Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Revisiting ladder, climber, view

Continuing from the last post, the following is from ongoing discussion in the IPS "ladder, climber, view" thread:

What I didn't quote from Wilber on Graves/Beck is what directly followed the previous quote:

"Subpersonalities can exist at different levels or memes, however, so that one can indeed have a purple subpersonality, a blue subpersonality, and so on. These often are context-triggered, so that one have quite different types of moral responses, affects, needs, etc. in different situations.)”

He explains how one can express different levels dependent on context, something I discussed above. But generally, despite the variations, the 'center of gravity' is relatively consistent with responses coming from 25% below it and 25% above it, meaning we're about in the center half the time.* Although he offers no empirical evidence for this I did so to a limited degree above with some of Lakoff's and Fischer's research. But they don't frame it as sub-personalities.

* From footnote 19 of this source:

“To say that the self 'identifies' with a level is not to picture this in an all-or-none fashion. Even with the proximate self-sense (e.g., as investigated by Loevinger), research indicates that individuals tend to give around 50% of their responses from one level and 25% responses from the level above and below it. As suggested in the main text, the self is more a center of gravity than a monolithic entity. This also appears to include the existence of numerous subpersonalities (Rowan, 1990; Wilber 2000b).”

Also see this Integral Options post, where William quotes at length from Integral Psychology on sub-personalities. (The average person has at least 12!) Also see Wm's post on differentiating a 'core self' from one's sub-personalities. One of the methods mentioned for so doing was psychosynthesis. Here's an article on the latter as it relates to sub-personalities and Wilber's work. Note per this that the core self is as follows:

"One of the central assumptions in psychosynthesis is the notion that we are not the body, the emotions the mind or any of the manifold roles we are playing in life. Our true identity is the self – the point of pure self-consciousness and will. We call this self the conscious 'I' when dealing with the ordinary consciousness and the Transpersonal Self when we address higher and universal consciousness. This point of self-consciousness and will acts more or less consciously through the psychological functions and the subpersonalities and in doing so, it is participating in the evolutionary quest for self-realisation in cooperation with all the other beings on the planet."

Metaphysical?

Also see John Rowan's website. He is Wilber's source quoted above on sub-personalities. In this section on mystical experiences (at the end) he explores the differences between a causal and nondual state.

Also see Chapter 6 of Integral Spirituality on the shadow. Wilber also posits that the true self or I-I can integrate disowned sub-personalities via the 3-2-1 process. For example:

"You have dis-identified with everything and become one with everything, transcending and including the entire Kosmos" (158).

And when one transcends and includes all states and stages (and shadows) up to the present time in history:

"All states and stages are object of your subject, all I’s have become me and mine of the great I-I, the open Emptiness in which Spirit speaks, the nondual suchness of the Godhead of this and every moment, the Supreme Self that owns the Kosmos arising as One Taste" (170).

I guess at this point an integrated state-stage-shadow is no longer a transitional structure? Or maybe the stage aspect, given that evolution goes on, remains transitional, even at the highest level so far, indigo (or translucent)?

The above continues to raise questions. Questions asked before in various threads and repeated here. So apparently certain vertical structures (morals, worldviews) continue to transcend and replace previous stages altogether. Which means even the highest stage so far (indigo or translucent), which posits metaphysical universals (at least in kennilingus), must be replaced. However it doesn't appear the horizontal states continue to transcend and include, since the nondual is the ultimate state at the end of the line (surpassing the causal, by the way). Or is there further room for development beyond the nondual state? And per above it seems there is an ultimate stage that matches the ultimate nondual state, ultimately free from shadow altogether (if not subpersonalities), the end of the line so to speak in all areas.

See for example the section on the WC lattice in IS. He notes that “there are also 3 or 4 higher structures beyond the centaur, and they have similar-sounding characteristics as these 3 or 4 higher states, which made it almost impossible to spot the differences” (p. 112 in the linked source). Wilber discusses these higher structure-stages at p. 122 using Fowler:

“There are somewhere around 3 or 4 stages of faith beyond his stage 6 (which is roughly a turquoise-level faith), so we would expect to find that, being laid down now only thinly as Kosmic habits but still discernible (although less so the higher up you go in altitude on a mountain that is being co-created by its climbers), some version of indigofaith (at the same altitude as the trans-planetary mind, then violet faith (meta-mind), then ultraviolet faith (overmind)…, as faith itself becomes Fuller and Fuller and Fuller…, grounded in a Freedom and an Emptiness that never changes, that is timeless and eternal, the great Ground and Openness of the entire evolving display, that nonetheless is Witness to its own display evolving” (my emphasis).




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