Kosmic Addresses

A few posts on what I consider to be the most important aspect of Ken Wilber's thought: integral post-metaphysics and the question of meaning (integral semiotics).

C.S. Peirce told William James "perception is semiotics." In other words perception is not "pure" phenomenology. What an individual perceives is deeply molded by the relations, chains, and cultures s/he stands in. It is not what is simply arising to consciousness. It is not even that structures of the mind as Kant argued mold what I see/experience (although it includes that), but even more so my culture/language influences the structures of my mind which shape what I perceive.

Post-metaphysics goes even a step further. What post-metaphysics I think would say is: Perception is semiotics. But more, semiotics is already a perspective.

Gottfried Leibniz, the great modern philosopher, the only one to keep a holonic view of the universe (monads and consciousness in various forms extending down a scale to animals, plants, etc) saw all monads (read: holons) as occupying a unique position in time and space. He never really elaborated the point; he simply stated that all these holons were set up from the beginning by God in a pre-established harmony that made this the best of all possible worlds--though by no means a perfect one.

Following on that insight, if every holon occupies a different position in time-space, then their perception is shaped by their location. Think of Star Wars Episode I where all the ambassadors sit in those little pods at the Republic's headquarters--what they see depends on where they are located.

So for them to describe to another what they see, they have to acknowledge both how they are seeing--i.e. in what direction they are looking--and where they started from.

Now if we apply that analogy from the exterior world to the interior one, integral post-metaphysics starts to arise.

Wilber's description of life as quadratic is not unique to him. As he admits they were forerunners (Habermas, Adi Da). And developmental psychologists certainly talked about levels of complexity. Wilber united those two strands which was an achievement, but a more radical one lay to be discovered.

That is if there are levels of consciousness--which has always been to my mind the most controversial aspect of the whole praxis-theory--then meaning of a statement/what one experiences-observes, is in part, dependent on what level one occupies.

It is what Wilber calls a "developmental signified". Now, before delving in a little more--this notion is open to abuse. No doubt about that. The abuse is to say that because one doesn't occupy a certain level, one can not criticize what the purported higher level-er is saying. There is a sorta of imperialism in that tone.

The (AQAL) integral maxim is that everyone is partially correct. So being true to those roots, an individual at say orange can criticize elements of turquoise--because every system is flawed in some ways. But it it still true that such a criticism would itself be deeply affected by limitations of the orange stream: tendency towards ahistorical analysis, uniformity over heterogenity, functionality over expressive mode, etc. Moreover, such a critical perspective, will not be able to experience/"see" the truthful elements of a turquoise analysis (unique to turquoise): e.g. cross-paradigmatic analysis, multi-perspectivality, etc.

This notion of a developmental signifier is I think deeply antithetical to the democratic sense of America as well as the relativism of postmodernity. It also (correctly in my view) strikes at the unnamed egoic patterns that can easily lie in spiritual circles. Because states of consciousness, what spiritual traditions (particularly Eastern) tend to emphasize, do not automatically bring about stage development. If we are dealing with developmental signifieds in the structure-stage sense, which I am for the moment. There is state-stage developmental signification as well.

The most basic assertion then in post-metaphysics is that one must describe (at minimum) the (rough) altitude and quadrant of both the observer and observed.

It is analogous to Einstein's theory of general (read: universal) relaitivity. Universal or absolute relativity captures the paradox perfectly. Going back to the ancients, Ptolemy held to a geocentric model of the universe (earth-centered). Then Copernicus taught a heliocentric with the sun at the center. Then Einstein and modern cosmology which teaches what is best termed omnicentricism: every point is at the center of the universe. Or alternatively no point is center. No fixed point around which everything revolves.

Truth acts, and all ther est then is not meaningless. There are still universal propositions, and objective facts; they must however be located in contexts. And what is perceived as the proepr context is determined in part by the perceiver. Not in a spooky New Age way but in the sense of humans demarcating where galaxies begin and end--giving them names and such.

This same process integral applies to the interiors as well. As difficult as it is to delinate boundaries, define terrain, and tease out the being of astronomical orbs and processes, so much more so the human thought and feeling.

The human is the universe aware of itself thinking said Teilhard. That truth itself Teilhard did not understand does not emerge until a certain point in development and only from an interior point of view. Altitude + Quadrant.

[This insight can be re-formatted for alternate integral praxis/theorems: collective holons as having interionality, single scale holarchy verus levels, etc.].

To me this mining into the very processes which emerge and by which we have come to know of our own depths and meaning-making abilities, is the most radical (i.e. to the root) of all philosophical expressions today.

When I really meditate on what it is saying (as I see it) it means all of us are speaking in ways that are out of touch with the evolution of the planet. And hence our world is a confused mass of disinformation, misunderstanding, and (conscious or otherwise) falsficiation/hyping, etc. Even well intentioned attempts. From one angle they are still well intentioned and good, but from anotehr they are even more increasingly marginal.

I speak, I write, and I read others whom seem to me in the same boat--it is as if humans assume we know what we are doing in communicating. We/I do not. Integral post-metaphysics to me is about making transparent to the mind the processes of which it engages in. It will never ever fully bring "wholeness" or integration--that is its Kosmic IOU. But it can at best make one aware of the process by which when even begin to begin to do anything.

Joe Perez I think has taken some tentative steps down the road. Joe in his Kronology has added a real contribution by pointing out the need to reference depth (as well as altitude-height). He also has begun to use colored-text corresponding to altitude for certain words.

Artists sometimes I think by accident/inspiration tap into some force that generates something. Spiritual leaders know of states, but typically will not admit that individuals will interpret those states differently and are too naive about how much communion is created through the good vibes of altered temporary attention and feeling. Humans are good at speaking with those who they already more or less agree with--or understand the disagreement so as to employ a form of argumentation already manifest in social norms and learnings.

But what does it really, I mean really, mean to learn how to generate meaning? To learn how to communicate in a world where (from this perspective--see how easy it is to fall into the myth of the given-ness of realities?) people ex-ist in different levels of discourse, streams, and dimensions of discourse?

How do I, does any one, speak about anything while recognizing the space from which speaking arises? And not only the space but the current and altitude/perspectives of all employed at any moment?

This is the question I want to take up in a few posts. It is really beyond me. And I see no one really addressing this issue--integral blogsphere and elsewhere. My working hypothesis going in based on a decent amount of thought/reflection on the subject is that while there may be in some a general cognitive awareness and discussion of wanting to overcome the myth of the given, emotionally and communicatively, it hasn't manfiested yet.

In my case this is true. At least when I focusedly relax I am aware of cascading perspectivality. I can feel/see where just about every human I meet is, as it is said, is coming from. And I can even, for those already with some know how, parse with the help of the terminology, the crutch of system (AQAL), but my speaking is still very much riven with the myth of the given.

Even in the moments of colorizing and all the rest.

How do I speak about speaking while speaking what I'm speaking?

If anyone has thoughts on the matter, I really welcome them.