines that can be called ‘spiritual’ (care, openness, concern, religious faith, meditative stages), communicative competence, modes of space and time, affect/emotion, death-seizure,
needs, world views, mathematical competence, musical skills, kinesthetics, gender identity, defense mechanisms, interpersonal capacity, and empathy."³⁰
I have used the terms stages and lines of development. Wilber also uses the terms waves and streams to emphasize the fluid and flowing nature of these terms. Waves are the same as stages, and streams are the same as lines.
The streams, or lines, develop in relative independence. Current research is being conducted to establish the relationships between the streams. In some cases, the cognitive line is necessary (but not sufficient) to support some other streams. For example, cognitive [thinking] development is necessary to support moral development.³¹ A person can be at a relatively high level of development in some streams, medium in others and low in still others. Overall development, in other words, can be quite uneven. Wilber has emphasized in Integral Psychology that it is important to not confuse stages of development with lines of development.
Wilber has described the role of the self, or self-system, as being the juggler that coordinates and harmonizes these lines and stages as explained in Appendix C.
The uneven development is illustrated in Figure 1-3. Wilber calls this diagram an integral psychograph. Spiritual development is shown occurring in parallel with psychological development.³²
Figure 1-3. Individuals Usually Develop Unevenly.³³
The figure indicates a person who is most developed in the cognitive (thinking) line, less developed in the interpersonal line and the affective (emotional) line, and still less developed in the moral and spiritual lines. If we think about people we know, we recognize that the athlete with superb physical abilities may (or may not) be a brilliant thinker. The successful and brilliant businessman may (or may not) have high moral development.
The figure illustrates only five of the streams of development. The waves (stages) of development are a nested hierarchy and the same type of information can be shown as in Figure 1-4. The lines of development are not linear but are a fluid, flowing and spiraling process and could be better represented by spiraling lines.³⁴
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--Figure 1-4. Uneven Development Displayed on the Great Nest of Being.³⁵
Wilber points out: This model sheds considerable light on the fact that … some individuals—including spiritual teachers—may be highly evolved in certain capacities (such as meditative awareness or cognitive brilliance), and yet demonstrate poor (or even pathological) development in other streams, such as the psychosexual or interpersonal. This also allows us to spot the ways in which the spiritual traditions themselves—from shamanism to Buddhism to Christianity to indigenous religions—might excel in training certain lines or capacities, but fall short in many others, or even be pathological in many others. A more integral transformative practice might therefore seek a more balanced … approach to transformation… ³⁶
Development proceeds along various Lines that are partly correlated but are partly independent. The concept of Lines allows us to spot uneven development of both spiritual teachers and the traditions themselves.
What Difference Does It Make? Understanding the distinction between natural hierarchies and dominator hierarchies enables identification of pathological or dominator hierarchies—which require our corrective action. The pathological hierarchies must be healed before they destroy the greater whole. This correction opens the way for further evolution and healthy development. Understanding the four spheres enables us to sort out our relationship to each of the spheres. The biosphere is part of the level of mind (noosphere). The level of mind (noosphere) is part of the God-sphere (theosphere). It is a process of “transcend and include.” Wilber modernizes the concept of the Great Nest of Being to meet the requirements of the modern and postmodern mind in Chapter 5, “Post-Metaphysical Spirituality.” The Great Nest is seen as a developmental sequence of stages of awareness and consciousness. The concept of Lines of development is one of the foundations for an “integral transformative practice” to promote more even development of the lines. Chapter 19. Summary Wilber calls the All, the Kosmos. The Kosmos exhibits intrinsic processes of development that proceed in stages that constitute hierarchies. Natural hierarchies are unavoidable stages of development. Dominator hierarchies are a pathological form in which one element appropriates unjustified importance or control. Such pathologies must be corrected. The four spheres form a hierarchy: * The physiosphere came first. * The biosphere transcends and includes the physiosphere. * The noosphere transcends and includes the biosphere. The biosphere is in the noosphere. * The theosphere includes the physiosphere, biosphere and noosphere. The Great Nest of Being is a premodern spiritual conception from antiquity: Mater, Life, Mind, Soul and Spirit. Wilber “modernizes” it to see a developmental sequence. Development proceeds along various Lines that are partly correlated but are partly independent. The concept of Lines allows us to spot uneven development of both spiritual teachers and the traditions themselves.
Figure 1-4. Uneven Development Displayed on the Great Nest of Being.³⁵
Wilber points out:
This model sheds considerable light on the fact that … some individuals—including spiritual teachers—may be highly evolved in certain capacities (such as meditative awareness or cognitive brilliance), and yet demonstrate poor (or even pathological) development in other streams, such as the psychosexual or interpersonal.
This also allows us to spot the ways in which the spiritual traditions themselves—from shamanism to Buddhism to Christianity to indigenous religions—might excel in training certain lines or capacities, but fall short in many others, or even be pathological in many others. A more integral transformative practice might therefore seek a more balanced … approach to transformation… ³⁶
What Difference Does It Make?
Understanding the distinction between natural hierarchies and dominator hierarchies enables identification of pathological or dominator hierarchies—which require our corrective action. The pathological hierarchies must be healed before they destroy the greater whole. This correction opens the way for further evolution and healthy development.
Understanding the four spheres enables us to sort out our relationship to each of the spheres. The biosphere is part of the level of mind (noosphere). The level of mind (noosphere) is part of the God-sphere (theosphere). It is a process of transcend and include.
Wilber modernizes the concept of the Great Nest of Being to meet the requirements of the modern and postmodern mind in Chapter 5, Post-Metaphysical Spirituality. The Great Nest is seen as a developmental sequence of stages of awareness and consciousness.
The concept of Lines of development is one of the foundations for an integral transformative practice to promote more even development of the lines. Chapter 19.
Summary
Wilber calls the All, the Kosmos.
The Kosmos exhibits intrinsic processes of development that proceed in stages that constitute hierarchies.
Natural hierarchies are unavoidable stages of development.
Dominator hierarchies are a pathological form in which one element appropriates unjustified importance or control. Such pathologies must be corrected.
The four spheres form a hierarchy:
* The physiosphere came first.
* The biosphere transcends and includes the physiosphere.
* The noosphere transcends and includes the biosphere. The biosphere is in the noosphere.
* The theosphere includes the physiosphere, biosphere and noosphere.
The Great Nest of Being is a premodern spiritual conception from antiquity: Mater, Life, Mind, Soul and Spirit. Wilber modernizes it to see a developmental sequence.
Development proceeds along various Lines that are partly correlated but are partly independent. The concept of Lines allows us to spot uneven development of both spiritual teachers and the traditions themselves.
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Chapter 2 THE FOUR QUADRANTS Throughout this book we will be discussing hierarchies of development. The dictionary definition of hierarchy is “a body of entities arranged in a graded series.” These hierarchies of development must somehow fit together. But how? Origin of the Concept of Quadrants This is a dilemma Ken Wilber faced in 1991. Wilber wanted to write a book outlining an integral philosophy. He sought a way to “believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world’s great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details—that is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations: a way to suggest that the world really is one, undivided, whole, and related to itself in every way: a holistic philosophy….”³⁷ Here is Wilber’s account of the dilemma and his eventual solution of the dilemma. His experience was in some ways like a three-year Tibetan meditation retreat. Three years later, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality was the result. During that period I lived the hermit life; I saw exactly four people in three years (Roger Walsh, who is an M.D., stopped by once a year to make sure I was alive); it was very much a typical three-year silent retreat (this period is described in One Taste, June 12 entry). I was locked into this thing, and it would not let go. The hard part had to do with hierarchies. … Everybody seemed to have some hierarchy, even those who claimed they didn’t. The problem is, none of them matched with the others. None of the hierarchies seemed to agree with each other. And that was the basic problem that kept me locked in my room for three years. At one point, I had over two hundred hierarchies written out on legal pads lying all over the floor, trying to figure out how to fit them together. There were the “natural science” hierarchies, which were the easy ones, since everybody agreed with them; atoms to molecules to cells to organisms, for example. They were easy to understand because they were so graphic: organisms actually contain cells, which actually contain molecules, which actually contain atoms. You can even see this directly with a microscope. That hierarchy is one of actual embrace: cells literally embrace or enfold molecules. The other fairly easy series of hierarchies were those discovered by the developmental psychologists. ... The names varied, and the schemes were slightly different, but the hierarchical story was the same—each succeeding stage incorporated its predecessors and then added some new capacity. This seemed very similar to the natural science hierarchies, except they still did not match up in any obvious way. Moreover, you can actually see organisms and cells in the empirical world, but you can’t see interior states of consciousness in the same way. It is not at all obvious how these hierarchies would—or even could—be related. And those were the easy ones. There were linguistic hierarchies, contextual hierarchies, spiritual hierarchies. There were stages of development in phonetics, stellar systems, cultural worldviews, autopoietic systems [systems that can reproduce], technological modes, economic structures, phylogenetic unfoldings [evolutionary development of plants, animals or societies], superconscious realizations. ... And they simply refused to agree with each other. G. Spencer Brown, in his remarkable book, Laws of Form, said that new knowledge comes when you simply bear in mind what you need to know. Keep holding the problem in mind, and it will yield. … I believe that any competent person is capable of bearing problems in mind until they yield their secrets; what not everybody possesses is the requisite will, passion, or insane obsession that will let them hold the problem long enough or fiercely enough. I, at any rate, was insane enough for this particular problem, and toward the end of that three-year period, the whole thing started to become clear to me. It soon became obvious that the various hierarchies fall into four major classes (what I would call the four quadrants [see below]); that some of the hierarchies are referring to individuals, some to collectives; some are about exterior realities, some are about interior ones, but they all fit together seamlessly.³⁸ Wilber did not just sit and think. He read over 800 books as the basis for Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. He expanded upon his previous theories—Wilber-1, Wilber-2 and Wilber-3. Figure 2-1 shows the realization born of Wilber’s three-year gestation. The hierarchies all fall into one of the four categories.
Figure 2-1. Wilber’s Four Quadrants Organize the Spheres of Knowledge.³⁹ Description of the Quadrants What is a quadrant? If you cut an apple in half, and then cut each piece in half, and you pick up one of the pieces—that is a quadrant of an apple. It is just one fourth of the apple. However, Wilber’s quadrants are much more complex than the quadrants of an apple, because the quadrants are the inside and outside, singular and plural. After Wilber points it out to us, the four-quadrant idea is simple. The left side is interior. The right side is exterior. The upper parts are individual. The lower parts are communal or collective. Perhaps you are asking yourself, “These are interior, exterior, individual and collective quadrants of WHAT?” Please stay with me; your question will be answered in a few pages. These four quadrants (Figure 2-1) are marked, UL for Upper Left, UR for Upper Right, LL for Lower Left, and LR for Lower Right. Wilber uses these initials to designate the quadrants in later discussion. These are all recognizable realities, expressed universally in human language as I, WE and IT. The Upper Left is marked “intentional”; this means whatever an individual experiences inside himself or herself—including perceptions, thoughts, feelings, intentions, and ideas about the self. When we talk about this quadrant we use the word “I.” I think this, or I feel that. This is the interior of the self. The Upper Right is marked “behavioral,” which means whatever can be observed from outside the individual—what he or she does, the appearance of his body, her muscles, bones, blood, brain, enzymes and neurotransmitters. We talk about this quadrant as an outside observer, the detached scientist, and we use the word “It.” It is a body (a machine) that has a deficiency of a certain enzyme. This is the exterior of the self. The Lower Right is marked “social (system).” This is the realm of systems of social organization—the primary economic activity, and types of government organization. We speak of “Its” (plural of it). Its social systems are very sophisticated. This is the exterior of the collective. The Lower Left is marked “cultural (worldspace).” This is the realm of relationships between people, and of our worldviews (how we view our relationship to people). We speak in terms of “We.” We have a respectful relationship. This is the interior of the collective. Wilber often speaks of the “Left Hand” (LH) by which he means the Upper Left and Lower Left quadrants that are both the interior areas. And he speaks of the “Right Hand” (RH) by which he means the Upper Right and Lower Right that are both exterior areas. Now that we know about the quadrants, Wilber fills them in as in Figure 2-2. A more complex version of this diagram is presented and discussed in several of Wilber’s books.⁴⁰
Chapter 2
THE FOUR QUADRANTS
Throughout this book we will be discussing hierarchies of development. The dictionary definition of hierarchy is a body of entities arranged in a graded series.
These hierarchies of development must somehow fit together. But how?
Origin of the Concept of Quadrants
This is a dilemma Ken Wilber faced in 1991. Wilber wanted to write a book outlining an integral philosophy. He sought a way to "believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world’s great wisdom traditions. Not on the level of details—that is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations: a way to suggest that the world really is one, undivided, whole, and related to itself in every way: a holistic philosophy…."³⁷ Here is Wilber’s account of the dilemma and his eventual solution of the dilemma. His experience was in some ways like a three-year Tibetan meditation retreat.
Three years later, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality was the result. During that period I lived the hermit life; I saw exactly four people in three years (Roger Walsh, who is an M.D., stopped by once a year to make sure I was alive); it was very much a typical three-year silent retreat (this period is described in One Taste, June 12 entry). I was locked into this thing, and it would not let go.
The hard part had to do with hierarchies. …
Everybody seemed to have some hierarchy, even those who claimed they didn’t. The problem is, none of them matched with the others. None of the hierarchies seemed to agree with each other. And that was the basic problem that kept me locked in my room for three years.
At one point, I had over two hundred hierarchies written out on legal pads lying all over the floor, trying to figure out how to fit them together. There were the natural science hierarchies, which were the easy ones, since everybody agreed with them; atoms to molecules to cells to organisms, for example. They were easy to understand because they were so graphic: organisms actually contain cells, which actually contain molecules, which actually contain atoms. You can even see this directly with a microscope. That hierarchy is one of actual embrace: cells literally embrace or enfold molecules.
The other fairly easy series of hierarchies were those discovered by the developmental psychologists. ... The names varied, and the schemes were slightly different, but the hierarchical story was the same—each succeeding stage incorporated its predecessors and then added some new capacity. This seemed very similar to the natural science hierarchies, except they still did not match up in any obvious way. Moreover, you can actually see organisms and cells in the empirical world, but you can’t see interior states of consciousness in the same way. It is not at all obvious how these hierarchies would—or even could—be related.
And those were the easy ones. There were linguistic hierarchies, contextual hierarchies, spiritual hierarchies. There were stages of development in phonetics, stellar systems, cultural worldviews, autopoietic systems [systems that can reproduce], technological modes, economic structures, phylogenetic unfoldings [evolutionary development of plants, animals or societies], superconscious realizations. ... And they simply refused to agree with each other.
G. Spencer Brown, in his remarkable book, Laws of Form, said that new knowledge comes when you simply bear in mind what you need to know. Keep holding the problem in mind, and it will yield. … I believe that any competent person is capable of bearing problems in mind until they yield their secrets; what not everybody possesses is the requisite will, passion, or insane obsession that will let them hold the problem long enough or fiercely enough. I, at any rate, was insane enough for this particular problem, and toward the end of that three-year period, the whole thing started to become clear to me. It soon became obvious that the various hierarchies fall into four major classes (what I would call the four quadrants [see below]); that some of the hierarchies are referring to individuals, some to collectives; some are about exterior realities, some are about interior ones, but they all fit together seamlessly.³⁸
Wilber did not just sit and think. He read over 800 books as the basis for Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. He expanded upon his previous theories—Wilber-1, Wilber-2 and Wilber-3. Figure 2-1 shows the realization born of Wilber’s three-year gestation. The hierarchies all fall into one of the four categories.
Figure 2-1. Wilber’s Four Quadrants Organize the Spheres of Knowledge.³⁹
Description of the Quadrants
What is a quadrant? If you cut an apple in half, and then cut each piece in half, and you pick up one of the pieces—that is a quadrant of an apple. It is just one fourth of the apple. However, Wilber’s quadrants are much more complex than the quadrants of an apple, because the quadrants are the inside and outside, singular and plural.
After Wilber points it out to us, the four-quadrant idea is simple. The left side is interior. The right side is exterior. The upper parts are individual. The lower parts are communal or collective. Perhaps you are asking yourself, These are interior, exterior, individual and collective quadrants of WHAT? Please stay with me; your question will be answered in a few pages.
These four quadrants (Figure 2-1) are marked, UL for Upper Left, UR for Upper Right, LL for Lower Left, and LR for Lower Right. Wilber uses these initials to designate the quadrants in later discussion. These are all recognizable realities, expressed universally in human language as I, WE and IT.
The Upper Left is marked intentional; this means whatever an individual experiences inside himself or herself—including perceptions, thoughts, feelings, intentions, and ideas about the self. When we talk about this quadrant we use the word I. I think this, or I feel that. This is the interior of the self.
The Upper Right is marked behavioral, which means whatever can be observed from outside the individual—what he or she does, the appearance of his body, her muscles, bones, blood, brain, enzymes and neurotransmitters. We talk about this quadrant as an outside observer, the detached scientist, and we use the word It. It is a body (a machine) that has a deficiency of a certain enzyme. This is the exterior of the self.
The Lower Right is marked social (system). This is the realm of systems of social organization—the primary economic activity, and types of government organization. We speak of Its (plural of it). Its social systems are very sophisticated. This is the exterior of the collective.
The Lower Left is marked cultural (worldspace). This is the realm of relationships between people, and of our worldviews (how we view our relationship to people). We speak in terms of We. We have a respectful relationship. This is the interior of the collective.
Wilber often speaks of the Left Hand (LH) by which he means the Upper Left and Lower Left quadrants that are both the interior areas. And he speaks of the Right Hand (RH) by which he means the Upper Right and Lower Right that are both exterior areas.
Now that we know about the quadrants, Wilber fills them in as in Figure 2-2. A more complex version of this diagram is presented and discussed in several of Wilber’s books.⁴⁰
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The hierarchies of development fall into four groups—Four Quadrants—which are interior, exterior, singular and plural. Wilber’s revolutionary conception of the four quadrants changes everything in our understanding of the Kosmos. The quadrants “tie it all together.” Any one-quadrant approach is made obsolete.
“What” has Four Quadrants? The discussion of the four quadrants leaves us with a big question: What is “the thing” that has four quadrants? “The thing” is a nested hierarchy of holons—as described in the next chapter. I am reminded of the familiar story about the blind people who were introduced to an elephant—and were then asked to describe it. One (feeling its tail) said the elephant is like a rope. Others (feeling various parts) said the elephant is like a tree, a leaf, a snake, or a wall. See Figure 2-3. In the same way, most modern researchers studying “the elephant” of reality look at it from only one quadrant. The Upper Right researcher says the elephant is only a “physical system.” The Lower Right researcher says the elephant is a “holistic social
system.” The Lower Left researcher says the elephant is a “cultural system” created by agreement of the participants. And an Upper Left researcher says the elephant is “my personal experience of thoughts and feelings.” And, Wilber argues, all those descriptions are correct as far as they go, but each view taken alone is very incomplete—and does not give a good picture of the whole elephant. Figure 2-4 illustrates the problem. Four Perspectives on One Elephant The Quadrants are four perspectives on the one elephant. It is very important to remember that the four quadrants are not four territories. There is one territory and four points of view toward this one territory. Each quadrant is a point of view—a perspective. Figure 2-3. What an Elephant is Like Depends on the Part You Investigate. (Drawing by Joshua C. Anderson) Perspective is a key word in Wilber’s thought. In art, perspective is a method for representing on a flat surface the way the world looks when standing in a particular place. In Wilber’s system of thought, perspective is the way the world looks when standing in a particular “place” of consciousness. Just as an artist can create his work of art from any of a multitude of places, we can view the world from any of a multitude of perspectives. Thus, the real world is multi-perspectival. Wilber uses the term aperspectival to mean that there is no single perspective that tells the whole story. In architecture, a building is usually pictured from several perspectives: a plan view (from the top), and several elevation views (from the front, both sides and back). Several perspectives are required to get the whole picture. There are also perspectives that show just the plumbing, or just the electrical systems, and cross-sections to show the placement of stairs and elevators. Wilber is telling us that we need a number of perspectives to understand how our world is organized. Figure 2-4. The Quadrants Are Four Perspectives On The One Elephant. All Quadrants, All Levels At this point, it is obvious that an accurate picture requires looking at the “elephant” from a number of different perspectives. We need to integrate the views of the different quadrants. We need to consider that there are different levels in each quadrant. Wilber calls this an “All Quadrants, All Levels” (AQAL) approach. This AQAL
Figure 2-2. The Four Quadrants Show Relationships
Between Aspects of People.⁴²
The Upper Left (UL) quadrant shows the meme hierarchy (beige, purple, red, blue, orange, green, etc.) to be described in Chapters 7 and 8. They are arranged starting from the center and going outward. This hierarchy can be extended further as higher stages are activated, and this is indicated by the words transpersonal waves that will be described in Part III. This is the quadrant of all individual subjective consciousness including altered states of consciousness, which are temporary experiences of higher states of consciousness to be discussed in Chapter 11. (A technical note: In subsequent writing, Wilber has stated that the memes are not exclusively an UL characteristic of a single individual, but memes are more properly understood as having four quadrants. That is, each meme has aspects that appear in the four quadrants. For Wilber, a meme is a mental-cultural quadratic holon.⁴¹ See further discussion of memes in Chapters 7 and 8, and Boomeritis chapter heading Intersubjective Research Finds Intersubjective Stages.)
The Lower Left (LL) quadrant shows the worldview hierarchy (archaic, magical, mythical, rational, and so on) to be described in Chapter 10. They are arranged from the center outward. The relationship to another naming system is also indicated—premodern, modern, and postmodern.
The Lower Right (LR) quadrant shows the hierarchy of economic bases (foraging, horticultural, agrarian, industrial and informational) to be described in Chapter 9. The corresponding types of social systems are also shown: survival clans, ethnic tribes, feudal empires, early nations, corporate states, value communities, integral commons, and holistic meshworks.
The Upper Right (UR) quadrant for brain and organism is not completely filled in. This quadrant includes the hierarchy discussed above: atoms, molecules, cells, organs, organisms, etc. The quadrant also includes the whole universe of knowledge of the physical aspects of medicine, biology, physics, chemistry, and so on. This Upper Right knowledge correlates with the experiences in the Upper Left quadrant, and the other quadrants. The number scale in each quadrant indicates the correlations between the quadrants.
Wilber’s articulation of his original concept of the quadrants is a very powerful framework in which to understand the relationships among various types of knowledge. The remainder of this book builds on the concept of quadrants.
What has Four Quadrants?
The discussion of the four quadrants leaves us with a big question: What is the thing that has four quadrants? The thing is a nested hierarchy of holons—as described in the next chapter.
I am reminded of the familiar story about the blind people who were introduced to an elephant—and were then asked to describe it. One (feeling its tail) said the elephant is like a rope. Others (feeling various parts) said the elephant is like a tree, a leaf, a snake, or a wall. See Figure 2-3.
In the same way, most modern researchers studying the elephant of reality look at it from only one quadrant. The Upper Right researcher says the elephant is only a physical system. The Lower Right researcher says the elephant is a "holistic social
system. The Lower Left researcher says the elephant is a cultural system created by agreement of the participants. And an Upper Left researcher says the elephant is my personal experience of thoughts and feelings." And, Wilber argues, all those descriptions are correct as far as they go, but each view taken alone is very incomplete—and does not give a good picture of the whole elephant. Figure 2-4 illustrates the problem.
Four Perspectives on One Elephant
The Quadrants are four perspectives on the one elephant. It is very important to remember that the four quadrants are not four territories. There is one territory and four points of view toward this one territory. Each quadrant is a point of view—a perspective.
Figure 2-3. What an Elephant is Like Depends on the Part You Investigate.
(Drawing by Joshua C. Anderson)
Perspective is a key word in Wilber’s thought. In art, perspective is a method for representing on a flat surface the way the world looks when standing in a particular place. In Wilber’s system of thought, perspective is the way the world looks when standing in a particular place of consciousness. Just as an artist can create his work of art from any of a multitude of places, we can view the world from any of a multitude of perspectives. Thus, the real world is multi-perspectival. Wilber uses the term aperspectival to mean that there is no single perspective that tells the whole story.
In architecture, a building is usually pictured from several perspectives: a plan view (from the top), and several elevation views (from the front, both sides and back). Several perspectives are required to get the whole picture. There are also perspectives that show just the plumbing, or just the electrical systems, and cross-sections to show the placement of stairs and elevators. Wilber is telling us that we need a number of perspectives to understand how our world is organized.
Figure 2-4. The Quadrants Are Four Perspectives On The One Elephant.
All Quadrants, All Levels
At this point, it is obvious that an accurate picture requires looking at the elephant from a number of different perspectives. We need to integrate the views of the different quadrants. We need to consider that there are different levels in each quadrant. Wilber calls this an All Quadrants, All Levels (AQAL) approach. This AQAL
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concept is a fundamental cornerstone of the Wilber-4 model, and will be further developed throughout the remainder of the book. It is easy to remember that Wilber-4 is concerned with the four quadrants. Wilber has elaborated the AQAL approach further in Volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy (scheduled for 2005), which has been called his Wilber-5 phase. He refers to the integration of many methods of inquiry as “integral methodological pluralism.”⁴³ That is, in order to obtain full and accurate understanding, it is necessary to integrate the results from many methods of inquiry. The AQAL model is the first step in accomplishing this integration. The Quadrants are four perspectives on the one elephant. A perspective is the way the world looks when standing in a particular place of consciousness.
Summary The hierarchies of development fall into four groups—Four Quadrants—that are interior, exterior, singular and plural. Wilber’s revolutionary conception of the four quadrants changes everything in our understanding of the Kosmos. The quadrants “tie it all together.” Any one-quadrant approach is made obsolete. The Quadrants are four perspectives on the one elephant. A perspective is the way the world looks when standing in a particular place of consciousness.
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Chapter 3 HOLONS EVERYWHERE We have long been told that “everything” is made of atoms (or subatomic particles). We have heard this so many times that we tend to ignore its implications. This approach leads to the concept that the only things that exist are physical objects—made of atoms. Then, such things as love, mind, soul, and spirit are derived from material physical objects—if they are even admitted to exist at all. Wilber points out, “that approach is profoundly reductionistic, because it is going to privilege the material, physical universe, and then everything else—from life to mind to spirit—has to be derived from subatomic particles, and this will never, never work.”⁴⁴ When the other three quadrants are reduced to one quadrant, such as the Upper Right quadrant, Wilber calls this reductionism. Wilber presents a different approach—based on the concept of holons. Whole/Parts Are Called Holons This is a hierarchy of physical components: The human body is composed of organs and tissues that are composed of cells. Cells are composed of molecules that are composed of atoms. Atoms are composed of protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons and neutrons are composed of quarks. And quarks are composed of “something.” And so on. We notice that each of these building blocks is a “whole” object, and at the same time is a “part” of the next higher level. “Arthur Koestler coined the term ‘holon’ to refer to an entity that is itself a whole and simultaneously a part of some other whole. And if you start to look closely at the things and processes that actually exist, it soon becomes obvious that they are not merely wholes, they are also parts of something else. They are whole/parts, they are holons.”⁴⁵ We can now identify some holons (whole/parts): quarks, protons, neutrons, atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs and the human body. We can say that the human body is a holon, and it is composed of its sub-holons. A crucial aspect of holons is that they are nested, one inside another, which is inside yet another. This is in contrast to our previous concept of building blocks—in which a building is assembled brick by brick—we add more bricks to make bigger buildings. Or, we gather a thousand or so parts and put them together to make an automobile. Holons are not bricks but are more like sub-assemblies. Modern manufacturing of an automobile uses sub-assemblies. For instance the dash of an automobile arrives at the assembly line already completed with all its indicators, warning lights, and controls already in place. Holons come in a great range of sizes—from very tiny, to large “sub-assemblies,” to complete organisms. Holons are nested. Holons Everywhere The concept of holons applies in all areas. In every case the holons are nested—with larger holons built up from smaller ones. • The physical earth (physiosphere) is composed of holons: atoms, molecules, water, air, sand, mountains, continents, and so on. • The biological world (biosphere) is composed of holons: cells, tissues, plants, and animal organisms including mammals, fish and birds. (Ecosystems and the biosphere are “social holons,” and they will be discussed later.) • The world of ideas and mind (noosphere) is composed of holons: Ideas are holons. The “work of Ken Wilber” is an idea holon, which is composed of the ideas in the various books and articles he has written. There are more encompassing ideas that are composed of smaller ideas—and all of them are holons. Wilber goes on to say, “reality is composed of whole/parts, or ‘holons.’”⁴⁶ That is, everything is composed of holons. This concept has many, many implications, which we will explore. Wilber begins his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality in this way: This is a book about holons—about wholes that are parts of other wholes, indefinitely. Whole atoms are parts of molecules; whole molecules are parts of cells; whole cells are parts of organisms, and so on. Each whole is simultaneously a part, a whole/part, a holon. And reality is composed, not of things nor processes nor wholes nor parts, but of whole/parts, of holons. We will be looking at holons in the cosmos, in the bios, in the psyche, and in theos; and at the evolutionary thread that connects them all, unfolds them all, embraces them all, endlessly.⁴⁷ Holarchy. Wilber likes to emphasize that hierarchies are composed of holons by using the word holarchy interchangeably with hierarchy. Wilber uses the term holarchy to drive home the point that the Kosmos is composed of holons—which are nested hierarchically. Holarchy is another of Wilber’s key concepts. Holons and Quadrants Holons and the four quadrants cannot be separated. All holons have four quadrants. That is, each holon has an outside and an inside, a singular and a plural. The concept of quadrants exists precisely because all holons have these four aspects. The elements of hierarchies of development are a whole at one stage and a part at the next stage. The whole/parts are called holons. Wilber uses the word holarchy interchangeably with hierarchy to emphasize that hierarchies are composed of holons. Reality is composed of holons. Each holon has four quadrants.
All the Way Up, and All the Way Down Wilber discusses the infinite nature of the hierarchies of holons: And the point is, everything is basically a holon of some sort or another. There is a two-thousand-year-old philosophical squabble between atomists and wholists: which is ultimately real, the whole or the part? And the answer is, neither. Or both, if you prefer. There are only whole/parts in all directions, all the way up, all the way down. There’s an old joke about a King who goes to a Wiseperson and asks how it is that the Earth doesn’t fall down. The Wiseperson replies, “The Earth is resting on a lion.” “On what, then, is the lion resting?” “The lion is resting on an elephant.” “On what is the elephant resting?” “The elephant is resting on a turtle.” “On what is the . . .?” “You can stop right there, Your Majesty. It’s turtles all the way down.” Turtles all the way down, holons all the way down. No matter how far down we go, we find holons resting on holons resting on holons. Even subatomic particles disappear into a virtual cloud of bubbles within bubbles, holons within holons, in an infinity of probability waves. Holons all the way down. … There is no whole that isn’t also simultaneously a part of some other whole, indefinitely, unendingly. Time goes on, and today’s wholes are tomorrow’s parts. . . . Even the “Whole” of the Kosmos is simply a part of the next moment’s whole, indefinitely. At no point do we have the whole, because there is no whole, there are only whole/parts forever.⁴⁸ Holons Make Us Dizzy Wilber invented a new word to describe the nature of holons—dizzifying. Holons make us dizzy. The word is very apt, as when Wilber says, “…it is extremely important to emphasize the indefiniteness of holarchy, its openness, its dizzifyingly nesting nature …”⁴⁹ The indefiniteness is especially unnerving at the bottom and the top of the hierarchy. At the bottom, there is no “part” from which all is built. We go down to atoms, to various subatomic particles, and the whole thing dissolves into a swarm of smaller, very-elusive particles, which are not even “solid” but are only energy—vibrations. It is disquieting to not be able to say what even “solid things” are made of. And at the top of the hierarchy, where does it end? Wilber points out that the “top” is a whole/part. There is no “whole” at the top, either.⁵⁰ Types of Holons Now that we know everything is composed of holons, we need to investigate the characteristics of holons. First of all, there are several types⁵¹ of holons: • Individual holons are the type we have discussed thus far: atoms, molecules, cells, and organisms. Individual holons have constituent parts. • Social holons are formed when individual holons are members of a group. Social holons have members (not constituent parts) and this is a very important difference. We will discuss social holons in a few pages. • Artifacts and heaps. Artifacts are products of individual or social holons, such as a bird’s nest, an anthill, an automobile or the internet. Heaps are a poorly defined entity such as a puddle of water, or a pile of leaves. Artifacts and heaps will be discussed later. Characteristics of holons The following discussion is primarily about individual holons. Holons have some astonishing characteristics—characteristics that even indicate the nature of evolution! Because every holon is a whole/part, it has two “tendencies” or two “drives,” we might say—it has to maintain its wholeness and its partness.⁵² Autonomy. Each holon must maintain its own wholeness, its own identity. Wilber calls this autonomy or agency. If it fails to do this, it just ceases to exist. The holon must maintain its autonomy in the face of environmental pressures that would otherwise obliterate it. This is true for all holons: atoms, cells, organisms, ideas. Relationships. Each holon must also maintain its partness, its role as a part of a larger whole. Wilber calls this maintaining its relationships or communions. “Its own existence depends upon its capacity to fit into its environment, and this is true from atoms to molecules to animals to humans.”⁵³ We don’t think of an electron as having much consciousness. However, it appears that electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom have some awareness of the other electrons swarming in their atom. They appear to “know” when an electron shell is full. Other electrons don’t enter a full shell. This appears to be an instance of a holon (electron) having a capacity to fit into its environment.
Holons must maintain their wholeness, their agency or defining pattern, or they cease to exist. Holons must maintain their partness, their communions, or they cease to exist.
Each holon has two other very important capacities which Wilber calls “self-transcendence” and “self-dissolution.” Self-dissolution. Any holon that fails to maintain its wholeness (agency) and its partness (communions) can break down completely. If it does break down, it tends to do so in the reverse of the direction in which it was built up. For example, self-dissolution of a cell would result in molecules, which could break down to smaller molecules, which could break down to atoms. Self-dissolution is break down into its subholons, which can, in turn, break down into their own subholons. Self-transcendence. The reverse process of self-transcendence is quite remarkable. It is the building up process. For example, how did inert molecules come together to
Chapter 3
HOLONS EVERYWHERE
We have long been told that everything is made of atoms (or subatomic particles). We have heard this so many times that we tend to ignore its implications. This approach leads to the concept that the only things that exist are physical objects—made of atoms. Then, such things as love, mind, soul, and spirit are derived from material physical objects—if they are even admitted to exist at all.
Wilber points out, "that approach is profoundly reductionistic, because it is going to privilege the material, physical universe, and then everything else—from life to mind to spirit—has to be derived from subatomic particles, and this will never, never work."⁴⁴ When the other three quadrants are reduced to one quadrant, such as the Upper Right quadrant, Wilber calls this reductionism. Wilber presents a different approach—based on the concept of holons.
Whole/Parts Are Called Holons
This is a hierarchy of physical components: The human body is composed of organs and tissues that are composed of cells. Cells are composed of molecules that are composed of atoms. Atoms are composed of protons, neutrons and electrons. Protons and neutrons are composed of quarks. And quarks are composed of something. And so on.
We notice that each of these building blocks is a whole object, and at the same time is a part of the next higher level. "Arthur Koestler coined the term ‘holon’ to refer to an entity that is itself a whole and simultaneously a part of some other whole. And if you start to look closely at the things and processes that actually exist, it soon becomes obvious that they are not merely wholes, they are also parts of something else. They are whole/parts, they are holons."⁴⁵
We can now identify some holons (whole/parts): quarks, protons, neutrons, atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs and the human body. We can say that the human body is a holon, and it is composed of its sub-holons.
A crucial aspect of holons is that they are nested, one inside another, which is inside yet another. This is in contrast to our previous concept of building blocks—in which a building is assembled brick by brick—we add more bricks to make bigger buildings. Or, we gather a thousand or so parts and put them together to make an automobile.
Holons are not bricks but are more like sub-assemblies. Modern manufacturing of an automobile uses sub-assemblies. For instance the dash of an automobile arrives at the assembly line already completed with all its indicators, warning lights, and controls already in place. Holons come in a great range of sizes—from very tiny, to large sub-assemblies, to complete organisms. Holons are nested.
Holons Everywhere
The concept of holons applies in all areas. In every case the holons are nested—with larger holons built up from smaller ones.
• The physical earth (physiosphere) is composed of holons: atoms, molecules, water, air, sand, mountains, continents, and so on.
• The biological world (biosphere) is composed of holons: cells, tissues, plants, and animal organisms including mammals, fish and birds. (Ecosystems and the biosphere are social holons, and they will be discussed later.)
• The world of ideas and mind (noosphere) is composed of holons: Ideas are holons. The work of Ken Wilber is an idea holon, which is composed of the ideas in the various books and articles he has written. There are more encompassing ideas that are composed of smaller ideas—and all of them are holons.
Wilber goes on to say, reality is composed of whole/parts, or ‘holons.’⁴⁶ That is, everything is composed of holons. This concept has many, many implications, which we will explore. Wilber begins his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality in this way:
This is a book about holons—about wholes that are parts of other wholes, indefinitely. Whole atoms are parts of molecules; whole molecules are parts of cells; whole cells are parts of organisms, and so on. Each whole is simultaneously a part, a whole/part, a holon. And reality is composed, not of things nor processes nor wholes nor parts, but of whole/parts, of holons. We will be looking at holons in the cosmos, in the bios, in the psyche, and in theos; and at the evolutionary thread that connects them all, unfolds them all, embraces them all, endlessly.⁴⁷
Holarchy. Wilber likes to emphasize that hierarchies are composed of holons by using the word holarchy interchangeably with hierarchy. Wilber uses the term holarchy to drive home the point that the Kosmos is composed of holons—which are nested hierarchically. Holarchy is another of Wilber’s key concepts.
Holons and Quadrants
Holons and the four quadrants cannot be separated. All holons have four quadrants. That is, each holon has an outside and an inside, a singular and a plural. The concept of quadrants exists precisely because all holons have these four aspects.
All the Way Up, and All the Way Down
Wilber discusses the infinite nature of the hierarchies of holons:
And the point is, everything is basically a holon of some sort or another. There is a two-thousand-year-old philosophical squabble between atomists and wholists: which is ultimately real, the whole or the part? And the answer is, neither. Or both, if you prefer. There are only whole/parts in all directions, all the way up, all the way down.
There’s an old joke about a King who goes to a Wiseperson and asks how it is that the Earth doesn’t fall down. The Wiseperson replies, The Earth is resting on a lion. On what, then, is the lion resting? The lion is resting on an elephant. On what is the elephant resting? The elephant is resting on a turtle. On what is the . . .? You can stop right there, Your Majesty. It’s turtles all the way down.
Turtles all the way down, holons all the way down. No matter how far down we go, we find holons resting on holons resting on holons. Even subatomic particles disappear into a virtual cloud of bubbles within bubbles, holons within holons, in an infinity of probability waves. Holons all the way down. … There is no whole that isn’t also simultaneously a part of some other whole, indefinitely, unendingly. Time goes on, and today’s wholes are tomorrow’s parts. . . . Even the Whole of the Kosmos is simply a part of the next moment’s whole, indefinitely. At no point do we have the whole, because there is no whole, there are only whole/parts forever.⁴⁸
Holons Make Us Dizzy
Wilber invented a new word to describe the nature of holons—dizzifying. Holons make us dizzy. The word is very apt, as when Wilber says, …it is extremely important to emphasize the indefiniteness of holarchy, its openness, its dizzifyingly nesting nature …⁴⁹ The indefiniteness is especially unnerving at the bottom and the top of the hierarchy. At the bottom, there is no part from which all is built. We go down to atoms, to various subatomic particles, and the whole thing dissolves into a swarm of smaller, very-elusive particles, which are not even solid but are only energy—vibrations. It is disquieting to not be able to say what even solid things are made of. And at the top of the hierarchy, where does it end? Wilber points out that the top is a whole/part. There is no whole at the top, either.⁵⁰
Types of Holons
Now that we know everything is composed of holons, we need to investigate the characteristics of holons. First of all, there are several types⁵¹ of holons:
• Individual holons are the type we have discussed thus far: atoms, molecules, cells, and organisms. Individual holons have constituent parts.
• Social holons are formed when individual holons are members of a group. Social holons have members (not constituent parts) and this is a very important difference. We will discuss social holons in a few pages.
• Artifacts and heaps. Artifacts are products of individual or social holons, such as a bird’s nest, an anthill, an automobile or the internet. Heaps are a poorly defined entity such as a puddle of water, or a pile of leaves. Artifacts and heaps will be discussed later.
Characteristics of holons
The following discussion is primarily about individual holons. Holons have some astonishing characteristics—characteristics that even indicate the nature of evolution!
Because every holon is a whole/part, it has two tendencies or two drives, we might say—it has to maintain its wholeness and its partness.⁵²
Autonomy. Each holon must maintain its own wholeness, its own identity. Wilber calls this autonomy or agency. If it fails to do this, it just ceases to exist. The holon must maintain its autonomy in the face of environmental pressures that would otherwise obliterate it. This is true for all holons: atoms, cells, organisms, ideas.
Relationships. Each holon must also maintain its partness, its role as a part of a larger whole. Wilber calls this maintaining its relationships or communions. Its own existence depends upon its capacity to fit into its environment, and this is true from atoms to molecules to animals to humans.⁵³
We don’t think of an electron as having much consciousness. However, it appears that electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom have some awareness of the other electrons swarming in their atom. They appear to know when an electron shell is full. Other electrons don’t enter a full shell. This appears to be an instance of a holon (electron) having a capacity to fit into its environment.
Each holon has two other very important capacities which Wilber calls self-transcendence and self-dissolution.
Self-dissolution. Any holon that fails to maintain its wholeness (agency) and its partness (communions) can break down completely. If it does break down, it tends to do so in the reverse of the direction in which it was built up. For example, self-dissolution of a cell would result in molecules, which could break down to smaller molecules, which could break down to atoms. Self-dissolution is break down into its subholons, which can, in turn, break down into their own subholons.
Self-transcendence. The reverse process of self-transcendence is quite remarkable. It is the building up process. For example, how did inert molecules come together to
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form living cells? The standard, glib, neo-Darwinian explanation of natural selection—absolutely nobody believes this anymore. Evolution clearly operates in part by Darwinian natural selection, but this process simply selects those transformations that have already occurred by mechanisms that absolutely nobody understands. …⁵⁴ As an example, Wilber discusses the standard notion that wings simply evolved from forelegs. This requires perhaps a hundred mutations to change forelegs into functional wings. If you have maybe half of the required number of mutations, then you get a half-wing. A half-wing will not do—it is no good as a leg and no good as a wing. You can’t run and you can’t fly. The half-wing has no adaptive value whatsoever. You are somebody’s dinner. The wing will work only if these hundred mutations happen all at once, in one animal—and also these same mutations must occur simultaneously in another animal of the opposite sex, and then they have to somehow find each other, have dinner, a few drinks, mate, and have offspring with real functional wings. Talk about mind-boggling. This is infinitely, absolutely, utterly mind-boggling. Random mutations cannot even begin to explain this.⁵⁵ And besides, the vast, vast majority of mutations are lethal—the random mutations usually do not result in living offspring. How are we to expect to find a hundred nonlethal mutations happening simultaneously? It is hard to believe we would have even four or five nonlethal mutations simultaneously by a random process. It is easy to understand that once the great jump from forelegs to wings has occurred, natural selection will select the better wings in preference to the less workable wings—“but the wings themselves? Nobody has a clue.”⁵⁶ Evolutionary science has for the moment simply “agreed to call this ‘quantum evolution’ or ‘punctuated evolution’ or ‘emergent evolution’—radically novel and emergent and incredibly complex holons come into existence in a huge leap, in a quantum-like fashion—with no evidence whatsoever of intermediate forms.”⁵⁷ However we decide these extraordinary transformations occur, the fact is undeniable that they do. Thus, many theorists, like Erich Jantsch, simply refer to evolution as “self-realization through self-transcendence.” Evolution is a wildly self-transcending process: it has the utterly amazing capacity to go beyond what went before. So evolution is in part a process of transcendence, which incorporates what went before and then adds incredibly novel components. The drive to self-transcendence is thus built into the very fabric of the Kosmos itself.⁵⁸ Wilber pictures these four “drives” of all holons arranged as a cross. In the horizontal direction are agency and communion. In the vertical direction the drives are self-dissolution and self-transcendence.⁵⁹ Self-transcendence Agency Communion Self-dissolution⁶⁰ Holons and Evolution We have arrived at some startling conclusions: • Everything is composed of holons. • Holons have, as part of their very nature, the capacity to evolve! • Then, the universe has the built-in capacity to evolve! Wilber says, “the Kosmos is creative.”⁶¹ We will have to sit down and rest for a minute or two to let that soak in. These ideas free us from the old (and conflicting) explanations: God created everything. Or, random chance and mutations created everything. Wilber discusses the concept that the built-in creativity of holons is a manifestation of Spirit. Wilber also uses the Buddhist term “Emptiness” as a synonym for Spirit and as the source of this creativity. This “Emptiness” is empty of forms but is bursting full of creative potential as we will explore in Part III. Emptiness (Spirit) gives rise to all forms. Spirit is the formless Ground within which all forms arise. Evolutionary scientists agree that self-transcendence is built into the nature of the universe. So, what is this self-transcending creativity? “What is creativity but another name for Spirit?”⁶² Wilber continues, “What is that self-transcending creativity? Spirit, yes? Emptiness, creativity, holons.”⁶³ Science and Creation Wilber points out that anybody that thinks about the Big Bang becomes an Idealist. First, there was absolutely nothing, then Bang! Something. “This is beyond weird. Out of sheerest Emptiness, manifestation arises.”⁶⁴ The glib scientific explanation for evolution is random chance: This is a nightmare for traditional science, because [the age of the universe] puts a time limit on the silly chance mutations that were supposed to explain the universe. ... So maybe that would happen in a billion billion years. But the universe doesn’t have a billion billion years. It only has twelve billion years. Well, this changes everything. Calculations done by scientists from Fred Hoyle to F. B. Salisbury consistently show that twelve billion years isn’t even enough to produce a single enzyme by chance. In other words, something other than chance is pushing the universe. For traditional scientists, chance was their salvation. Chance was their god. Chance would explain all. Chance—plus unending time—would produce the universe. But
they do not have unending time, and so their god fails them miserably. That god is dead. Chance is not what explains the universe; in fact, chance is what the universe is laboring mightily to overcome. Chance is exactly what the self-transcending drive of the Kosmos overcomes.⁶⁵ Religious Creationists and Creation After Wilber punctures the balloon of the traditional scientists, he takes on the Christian religious fundamentalists who have made a big deal out of the problems of the traditional scientific explanation. They say the Bible and Genesis are the only valid explanation remaining. … Well, they have seized upon the increasingly obvious truth that the traditional scientific explanation will not cut it. Creativity, not chance, builds a Kosmos. But it does not follow that you can then equate creativity with your favorite and particular God. It does not follow that into this void you can postulate a God with all the specific characteristics that make you happy—God is the God of only the Jews, or only the Hindus, or only the indigenous peoples, and God is watching over me, and is kind, and just, and merciful, and so on. We have to be very careful about these types of limited and anthropomorphic [human-like] characteristics, which is one of the reasons I prefer “Emptiness,” which means unbounded or unqualifiable [unqualifiable means without qualities, not good or bad, large or small, light or dark]. … So we have to start simple, I think, and be very careful. There is a spiritual opening in the Kosmos. Let us be careful how we fill it. The simplest is: Spirit or Emptiness is unqualifiable, but it is not inert and unyielding, for it gives rise to manifestation itself: new forms emerge, and that creativity is ultimate. Emptiness, creativity, holons.⁶⁶ Spirit Manifests as Holons We are getting a peek into a vast process of creativity. Spirit or Emptiness is without form and is “unqualifiable.” That is, Spirit has no qualities: it is not light and is not dark, it is not good and is not bad, it is not large or small, it does not exist in time because it is timeless and spaceless. And this Emptiness is the “cause” of creation. In Part III we will explore the means to personally experience this “causal” level. The means is the spiritual practice of meditation. In some mysterious way, Emptiness creates holons. Spirit creates holons. And the holons are creative of new forms, which are new and novel holons. Holons have four quadrants. Wilber says the quadrants are the four faces of Spirit—the four aspects through which Spirit manifests. Spirit manifests as interior and exterior, singular and plural. I am getting ahead of my story. The levels of spiritual experiences—psychic, subtle, causal and nondual—will be explored in Part III. Generalized Characteristics of Holons Recent theorists in various scientific fields working with the concept of holons have developed a list of the characteristics of holons. These characteristics, or patterns, are the “Twenty Tenets” summarized in Appendix B. A tenet is defined as “An opinion, doctrine, or principle held as being true.” These characteristics of holons have been checked by experts in the fields of biology, complexity theory, psychology, linguistics, computer programming, and systems theory (a study of the Lower Right quadrant). Their ideas are based on experimental evidence; they are not speculative and “made-up” concepts. I want to emphasize that the Twenty Tenets come from the latest work by systems scientists. Wilber has summarized and adopted the Tenets, and the properties of holons, and applied them to all holons—in the physiosphere, biosphere and noosphere. Wilber has made an addition to the Tenets: “Addition 1. The greater the depth of a holon, the greater its degree of consciousness. The spectrum of evolution is a spectrum of consciousness. And one can perhaps begin to see that a spiritual dimension is built into the fabric, the very depth, of the Kosmos.”⁶⁷ Wilber’s full discussion of the Tenets is presented in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. These Tenets are important because they: • Explain the nature and attributes of holons. • Offer a new look at evolution (via holons)—how we got here—and the process by which we will continue to evolve in the future. • Have universal applications.
Holons have the capacity for self-transcendence. That is, holons can create novel forms not exhibited in their prior state. The characteristics of holons are summarized as the Twenty Tenets. Wilber has made an addition to the Twenty Tenets: The greater the depth of a holon, the greater its degree of consciousness.
Social Holons The holons discussed in detail up to this point are “individual holons.” That is, they have a subjective interior; they have a defining agency that emerges spontaneously from within; and they have the four drives discussed above. They follow the Twenty Tenets. Examples of individual holons (or compound individuals) include quarks, atoms, molecules, cells, and organisms. In contrast with these individual holons, we will discuss social holons,⁶⁸ artifacts and heaps.⁶⁹
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“A social holon is a group of individual holons plus artifacts.” The key difference of social holons is that they have members as opposed to components. Social holons are created when individual holons group together as a community. They have a defining pattern (agency), but they do not have a subjective consciousness; instead they have distributed or intersubjective consciousness. That is, a social holon with a group of people as members, has the distributed consciousness of all the individual people—not a unified “group consciousness.” Individual and social holons both follow the Twenty Tenets.⁷⁰ Individual holons have constituent parts—tissues, cells, molecules, and atoms. The senior holon encompasses the junior holons and exercises considerable control over them. “When an organism, such as a dog, decides to get up and walk over to the tree, all the atoms in the dog obey—they move over to the tree.” Social holons have members. This is very different from individual holons and Wilber says, “This is particularly where many holistic theorists and ecophilosophers get confused, I think.” I am a member of the social holon known as the United States. But I retain my individual identity—my autonomy. I retain my own individual consciousness. All the other members of the United States retain their own individual consciousness. My thinking, ideas and motivations may—or may not—be different from the majority of the other members. The United States does not require me to think in a certain way. I retain certain rights that the United States cannot arbitrarily usurp. I am required to obey certain laws, to pay taxes, and so forth. But I retain my individuality and my own thoughts about the laws and the taxes. I might vote to either change them or retain them. Since the United States is a representative democracy, I have a voice in how the country is governed. The situation would be entirely different if I were a constituent part of the United States. In that case, I would have lost my rights to my individual thoughts and desires. I would be just a mindless cog in the great machine of the United States. I would have to do whatever the United States required—with no questions asked. The United States, or any nation State, does not have a subjective group consciousness. It has, at best, an intersubjective matrix of consciousness. “And most important, the State or social holon does not transcend and include individual holons (that would make the individual holon a constituent part of the social holon, whereas it is actually a member of the social holon).”⁷¹ … each successive level of social holons transcends and includes the previous levels of social holons. For example, the laws of orange [a meme, see Chapter 7] civilization, such as the Western Enlightenment, rest upon—or transcend and include—the legal foundations of the previous, blue [a meme, see Chapter 7] civilization, such as Roman Law. So “transcend and include” is still always the case for holons, but “transcend and include” means something quite different in individual and social holons—and it especially means that social holons do not transcend and include individual holons: social holons transcend and include social holons, and individual holons transcend and include individual holons, and confusing these two produces various disasters.⁷² These elemental distinctions are often missed. For example, the ecotheorists often create holarchies that badly mix categories. They treat the hierarchy of organisms to ecosystems to biosphere as a hierarchy of individual holons—but ecosystems and biosphere are social holons. This confusion of individual and social holons makes individual holons subservient parts of social holons instead of members of social holons. This approach privileges the biosphere in a totalitarian way. “The word “eco-fascist” is often applied to this unhappy result (although “eco-communist” is a bit closer, but both forms of totalitarianism rest on a confusion of individual and social holons).”⁷³ Wilber does not say that the biosphere is not important, or that it has no rights. He sees the biosphere as a fundamental social holon that is extremely important and it definitely has rights. The rights of social holons are not derived from claimed subordination of their members as being mere parts of the whole. Rather, the rights of social holons are derived from the fact that they are correlative aspects of their member holons—and are necessary to the wellbeing of holons in general. “… Society at any level (from crystals to ecosystems to the State) is definitely not a bigger organism.” An organism, an individual holon, “has the right to subordinate its junior holons, whereas in social holons that is only true for tyrannical dictatorships (or pathological hierarchies).” Even at lower levels of human development, such as red [a “meme,” to be discussed in Chapter 7], where dictatorships are the normal and natural form of governance, when individual and social are equated in an excessive fashion, the dictatorships go from relatively benign to absolutely tyrannical—and all of that pathology comes from equating, or trying to equate, individual and social holons.⁷⁴
Holons are of two main types. Individual holons have as constituent parts other individual holons and exercise a considerable degree of control over their constituent parts. Social holons have members (as opposed to constituent parts), and do not have a central subjective consciousness, but do have a distributed consciousness. The members retain certain rights that the social holon cannot arbitrarily usurp Each level of a social holon transcends and includes the previous levels of the social holon. A social holon is not a bigger organism.
Artifacts “Artifacts are any products made by an individual or social holon.” Examples of artifacts include a bird’s nest, an anthill, an automobile, a house, a piece of clothing, an airplane, or the internet. An artifact’s defining pattern does not come from itself, but is imposed by the intelligence of an individual or social holon. The all-important question when trying to understand artifacts is: what level of consciousness (in a holon) produced the artifact? For example, when we do anthropology and archeology, we are in effect looking at a series of human artifacts—houses, weapons, clothing, written documents—which are all that is left of a previous civilization, and we attempt to deduce the nature, type, and level of consciousness of that civilization by looking at the artifacts that it produced.⁷⁵ As an example of an artifact, Wilber discusses a Colt revolver. The gun is an artifact that does not have consciousness. But it is composed of atoms, molecules and crystals that are individual holons and have a limited degree of consciousness. The gun was conceived by an individual holon, Samuel Colt, and was produced by a social holon at the industrial level, which had an average cultural level of orange [a “meme” to be discussed in Chapter 7]. However, the gun was mostly used by individuals at lower levels of development—red and blue memes. This type of analysis of individual holons, social holons, and their artifacts is part of an integral approach to understanding cultures and their development.⁷⁶ Wilber uses another example of an artifact: the spoke of a bicycle wheel. The spoke is a component of the wheel and the wheel is a component of the bicycle. The spoke, wheel and bicycle are all artifacts. They are a hierarchy, but are not individual holons—they are artifacts. Heaps Wilber defines a heap: A heap is just a random pile. A pile of sand, a water puddle, a bunch of dead leaves—these are heaps. They have no interior consciousness, they do not follow the twenty tenets, and they have no enduring, defining pattern. And they are not artifacts, because they are not the product of individual or social … intelligence.⁷⁷ A heap has components that may be individual holons, such as atoms, molecules or cells. A rock is a heap. It does not have a defining pattern; it does not have defined parts. It is composed of atoms and molecules that are individual holons, and crystals that are social holons. Discussion of Types of Holons With each of “these four entities—individual holons, social holons, artifacts, and heaps—we find that ‘whole’ and ‘part’ mean something entirely different. And I would say that about 90% of the confusion in the field of systems theory, eco-philosophy, holism, transpersonalism, and attempted ‘integral’ approaches is that they badly confuse all four of these.”⁷⁸ Wilber discusses the distinctions between individual and social holons, artifacts and heaps: … in the most general sense, you can refer to all four entities—individual holons, social holons, artifacts and heaps—as “holons,” since they are all whole/parts. But there is such a huge difference between the first two and the last two, I often technically reserve “holon” for the first two, although the context will indicate what is actually meant. Sometimes, for simple introductory statements, I refer to everything that exists as a “holon,” since that is true in the loose sense. Or sometimes I refer to the first two as “sentient holons” [conscious] and the last two as “insentient holons.”⁷⁹ The basic building blocks of the Kosmos are sentient holons: atoms, molecules, cells, and organisms—with their interior correlates of prehension, impulse, symbols and concepts. “The entire Kosmos is composed of sentient holons. It contains many insentient holons, of course (artifacts and heaps), but its “bricks” are sentient holons, all the way up, all the way down. Artifacts, although very important to this process, are the products of this process, not the elements of it. You can take away almost any artifact (such as an anthill or an automobile) and the holons that made the artifact can still find ways to survive. But if you take away the junior holons of a senior holon—take away atoms and molecules and cells—and no higher holons can survive at all. That is why I say that reality is fundamentally composed of holons (which is tenet #1). Of course, everything that exists is a holon in the general sense (it is an individual holon, a social holon, and artifact, a heap, or a hybrid), but the … the basic building blocks are sentient holons.”⁸⁰ When constructing holarchies, it is important to avoid placing social holons above individual holons. Rather, individual and social holons are correlative aspects of sentient holons at every level of development. “This, of course, is what the four quadrants do—the top two quadrants are individual, and the bottom two quadrants are the correlative social forms of individuals at each and every stage of evolution.”⁸¹
"A social holon is a group of individual holons plus artifacts." The key difference of social holons is that they have members as opposed to components. Social holons are created when individual holons group together as a community. They have a defining pattern (agency), but they do not have a subjective consciousness; instead they have distributed or intersubjective consciousness. That is, a social holon with a group of people as members, has the distributed consciousness of all the individual people—not a unified group consciousness. Individual and social holons both follow the Twenty Tenets.⁷⁰
Individual holons have constituent parts—tissues, cells, molecules, and atoms. The senior holon encompasses the junior holons and exercises considerable control over them. When an organism, such as a dog, decides to get up and walk over to the tree, all the atoms in the dog obey—they move over to the tree.
Social holons have members. This is very different from individual holons and Wilber says, This is particularly where many holistic theorists and ecophilosophers get confused, I think. I am a member of the social holon known as the United States. But I retain my individual identity—my autonomy. I retain my own individual consciousness. All the other members of the United States retain their own individual consciousness. My thinking, ideas and motivations may—or may not—be different from the majority of the other members. The United States does not require me to think in a certain way. I retain certain rights that the United States cannot arbitrarily usurp. I am required to obey certain laws, to pay taxes, and so forth. But I retain my individuality and my own thoughts about the laws and the taxes. I might vote to either change them or retain them. Since the United States is a representative democracy, I have a voice in how the country is governed.
The situation would be entirely different if I were a constituent part of the United States. In that case, I would have lost my rights to my individual thoughts and desires. I would be just a mindless cog in the great machine of the United States. I would have to do whatever the United States required—with no questions asked.
The United States, or any nation State, does not have a subjective group consciousness. It has, at best, an intersubjective matrix of consciousness. "And most important, the State or social holon does not transcend and include individual holons (that would make the individual holon a constituent part of the social holon, whereas it is actually a member of the social holon)."⁷¹
… each successive level of social holons transcends and includes the previous levels of social holons. For example, the laws of orange [a meme, see Chapter 7] civilization, such as the Western Enlightenment, rest upon—or transcend and include—the legal foundations of the previous, blue [a meme, see Chapter 7] civilization, such as Roman Law. So transcend and include is still always the case for holons, but transcend and include means something quite different in individual and social holons—and it especially means that social holons do not transcend and include individual holons: social holons transcend and include social holons, and individual holons transcend and include individual holons, and confusing these two produces various disasters.⁷²
These elemental distinctions are often missed. For example, the ecotheorists often create holarchies that badly mix categories. They treat the hierarchy of organisms to ecosystems to biosphere as a hierarchy of individual holons—but ecosystems and biosphere are social holons. This confusion of individual and social holons makes individual holons subservient parts of social holons instead of members of social holons. This approach privileges the biosphere in a totalitarian way. The word eco-fascist is often applied to this unhappy result (although eco-communist is a bit closer, but both forms of totalitarianism rest on a confusion of individual and social holons).⁷³
Wilber does not say that the biosphere is not important, or that it has no rights. He sees the biosphere as a fundamental social holon that is extremely important and it definitely has rights. The rights of social holons are not derived from claimed subordination of their members as being mere parts of the whole. Rather, the rights of social holons are derived from the fact that they are correlative aspects of their member holons—and are necessary to the wellbeing of holons in general.
"… Society at any level (from crystals to ecosystems to the State) is definitely not a bigger organism. An organism, an individual holon, has the right to subordinate its junior holons, whereas in social holons that is only true for tyrannical dictatorships (or pathological hierarchies)."
Even at lower levels of human development, such as red [a meme, to be discussed in Chapter 7], where dictatorships are the normal and natural form of governance, when individual and social are equated in an excessive fashion, the dictatorships go from relatively benign to absolutely tyrannical—and all of that pathology comes from equating, or trying to equate, individual and social holons.⁷⁴
Artifacts
Artifacts are any products made by an individual or social holon. Examples of artifacts include a bird’s nest, an anthill, an automobile, a house, a piece of clothing, an airplane, or the internet. An artifact’s defining pattern does not come from itself, but is imposed by the intelligence of an individual or social holon.
The all-important question when trying to understand artifacts is: what level of consciousness (in a holon) produced the artifact? For example, when we do anthropology and archeology, we are in effect looking at a series of human artifacts—houses, weapons, clothing, written documents—which are all that is left of a previous civilization, and we attempt to deduce the nature, type, and level of consciousness of that civilization by looking at the artifacts that it produced.⁷⁵
As an example of an artifact, Wilber discusses a Colt revolver. The gun is an artifact that does not have consciousness. But it is composed of atoms, molecules and crystals that are individual holons and have a limited degree of consciousness. The gun was conceived by an individual holon, Samuel Colt, and was produced by a social holon at the industrial level, which had an average cultural level of orange [a meme to be discussed in Chapter 7]. However, the gun was mostly used by individuals at lower levels of development—red and blue memes. This type of analysis of individual holons, social holons, and their artifacts is part of an integral approach to understanding cultures and their development.⁷⁶
Wilber uses another example of an artifact: the spoke of a bicycle wheel. The spoke is a component of the wheel and the wheel is a component of the bicycle. The spoke, wheel and bicycle are all artifacts. They are a hierarchy, but are not individual holons—they are artifacts.
Heaps
Wilber defines a heap:
A heap is just a random pile. A pile of sand, a water puddle, a bunch of dead leaves—these are heaps. They have no interior consciousness, they do not follow the twenty tenets, and they have no enduring, defining pattern. And they are not artifacts, because they are not the product of individual or social … intelligence.⁷⁷
A heap has components that may be individual holons, such as atoms, molecules or cells. A rock is a heap. It does not have a defining pattern; it does not have defined parts. It is composed of atoms and molecules that are individual holons, and crystals that are social holons.
Discussion of Types of Holons
With each of "these four entities—individual holons, social holons, artifacts, and heaps—we find that ‘whole’ and ‘part’ mean something entirely different. And I would say that about 90% of the confusion in the field of systems theory, eco-philosophy, holism, transpersonalism, and attempted ‘integral’ approaches is that they badly confuse all four of these."⁷⁸
Wilber discusses the distinctions between individual and social holons, artifacts and heaps:
… in the most general sense, you can refer to all four entities—individual holons, social holons, artifacts and heaps—as holons, since they are all whole/parts.
But there is such a huge difference between the first two and the last two, I often technically reserve holon for the first two, although the context will indicate what is actually meant. Sometimes, for simple introductory statements, I refer to everything that exists as a holon, since that is true in the loose sense. Or sometimes I refer to the first two as sentient holons [conscious] and the last two as insentient holons.⁷⁹
The basic building blocks of the Kosmos are sentient holons: atoms, molecules, cells, and organisms—with their interior correlates of prehension, impulse, symbols and concepts. The entire Kosmos is composed of sentient holons. It contains many insentient holons, of course (artifacts and heaps), but its bricks are sentient holons, all the way up, all the way down. Artifacts, although very important to this process, are the products of this process, not the elements of it. You can take away almost any artifact (such as an anthill or an automobile) and the holons that made the artifact can still find ways to survive. But if you take away the junior holons of a senior holon—take away atoms and molecules and cells—and no higher holons can survive at all. That is why I say that reality is fundamentally composed of holons (which is tenet #1). Of course, everything that exists is a holon in the general sense (it is an individual holon, a social holon, and artifact, a heap, or a hybrid), but the … the basic building blocks are sentient holons.⁸⁰
When constructing holarchies, it is important to avoid placing social holons above individual holons. Rather, individual and social holons are correlative aspects of sentient holons at every level of development. This, of course, is what the four quadrants do—the top two quadrants are individual, and the bottom two quadrants are the correlative social forms of individuals at each and every stage of evolution.⁸¹
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Individual holons and social holons are sentient [conscious]. They are the building blocks of the Kosmos. Artifacts are produced by individual or social holons, but do not have interior consciousness. They are composed of holons having interior consciousness—such as atoms and molecules. Artifacts are insentient holons and do not follow the Twenty Tenets. Heaps are random piles with no interior consciousness. Heaps are insentient holons and do not follow the Twenty Tenets.
Values The characteristics of holons lead directly to Wilber’s analysis of values. Wilber includes three types—ground value, intrinsic value, and extrinsic value. These value hierarchies provide an objective way to make value judgments. Ground value is accorded to all holons. Since all holons are manifestations of Spirit, all are perfect expressions of Emptiness or Spirit. All holons have equal Ground value. Intrinsic value arises from the relative wholeness of every holon. Thus “the greater the wholeness—or the greater the depth—then the greater the intrinsic value. Intrinsic value means the holon has value in itself. Its very depth is valuable, because that depth enfolds aspects of the Kosmos into its own being. The more of the Kosmos that is enfolded into the holon’s own being—that is, the greater its depth—then the greater the holon’s intrinsic value.”⁸² Thus, apes have greater intrinsic value than atoms. The atom also has intrinsic value, but relatively less. “We also saw that the greater the depth of a holon, the greater its degree of consciousness, so it comes to much the same thing to say that the ape is more intrinsically valuable than the atom because it is more conscious.”⁸³ Extrinsic value stems from the partness of every holon. “And as a part, it has value for others—it is part of a whole upon which other holons depend for their existence. … The more it is a part, the more extrinsic value it has. An atom has more extrinsic value than an ape—destroy all apes, and not too much of the universe is affected; destroy all atoms, and everything but subatomic particles is destroyed. … the atom has enormous extrinsic value.”⁸⁴ Rights and Responsibilities These three types of value tie in with rights and responsibilities. “Rights and responsibilities are often used in the same breath, but without understanding why they are inseparably linked. But they are inherent aspects of the fact that every holon is a whole/part.”⁸⁵ As a whole, a holon has rights which express its relative autonomy. These rights are simply a description of the conditions that are necessary to sustain its wholeness. If the rights aren’t met, the wholeness dissolves into subholons. … Rights express the conditions for the intrinsic value of a holon to exist, the conditions necessary to sustain its wholeness, sustain its agency, sustain its depth. But further, each holon is also a part of some other whole(s), and as a part, it has responsibilities to the maintenance of that whole. Responsibilities are simply a description of the conditions that any holon must meet in order to be a part of the whole. If it doesn’t meet those responsibilities, then it cannot sustain its functional fit with the whole, so it is ejected (or actually destroys the whole itself). If the responsibilities aren’t met, then it ceases to be a part of the whole. Responsibilities express the conditions for the extrinsic value of a holon to exist, the conditions necessary to sustain its partness, sustain its communion, sustain its span. If any holon wants to be part of a whole, it has to meet certain responsibilities. Not, it would [be] nice if it met these responsibilities; it must meet them or it won’t sustain its communions, its cultural and functional fit.⁸⁶ Wilber explains a subtle aspect of these responsibilities. Since humans have more depth than, say, an amoeba, we have more rights—but we also have more responsibilities. These responsibilities are not only to our human societies, but also to all the communities of which our own subholons are parts. We humans live in networks of relationships with holons in the physiosphere, biosphere and noosphere. We are entirely dependent on such things as air, water, climate, plants and animals for food, as well as networks of social and cultural organization. (This dependence is described in Appendix B, Tenet 11.) Wilber concludes that “our relatively greater rights absolutely demand relatively greater responsibilities in all of these dimensions. Failure to meet these responsibilities means a failure to meet the conditions under which our holons and subholons can exist in communion—which means our own self-destruction. Again, it’s not that it would be nice if we met these responsibilities; it is a condition of existence. It is mandatory, or our communions will dissolve, and us with them. But, of course, we often seem to want to claim the rights without owning the responsibilities.”⁸⁷
Wilber recognizes three types of value: * Ground value is accorded equally to all holons. * Intrinsic value arises from the relative wholeness (depth or consciousness) of the holon. * Extrinsic value stems from the partness of every holon—the value for others. Rights and Responsibilities also stem from a holon’s wholeness and partness. * Rights are a description of a holon’s requirements to sustain its wholeness—to
maintain its intrinsic value. * Responsibilities are a description of conditions that a holon must meet to be a part of the whole—to maintain its extrinsic value.
Holons Are Fields What “is” a holon? We have talked about the characteristics of holons. We have defined holons as “whole/parts,” but have not said exactly what a holon is. Wilber says only that a holon is a pattern or “field.” A hierarchy of holons is a field within a field within a field. Wilber mentions this concept in his narrative every once in a while. This is not a fully satisfying explanation because the word we don’t understand very well—holon—is defined by another word we don’t understand—field. I want to explore this. From Solid to Force Field In my everyday life, I rest secure in the illusion that everyday things are solid. My body appears solid and substantial. My house is solid, as are my car and the roads I drive on. I feel secure in this “solid, substantial, and reasonably permanent” world. I know that things like iron, steel, copper and aluminum are hard and strong—they can be hammered, bent, stretched and broken. But they remain “solid.” (I am neglecting for now that these solids can be melted and vaporized.) Another part of me knows that these solid materials are made of atoms. I tend to make the mental picture that the atoms are like (very tiny) glass marbles of some different sizes and colors. The marbles are lined up in rows and layers and lattices—and then glue is poured over them to make a solid mass. That is really solid. Another part of me knows about atoms. Atoms are mostly empty space with a very small nucleus and some even-smaller electrons swarming around. But this mostly-empty atom has a “surface.” The surface can be felt with a microscopic “atomic force” probe that can “feel” the surface of a material and trace the contours of the individual atoms. How can a mostly-empty atom have a surface? The answer is that the nucleus and electrons create a force field that acts as a surface. Likewise, when atoms are combined to make a metal object or a piece of plastic polymer, the resulting combination acts like a solid material—a steel wrench or a plastic gizmo. What is the glue that holds the atoms together? Forces between the atoms hold them together. The atoms are bound together by force fields. My glass-marbles-and-glue picture is disintegrating. The atoms are mostly-empty force fields. The glue is more force fields. My “solid” material has been revealed to be a nested hierarchy of force fields! In a similar way, Wilber is leading us from our previous view of the world to the understanding that: • Reality is composed of holons. • Holons are fields. • Reality consists of fields within fields within fields. Our “solid” cosmos is revealed to be a Kosmos consisting of interpenetrating fields within fields within fields.
Holons are fields. A hierarchy of holons consists of fields within fields within fields within fields indefinitely.
What is a Field? This can best be explained by giving some examples of fields; we find that we have more experience with fields than we realized. • We have all seen the demonstration of a magnetic field. A magnet is placed under a piece of glass. Iron filings placed on top of the glass immediately take on a pattern that shows the shape of the magnetic field. We note a couple of characteristics: the field acts at a distance from the magnet, and the field only affects certain materials, such as iron and other magnets. • We experience the earth’s magnetic field. A compass points toward the earth’s magnetic pole. The earth’s field acts at a distance from the surface of the earth (as in an airplane). The magnetic field affects only certain materials that we call “magnetic.” • We experience the earth’s gravitational field. If I drop an object, it immediately falls to the ground. We say the object is responding to the earth’s gravity field. Gravity acts at a distance, but only on things which have mass (weight). • We experience electromagnetic fields. When we turn on a radio, or a TV with rabbit ears, we can bring in sound, music or pictures. This happens because the radio, or TV, is sensitive to the electromagnetic waves (moving fields) traveling through the air from a broadcast antenna. The field acts at a distance, and reception requires a device tuned to the right frequency. • We sometimes experience a “psychic field.” My wife and I often find that we are thinking of the same thing at the same time. She may say, “I was just thinking of so and so.” And I reply, “That is exactly what I was thinking!” This brings up the whole area of ESP, telepathy and other “psi phenomena” that could be interpreted as showing the existence of “psychic fields” which can be created by one person and felt or read by another person. We see that we have some knowledge and experience with fields in the physical realm. What is totally new for us is the concept of fields in non-physical systems.
Values
The characteristics of holons lead directly to Wilber’s analysis of values. Wilber includes three types—ground value, intrinsic value, and extrinsic value. These value hierarchies provide an objective way to make value judgments.
Ground value is accorded to all holons. Since all holons are manifestations of Spirit, all are perfect expressions of Emptiness or Spirit. All holons have equal Ground value.
Intrinsic value arises from the relative wholeness of every holon. Thus the greater the wholeness—or the greater the depth—then the greater the intrinsic value. Intrinsic value means the holon has value in itself. Its very depth is valuable, because that depth enfolds aspects of the Kosmos into its own being. The more of the Kosmos that is enfolded into the holon’s own being—that is, the greater its depth—then the greater the holon’s intrinsic value.⁸² Thus, apes have greater intrinsic value than atoms. The atom also has intrinsic value, but relatively less. We also saw that the greater the depth of a holon, the greater its degree of consciousness, so it comes to much the same thing to say that the ape is more intrinsically valuable than the atom because it is more conscious.⁸³
Extrinsic value stems from the partness of every holon. "And as a part, it has value for others—it is part of a whole upon which other holons depend for their existence. … The more it is a part, the more extrinsic value it has. An atom has more extrinsic value than an ape—destroy all apes, and not too much of the universe is affected; destroy all atoms, and everything but subatomic particles is destroyed. … the atom has enormous extrinsic value."⁸⁴
Rights and Responsibilities
These three types of value tie in with rights and responsibilities. Rights and responsibilities are often used in the same breath, but without understanding why they are inseparably linked. But they are inherent aspects of the fact that every holon is a whole/part.⁸⁵
As a whole, a holon has rights which express its relative autonomy. These rights are simply a description of the conditions that are necessary to sustain its wholeness. If the rights aren’t met, the wholeness dissolves into subholons. … Rights express the conditions for the intrinsic value of a holon to exist, the conditions necessary to sustain its wholeness, sustain its agency, sustain its depth.
But further, each holon is also a part of some other whole(s), and as a part, it has responsibilities to the maintenance of that whole. Responsibilities are simply a description of the conditions that any holon must meet in order to be a part of the whole. If it doesn’t meet those responsibilities, then it cannot sustain its functional fit with the whole, so it is ejected (or actually destroys the whole itself). If the responsibilities aren’t met, then it ceases to be a part of the whole. Responsibilities express the conditions for the extrinsic value of a holon to exist, the conditions necessary to sustain its partness, sustain its communion, sustain its span. If any holon wants to be part of a whole, it has to meet certain responsibilities. Not, it would [be] nice if it met these responsibilities; it must meet them or it won’t sustain its communions, its cultural and functional fit.⁸⁶
Wilber explains a subtle aspect of these responsibilities. Since humans have more depth than, say, an amoeba, we have more rights—but we also have more responsibilities. These responsibilities are not only to our human societies, but also to all the communities of which our own subholons are parts. We humans live in networks of relationships with holons in the physiosphere, biosphere and noosphere. We are entirely dependent on such things as air, water, climate, plants and animals for food, as well as networks of social and cultural organization. (This dependence is described in Appendix B, Tenet 11.) Wilber concludes that our relatively greater rights absolutely demand relatively greater responsibilities in all of these dimensions. Failure to meet these responsibilities means a failure to meet the conditions under which our holons and subholons can exist in communion—which means our own self-destruction. Again, it’s not that it would be nice if we met these responsibilities; it is a condition of existence. It is mandatory, or our communions will dissolve, and us with them. But, of course, we often seem to want to claim the rights without owning the responsibilities.⁸⁷
Holons Are Fields
What is a holon? We have talked about the characteristics of holons. We have defined holons as whole/parts, but have not said exactly what a holon is. Wilber says only that a holon is a pattern or field. A hierarchy of holons is a field within a field within a field. Wilber mentions this concept in his narrative every once in a while. This is not a fully satisfying explanation because the word we don’t understand very well—holon—is defined by another word we don’t understand—field. I want to explore this.
From Solid to Force Field
In my everyday life, I rest secure in the illusion that everyday things are solid. My body appears solid and substantial. My house is solid, as are my car and the roads I drive on. I feel secure in this solid, substantial, and reasonably permanent world. I know that things like iron, steel, copper and aluminum are hard and strong—they can be hammered, bent, stretched and broken. But they remain solid. (I am neglecting for now that these solids can be melted and vaporized.)
Another part of me knows that these solid materials are made of atoms. I tend to make the mental picture that the atoms are like (very tiny) glass marbles of some different sizes and colors. The marbles are lined up in rows and layers and lattices—and then glue is poured over them to make a solid mass. That is really solid.
Another part of me knows about atoms. Atoms are mostly empty space with a very small nucleus and some even-smaller electrons swarming around. But this mostly-empty atom has a surface. The surface can be felt with a microscopic atomic force probe that can feel the surface of a material and trace the contours of the individual atoms. How can a mostly-empty atom have a surface? The answer is that the nucleus and electrons create a force field that acts as a surface.
Likewise, when atoms are combined to make a metal object or a piece of plastic polymer, the resulting combination acts like a solid material—a steel wrench or a plastic gizmo. What is the glue that holds the atoms together? Forces between the atoms hold them together. The atoms are bound together by force fields.
My glass-marbles-and-glue picture is disintegrating. The atoms are mostly-empty force fields. The glue is more force fields. My solid material has been revealed to be a nested hierarchy of force fields!
In a similar way, Wilber is leading us from our previous view of the world to the understanding that:
• Reality is composed of holons.
• Holons are fields.
• Reality consists of fields within fields within fields.
Our solid cosmos is revealed to be a Kosmos consisting of interpenetrating fields within fields within fields.
What is a Field?
This can best be explained by giving some examples of fields; we find that we have more experience with fields than we realized.
• We have all seen the demonstration of a magnetic field. A magnet is placed under a piece of glass. Iron filings placed on top of the glass immediately take on a pattern that shows the shape of the magnetic field. We note a couple of characteristics: the field acts at a distance from the magnet, and the field only affects certain materials, such as iron and other magnets.
• We experience the earth’s magnetic field. A compass points toward the earth’s magnetic pole. The earth’s field acts at a distance from the surface of the earth (as in an airplane). The magnetic field affects only certain materials that we call magnetic.
• We experience the earth’s gravitational field. If I drop an object, it immediately falls to the ground. We say the object is responding to the earth’s gravity field. Gravity acts at a distance, but only on things which have mass (weight).
• We experience electromagnetic fields. When we turn on a radio, or a TV with rabbit ears, we can bring in sound, music or pictures. This happens because the radio, or TV, is sensitive to the electromagnetic waves (moving fields) traveling through the air from a broadcast antenna. The field acts at a distance, and reception requires a device tuned to the right frequency.
• We sometimes experience a psychic field. My wife and I often find that we are thinking of the same thing at the same time. She may say, I was just thinking of so and so. And I reply, That is exactly what I was thinking! This brings up the whole area of ESP, telepathy and other psi phenomena that could be interpreted as showing the existence of psychic fields which can be created by one person and felt or read by another person.
We see that we have some knowledge and experience with fields in the physical realm. What is totally new for us is the concept of fields in non-physical systems.
Book Navigation
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Rupert Sheldrake and Morphic Fields Rupert Sheldrake has written a fascinating and groundbreaking book, The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature (1988). Wilber has referred to, and extensively drawn upon, Sheldrake’s concepts.⁸⁸ Sheldrake uses vocabulary and concepts overlapping Wilber: holons and hierarchies of holons that are called holarchies.⁸⁹ Sheldrake uses the term morphic field as being essentially a holon. Sheldrake has proposed experiments for confirming (or denying) his concepts. Sheldrake’s extensive discussion of fields is beyond the scope of this book, but I will use some of his presentation to expand our concepts of fields and holons. “Fields are non-material regions of influence.” “Fields are the medium of ‘action at a distance,’ and through them objects can affect each other even though they are not in material contact.”⁹⁰ Sheldrake discusses many types of fields, some familiar and some not familiar: • Gravity fields make possible the orbit of the moon around the earth and the orbit of the earth around the sun. According to Einstein, “space-time is not a bland background abstraction; it has a structure which actively shapes and includes everything that exists or happens within the physical universe.”⁹¹ Space-time is a field—which is curved by gravitational forces. • Electro-magnetic fields are “integral to the organization of all material systems, from atoms to galaxies. They underlie the functioning of our brains and bodies. They are essential to the operation of all our electric machinery. We can see the things around us now, including this book, because we are connected to them through the electro-magnetic field in which the vibratory energy of light is traveling.”⁹² • “Each kind of cell, tissue, organ and organism has its own kind of field. These fields shape and organize developing micro-organisms, plants, and animals, and stabilize the forms of adult organisms.”⁹³ • The “organizing fields of animal and human behaviour, of social and cultural systems, and of mental activity can all be regarded as morphic fields which contain an inherent memory.”⁹⁴ We have now reached the growing edge of our knowledge of holons and fields. Wilber is working on this area, as described in, Volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy (scheduled for 2005).⁹⁵ (Volume 1 is Sex, Ecology, Spirituality.) Wilber’s latest work (which has been called his Wilber-5 phase) includes discussion of the process of evolution of holons and the simultaneous involvement of all four quadrants. “No quadrant is prior or primary.” All four quadrants arise simultaneously and evolve together (“tetra-evolve”).⁹⁶ He points out that holons “self-organize and self-reproduce.”⁹⁷ The Wilber-5 concepts go beyond the scope of this introductory book. Wilber’s book, Volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy (scheduled for 2005), extends the concepts of holons and quadrants. “No quadrant is prior or primary.” All four quadrants arise simultaneously and evolve together (“tetra-evolve”). Holons self-organize and self-reproduce.
What Difference Does It Make? • A correct understanding of the way the Kosmos is organized—holons—enables us to understand and work with all aspects of the Kosmos. • Holarchy—hierarchies of holons—is a basic organizing principle of the Kosmos. • Knowledge of the self-transcending property of holons frees us from the wrangling between conflicting claims about creation: * Random chance created everything, or * My version of God created everything. • A social holon is not a bigger organism. Clarity about the relationship between individual holons and social holons is one of the keys to: * Understanding the relationship of humans to ecosystems and the biosphere. * Understanding the relationship of people to their governing bodies. • We need further research into the nature of holons as interpenetrating fields within fields. Summary The elements of hierarchies of development are a whole at one stage and a part at the next stage. The whole/parts are called holons. Wilber uses the word holarchy interchangeably with hierarchy to emphasize that hierarchies are composed of holons. Reality is composed of holons. Each holon has four quadrants. Holons must maintain their wholeness, their agency or defining pattern, or they cease to exist. Holons must maintain their partness, their communions, or they cease to exist. Holons have the capacity for self-transcendence. That is, holons can create novel forms not exhibited in their prior state. The characteristics of holons are summarized as the Twenty Tenets. Wilber has made an addition to the Twenty Tenets: The greater the depth of a holon, the greater its degree of consciousness. Holons are of two main types. Individual holons have as constituent parts other individual holons and exercise a considerable degree of control over their constituent parts. Examples: molecules, cells, organisms, and people.
Social holons have members (as opposed to constituent parts) and do not have a central subjective consciousness, but do have a distributed consciousness. The members retain certain rights that the social holon cannot arbitrarily usurp. Examples: ecosystems, biosphere, and nations such as the United States. Each level of a social holon transcends and includes the previous levels of the social holon. A social holon is not a bigger organism. Individual holons and social holons are sentient [conscious]. They are the building blocks of the Kosmos. Artifacts are produced by individual or social holons, but do not have interior consciousness. They are composed of holons having interior consciousness—such as atoms and molecules. Examples: anthills, automobiles, and bicycles. Artifacts are insentient holons [not conscious] and do not follow the Twenty Tenets. Heaps are random piles with no interior consciousness. Heaps are insentient holons and do not follow the Twenty Tenets. Examples: a pile of sand, a rock, or a puddle of water. Wilber recognizes three types of value: * Ground value is accorded equally to all holons. * Intrinsic value arises from the relative wholeness (depth or consciousness) of the holon. * Extrinsic value stems from the partness of every holon—the value for others. Rights and Responsibilities also stem from a holon’s wholeness and partness. * Rights are a description of a holon’s requirements to sustain its wholeness—to maintain its intrinsic value. * Responsibilities are a description of the conditions that a holon must meet to be a part of the whole—to maintain its extrinsic value. Holons are fields. A hierarchy of holons consists of fields within fields within fields within fields indefinitely. Wilber’s book, Volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy (scheduled for 2005), extends the concepts of holons and quadrants. “No quadrant is prior or primary.” All four quadrants arise simultaneously and evolve together (“tetra-evolve”). Holons self-organize and self-reproduce.
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Chapter 4 THE QUADRANTS REVISITED Ken Wilber has a comprehensive view of the Kosmos that he describes as “all quadrants and all levels.” He frequently abbreviates this as AQAL (pronounced ah-qual). The “all levels” part is developed further in Part II and the higher or spiritual, levels are described in Part III. Now, I will go deeper with the quadrants that were first introduced in Chapter 2. The Great Nest and the Four Quadrants Wilber views all of the Kosmos as “Spirit in action” and this action is occurring in all four quadrants. Therefore, in order to have an adequate interpretation of an experience, we ought to take all four quadrants into account. It is not enough to notice that we have different levels—matter, body, mind, soul and spirit—we also need to take into account that each of these levels manifests with four faces—the four quadrants. We can picture this combination of the Great Nest of Being together with the quadrants as shown in Figure 4-1. Thus, progressing through the Great Nest requires progressing in all four quadrants—because the quadrants are the different aspects of reality (holons) in each level of the Great Nest. It is very important to remember that the quadrants are not geographical areas—the quadrants are points-of-view used to look at the one reality. The easy way to remember the nature of the quadrants is by their use of the parts of speech. The Upper Left is the first person, the realm of “I.” The Lower Left is the realm of first person plural, “We,” (and second person, “You” or “Thou”). The Upper Right is described as third person “It,” while the Lower Right is described as “Its” (plural of it). Figure 4-1. We Must Progress in All Four Quadrants of the Great Nest.⁹⁸ Collapse of the Quadrants The reality expressed as the Four Quadrants is often collapsed into only one quadrant. The most common version of this collapse is that the over-zealous hard sciences of the Upper Right quadrant claim that their view is the only view. This “scientific” view of the Upper Right says that the only reality is the physical; everything is derived from the Upper Right physical reality. This effectively deletes the other three quadrants. Wilber calls this reductionism. The result is what Wilber calls “Flatland” in which there is only physical reality—no “I,” no “we,” and no “social systems.” Flatland will be discussed in Part IV of this book. This collapse is devastating to the inner realms. What I experience as my inner “I” with my very personal feelings, thoughts, and sensitivities is claimed to not even exist! What kind of reality is this, if “I” am not even a part of it? Wilber argues strongly against any one-quadrant Kosmos. The quadrants are of equal rank; we cannot privilege any quadrant above the others. The Great Nest of Being manifests in each of the four Quadrants Progressing through the Great Nest requires progressing in all four quadrants. Reductionism is the collapse of all the quadrants into one quadrant—most often the Upper Right quadrant. This is devastating to the inner realms.
The Truths of The Quadrants Wilber’s all-level, all-quadrant view is especially important as we move to consideration of the higher stages of human growth and development. We will be looking at the further stages of consciousness evolution and community unfolding. If there is indeed a transformation in our future, it lies in these higher or deeper stages, and these can only be accessed in their richness and fullness if we honor and appreciate the different types of truth that will unfold to set us free.⁹⁹ What are the “different types of truth” and what does that have to do with the
quadrants? We will see that each quadrant has a different type of truth. We want to be “in sympathetic attunement with all aspects of the Kosmos.” That means that we have to honor the truth of each quadrant. These types of truth have been learned by humanity through many, many thousands of years—through painful trial and error. We have learned ways to separate truth from falsehood, to honor approaches that promote the good, and value the beautiful. These approaches are the validity claims of each quadrant—the ways we determine whether each quadrant is making a valid claim about what is true. If we fail to honor these validity claims of the quadrants, we can be lost in falsehood, or mistaken, or wrong in our assessments of what is real and true. Obviously, that could lead to disaster of one kind or another. “The validity claims are the way that we connect to Spirit itself, ways that we attune ourselves to the Kosmos.” These validity claims are the way we test our view of reality. They curb our egoic fantasies and self-centered ways. They give us ways to test what is true in each quadrant.¹⁰⁰ We will go around the quadrants and discuss the validity claims, or truth claims, of each quadrant: • Upper Right Truth, that is, “Representational Truth” • Upper Left Truthfulness • Lower Left Justness • Lower Right Functional Fit The Upper Right and its Representational Truth When we speak of “truth,” we usually mean representational truth. That is, does the statement accurately “represent” the actual facts of the situation? Wilber uses the example that a person may say, “It is raining outside.” In order to determine the validity or truth of the statement, we would go to the window and look outside. If we see that it is raining, we say that the original statement was true. The statement represents what is actually occurring. This is sometimes called mapping. The map is true if it correctly represents the territory. Usually, the situation is more complicated. For example, if a “map” asserts that something is always the case, we might try to disprove the map by looking for a circumstance where it was not true; if we cannot disprove it, we assume that it is accurate enough. In each case, the statement, or map, refers to an objective condition. If it fairly accurately corresponds with those objects, processes or affairs, we say that it is true. This use of representational truth applies to the Right Hand quadrants that contain observable, empirical, exterior aspects of the holons. “They all have simple location. These aspects can be easily seen, and thus with propositional [representational] truth, we tie our statements to these objects or processes or affairs. (This is also called the correspondence theory of truth.)”¹⁰¹ These uses of propositional truth or representational truth are all variations on “It is raining outside.” This usage of “truth” works well for the Right Hand objective quadrants—brain, planets, organisms, and ecosystems. However, this usage of “truth” does not work in the Left Hand quadrants. The Upper Left and its Truthfulness When we move to the Upper Left quadrant, the situation is entirely different. This is the interior of an individual holon—and we have a quite different type of validity claim. “The question here is not, Is it raining outside? The question here is, When I tell you it is raining outside, am I telling you the truth or am I lying. You see, here it is not so much a question of whether the map matches the objective territory, but whether the mapmaker can be trusted.”¹⁰² The issue in the Upper Left quadrant is not the objective information, “Is it raining outside?” You or I can easily check the current weather. The issue is my inner condition. “The only way you can know my interior, my depth, is by asking me, by talking to me … And when I report on my inner status, I might be telling you the truth, but I might be lying. You have no other way to get at my interior except in talk and dialogue and interpretation, and I might fundamentally distort, or conceal, or mislead—in short, I might lie.”¹⁰³ In the Right Hand quadrants, we tend to navigate by use of representational truth, or just objective “truth.” The Upper Left quadrant is entirely different—we are concerned with truthfulness, sincerity, honesty or trustworthiness. We have two criteria: truth and truthfulness. In the Right Hand quadrants, objects have simple location. We can see them and point to them. In the Upper Left quadrant, interior events are located in states of consciousness—they do not have simple location. If I am angry, you cannot say where my anger is located. You can see my face and my gestures and hear my tone of voice that expresses my anger. But the anger itself does not have a specific location. If you wish to know about my anger, and its sources, you will need to talk to me. Only through communication and interpretation can you know about my interior. And as you talk to me about my anger, I might intentionally lie to you. I might misrepresent my interior. Maybe I feel that you would disapprove of me if I let you know how angry I am. If I am angry at my boss at work, I may wish to conceal my anger—lest I get fired from my job. There are many reasons that I might wish to conceal or misrepresent my actual interior conditions. These reasons might include fear of disapproval, or desire to con you for my own purposes. I might lie to you. Furthermore, I might lie to myself. I might try to conceal parts of myself from myself. I
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