Real and false reason revisited

I'm discussing this IPS thread in a FB forum and posted the followed from it:

The following is from p. 2 of the thread from 2010. My ideas on this have evolved since then: 

Tying together some of the prior posts in this thread, Murray mentioned that the higher human ideals like compassion might not involve hierarchical complexity but instead more of a going in the other direction. It might be more like a paring down of complexity, or returning to simplicity. Ross doesn't go along with this and is convinced that compassion, or anything for that matter, can be explained by MHC. I’m beginning to agree with Murray on this one and here’s why.

Wilber talks about the fulcrums of each level of development: fusion, differentiation and integration. And that dysfunction can happen at each fulcrum. With formal operations differentiation goes into dissociation with the kind of “false” reasoning we’ve been exploring above. Hence the prior levels are not adequately integrated and we get this sense of a separate and transcendent rational ego. Development can go on into postformal operations from here but it is tainted by this dissociation and infects all postformal operations with this same dissociation. This is what seems apparent in my discussions with Commons et al.
Another version of this is what we previously explored with Levin and Goddard. Goddard noted that the rise to egoic-rationality required a temporary dissociation from prior bodily and emotional levels into symbolic logic. In this case it wasn’t so much a dysfunction but rather a healthy but temporary and necessary dissociation. Levin seemed to agree. And both seemed to think that to continue development we had to take the next step in going back, regressing in service of ego (Washburn) in order to fully integrate body and emotions. As I surmised from their work (and others) this is where meditation practices come in as a methodology for this purpose. And in so doing we get back in touch with our humanity and our compassion etc. So like Murray this is a sort of unwinding of complexity back into simplicity.

And as I’ve said before, the rational ego is the pivot point between pre/post in hierarchical complexity “stage” and between pre/trans.in heterarchical “state” integration. One can advance into postformal stages without integrating transrational states, just as one can integrate transrational states without going into postformal stages. In general terms I’m thinking the MHC folks are the former and the traditional meditation folks are the latter, with exceptions.

What I find most revealing is Common’s discussion of Plato, Aristotle and Thales. The MHC “follows in the tradition,” being “a mathematical theory of the ideal. It is a perfect form as Plato would have described it” (315). I’m not only questioning whether a linear, unidimensional math can represent the nonlinear workings of postformal performance; I also question whether the MHC itself, assuming such formal characteristics as the above--even being a literal Platonic ideal--isn’t itself just an extension of formal operations. This follows from my previous post, thinking that perhaps dissociation in formal operations leads only to more complex dissociation with the same basic premises of this level.

Commons, M. (2008). “Introduction to the Model of Hierarchical Complexity and its relat... World Futures 64: 304-20