Part. 4.
Some modern thinkers accept the existence of matter, body, and mind, but
reject soul and spirit.
This sentence is ambiguous.
Some is an ambiguous quantity.
Modern thinkers have an ambiguous temporal position.
It could equally be stated that: "Some modern thinkers reject the existence
of matter, body, and mind, but accept soul and spirit."
This ambiguity nullifies all that follows in the essay until an unambiguous
statement is made to clarify the position. The ambiguity of unity regarding
reductionism tainted all that preceded and continues to taint all that
follows in the essay also.
They therefore prefer to think of the levels of consciousness as proceeding
from, for example, preconventional to conventional to postconventional. My
essential points can be made using any of these levels, but because we will
also be discussing spiritual or "superconscious" states, let us for the
moment simply assume that the overall spectrum of consciousness does indeed
range from prepersonal to personal to transpersonal (Murphy, 1992; Walsh,
1999).<A HREF="http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/psych_model/psych_model10.cfm/xid,2452282/yid,59839981/#fn3">[3]</A>
The density of unfamiliar and unexplained terms increases creating a sense of
intellectual sophistication.
The underlying philosophical position is panpsychism and this places Wilber
in the idealist tradition.
Based on various types of cross-cultural evidence, many scholars have
suggested that we can divide this overall spectrum of consciousness into
seven colors or bands or waves (as with the seven chakras); others suggest
around twelve (as with Aurobindo and Plotinus); some suggest even more (as in
many of the well-known contemplative texts. See Wilber, 2000b, for over one
hundred models of the levels of consciousness, taken from premodern, modern,
and postmodern sources).
Colors, Bands, waves?
The reader is again invited to read Wilber's corpus.
The philosophical position shifts towards a Berkeley empiricism where ideas
are regarded as objects science can deal with.
In many ways this seems somewhat like a rainbow: we can legitimately divide
and subdivide the colors of a rainbow in any number of ways. I often use nine
or ten basic levels or waves of consciousness (which are variations on the
simple matter, body, mind, soul, spirit), since evidence suggests that these
basic waves are largely universal or generally similar in deep features
wherever they appear (e.g., the human mind, wherever it appears, has a
capacity to form images, symbols, and concepts. The contents of those images
and symbols vary from culture to culture, but the capacity itself appears to
be universal [Arieti, 1967; Beck et al, 1996; Berry et al, 1992; Gardiner et
al, 1998; Shaffer, 1994; Sroufe et al, 1992]).
Now the issue of imposing analogues upon experience is mentioned without
Irony!
The Great Nest of Being is an analogue of analogues; ideas objectifying
ideas.
This general stance is well stated by Berry et al (1992), summarizing the
existing research: "Cross-cultural Psychology is a comprehensive overview of
cross-cultural studies in a number of substantive areas--psychological
development, social behavior, personality, cognition, and perception--and
covers theory and applications to acculturation, ethnic and minority groups,
work, communication, health, and national development. Cast within an
ecological and cultural framework, it views the development and display of
human behavior as the outcome of both ecological and sociopolitical
influences, and it adopts a 'universalistic' position with respect to the
range of similarities and differences in human behavior across cultures:
basic psychological processes are assumed to be species-wide, shared human
characteristics, but culture plays variations on these underlying
similarities" (which will be investigated below as the "four quadrants").<A HREF="http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/psych_model/psych_model10.cfm/xid,2452282/yid,59839981/#fn4">[4]</A>
(Readers of the British satirical paper, 'Private eye' will recognise 'Psueds
corner' here?)
Nonetheless, all of these various codifications of the developmental levels
appear to be simply different snapshots taken from various angles, using
different cameras, of the great rainbow of consciousness, and they all seem
useful in their own ways. They are simple categorizations provided by humans;
but each of them, if carefully backed by evidence, can provide important
ingredients of a more integral model. That these levels, nests, or waves are
arranged along a great rainbow or spectrum does not mean that a person
actually moves through these waves in a merely linear or sequential fashion,
clunking along from body, then to mind, then to soul, then to spirit. Those
are simply some of the basic levels of consciousness that are potentially
available. But an individual possesses many different capacities,
intelligences, and functions, each of which can unfold through the
developmental levels at a different rate--which brings us to the notion of
various independent modules in the human psyche, which I also call lines or
streams.
A convoluted Phenomenalism begins to emerge from the idealist background?
This is rather difficult to get a handle on which does not necessarily imply
intellectual quality?
I have to say clearly that at this point i do not understand it.
I wish to also point out that i am not entirely convinced a coherent picture
can be drawn from Wilber's work, and that i feel this to be a deliberate
strategy on his part.
Part. 5. follows.
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