Marmalade

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Permalink Reply by marmalade on November 30, 2007 at 7:16pm

What I’m bringing up here also relates to the criticism of Wilber’s model dismissing the Western occult tradition. Fundamentally, the occult is about experience. Some people don’t like models such as Wilber presents because they seem too abstract. This is a challenge of studying Wilber. He covers so much material that it is difficult for anyone to research in depth in order to verify all of his sources. We just have to trust Wilber.

This is fine up to a point, but I want a basic framework that can be verified in my everyday and not-so-everyday experiences. For instance, I don’t simply accept spiral dynamics. I’ve looked at the world through this lense and it made sense of much of my experience. And hopefully science will further clarify its veracity or not.

Also, spiral dynamics appears to generally fit the modelling pattern of the chakra system. They aren’t the same, but maybe the same patterns in the human psyche have influenced both to create similar structures of meaning. As far as I know, Clare Graves wasn’t basing his research on the theory of the chakras. It doesn’t matter that the two theories are referring towards different views of reality. If there is an archetypal patterning process, then similar models will create simlar connections between ideas even when those ideas seem in disagreement.

I don’t know if that was a good example, but its an obvious comparison. What I’m interested in is similar to what Campbell was looking for in comparing myths from entirely separate cultures. So, I’m wondering whether there is a monomyth of models. Loftings basic idea is that all models begin with some basic duality and that is then fed back into itself to create further distinctions. The most clear example he presents for how this occurs is the I Ching. And the I Ching could be seen as a model of perspectives.

Beebe is a Jungian theorist who proposed that archetype, complex, and type are getting at the same notion. I take Wilber’s criticism seriously that there is a pre/trans confusion in Jung’s archetypes. Jung did imply a hierarchy of archetypes(see James Whitlark’s explanation of individuation as it relates to Spiral Dynamics), but he left this unclear. Similarly, how do memes, holons, and morphic fields relate? All of these kinds of ideas put forth that there is something that creates coherence in our experience in a predictable way.

I found an interesting thread discussion related to all of this at Integral Review Forums:

Thinking postformally about “theory building”
http://global-arina.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=24

[quote=”jgidley”]I see the link between architecture and thinking as one of the important contributions of postmodernism. Although it is emphasized by Steiner’s and Sri Aurobindo’s integral lineages, it is essentially overlooked in much other integral theory.[/quote]

This reminds me of how mnemonics was intimately connected with architecture.

[quote=”bonnittaroy”]My feeling is that it depends upon one’s relationshipto one’s theory-making. Some people (like Shoepnehauer) build theories to try to get at what reality really is. They expect that the intellect is the portal to answer that question. Others, like Whitehead and Guenther, are theory-making to tease out what is implicit in their view, that may be hidden or unformed and as yet to be articulated. In the process, what is brewing there, becomes disclosed and “known” in a more conventional way. The theory can serve as a “marker” for other people to discuss synergistically implicit views, and move the understanding forward.

Theory making in the second sense is more like thought-experimenting. Or creating an aesthetic. This is not limited to philosophy. I love the way physicists do thought experiments like Schrodinger’s Cat and Wheeler’s Daemon.

The above comment pertains to people who actively see themselves as doing theory. But I would like also to explore how there is a kind of theory -building that is implicit in cognizing reality at all. Everyone has, at bottom, certain fundamental assumptions about reality– it is consumate with how reality arises at all. Reality arises such that I feel I am an individual being. But that is certainly just one view– based in a kind of implicit theory — the set of conditions of my cognizing mind.

Above that very fundamental level, there are the basic beliefs about reality that we hold — implicitly or explicity — that also are a kind of theory-building that is going on all the time. In the integral community, for example, there are fundamental beliefs that few people would consider “theory building” and many would consider a description of how reality really is, namely, the holarchic organization of reality, the hierarchic organization of reality, the notion of development and evolution. These are tenets that underwrite our more obvious practices of theory building, but they are in themselves, the product of implicit theory building.

I believe that an example of post-formal operations is to be able to “hold” each of these kinds of cognitive processes very very lightly — to be able to see them as processes that are going on all the time in a very intimate and implicit way. And to be able to make what is implicit, explicit — so we can be liberated from their limitations, while at the same time, expand our choice field as to what set or set of theories (thought experiments) might be more helpful/ useful.[/quote]

Permalink Reply by marmalade on November 30, 2007 at 11:22pm

I can’t claim to entirely understand what Lofting is getting at here. I have a high tolerance for abstraction and I get the gist of his theory, but I wish he used more grounded examples. He speaks alot about mathematics and he loses me.
http://members.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/NeuroMaths3.htm#Recursion

The WHAT
The emphasis on WHAT is an emphasis on an object, a bounded ‘thing’ that can be tangible (as in a ball) or intangible (as in a marriage). Note how the intangible reflects what we call nominalisation where a process (and so a relationship, ’.. getting married’) has been converted into a noun, a thing (‘this marriage…’).

Although the term ‘what’ has a general nature about it, it still has a ‘point’ or ‘dot’ emphasis and we can refine this emphasis further by introducing additional terms such as WHO and WHICH. These terms act to particularise the general in that the ‘what’ realm is strongly ‘dot’ oriented and as such favours clear, precise, identifications and so a more LOCAL, discrete perspective.

This emphasis on ‘dot’ precision forces a degree of focus that can distort all considerations of the context in which the dot exists in that the precision requires a dependence on a universal context to support it.

The WHERE
The emphasis on WHERE is an emphasis on a relationship, there is a coordinates bias ‘relative’ to something else. There is a more intangible element here in that a set of relationships can go towards identifying an object by implications; there is an intuitive emphasis where a pattern based on linking a set of coordinates is ‘suddenly’ recognised as implying ‘something’; in other words there is a ‘constellations’ emphasis where objects are linked together to form a pattern that is then itself objectified; for example there is a strong emphasis here to geometric forms –e. g. ‘triangles’, ‘cubes’ etc. which in basic mathematics come out of joining coordinates.

This emphasis on constellation formation means that, when compared to the realm of the ‘what’, the ‘where’ reflects a LACK in precision where (!) the identification of something is made by identifying a pattern of landmarks ‘around’ the something. There is thus a strong context-sensitivity in the ‘where’ analysis when compared to the more precise, almost context-free (or local context-ignored) emphasis in the ‘what’ analysis. Thus the transference of a ‘where’ to a ‘what’ through the process of nominalisation acts to de-contextualise or more so encapsulate the context with the text. (See figure 1).

In general the term ‘where’ is as general as the term ‘what’ and as such we can introduce additional terms such as WHEN and HOW to aid in particularising the general. When compared to the distinctions of WHO and WHICH, the WHEN and HOW terms are highly dependent on coordinates (space and/or time), on establishing specific ‘begin-end’ positions rather than emphasis on a point free of any extensions.>>

Recursion and Emerging Numeracy
The recursion process is where an element is applied to itself, thus the identification of an object causes us to zoom-in on that object for details. This process leads to the recognition of such concepts as an object’s negation that at the general level relates to the entire universe exclusive of the object, and at the particular level the objects direct opposite (e.g. positive/negative, earth/sky etc).

Analysis of the patterns that emerge from applying the what/where dichotomy to itself leads to the identification of four fundamental distinctions which we can tie to feelings and so tie to pre-linguistic understandings of reality. These distinctions are:

Objects:

Wholes

Parts

Relationships:

Static

Dynamic

Note that a ‘part’ is the term we use for the combination of (a) an object and (b) a relationship to a greater object and it is the word ‘part’ that reflects what we can call the superposition of two distinctions – the distinction of ‘wholeness’ combined with the distinction of ‘relatedness’.>>

Permalink Reply by BrightAbyss~ on December 1, 2007 at 1:03am

YOU: I think the best integral model is about perspectives

ME: we gotta start there. It’s all about perspectives. Descartes tried to build up from the cogito (1PP), and then Husserl, but Merleau-Ponty did it better… A naturalist (integral) philosophy emerges out of a deep understanding of human knowledge-making and perspectives…

YOU: This notion of a perspective of perspectives is postmodern in the sense that it isn’t an objective framework that allows us to see outside of it, but neither can we separate it from what we are trying to explain by it.

ME: You gotta read Pierre Bourdieu’s work. Especially “The Logic of Practice” – where he talks about “objectifying objectification”. I think you’d find a kindred spirit with re: to perspectives.

YOU: Despite what to some may seem like subjective relativism, any model of perspectives isn’t separate from the context of the larger world that informs our perspective even if we don’t or can’t entirely comprehend it. We are part of the world and so our perspectives aren’t constrained by limited notions of individuality.

ME: This is why we have to be happy finding our way (carving out an existence) & dwelling in ‘worldspaces’ – with very HUMAN knowledges generated out of our Life Conditions (cf. Wittgenstein’s ‘Forms of Life’) and articulated through the rich tapestry of experience, being and relating.

I think ‘contingency’ is a key concept for understanding embodied human knowing… But just remember our perspectives are not so totally divorced from the Real, because there is an intimacy and immediacy our being-in-the-world that necessarily encounters actual life conditions.

YOU: We never see reality directly for what it is because we always are modelling whether consciously or unconsciously.

ME: Idealism is a very sick joke played on us by our own abstractions… We are OF the world so we can directly ‘know’ it in so many practical and meaningful ways… Don’t fall into the trap of believing a priori that “we can never really know the thing-in-itself”. Human knowledge is grounded in human kinds of knowing, with its many faults, but – like you say- it is the ONLY kind of (contextual) knowing we have, so lets get over ourselves and get to the actual work of putting our models/worldviews/discourse in the service of HEALTH & ADAPTATION.

YOU: This is fine up to a point, but I want a basic framework that can be verified in my everyday and not-so-everyday experiences.

ME: Then I believe you came to the right place. For instance, if AQAL is Wilber’s metaphoric ‘Integral Operating System’ (IOS), then what this network/forum wants to facilitate is allowing people at higher ‘altitudes’ of consciousness to evolve IOS’s of their OWN – developing and operating “applications” relevant to specific individuals, groups, projects, and always in context.

In other words, this forum is wants to help people develop their own “integral operating systems” but with OPEN “sources” – ie, drawing from various theories and traditions, and data.

So if Wilber’s AQAL can be compared to MicroSoft’s Windows operating system, then our project (at the Integral Research Group) can be compared to Linux – in that we want to help create alternative OPEN SOURCE integral (OSI) operating “systems” (theories and practical applications).

You see, the door is wide OPEN to collaborative innovation re: discourse dynamics, integral thinking, healthy being and adaptive relations.

What say you?

cheers~

Permalink Reply by marmalade on December 3, 2007 at 10:33pm

Bright Abyss: “we gotta start there. It’s all about perspectives. Descartes tried to build up from the cogito (1PP), and then Husserl, but Merleau-Ponty did it better… A naturalist (integral) philosophy emerges out of a deep understanding of human knowledge-making and perspectives…”

Basically, I believe the most useful integral perspective is the one that precedes the seeking for an integral theory. Integral isn’t an unnatural or even new phenomenon. In terms of Spiral Dynamics, the higher levels are somehow already implied by the lower levels. In terms of Jung, archetypes precede specific manifestations of them as symbols or whatever.

BA: “You gotta read Pierre Bourdieu’s work. Especially “The Logic of Practice” – where he talks about “objectifying objectification”. I think you’d find a kindred spirit with re: to perspectives.”

Thanks for the suggestion.

BA: “This is why we have to be happy finding our way (carving out an existence) & dwelling in ‘worldspaces’ – with very HUMAN knowledges generated out of our Life Conditions (cf. Wittgenstein’s ‘Forms of Life’) and articulated through the rich tapestry of experience, being and relating.

I’m intrigued by what you said here. Could you explain some more? How do you relate this to an integral view? Did I seem to imply that I thought perspectives are somehow divorced from the REAL? What do you mean by the REAL? What do you mean by ‘contingency’?

BA: “Idealism is a very sick joke played on us by our own abstractions… We are OF the world so we can directly ‘know’ it in so many practical and meaningful ways… Don’t fall into the trap of believing a priori that “we can never really know the thing-in-itself”. Human knowledge is grounded in human kinds of knowing, with its many faults, but – like you say- it is the ONLY kind of (contextual) knowing we have, so lets get over ourselves and get to the actual work of putting our models/worldviews/discourse in the service of HEALTH & ADAPTATION.”

When I spoke of not being able to directly know reality, I was referring to mental knowing. I agree there are many other kinds of knowing besides this. I had to laught at you last sentence. I’m far from getting over myself and I’m no model of HEALTH & ADAPTATION. I’m a seeker and that is the best I can claim for myself.

Permalink Reply by marmalade on December 3, 2007 at 10:41pm

Chiron posted this at Lightmind:

By Colin McGinn

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature
by Steven Pinker

The Stuff of Thought is Steven Pinker’s fifth popular book in thirteen years, and by now we know what to expect. It is long, packed with information, clear, witty, attractively written, and generally persuasive. The topic, as earlier, is language and the mind—specifically, how language reflects human psychological nature. What can we learn about the mind by examining, with the help of linguistics and experimental psychology, the language we use to express ourselves?

Pinker ranges widely, from the verb system of English, to the idea of an innate language of thought, to metaphor, to naming, obscenity, and politeness. He is unfailingly engaging to read, with his aptly chosen cartoons, his amusing examples, and his bracing theoretical rigor. Yet there are signs of fatigue, not so much in the energy and enthusiasm he has put into the book as in the sometimes less than satisfying quality of the underlying ideas. I don’t blame the author for this: it is very hard to write anything deep, surprising, and true in psychology—especially when it comes to the most interesting aspects of our nature (such as our use of metaphor). A popular book on biology or physics will reliably deli-ver well-grounded information about things you don’t already know; in psychology the risk of banality dressed up as science is far greater. Sometimes in Pinker’s book the ratio of solid ideas to sparkling formulations is uncomfortably low (I found this particularly in the lively and amusing chapter on obscenity). He has decided to be ambitious, and there is no doubt of his ability to keep the show on the road, but it is possible to finish a long chapter of The Stuff of Thought and wonder what you have really learned—enjoyable as the experience of reading it may have been.

To my mind, by far the most interesting chapter of the book is the lengthy discussion of verbs—which may well appear the driest to some readers. Verbs are the linguistic keyhole to the mind’s secrets, it turns out. When children learn verbs they are confronted with a problem of induction: Can the syntactic rules that govern one verb be projected to another verb that has a similar meaning? Suppose you have already learned how to use the verb “load” in various syntactic combinations; you know that you can say both Hal loaded the wagon with hay and Hal loaded hay into the wagon. Linguists call the first kind of sentence a “container locative” and the second a “content locative,” because of the way they focus attention on certain aspects of the event reported—the wagon (container) or the hay (content), respectively (the word “locative” referring here to the way words express location). The two sentences seem very close in meaning, and the verb load slots naturally into the sentence frame surrounding it. So, can other verbs like fill and pour enter into the same combinations? The child learning English verbs might well suppose that they can, thus instantiating a rule of grammar that licenses certain syntactic transformations—to the effect that you can always rewrite a content locative as a container locative and vice versa. But if we look at how pour and fill actually work we quickly see that they violate any such rule. You can say John poured water into the glass (content locative) but you can’t say John poured the glass with water (container locative); whereas you can say John filled the glass with water (container locative) but you can’t say John filled water into the glass (content locative).

Somehow a child has to learn these syntactic facts about the verbs load, pour, and fill—and the rules governing them are very different. Why does one verb figure in one kind of construction but not in another? They all look like verbs that specify the movement of a type of stuff into a type of container, and yet they behave differently with respect to the syntactic structures in question. It’s puzzling.

The answer Pinker favors to this and similar puzzles is that the different verbs subtly vary in the way they construe the event they report: pour focuses on the type of movement that is involved in the transfer of the stuff, while neglecting the end result; fill by contrast specifies the final state and omits to say how that state precisely came about (and it might not have been by pouring). But load tells you both things: the type of movement and what it led to. Hence the verbs combine differently with constructions that focus on the state of the container and constructions that focus on the manner by which the container was affected.

The syntactic rules that control the verbs are thus sensitive to the precise meaning of the specific verb and how it depicts a certain event. And this means that someone who understands these verbs must tacitly grasp how this meaning plays out in the construction of sentences; thus the child has to pick up on just such subtle differences of meaning if she is to infer the right syntactic rule for the verb in question. Not consciously, of course; her brain must perform this work below the level of conscious awareness. She must implicitly analyze the verb—exposing its deep semantic structure. Moreover, these verbs form natural families, united by the way they conceive of actions—whether by their manner or by their end result. In the same class as pour, for example, we have dribble, drip, funnel, slosh, spill, and spoon.

This kind of example—and there is a considerable range of them—leads Pinker to a general hypothesis about the verb system of English (as well as other languages): the speaker must possess a language of thought that represents the world according to basic abstract categories like space, time, substance, and motion, and these categories constitute the meaning of the verb. When we use a particular verb in a sentence, we bring to bear this abstract system to “frame” reality in certain ways, thus imposing an optional grid on the flux of experience. We observe some liquid moving into a container and we describe it either as an act of pouring or as the state of being filled: a single event is construed in different ways, each reflecting the aspect we choose to focus on. None of this is conscious or explicit; indeed, it took linguists a long time to figure out why some verbs work one way and some another (Pinker credits the MIT linguists Malka Rappaport Hovav and Beth Levin). We are born with an implicit set of innate categories that organize events according to a kind of primitive physics, dealing with substance, motion, causality, and purpose, and we combine these to generate a meaning for a particular verb that we understand. The grammar of our language reflects this innate system of concepts.

As Pinker is aware, this is a very Kantian picture of human cognition. Kant regarded the mind as innately stocked with the basic concepts that make up Newtonian mechanics—though he didn’t reach that conclusion from a consideration of the syntax of verbs. And the view is not in itself terribly surprising: many philosophers have observed that the human conceptual scheme is essentially a matter of substances in space and time, causally interacting, moving and changing, obeying laws and subject to forces—with some of those substances being agents—i.e., conscious, acting human beings—with intentions and desires. What else might compose it? Here is a case where the conclusion reached by the dedicated psycholinguist is perhaps less revolutionary than he would like to think. The chief interest of Pinker’s discussion is the kind of evidence he adduces to justify such a hypothesis, rather than the hypothesis itself—evidence leading from syntax to cosmology, we might say. Of course the mind must stock basic concepts for the general structure of the universe if it is to grasp the nature of particular things within it; but it is still striking to learn that this intuitive physics shapes the very syntax of our language.

Not that everyone will agree with the general hypothesis itself—and Pinker has a whole chapter on innateness and the language of thought. Here he steers deftly between the extreme nativism of Jerry Fodor, according to which virtually every concept is innate, including trombone and opera (despite the fact that the concepts must therefore have preceded the invention of what they denote, being merely triggered into consciousness by experience of trombones and operas), and the kind of pragmatism that refuses to assign a fixed meaning to any word. Pinker sees that something conceptual has to be innate if language learning is to be possible at all, but he doesn’t believe it can be anything parochial and specific; so he concludes that only the most general categories of the world are present in the genes—the categories that any human being (or animal) needs to use if he or she is to survive at all. Among such categories, for example, are: event, thing, path, place, manner, acting, going, having, animate, rigid, flexible, past, present and future, causality, enabling and preventing, means and ends.

The picture then is that these innate abstract concepts mesh with the individual’s experience to yield the specific conceptual scheme that eventually flowers in the mind. The innate concepts pre-date language acquisition and make it possible; they are not the products of language. Thus Pinker rejects the doctrine of “linguistic determinism,” which holds that thought is nothing other than the result of the language we happen to speak—as in the infamous hypothesis of the linguists Benjamin Whorf and Harold Sapir that our thoughts are puppets of our words (as with the Eskimos who use many different words for snow). The point Pinker makes here—and it is a good one—is that we mustn’t mistake correlation for causation, assuming that because concepts and words go together the latter are the causes of the former. Indeed, it is far more plausible to suppose that our language is caused by our thoughts—that we can only introduce words for which we already have concepts. Words express concepts; they don’t create them.

Let’s suppose, then, that Pinker and others are right to credit the mind with an original system of basic physical concepts, supplemented with some concepts for number, agency, logic, and the like. We innately conceive of the world as containing what he calls “force dynamics”—substances moving through space, under forces, and impinging on other objects, changing their state. How do we get from this to the full panoply of human thought? How do we get to science, art, politics, economics, ethics, and so on? His answer is that we do it by judicious use of metaphor and the combinatorial power of language, as when words combine to produce the unlimited expressions of a human language. Language has infinite potential, because of its ability to combine words and phrases into sentences without limit: this is by now a well-worn point.

More controversial is the suggestion that metaphor is the way we transcend the merely mechanical—the bridge by which physics leads us to more abstract domains. Pinker notes, as many have before, that we routinely use spatial expressions to describe time (“he moved the meeting to Tuesday,” “don’t look backward”), as well as employ words like rise, fall, went, and send to capture events that are not literally spatial (prices rising, messages sent, and so on). Science itself is often powered by analogies, as when heat was conceived as a fluid and its laws derived accordingly. Our language is transparently shot through with meta-phors of one kind or another. But it is far from clear that everything we do with concepts and language can be accounted for in this way; consider how we think and talk about consciousness and the mind, or our moral thinking. The concept of pain, say, is not explicable as a metaphorical variation on some sort of physical concept.

It just doesn’t seem true that everything nonphysical that we think about is metaphorical; for example, our legal concepts such as “rights” are surely not all mere metaphors, introduced on the shoulders of the concepts of intuitive physics. So there is a question how Pinker’s alleged language of thought, restricted as it is, can suffice to generate our total conceptual scheme; in which case we will need to count more concepts as innate (what about contract or punishment?)—or else rethink the whole innateness question. Not that I have any good suggestions about how human concepts come to be; my point is just that Pinker’s set of basic Kantian concepts seems too exiguous to do the job.

If the Kantian categories are supposed to make thought and language possible, then they also, for Pinker, impose limits on our mental functioning. This is a second main theme of his book: the human mind, for all its rich innate endowment, is fallible, prone to confusion, easily foiled. The very concepts that enable us to think coherently about the world can lead us astray when we try to extend them beyond their natural domain. Pinker discusses the concepts of space and time, exposing the paradoxes that result from asking whether these are finite or infinite; either way, human thought reels. As he says, we can’t think without these concepts, but we can’t make sense of them—not when we start to think hard about what they involve. For example, if space is bounded, what lies on the other side of the boundary? But if it’s not bounded, we seem saddled with an infinite amount of matter—which implies multiple identical universes.

The concept of free will poses similar paradoxes: either human choices are caused or they are not, but either way we can’t seem to make sense of free will. A lot of philosophy is like that; a familiar concept we use all the time turns puzzling and paradoxical once we try to make systematic sense of it. Pinker has fun detailing the natural errors to which the human mind is prone when trying to reason statistically or economically; human specimens are notoriously poor at reasoning in these matters. Even more mortifying, our prized intuitive physics, foundation of all our thought, is pretty bad as physics: projectiles don’t need impetus to keep them in steady motion, no matter what Aristotle and common sense may say. As Newton taught us, motion, once it begins, is preserved without the pressure of a continuously applied force—as when a meteor keeps moving in a straight line, though no force maintains this motion. And relativity and quantum theory violate commonsense physics at every turn.

Our natural concepts are as much a hindrance to thought as they are a springboard for it. When we try to turn our minds away from their primitive biological tasks toward modern science and industrial-electronic society we struggle and fall into fallacies; it’s an uphill battle to keep our concepts on track. Our innate “common sense” is riddled with error and confusion—not all of it harmless (as with the economically naive ideas about what constitutes a “fair price”).

Pinker also has three bulky chap-ters on the social aspects of language, dealing with naming and linguistic innovation in general, with obscenity and taboo words, and with politeness and authority relations in speech. The chapter on naming achieves something I thought was impossible: it gives an accurate exposition of the philosopher Saul Kripke’s classic discussion of proper names by a nonphilosopher—the gist of which is that the reference of a name is fixed not by the descriptive information in the mind of the speaker but by a chain of uses stretching back to an initial identification. For example, I refer to a certain Greek philosopher with the name “Plato” in virtue of the chain of uses that link my present use with that of ancient Greeks who knew him, not in virtue of having in my mind some description that picks him out uniquely from every other Greek philosopher.

Apart from this, Pinker worries at the question of fashions in names and how they change. He refutes such popular theories as that names are taken from public figures or celebrities; usually, the trend is already in place—and anyway the name “Humphrey” never took off, despite the star of Casablanca. It is fascinating to read that in the early part of the twentieth century the following names were reserved primarily for men: Beverly, Dana, Evelyn, Gail, Leslie, Meredith, Robin, and Shirley. But not much emerges about why names change as they do, besides some platitudes about the need for elites to stand out by adopting fashions different from the common herd.

I very much enjoyed the chapter on obscenity, which asks the difficult question of how words deemed taboo differ from their inoffensive syn-onyms (e.g., shit and feces). It can’t obviously be the referent of the term, since that is the same, and it isn’t merely that the taboo words are more accurately descriptive (excre-ment is equally accurate, but it isn’t taboo). Pinker reports, no doubt correctly, that swearing forces the hearer to entertain thoughts he’d rather not, but that too fails to distinguish taboo words from their nontaboo synonyms. The phenomenon is especially puzzling when we note that words can vary over time in their taboo value: damn used to be unutterable in polite society, while word was once quite inoffensive (Pinker reports a fifteenth-century medical textbook that reads “in women the neck of the bladder is short, and is made fast to the word”).

Of particular interest to the grammarian is the fact that in English all the impolite words for the sexual act are transitive verbs, while all the polite forms involve intransitive verbs: word, screw,hump, shag, bang versus have sex, make love, sleep together, go to bed, copulate. As Pinker astutely observes, the transitive sexual verbs, like other verbs in English, bluntly connote the nature of the motion involved in the reported action with an agent and a receiver of that motion, whereas the intransitive forms are discreetly silent about exactly how the engaged objects move in space. The physical forcefulness of the act is thus underlined in the transitive forms but not in the intransitive ones. None of this explains why some verbs for intercourse are offensive while others are not, but it’s surely significant that different physical images are conjured up by the different sexual locutions—with word semantically and syntactically like staband have sex like have lunch.

Pinker’s discussion of politeness verges closest to platitude—noting, for example, that bribes cannot usually afford to be overt and that authority relations are sometimes encoded in speech acts, as with tu and vous in French. Here he relies heavily on lively examples and pop culture references, but the ideas at play are thin and rather forced. But, as I say, he has a tough assignment here—trying to extract theoretical substance from something both familiar and unsystematic. Laying out a game theory matrix, with its rows and columns of payoffs, for a potential bribe to a traffic cop adds little to the obvious description of such a situation.

The book returns to its core themes in the final chapter, “Escaping the Cave.” Pinker sums up:

Quote:
Human characterizations of reality are built out of a recognizable inventory of thoughts. The inventory begins with some basic units, like events, states, things, substances, places, and goals. It specifies the basic ways in which these units can do things: acting, going, changing, being, having. One event may be seen as impinging on another, by causing or enabling or preventing it. An action can be initiated with a goal in mind, in particular, the destination of a motion (as in loading hay) or the state resulting from a change (as in loading a wagon). Objects are differentiated by whether they are human or nonhuman, animate or inanimate, solid or aggregate, and how they are laid out along the three dimensions of space. Events are conceived as taking up stretches of time and as being ordered with respect to one another.

If that strikes you as a bit platitudinous, then such is the lot of much psychology—usually the good sort. What is interesting is the kind of evidence that can be given for these claims and the way they play out in language and behavior—not the content of the claims themselves.

But Pinker is also anxious to reiterate his thesis that our conceptual scheme is like Plato’s cave, in giving us only a partial and distorted vision of reality. We need to escape our natural way of seeing things, as well as appreciate its (limited) scope. Plato himself regarded a philosophical education as the only way to escape the illusions and errors of common sense—the cave in which we naturally dwell. Pinker too believes that education is necessary in order to correct and transcend our innate cognitive slant on the world. This means, unavoidably, using a part of our mind to get beyond the rest of our mind, so that there must be a part that is capable of distancing itself from the rest. He says little about how this might be possible—how that liberating part might operate—beyond what he has said about metaphors and the infinity of language. And the question is indeed difficult: How could the mind ever have the ability to step outside of itself? Aren’t we always trapped inside our given conceptual scheme? How do we bootstrap ourselves to real wisdom from the morass of innate confusion?

One reason it is hard to answer this question is that it is obscure what a concept is to start with. And here there is a real lacuna in Pinker’s book: no account is given of the nature of the basic concepts that are held to constitute the mind’s powers. He tells us at one point that the theory of conceptual semantics “proposes that word senses are mentally represented as expressions in a richer and more abstract language of thought,” as if concepts could literally be symbols in the language of thought. The idea then is that when we understand a verb like pour we translate it into a complex of symbols in the brain’s innate code (rather like the code used by a computer), mental counterparts of public words like move, cause, change. But that leaves wide open the question of how those inner words have meaning; they can’t just be bits of code, devoid of semantic content. We need to credit people with full-blown concepts at the foundation of their conceptual scheme—not just words for concepts.

Pinker has listed the types of concepts that may be supposed to lie at the foundation, but he hasn’t told us what those concepts consist in—what they are. So we don’t yet know what the stuff of thought is—only that it must have a certain form and content. Nowhere in the course of a long book on concepts does Pinker ever confront the really hard question of what a concept might be. Some theorists have supposed concepts to be mental images, others that they are capacities to discriminate objects, others dispositions to use words, others that they are mythical entities.

The problem is not just that this is a question Pinker fails to answer or even acknowledge; it is that without an answer it is difficult to see how we can make headway with questions about what our concepts do and do not permit. Is it our concepts themselves that shackle us in the cave or is it rather our interpretations of them, or maybe our associated theories of what they denote? Where exactly might a concept end and its interpretation begin? Is our concept of something identical to our conception of it—the things we believe about it? Do our concepts intrinsically blind us or is it just what we do with them in thought and speech that causes us to fail to grasp them? Concepts are the material that constitutes thought and makes language meaningful, but we are very far from understanding what kind of thing they are—and Pinker’s otherwise admirable book takes us no further with this fundamental question.

New York Times Book Review
Volume 54, Number 14 · September 27, 2007

Permalink Reply by marmalade on December 7, 2007 at 11:36pm

I just came across Gerry Goddard’s writings. His theory is based on archetypes and he references Richard Tarnas throughout his book. Tarnas wrote the book ‘Cosmos and Psyche’ which is an analysis of history using astrological patterns. He is the first writer who made astrology meaningfully accessible to me.

Here is Goddard’s book on-line that he finished right before he died:
http://www.islandastrology.net/contents.htm

Here is a quote from his article on postmodernism that seemed appropriate:
http://www.islandastrology.net/mut-post.html

Is astrology just another dish to choose from the endless buffet of competing delights, just another Wittgensteinian language game, another social ‘form of life,’ or is it truly an ancient parchment that charts a way through this particularly difficult though fascinating terrain? In one sense, astrology is quintessentially postmodern in that it is entirely constructed of symbols reflecting and referring to other symbols within a multidimensional hologram or Indra’s net amenable to seemingly endless patterns of interpretation that richly resonate to the soul yet appear to lack any clearly identifiable concrete referents. As such, like other postmodern disciplines, it generally resists the attempts of science to connect specific symbols with specific facts, yet at the same time the astrological language appears to open and reveal soul dimensions that are more than the ‘mere’ play of socially constructed imaginations projected upon an unknowable objective world.

In this sense, astrology avoids the most radical postmodern conclusion — that words, concepts, and texts refer endlessly to other words and texts lacking any ultimate reference to objective facts, universal truths, or the ‘way things really are.’ I would like to suggest that astrology is indeed, as Richard Tarnas has described it, the ‘philosopher’s stone,’ a metaphysical or metapsychological map completely friendly to postmodern ideas yet charting them within a larger and ‘perennial’ perspective (a la Schumacher, Smith, Wilber), one that embraces the premodern, modern, postmodern, and transpersonal dimensions, pointing beyond both the old absolutisms and the current radical relativism to a higher resolution. The astrological perspective, as well as the now general perspective of postmodernism, reveals the cultural and historical relativity of these paradigms or beliefs, although astrology identifies and maps the whole process in a way that transcends the particular linguistic cul-de-sac of contemporary critical thought by revealing a more inclusive and holistic archetypal structure.

Upon the basis of the generally agreed-on meanings of the four mutable principles and their archetypal correspondence to the essential features of the postmodern mind, a case can be made which not only deepens our understanding of the principles but, through astrology’s capacity to map postmodernism (in relation to other historical stages and consciousness structures) within a larger historical and developmental perspective, may establish the astrological mandala as an effective key to understanding the greater evolution and structure of consciousness.

Permalink Reply by anemone on December 8, 2007 at 7:19pm

Hello marmalade

I have been an avid, though amateur student of astrology for years. I have read Tarnas’ Cosmos and Psyche, and attended a few workshops given by him last year.

I’ve never heard anyone state a connection between astrology and postmodernism quite the way you have above. It is illuminating to me to read your post. A more typical analysis involving astrology, on one hand, and postmodernism on the other, usually involves some remark on how the former is steeped in archaic and mythical lore and projection while the latter dismisses all narrative as textual constructs.

I like the way you have pointed out the flexibility and multi-faceted dimensions inherent in both world-views.

In the last year, however, I have come to feel that as powerful a tool astrology may be for psychological analysis, involving both individuals and group dynamics, it is not such a powerful tool of analysis at the macro, sociocultural or sociopolitical level of analysis, for example in making a useful comment on the larger forces shaping foreign policies of various governments, or the way public opinion is formed in a given society. This may, of course, be more a symptom of astrology’s current marginalization as an epistemological tool. If there were to be any dialogue with other established disciplines it is quite possible that it should prove instrumentally useful.
Any ideas?
I will check out your Goddard post.

Permalink Reply by marmalade on December 8, 2007 at 8:54pm

Hello anemone

Thanks for the response.

A: “I have been an avid, though amateur student of astrology for years. I have read Tarnas’ Cosmos and Psyche, and attended a few workshops given by him last year.”

You probably understand astrology and Tarnas better than I. For whatever reason, astrology never quite clicked together for me in the past.

A: “I’ve never heard anyone state a connection between astrology and postmodernism quite the way you have above. ”

As much as I wish I had written that, I can’t take credit for it. Below the link is entirely the words of Goddard. I should’ve made that clearer, but this forum doesn’t allow the way of quoting that I’m used to.

I agree with your assessment. As I said, Tarnas was the first writer to present astrology so that it felt deeply meaningful to me… such that I could connect with the symbolism. And Goddard has presented astrology and Tarnas in a way that I have a better grasp of the system as a whole and how it might relate to my life.

A: “In the last year, however, I have come to feel that as powerful a tool astrology may be for psychological analysis, involving both individuals and group dynamics, it is not such a powerful tool of analysis at the macro, sociocultural or sociopolitical level of analysis, for example in making a useful comment on the larger forces shaping foreign policies of various governments, or the way public opinion is formed in a given society.”

What happened in the last year that has changed your perspective?

Are you saying that you have doubts about whether Tarnas’ analysis of history is meaningful?

“Any ideas?”

Not yet. I just discovered Goddard and have only barely begun to read his work that I linked to in my previous post. I really haven’t a clue what all of this means. I’m merely a curious fellow and am over-joyed when I happen upon someone like Goddard. I feel that I’ve stumbled upon a treasure trove of insight.

I’m better at thinking out ideas when I have feedback, and so I’d be happy for whatever little nuggets you’d like to throw my way.

Criticalness, Integralism, and Type

This is in response to the thread titled ‘Should Integralists Storm The Religous Battlefield’.

I’ve been involved in a thread at IIDB, an atheist discussion board. Its a thread about Acharya’s theories about astrotheology which is related to comparative mythology, and Acharya has posted in response some. She has received much criticism and nitpicking which is common on atheist forums. She hasn’t taken it well and probably won’t post anymore in the thread or maybe even in the forum. Recently, the same thing happened with Earl Doherty who is another biblical scholar. He posted on IIDB for a long time, but now has declared he will never post there again.

I find it a bit annoying and I don’t know if I could ever entirely get used to this kind of behavior. However, not everyone there is like this, and I do enjoy forums where there are many intelligent and knowledgeable people. I have a few thoughts about harsh criticalness.

(1) I do think some people there could use an integral perspective. Critically challenging new theories is important for scholarship, but being nice is important for human relations. Also, I feel this critical attitude is narrow and often misses the point the central issue or the bigger picture. Disproving a single claim or piece of evidence doesn’t disprove a theory or discredit the entire scholarly credentials of the theorist. There are many ways to think about a theory, and criticism by itself often lacks insight and can miss the larger context.

Anyways, if actual scholars start avoiding such a forum, that would severely hamper open discourse. In what way is this actually being helpful?

A forum like IIDB may be a more extreme example of this attitude, but its far from unusual. Scholars such as Acharya and Doherty have also received plenty of harsh criticism from mainstream scholarship as well. Peer review tends to reinforce conventional opinions and discourages innovation. Any new theory is seen as suspect. Only the alternative views of people like Robert M. Price get some respect because they came to those views after already being established in the mainstream. Even so, Price’s ideas have received harsh criticism from some of the amateur scholars on the board. There is this attitude amongst some there that if they disagree with a theory, then they automatically dismiss it. Something is either true or false, and uncertainty or mere probability is never to be admitted.

It makes me understand why Wilber has been so committed to getting his work into academia.

(2) My experience at IIDB reminds me of my experience on an INTP forum. INTP types (and NT types in general) can be very combative and nitpicky. An INTP has Introverted Thinking as a dominant function which means Extraverted Feeling is their inferior. A less developed or less balanced INTP can really suck at relating well to other people, and this is multiplied when you get a group of NTs together. What INTPs are good at is looking for logical consistency and honing in on any discrepant details. Introverted Thinking is largely hidden as its turned inward and so its difficult for other types to see the internal standard they’re using to judge. All that is seen directly is their secondary function Extraverted Intuition which allows them to see all of the possibilities. In the case of nitpicking, Extraverted Intuition is serving Introverted Thinking and thus they relentlessly seek out all potential errors.

This is what an INTP is good at. They honestly feel that they’re being helpful and they are to an extent. But if they haven’t developed other aspects of themselves, this talent can be problematic for relating well.

Atheist forums tend to attract many INTPs partly because of an NT interest in computers and debate, partly because Introverts spend more time doing solitary activities such as web browsing, and partly because NPs(Ne) love to discuss ideas endlessly. So, quite probably most of the critical people on IIDB are INTPs or some NT type, but also possibly some INFPs trying to conform to an NT environment. On top of their possible personality types, many of them have spent their whole lives studying ancient texts and biblical studies. Its what they know and its what they’re good at. They feel so certain because they’ve dedicated their lives to it and so they’re personally invested in the conclusions they’ve come to.

I have become more used to personality styles different than mine. I’m much better than I used to be at relating well with those I conflict with or disagree with. I have tried to stay evenhanded in the IIDB thread and have been mostly successful. I’ve tried to redirect the discussion back to the core issue and away from nitpicking, but that has been less successful. I’ve observed Acharya in videos and other places on the web, and I’d guess she is an NF type like me which would explain why she doesn’t have a thick skin towards criticalness, and why she gets critical in return when she is emotionally worked up.

I’m an INFP and Extraverted Thinking is my inferior, and as such my judgment of criticalness is very biased. Criticalness really gets to me after a while, and it takes great awareness on my part not to get emotionally pulled into it. I’d rather discuss possibilities rather than debate details. I’d rather find where I agree with someone rather than look for reasons that the other person is wrong. But this is a typical NF attitude and so I realize that others are different.

If I understand why someone acts the way they do, then its easier for me to accept their behavior. There is a person on the INTP forum who always annoyed me. I couldn’t understand why he was accepted there even to the point of being a moderator. An INTP finally explained it to me in a way that I could understand. This guy wasn’t a psychologically healthy person, but he was psychologically disturbed in a typical INTP way. They accepted him because they could understand him. As I wasn’t an INTP, it didn’t matter that I didn’t get along with him on an INTP forum.

I see IIDB in a similar light. Some people there are not perfectly balanced people, but neither am I. However, they’ve found their niche in the world. They can be respected for being critical on an atheist board. So, why should I let it bother me. They’re only doing what they know how to do, and I admit that they do it well. Maybe such people serve a purpose in the grand scheme of things.

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Permalink Reply by marmalade on January 19, 2008 at 7:39am

I just came across a typology poll at IIDB.
http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=132933

67% are NTs
23.35% are INTPs
37% are INTJs

20% are NFs
approximately equally divided between the four NF types
except less than 1% of ENFPs

12% are one of the 8 Sensation(S) types

So, why would an NT be so much more likely to belong to this kind of forum?
Are NT types more likely to be atheist?
Or are NT types more likely to want to debate about atheist views?

[QUOTE=ApostateAbe;5070973]I believe that the correlation between atheism and INTJ/INTP is not a trivial thing (I am an INTP).

[*]INTJ forum poll on religion: [url]http://intjforum.com/showthread.php?t=824[/url]
[*]INTP forum poll on religion: [url]http://forums.intpcentral.com/showthread.php?t=13802[/url]
[*]Christian forum poll on MBTI: [url]http://christianforums.com/t2564679&page=4[/url]

The Christian forum poll is less clear, since it neglects the E/I. It does at least indicate that the N types predominate. But the members of ChristianForums.com are split between NF and NT. INTJ/INTP are 43% at a max at ChristianForums.com, but here it is a whopping 60%. The polls at the INTJ forum and INTP forum are even more striking. Majority of both are atheist or agnostic.[/QUOTE]

Permalink Reply by marmalade on January 19, 2008 at 8:27am

I was just thinking about how a higher percentage of Thinking types are male.
Accordingly, the majority of people on IIDB are probably male.

There is a reason this came to mind. I’ve suspected a higher percentage of people on Integral boards are NT. And I’ve heard it said several times that there are more males than females around this place which isn’t something I can personally verify. Also, there is way more heated debate here than on forums I belong to that have a majority of NF types.

So, what is the correlation between intellectuality, heated debate, atheism, NT personality types, and the male gender?

Why shouldn’t atheism and integralism appeal to SF females?

Permalink Reply by marmalade on January 19, 2008 at 6:22pm

I was just at Richard Dawkins forum and came across a poll for gender.
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=2716&s…

Males are 72% of the population there.
IIDB is the same kind of forum and so it would probably be similar.

I’m wondering how true this is for most people who are on the web.
I’m uncertain about what forums would attract more females… maybe spirituality/religious forums?

Permalink Reply by marmalade on January 19, 2008 at 8:13am

I had two other observations of IIDB.

I did a search on Integral and came up with nothing. I did a search on Ken Wilber and only found a few comments in passing in the last several months. This is pretty significant when you consider that this is one of the more popular boards that attracts well-read intellectual types. This demonstrates how integral theory is still an extremely isolated field of study.

The other thing I noticed there seemed to cross the boundaries of thread topics. There is a heavy philosophical emphasis to the whole place with a distinct lack of much discussion of psychology. Spirituality gets talked about, but mostly just as philosophy. The philosophy emphasis creates a heavy focus on language. In every serious thread, the definitions or proper translation of words gets debated to a fine degree. Integral theorists love to argue about words, but the people on IIDB put integralists to shame in this area.

Permalink Reply by marmalade on January 19, 2008 at 4:58pm: Chiron,
“After all, both sides fought on what they thought was the same battleground, but they were two totally different battlegrounds, on different levels.”

This is a good way to put it. I find this often happens in discussions. People not only are arguing for different perspectives, but they’re arguing from different perspectives. When you mix in all the factors that make up an individual(personality, moral and intellectual development, cultural background, etc) you can get a very mixed group of people in a discussion. I wish I knew how to bridge such differences, but I haven’t figured it out beyond trying to be more accepting.; ► Reply to This

Permalink Reply by MetroPunk on January 21, 2008 at 1:40pm: the problem as i see there was exactly as you pegged in marmalade, people with different worldviews, diff levels, diff types. communication becomes difficult
an integral appproach would help (someone who can bridge the comm gap)

another problem is the nature of the concepts.
atheism is a reactionary confusion
and religion often is dogma
so two dogmatic and limited postions
limit the possible scope of discussion and possible agreement.
nature of the beastS; ► Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Bill on January 23, 2008 at 6:57pm

Well, something else to keep in mind, is that all human groups tend to have internal “policing” behaviors, and it’s common to see a kind of tribal ingrouping/outgrouping struggle happening with every group.

I can’t see I’ve ever seen a human group that didn’t practice this kind of internal policing, no matter how advanced or correct they claim to be..

So, the ‘criticalism’ you refer to isn’t just based in, for instance, personality types, or the nature of the ideas being discussed, or the educational backgrounds of the people discussing – it’s got a stronger, older base in ancient hominid group behaviors.

Permalink Reply by marmalade on January 24, 2008 at 12:27am: That is a good point to bring up. I have observed this policing behavior on IIDB when newbies defend a position.; ► Reply to This

Type and Development

I’m fascinated by both horizontal and vertical models, but most integral discussions emphasize the vertical. What I’m curious about is how the whole picture becomes more complex when the two are combined.

Introduction to Volume 7 of the Collected Works
http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/cowokev7_intro.cfm/

As for types, see figure 3, which uses the enneagram as an example. What I have done here is take only one developmental module or stream (it can be anything–morals, cognition, defenses, etc.), and I have listed the eight or so levels or waves of development through which this particular stream will tend to unfold (using Spiral Dynamics as an example of the waves). At each level I have drawn the enneagram as an example of what might be called a horizontal typology, or a typology of the personality types that can exist at almost any vertical level of development. The point is that a person can be a particular type (using Jungian types, Myers-Briggs, the enneagram, etc.) at virtually any of the levels. Thus, if a person is, say, predominately enneagram type 5, then as they develop they would be purple 5, red 5, blue 5, and so on (again, not in a rigid linear fashion, but in a fluid and flowing mesh). [20]
Figure 3

And this can occur in any of the lines. For example, in the moral line, a person might be predominately enneagram type 7 at the green wave in the context of the workplace; under stress, the person might move to type 1 at the orange wave (or even blue wave); cognitively, the person might be type 4 at turquoise, and so on. Notice, however, that what the enneagram alone cannot spot is the shift in vertical levels; an orange 7 under stress might go to orange 1, but under real stress, the orange 7 will regress to blue, then purple. These are not just different types, but different levels of types. Again, by combining horizontal typologies with vertical typologies, we can make use of second-tier constructions for a more integral view.

For many radical feminists, male and female orientations also constitute a type. Based mostly on work by Carol Gilligan and Deborah Tannen, the idea is that the typical male orientation tends to be more agentic, autonomous, abstract, and independent, based on rights and justice; whereas the female orientation tends to be more permeable, relational, and feelingful, based on care and responsibility. Gilligan, recall, agrees that females proceed through three (or four) hierarchical stages of development, and these are essentially the same three (or four) hierarchical stages or waves through which males proceed (namely, preconventional, conventional, postconventional, and integrated).

As you will see in The Eye of Spirit , contained in this volume, I have summarized this research by saying that men and women both proceed through the same general waves of development, but men tend to do so with an emphasis on agency, women with an emphasis on communion.

This approach to gender development allows us to utilize the extensive contributions of developmental studies, but also supplement them with a keener understanding of how females evolve “in a different voice” through the great waves of existence. In the past, it was not uncommon to find orthodox psychological researchers defining females as “deficient males” (i.e., females “lack” logic, rationality, a sense of justice; they are even defined by “penis envy,” or desiring that which they lack). Nowadays it is not uncommon to find, especially among feminists, the reverse prejudice: males are defined as “deficient females” (i.e., males “lack” sensitivity, care, relational capacity, embodiment, etc.).

Well, we might say, a plague on both houses. With this more integral approach, we can trace development through the great waves and streams of existence, but also recognize that males and females might navigate that great River of Life using a different style, type, or voice. This means that we can still recognize the major waves of existence–which, in fact, are gender-neutral–but we must fully honor the validity of both styles of navigating those waves. [22]

Finally, a person at virtually any stage of development, in virtually any line, of virtually any type, can have an altered state or peak experience , including those that are called spiritual experiences, and this can have a profound effect on their consciousness and its development. Thus, the idea that spiritual experiences can only occur at higher stages is incorrect. However, in order for altered states to become permanent traits (or structures), they need to enter the stream of enduring development. [23]

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Permalink Reply by Andy Smith on January 9, 2008 at 7:04pm: “I’m fascinated by both horizontal and vertical models, but most integral discussions emphasize the vertical. What I’m curious about is how the whole picture becomes more complex when the two are combined.”

I won’t address the rest of your post right now, but there is a very simple answer to this opening statement. The vertical occurs through horizontal or what Wilber calls translational interactions. Molecules emerge through translational interactions of atoms, cells through translational interactions of molecules, tissues through cell interactions and so on, including societies emerging from translational interactions of individuals. At every level, emergence of the next higher level begins with translational interactions of holons at that level.

http://www.typetalk.com/Articles/AMSP-MBTI-Research-Tucker.pdf

Permalink Reply by marmalade on January 9, 2008 at 7:27pm: I wasn’t thinking about it in that way. The term ‘translational interactions’ sounds intriguing. I’d like to go more into it. Do you have any nice quotes or links where this term is explained further?; ► Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Andy Smith on January 10, 2008 at 6:26pm: Just do a search in Integral Spirituality or any other Wilber book, you will find lots of references to translation. Your post, which I take it is a quote from Wilber, treats types as properties of individuals, but of course they are social properties as well, in fact, first and foremost social properties. Any type by any classification one cares to mention is basically a description of the way an individual interacts with other individuals, and even more, with society. These are translational interactions, the glue so to speak which holds societies together.; ► Reply to This

Permalink Reply by marmalade on January 11, 2008 at 7:31pm: Everything below the link is pure Wilber.

I follow what you’re saying. The individual and the social are inseparable.; ► Reply to This

Permalink Reply by marmalade on January 11, 2008 at 10:25pm

Wilber uses the Enneagram as his example. As a side note, I’ve heard a theory that the personality aspect of this system may have been borrowed from Jung, but I don’t know if this is true. I have see other correlations between the two systems also. However, the Enneagram doesn’t have much research behind it. Most Enneagram theories focus on it as a model of defense mechanisms. Whereas, the MBTI is looking at deeper cognitive structures that are largely inborn. Wilber shows how a person may have different Enneagram types in different situations depending on such things as which level of which line… but, theoretically, someone’s MBTI type should remain the same. I’d like to see how development over a lifetime influences how people test on the MBTI.

Here is a research paper that compares MBTI with the AMSP. I’m not familiar with the AMSP, but it says that it focuses on the propensity of people to change with situations. So, it seems comparable to how Wilber is presenting the Enneagram here.

This paper doesn’t go into any developmental models, but the focus on changeability in the AMSP gives room for a developmental perspective. However, there are some theories in typology about development.

First off, a brief primer. There are 8 Jungian functions. According to some theorists(eg Beebe), all types use all functions, but simply use them in different ways. There is the matter of whether a type is used consciously or not and this relates to development, and there is a specific order that each type will likely develop each function. This is highly theoretical and I don’t know what research has been done on it. Another theory presents how each function itself develops which is equivalent to saying that each function represents a separate line of development. There is some correlation of MBTI with models of psychological development.

For instance, how the Judging functions(Thinking and Feeling) have much similarity with Gilligan’s work on gender differences and the hierarchy of development that either gender will tend to follow. Typology brings a slightly different slant to this. Statistics have shown that their is a slight preference of males for Thnking and females for Feeling. Also, Thinking males tend to have stronger Thinking preferences than Thinking females, and Feeling females tend to have stronger preference for Feeling than Feeling males.

However, this gender preference is only around 60-70%, and that leaves a good portion that doesn’t fit the social expectations. David Deidda recognizes that gender patterns are only general. He says that his advice for men doesn’t apply to less masculine men and does apply to more masculine women. As a Feeling guy, I don’t entirely resonate with his advice.

I’ve looked at Gilligan’s work before, but not lately. Going by the above quote of Wilber, it seems her description of gender also incorporates a Intuition function bias for males(ie abstraction). But research has shown that men are no more likely to be abstract than women. Its only been in recent time that our society has started to idealize the man who is capable of abstraction. So, I’m not sure about this part of this model.

ENACTIVISM, INTEGRAL THEORY, AND 21st CENTURY SPIRITUALITY

Posted on Aug 21st, 2008 by

Marmalade

There are three aspects to the symposium. I can’t say much about 21st century spirituality, but I am a 21st century person with an interest in spirituality and so that should count for something. As for integral theory, even though I’ve studied it off and on for years, I can’t say I’m an expert — just another one of my many interests. Now for the last… I hadn’t even heard about enactivism until a couple of weeks ago. Researching about it, I realized that I already understood the basic concept and had a passing familiarity with some of the authors who came up.

Others have already given useful intros to all of this, and so I’ll skip the basics. Instead, I’m going to try to connect these ideas to my own understandings.

I was reading Philosophy in the Flesh by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. In it, they describe basic-level categories which seem quite similar to some explanations of archetypes. What enactivism seems to bring to the table is a deeper understanding of biology. Jung saw archetypes as having an instinctual component, but biological understanding was pretty limited at that time. Some more recent theoreticians have looked at archetypes in terms of science and there does seem to be an evolutionary component to archetypes (e.g. Anthony Stevens). The ideas of enactivism and autopoiesis seem particularly relevant to understanding archetypes.

Related to archetypes are Jung’s personality types which were systematized with the MBTI. Several different theories have been put forth in how typology correlates to brain function. Furthermore, MBTI has been correlated with the Five Factor Model (FFM) which is a traits theory (i.e. behavioral). Traits theory has been shown to be partly based on genetics. All in all, this seems to fit into the whole body-mind viewpoint, that evolution created these basic structures of the mind which determine how we perceive and relate to external reality.

A recent discovery of mine is research showing that the MBTI correlates with Ernest Hartmann’s boundary types. Let me go into more detail here because this is an important part of my viewpoint. There are four components to the MBTI: Introversion vs Extraversion (E/I), Sensation vs Intuition (S/N), Thinking vs Feeling (T/F), Judging vs Perceiving (J/P).

(1) Introversion and Extroversion seem to have the least correlation to boundary types, but there were some aspects to it that seemed to fit. Introverts tend to have more of an ability to focus intensely and for long periods of time, and they tend to be more territorial about personal space. Extraverts, on the other hand, are drawn outwards and so are more easily distracted by their environment. Here is a relevant quote from Hartmann’s book Dreams and Nightmares:

“Those who have taken psychedelic drugs, such as LSD, report that under the drug’s influence they have thinner boundaries in a number of senses. On the other hand, taking stimulants such as amphetamines, or for some people, antidepressants, definitely produces a thickening of boundaries. In the most extreme case, people given large doses of amphetamines first become intensely focused; they are the opposite of distractible, keeping their thoughts entire on one line of thought.”

(2) Sensation and Intuition have the highest correlation to boundary types according to the studies. Simply put, you can think of the difference here being between those who tend towards the concrete and those who tend towards the abstract, but there are many other dimensions to it. Another interesting aspect is that Sensors tend to be more conservative basing their decisions on past experience, whereas Intuitives are more innovative because they can more easily see future possibilities. Obviously, Sensors (and in particular the SJ temperament) are the practical sort of person who sees reality for what it is (based on what it was). Some Intuitives, on the other hand, may seem like daydreamers, but Intuives also tend to be the innovators.

The concrete preference of Sensors is what makes them thick boundary types. Things are clearly what they are and each thing is clearly distinct from other things. Sensors have commonsense. The abstract preference of Intuitives lends them to thin boundaries. Distinctions are more blurred. Because they can more easily shift distinctions, they can see new relationships between things.

In this symposium, I’ve definitely noticed the contrast between the practical-minded realists and those drawn to more theoretical understandings and far-reaching (or over-reaching if you prefer) possibilities. As I believe, its not a matter of either style being more correct. To speak from a green vmeme perspective, it takes all types.

(3) Thinking and Feeling are slightly less correlated to boundary types, but there are some important connections. Thinking is about principles and rules with a focus on autonomy. Feeling is about values and morality with a focus on relationships.

There is a fairly strong split with most Thinking types being male and most Feeling types being female. This same division comes up with boundary types. Thick boundary types tend to be male and thin boundary types tend to be female. To understand this archetypally, this relates to the animus and the anima. To understand this in the real world, this relates to the conflict between Integralists and New Agers. It has been pointed by others how the Integral movement is dominated by men. Also, you could think of this division in terms of Ken Wilber’s Grace and Grit or the movie The Fountain.

(4) Judging and Perceiving are an interesting division that was origial to Jung’s typology. Studies have shown that J/P doesn’t test as separate from S/N with young children, and so there is some developmental aspect to this (whether biological or psychological). In MBTI, J/P simply determines which function you Extravert, but it can be looked at as its own category and there is some correlation to boundary types. Judging types like order and conclusiveness. Perceiving types are more about creative chaos and they prefer to keep their options open.

With J/P, I sense a similarity to a division between two kinds of thinkers which brings me back closer to this symposium. I’ve seen distinctions (here and here) made between Ken Wilber and William Irwin Thompson. This partly seems like a difference between a systematizer and a bricoleur. Interestingly, William Irwin Thompson’s son (Evan Thompson) co-wrote some books with the enactivist crowd. So, this made me think of the possible differences between enactivism and tetra-enactivism. From what I’ve read, Varela seems to have intentionally avoided systematizing his ideas, but then Wilber took Varela’s ideas and systematized them for him.

The bricoleur is a term I’m using in its relationship to the George P. Hansen’s book The Trickster and the Paranormal(2001). Hansen uses the term bricoleur as one way of describing the Trickster archetype. Hansen also brings up Victor Turner’s ideas of liminality, anti-structure, and communitas. Enactivism questions the traditional assumptions of science and so blurs the boundaries somewhat. Varela was influenced by phenomenology, and Hansen says that ethnomethodology was similarly influenced. Ethnomethodology (along with sociology of scientific knowledge and studies of experiment expectancy effects) puts the scientific endeavor into a very different context.

p. 280: “Ethnomethodologists took as their subject matter the interactions of everyday social life and how people make sense of them. That sounds innocuous enough, but ethnomethodologists probed foundations. They recognized that for orderly common activity, people must share a large body of assumptions, meanings, and expectations, though these are not consciously recognized. In order to make them explicit (i.e., bring them to conscious awareness), breaching experiments were invented, and those involved violating, in some way, typical patterns of behavior.” … “These breaching experiments have commonalities with anti-structure and the trickster; they all violate boundaries that frame experience.”

p. 281: “Ethnomethodologists pointed out that one is part of that which one observes, i.e., one participates in processes of observation. The issue of participation has some intriguing connections. At least since Levy-Bruhl’s How Natives Think (1910) it has been associated with the non-rational.”

p.282: “Mehan and Wood say that their theoretical perspective “within ethnomethodology commits me to the study of concrete scenes and to the recognition that I am always a part of those scenes. Social science is committed to avoiding both of those involvements.” They are correct, but few social scientists wish to acknowledge the consequences. The abstraction and distancing found in all science endow a certain status and privilege from which to judge and comment on others. In order to maintain that position, scientists must not get too “dirty,” too closely associated with their objects of study. Ethnomethodologists understand they necessarily participate in the phenomena they observe. Mehan and Wood comment that “Ethnomethodology can be seen as an activity of destratification.” This destratification is a leveling of status, and that is also associated with limimal conditions (a.k.a., anti-structure). Thus social leveling via participation and reflexivity has been recognized by theorists from entirely separate disciplines, demonstrating its validity.”

The last part about the leveling of status directly relates to the Trickster archetype, and status relates to hierarchy. Scientists often are seen as final arbiters in many matters, and traditionally science saw itself opposed to nature, above the object it studied. This, of course, relates to the problematic relationship of body and mind in Western thought. Varela mentions Cartesian anxiety, a desire for a clear ground to our knowledge. Cartesian anxiety is a condition that most of us have experienced, but it would be felt most acutely by a thick boundary type.

Where did this Cartesian anxiety originate? I think its part of Max Weber’s theory about rationalization and the disenchantment of the world. My knowledge of Weber is limited, but I suspect his theory relates to Karl Jasper’s theory on the Axial Age. Several centuries before Christianity, the oral tradition was in decline and alphabetic literacy was becoming more common. This created an increased ability of reflexivity by allowing someone to see words objectively on a page and also it gave people the ability to think abstractly (become more conscious of basic-level categories?).

The oral tradition was based on specific memorized sayings that were connected to whole systems of mythology, and mythology itself was grounded in the specific places in the world. This brings to mind Julian Jayne’s theory that early myths show that man didn’t have a single sense of self, but that the self was more fluid and embedded in the culture. An ancient person didn’t just remember what a mythological character said but actually heard that character speaking. The world was alive with mythology.

Animism is no longer a respectable philosophy, but there is something to the animistic experience of the world. From a phenomenological standpoint, there is an animistic sense to our relationship with the world which isn’t just our mind projecting (maybe something more like the imaginal). We are a part of the world in a very fundamental way. In The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram says:

P. 56: “Merleau-Ponty writes of the prereived things as entities, of sensible qualities as powers , and of the sensible itself as a field of animate presences, in order to acknowledge and underscore their active, dynamic contribution to perceptual experience. To describe the animate life of particular things is simply the most precise and parsimonious way to articulate the things as we spontaneously experience them, prior to all our conceptualizations and definitions.
Our most immediate experience of things, according to Merleau-Ponty, is necessarily an experience of reciprocal encounter — of tension, communication, and commingling. From within the depths of this encounter, we know the thing or phenomenon only as our interlocutor — as a dynamic presence that confronts us and draws us into relation. We conceptually immobilize or objectify the phenomenon only by mentally absenting ourselves form this relation, by forgetting or repressing our sensuous involvement. To define another being as an inert or passive object is to deny its ability to actively engage us an to provoke our senses; we thus block our perceptual reciprocity with that being. By linguistically defining the surrounding world as a determinate set of objects, we cut our conscious, speaking selves off from the spontaneous life of our sensing bodies”

This participatory relationship to the world one is immersed in can be carried forward when we consider how the earth is a co-evolution rather than species being separate groups fighting for their respective niches. For instance, plants form a very tightly woven community such that plants of different species communicate with one another through chemicals given off in the air and in the soil. Research has shown that other plants will respond when something happens to a plant nearby (such as it being eaten). Even though we don’t see it, plants respond to us. Also, plants have a very powerful influence on us as they are the chemical factories of nature. There is some truth to the notion that we are what we eat. The chemicals that we take in through plants (or through animals that ate plants) effects our minds and our perception.

There are many more subtle examples, but the most well known examples are psychedelics. A chemical in many ritually-used plants is DMT and its very common in nature. What is interesting is that our brains produce this in small doses. Our brains are designed to make use of this chemical, and people under the influence of higher doses of DMT have very similar experiences. DMT is a component of the co-evolution of life on earth.

Psychedelics, along with other methods, have been used by humans longer than recorded history. In fact, animals also are drawn to consuming psychedelics and they show signs of being similarly effected (Animals and Psychedelics, Giorgio Samorino). Why is their a biological drive to alter consciousness? Possibly its because it thins boundaries and thus opens the mind to new possibilities which might translate into real-world advantages for survival. How might this thinning occur? One possibility is that the brain structures used to categorize our experience are altered or even suppressed.

Of course, there are many different ways of altering the mind and modern man has become quite adept at this. We have a whole field that is dedicated to researching how chemicals effect people’s minds. A very large portion of people nowadays are on some psychiatric drug or another, and certainly plenty more people are self-medicated in various ways. On top of this, we’ve begun to do more direct alterations of our biology by putting technology into the body (such as for heart conditions or for epilepsy). We’ve learned a lot about the body-mind by messing around with it, but in the process the questioning of our sense of self-identity has become more pertinent.

The issues of the body-mind became more personal to Varela towards the end of his life after he had a liver transplant. In a paper he wrote about his experiences, he confronted his own mortaliy but in a very peculiar light. My sense is that he was trying to bridge the gap between his personal experience and the ideas he spent his whole life writing about. In the last paragraph, he spoke of the future but ends in saying: “Somewhere we need to give death back its rights.” What did he mean by this? What are the rights of death?

I can’t speak for him, but I’ll add some of my own thoughts. Its at boundaries that we find the liminal, where things become unclear, where new possibilities present themselves. This symposium is partly about enactivism which speaks to the boundary of body and mind. The body-mind is this life we know… even if only imperfectly. We strive in life to understand, to make a difference. Yet, we all shall face death, the final boundary which science can’t probe beyond.

To contemplate our place in the larger world is to come face to face with the closeness of life and death. We are embodied in a world where life arises (autopoietically one could say) out of seemingly inanimate matter and then returns to it just as easily. That is an insight I often catch hold of when I’m walking alone through the woods. Life and death seem to blend into each other… plants luxuriously growing out of billions of years worth of decay. Even dead matter is dynamically animate.

Notes and more notes for this blog.
(theoretical context, background info, related ideas)

Access: Public 57 Comments Print Post this!views (993)

Tagged with: Z4, Sympopsium 4, Enactivism, Integral Theory, 21st Century Spirituality

about 2 hours later

Balder said

A wonderful contribution, Ben! I really enjoyed this. What I especially appreciated was the self-reflectiveness it encourages for all of us, inviting us to consider some of the factors at play in the very intersubjective space we have enacted here in this symposium. You’ve also woven together a number of interesting voices, some of whom I am familiar with and similarly appreciate, such as Abram and Merleau-Ponty.
Your highlighting of animism is also interesting to me, because, while enactivism doesn’t involve or lead to an animistic belief in tree-spirits or whatever, there is still a strong sense, for me – when I am more fully immersed in the enactive perspective – of an intimate and dynamic vitality which is “flesh of my flesh” and “flesh of the world.” A feeling both of intimacy and dynamic involvement or relation.
There’s more I’d like to write but I wanted to check in first with this acknowledgement, and to thank you for this beautiful offering.
Best wishes,
Bruce

about 2 hours later

Julian said

ooooh so glad to see you bringing in typology ben – very cool. i’ll have to get salima over here tout suite!

about 2 hours later

My goal wasn’t to argue for the validity of the ideas based on rational argument. Instead, I wanted to find the ground of experience that makes sense of enactivism from a more personal view. Also, I wanted to include the divergent psychological tendencies that predispose people to view the world in divergent ways.

about 2 hours later

Hey Julian! Nice to have you for a visit.

The typology summary is kinda simplified for the purposes of the symposium. I was just using it to show some broad tendencies.

about 3 hours later

There is one thing that would be useful to clear up. Types (both personality and boundary) are just general categories. MBTI and Hansen both agree that everyone has access that which lies outside of their supposed type.

Hansen wrote about the difference between boundaries as experiences versus as more permanent structures. Also, he wrote of two aspects of how boundaries play out in individuals. People can have one kind of boundary for their internal experience and another kind for their external experience. He hypothesized that internal boundaries probably are those that we are born with or develop when very young, and that the external boundaries have more to do with the development of social relationships later on in life.

about 3 hours later

buddhacious said

Thanks for bringing a different angle to this symposium, Ben. I really enjoyed the non-rational way you attempted to approach the ideas we’ve been discussing. I especially enjoyed the mention of Merleau-Ponty’s work, when Abram discussed how our immediate sensory experience reveals a “field of animate presences,” and that if we “linguistically define them as a set of determinate objects” we get cut off from the “spontaneous life of our sensing bodies.” This simple realization of the power language has over our experience goes a long way toward solving (or rather, dissolving) the mind-body problem, doesn’t it? I mean that it almost makes the problem appear to be purely a conceptual confusion, whereas on the level of embodied experience, everything fits rather nicely.

Much thanks, Ben!

-Matt

about 3 hours later

adam said

perfect : )

the psychology of predisposition and typology angle was one i’ve only been hinting at, and without it the symposium wasn’t complete. nice one ben : )

the enneagram personality type model is also one i’ve found devastatingly useful for self-observation and awareness of strategies and tendencies in myself and clients.
i relate to animism as well, especially in the way that animism can encourage honouring environment as self in some ways. strong pantheism may also encourage this kind of honouring awareness, in contrast to the detached victorian scientific view of man reigning supreme over mother nature.

there’s plenty to chew on here… cool!

take a bow mister marmalade : )

about 3 hours later

Hello Adam,

Feel free to speak about the enneagram if you wish. I don’t know a whole lot about the enneagram, but it is another useful factor to consider.

With animism, I see it as an experience and as an attitude. It doesn’t precisely matter if its true in an objective sense. I think of animism in a more practical way. When I have this animistic sense of the world, I act very differently. It brings me to an alert awareness of my being-in-the-world. As such, I’m more conscious of my actions and their results. Conversely, when I experience the world as an external environment of objects, I start treating people more like objects and my personal subjectivity feels cut off, isolated.

about 3 hours later

Yeah, Matt, the power of language is something I wanted to clarify. Its a difficult subject because we use a particular language and a particular style in discussing it. I’d like to read more of the writings of phenomenologists so that I can a better sense of this.

This is a very personally important subject for me. My experience of the world has much to do with my sense of depression. I’ve dealt with depression for many years now and it has made me very sensitive to my experience.

about 3 hours later

adam said

the enneagram is just a set of potentials, covering the full range of health and pathology, to reflect aspects of psychology and personality back at one.

i relate to the experiential/attitudinal aspect of relation-to-being via conscious concept usage. it’s a similar experience to adopting the enactivist bodymindset in some ways.

in the integrative orientation that we’re exploring, i’m looking at ways in which all the aspects and apparent conflicts raised can be resolved and integrated. your piece is a grounding and profound reminder to me personally, and a great way to round out the symposium.

respect.

about 3 hours later

I need to get to work here shortly, but I’ll be back tomorrow. I just want to add one last thing. My understanding of enactivism is very much incomplete and so I’d love to hear what others have to say about examples of enactivism that might apply to the subjects I brought up.

Based on my general comprehension of enactivism, I was trying to weave in many elements. I don’t know how successful I was. I wanted to show further directions in which enactivism could lead.

Anyways, have a lovely evening everyone!

about 4 hours later

adam said

and if one of our senior number isn’t an enneagram nine, i may need to change career… ; )

about 6 hours later

I forgot that this is one of the later work nights for me. Let me add one last last thing before I go.

I appreciate both integralism and typology for the same basic reason. They both allow me to see the differences in people in a less judgmental way. In particular, learning about typology has been immensely helpful to me. I do feel that I have more genuine understanding of people than I did before learning about it. I don’t try to type every person I meet, but its useful being able to discern such things as a background context. Typology gives me a language to understand my own experience and how my experience relates to the experience of others.

I think enactivism could potentially be helpful in this way. If we remember how we are part of the world we are enacting, then it gives us pause before judging others. It gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves what we are bringing to the situation, how our perceptions are coloring our perceptions.

about 6 hours later

Julian said

oh shit!

look at your notes post dude – how fun and impressive!

also – nice pic of dionysus…

about 10 hours later

Balder said

Yeah, I wonder who might be a 9 around here…

about 11 hours later

sandy said

All I can do is to praise the quality and depth of your writing-
it is immense,thankyou.

about 11 hours later

David said

Great blog, Ben. I especially liked the part about introversion and extroversion and how they relate to boundary types, LSD, gender, etc. That’s really interesting.

I also loved the part about the oral tradition and the emergence of the written word and how that enabled additional perspectives. I think we can see the 4-quadrant aspect of enactivism right there: without the emergence of the writing implement, the “paper,” and such those new perspectives couldn’t have been enacted.

Great symposium, everyone! Bruce, James, Matt, Adam, Julian, Ben—I enjoyed everyone’s contributions. Quite an interesting, challenging subject. I was a little late getting involved, thought I might be like one of those marathon runners who crosses the finish line in darkness, after everyone else has left. But I ran really fast, and here I am. 🙂

A couple of things from Bruce’s blog come back to me (please forgive me if my timing is wrong here):

I am aware that whatever I write today will not be the “truth,” in the sense of simple correspondence; it is not simply an uncovering of “what is there,” but an evocation of “what can be.”

The “what can be” part is especially cool. That really brings the evolutionary perspective into it and also the importance of individual and collective choice and development in terms of “what is there.”

Also:

Just reflecting on this subject this morning had me inhabiting my body differently. There is a feeling of opening which does not erase boundaries or render them meaningless, but which nevertheless leaves them translucent and calls attention to the creative enactment of experience which echoes and embodies a particular lineage of appearance while also opening into the novel, the new.

It’s funny—I was thinking something very similar to that as I read the opening paragraphs of your blog. It seems to me that enactivism enables a kind of vertical liberation. Once you understand something very simple such as “the sky isn’t necessarily blue,” the whole visual field has less of a hold on you. You take the whole thing less seriously in a certain way. Perhaps it can also be an aid to horizontal liberation, but I feel that if I really downloaded enactivism into my blood and bones I would be a different, more vertically liberated person. The effect that would have on language would also be interesting to look into.

David

about 18 hours later

adam said

thing about healthy 9’s is they can be so uppity…

about 23 hours later

Daate said

where has this been all my life? 🙂

this is very cool, thanks so much. i admit to not having completely finished your post yet ben, but i will. a fascinating angle and one right up my alley….i use myers briggs all the time, and like to cross-pollinate it with the enneagram sometimes. many NT’s seem to be 5’s, for example. i bet there are a lot of 5’s around here.

adam, are you by any chance a 5? and in what sense do you mean “clients?” are you a therapist or do you mean that some other way?

also, ben, i’m interested in your comments about gender. would you consider that the enthusiasm for this kind type categorization is primarily a feminine thing? i’ve been curious as to why on many of these previous posts and blogs (especially the heated ones) simple things like typology weren’t taken into perspective—i often feel two people mean the same thing and are coming from within very obvious typlogical mindsets that, if brought into the light, would illuminate a common ground more easily. and that often objective opinions that seem absolute and inflexible are all coming from within a distinct personality that has a unique way of processing input. how can we miss things like that? i guess in the search for the growth of critical thinking, which is also important, and which in these blogs has been the domain of the autonomous NT’s?

i’ve noticed that the women in my life seem much quicker to catch on to and utilize things like enneagram and myers briggs, for whatever reason. do you think it’s because it’s biologically natural for women to be hunting for understanding of perspectives in the first place?

1 day later

Thanks Sandy, David, and Daate!

Daate, MBTI was created by two women. I’m sure such systems favor certain views (like, for instance, the views of women) more than others. That said, there is an INTP forum that is extremely popular. The other extremely popular forum is an INFP forum. Going by that, it would seem that IXNPs favor MBTI… at least online. In general, I think your observation is correct. Women do seem to be more focused on relationships than men or focused on relationships in a more obvious way.

1 day later

debyemm said

Ben,

I really appreciate the approach you took for this topic and found your information to be helpful to understanding other areas of my life not directly related to this symposium but also, to issues I’ve noticed there as well.
I found your essay very readable and easily understood. I share with you the awe of the forest cycles.

Deborah

1 day later

1Vector3 said

Late to the party and can verbalize only a smattering of my responses right now.

Howsomever, I do win our non-bet, Ben !!!! 🙂 (Inside joke from Gaia Networking pod.)

The weaving you have done is awesome and exciting and worth much more exploring, and the perspectives offered FEEL great !!!! You’ve taken a lot of the ideas being discussed here, and polished different facets of them, really really admirable and valuable !!

I would need a glossary to understand the first half completely, perhaps combined with 3 readings…. But I got the gist. You really do use a lot of terms like liminal and some other terms I don’t know, though of course some I do. Perhaps these were all defined on previous symposium contributions, but if not, it would help future readers understand and appreciate what you are saying, to do a little glossary.

As others have said, you opened up a lot of interesting perspectives. The relationship to nature or external world you describe so beautifully is awesome, and your characterization of what takes us away from it seems right on.

I would like to clarify re the Ennegram that it most fundamentally is NOT a personality typology but a SOUL typology. Its historical roots seem to point to that, and Sandra Maitri and Almaas have done well in clearly laying out how the Spirit-level choices and decisions flow down into personality. Without that basic level, the ennegram just doesn’t make much sense, seems arbitrary. [I say Spirit, they say soul, they mean Spirit, in MY jargon !!!]

Sandra Maitri, The Spiritual Dimension of the the Enneagram. It’s in our book database here. But even she stops shy of the deepest (or highest) level of characterization. In a word, one’s Ennegram type flows from the (incorrect) answer one’s Spirit makes up after it first goes (voluntarily, but it’s forgotten that) into the illusion of Separation from All That Is. To the Spirit, the current unpleasant state of affairs demands an explanation. The Ennegram types each have a different “story” about what that explanation is: God is bad, or I am bad, or I am defective, or I have been abandoned, etc. And there is a healed version of each type, as well as an unhealed version. The “story” can become a truth, a wisdom, from another perspective.

As I said on the other blog, Enneagram One, the Perfectionist/Improver at your service.

I am moved toward trying to post my looooong paper The Healing of Enneagram One, my own personal journey’s summary, as a blog. Don’t know if blogs can cope with something 12 pages long…..

I believe there’s a fair amount of research done by many different kinds of sciences and folks, not to mention lots of our personal experiences, haha, whose findings have the effect of backing up Ken’s characterizations of women as naturally focused on, expert in, what he calls communion, and men as naturally focused on, expert in, what he calls “agency” which we might call the power of action. And of course he’s not the first to note those differences…..
I just love all the positive things said about your blog by the commenters above, and I vociferously underline and echo them, said more eloquently than I could.

I won’t have more than a few moments in the community til maybe Monday, so won’t be able to read Julian’s contribution til then.

Thank you for this, from the bottom of my heart, I am inspired and uplifted,
OM Bastet

1 day later

~Kes said

Thanks for your Blog Ben.
When you commented: “I appreciate both integralism and typology for the same basic reason. They both allow me to see the differences in people in a less judgmental way. In particular, learning about typology has been immensely helpful to me. I do feel that I have more genuine understanding of people than I did before learning about it. I don’t try to type every person I meet, but its useful being able to discern such things as a background context. Typology gives me a language to understand my own experience and how my experience relates to the experience of others.

I could think with this and like a great poem could see underneath a depth of understanding. I have been following you and out of respect and admiration for the way you write, I read this part of the symposium because I do want to understand the concepts – so this is from the outsider that had no clue of what this subject was about, and decided to give this write up to help other new people have a greater understanding grasping these concepts. The new words I listed below were the ones I had to look up. I recommend reading this symposium and use the dictionary and Wiki… which does bring about a clearer picture of helping all to help change things if that is what is wanted or to help with what is the intention behind the blog.

I name what I hope is a help flow to new readers:
Athena (n.) – Glossary for reading the blogs about Enactivism in the computing environment; appropriately named after the Greek goddess of wisdom.

Almost every time I read a blog of an in depth interaction like this, I find myself mentally translating certain Enactivism concepts or words when I’m learning a new subject with friends. Things like “I just read about the aspects to the symposium on Enactivism, Integral Theory, & 21st Century Spirituality ” (Enactivism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enactivism_(psychology))
or “I have just learned more about Dionysus” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus
or even
“I’m doing a MBTI research in “ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator)
or I’m mid learning the translation o what an Enneagram Type Nine is.” (http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/typeNine.asp)

These technical names don’t mean much to people who’ve never been exposed to Integral or Enactivism studies. To Integral studies, those words and abbreviations and numbers are part and parcel of our culture, with unambiguous and precise meanings. But to my friends and even, to some extent, to my family, it’s like I’m talking a foreign language – speaking in Enactivism-ese or Integral-ese.

But what else would you expect from a subject where virtually everything, is from so many different sources? Hence a symposium where newbies and those that have read and can apply the theory in practice can offer hyperlinks which define what the concepts are all about. The hyperlinks and words I had to look up to have this enlightenment are below and I hope help others to be able to understand and find something within the subject to relate to and apply to any area of survival and application.

One reason I’m writing this entry is to help bridge the gap between Enactivism-ese and “regular” English. And beyond that, I also want to showcase this phenomenon of “speaking in Enactivism-ese,” because I personally feel it’s one of Gaia’s more interesting – and yet also most understated and sometimes not – features. (no glossary)

Keep in mind that this guide is just an introduction; I chose to focus on the aspects of Enactivism-ese that are (in my opinion) universal across Gaia and of particular interest to prospective students of Integral Theory, and incoming friends that would like to be able to interact such as me.

More comprehensive guides do exist from viewing tags and those that have been involved in this symposium, where a new glossary could now be built upon to help more interact while online.

With that said, enjoy this glimpse into the wonderful if sometimes confusing world of understanding a new (to me) subject Enactivism-ese!
Below are sites I visited to better understand the blog:

The Essentials Start of Glossary from this blog…

Animism: is derived from the Latin word anima meaning breath or soul. The belief of animism is probably one of man’s oldest beliefs, with its origin. Animism commonly refers to the belief systems that attribute souls or spirits to animals, plants and other entities, …en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
ar·bi·ter (ärb-tr) n. 1. One chosen or appointed to judge or decide a disputed issue; an arbitrator. 2. One who has the power to judge or ordain at will: an

arbiter of fashion. See Synonyms at judge.

archetype |ˈärk(i)ˌtīp| noun a very typical example of a certain person or thing : the book is a perfect archetype of the genre. See note at model .• an original that has been imitated : the archetype of faith is Abraham.• a recurrent symbol or motif in literature, art, or mythology : mythological archetypes of good and evil. • Psychoanalysis (in Jungian psychology) a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors, and supposed to be present in the collective unconscious.

Body schema is a system of processes that constantly regulate posture and movement– sensory-motor processes that function without reflective awareness or the necessity of perceptual monitoring.

Bricolage, pronounced /ˌbriːkoʊˈlɑːʒ/, /ˌbrɪkoʊˈlɑːʒ/[1] is a term used in several disciplines, among them the visual arts and literature, to refer to:The construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things which happen to be available; a work created by such a process.It is borrowed from the French word bricolage, from the verb bricoler – equivalent to the English “do-it-yourself”, the core meaning in French being, however, “fiddle, tinker” and, by extension, “make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are to hand (regardless of their original purpose)”. The original engineering meaning of hacker is a similar American term. Bricolage as a design approach – in the sense of building by trial and error – is often contrasted to engineering: theory-based construction. A person who engages in bricolage is a bricoleur: someone who invents his or her own strategies for using existing materials in a creative, resourceful, and original way.

Cartesian anxiety named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on “mind” as different from “body”, “self” as different from “other” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_anxiety

Cognitive Sciences:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_scienceEcological. Paradigm. Big words, but don’t let them intimidate you. “Ecology” is a branch of science that is concerned with the relationships between organisms and their environments. In our case, we are trying to place agriculture in balance with its environment. “Paradigm” is simply an example, pattern, or model.

Empathy (Not to be confused with Pity, Sympathy, or Compassion,) is the capacity to recognize or understand another’s state of mind or emotion. It is often characterized as the ability to “put oneself into another’s shoes”, or to in some way experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself. It is important to note that empathy does not necessarily imply compassion. Empathy can be ‘used’ for compassionate or cruel behavior.

Enactivism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enactivism

Ennagram of personality: The Enneagram system describes nine distinct personality types and their interrelationships, mapped around an ancient symbol of perpetual motion. The term “enneagram” derives from two Greek words, ennea (nine) and grammos (something written or drawn). The Enneagram is a nine-pointed figure inscribed in a circle. The meaning of the symbol itself, together with the personality types organized around the nine points, convey a system of knowledge about nine distinct but interrelated personality types, or nine ways of seeing and experiencing the world. The Enneagram of Personality is generally presented as a psycho-spiritual system for mapping the nine possible personalities, like nine facets of a stone that develop through the natural growth of the human psyche.
eth·no·meth·od·ol·o·gy (thn-mth-dl-j)n. The branch of sociology that deals with the codes and conventions that underlie everyday social interactions and activities.

Integral – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_movement – Integral theory seeks a comprehensive understanding of humans and the universe by combining scientific and spiritual insights [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&q=related:integralwiki.net/index.php?title=Integral_theory]

Intersubjectivity is “The sharing of subjective states by two or more individuals. The term is used in three ways. 1. in its weakest sense it is used to refer to agreement. There is said to be intersubjectivity between people if they agree on a given set of meanings or definition of the situation. 2. and somewhat more subtly it has been used to refer to the “common-sense,” shared meanings constructed by people in their interactions with each other and used as an everyday resource to interpret the meaning of elements of social and cultural life. 3. the term has been used to refer to shared (or partially shared) divergences of meaning. Self-presentation, lying, practical jokes, and social emotions, for example, all entail not a shared definition of the situation, but partially shared divergences of meaning. Language is viewed as communal rather than private.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator en.wiktionary.org/wiki/MBTI – The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to identify certain psychological differences according to the typological theories of Carl Jung as published in Psychological Type.

Phenomenological http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_ (philosophy) The constructive contribution of phenomenology involves more than simply identifying correlations between experience and neuronal processes, since, in fact, correlations can only move us close to the precipice of the explanatory gap. Body image is a (sometimes conscious) system of perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs pertaining to one’s own body. “Philosophy In The Flesh” A Talk With George Lakoff on google search is an interesting read. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lakoff/lakoff_p1.html

PNAS – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Reciprocal altruism – considered is tit for tat, a strategy that involves being altruistic on the first encounter with another individual and doing whatever the other did on the previous encounter in subsequent encounters with the same individual.

Schism (religion), a division or a split.

Solipsism is a philosophical theory that everything is in the imagination, and there is no reality outside one’s own brain.

Trickster: is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and norms of behavior.

“Typology” literally means the study of types. More specifically, it may refer to: Typology (anthropology), division of culture by races, Typology (archaeology), classification of things according to their characteristicsTypology (theology), in Christian theology the interpretation of some characters and stories in the Old Testament as allegories foreshadowing the New Testament, Linguistic typology, study and classification of languages according to their structural features, Morphological typology, in linguistics, a method of classifying languages, Typology, in psychology, a model of personality types (see Carl Jung, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the Enneagram of Personality).

I am so new to this subject that please feel free to delete if I am way off base in working to understand. But I must say that after using the tools available on the web I can now reread your blog and talk about your write up. Thanks for all of the research and blazing a trail for us.

I see how enactivism goes with body and mind but I appreciate how Gaia takes the inter-active writings to include all three…body, mind and spirit.

2 days later

adam said

hi salima

yeah – i can behave in quite a 5ish way. the themes in my writing have some correspondence to one of the enneagram types in particular.

am i a therapist? u haven’t read my essay! ; ) i’m just starting out, having found a powerful synthesis of modalities which lets me incorporate all my other experience.

i use personality typology as a tool in psychotherapy work, but there are the usual caveats regarding forer effect, autosuggestion, subjective validation etc etc, which are important to remember both for self and others. i find the enneagram useful, but i try to hold it lightly, knowing that while it may suggest possible relationships between identified psychological aspects, and can inform approaches to individual clients, and may inform future patterns of potentialities, it’s not “reality”, and i don’t want it in the way of immediate experience, self-responsibility, or identification of atypical psychodynamics etc.

i’m developing my own flavour of integration therapy, focusing on trauma recovery/integration, the dynamics of belief, emotion, experience, cognition, peak states, and self-esteem.

and debating philosophy/psychology/consciousness on the web. yep – pretty 5ish ; )

best wishes

adam

2 days later

Deborah – Yeah, I thought it might be nice to speak about nature to balance out all of the abstractions.

OM – I am truly sorry that I didn’t provide appropriate definitions. I was planning on adding hyperlinks, but certain circumstances made that difficult. I finished the first draft and was going to work on it some more, but I wasn’t able to get on the computer much the last 2 days before I had to post this. Also, I was just feeling tired out by the whole symposium. However, I did post all of my notes for this blog (here and here)… which I just now added to the end of the above blog entry.

Kathy – Thanks for doing all that research and posting it. I hope others find it helpful.

What looks like another good reference for the theories of enactivism and authopiesis is the Encyclopaedia Autopoietica which Matt linked to in his symposium entry.

2 days later

I was glad to be the last in the symposium as it gave me more time to prepare, but there were some disadvantages. The symposium participants were mostly tired out by the time I presented. The other thing is that the most active participants were already locked into a specific dialogue with eachother before I got a chance to add my voice in.

This whole symposium was mostly about the debate between Julian and Bruce which is something I knew from the get-go. Julian and Bruce made minor comments in this blog and then immediately went back to Julian’s blog to continue the exact same discussion as if nothing I said applied. I was hoping to shift the energy of the debate between the Julian types and the Bruce types, but it seems I had no effect. Julian and Bruce do seem to have come to a temporary truce probably motivated by the simple fact that both are feeling too tired to continue debating at the moment.

My sense, though, is that nothing has fundamentally been resolved. The point I was trying to bring up is that the disagreement as demonstrated in this symposium probably has very little to do with rationality or evidence. Julian and Bruce seem locked into an interpersonal pattern and the medium of the internet makes it difficult for them to relate differently. I’m sure this symposium would’ve been immensely different if it had been held in person while sipping coffee in someone’s living room.

I know that Bruce really wanted to try to resolve that fundamental conflict of views and he seemed quite determined. Both Bruce and Julian put a lot of energy trying to relate differently and bridge the gap. I applaud the effort.

Even if nothing has really been resolved, I think the symposium has been successful in the sense of it being an interesting debate of views. The conflict may not be resolved, but maybe there is slightly more understanding of what the conflict is… I don’t know, maybe?

3 days later

adam said

hi ben

i’m reluctant to agree with your observations entirely…

all the dynamics you mentioned i also think were there – pre-existing julian/bruce dynamics, fatigue.

i don’t think your entry had no effect at all – i think the processional effects of the intense focus of the symposium will continue for a good while, and i do think resolutions will occur out of it. all of the entries contain keys to unlock potentials i think.

in some ways, your entry and julian’s were the “quietest”, yet i think they hold two very important invitations for theoreticians – whether deadlocked or otherwise – possibly in the two most important areas for theorists to remember.

– firstly, being human in a human body, alive to the senses now, and the immediate experiential reality of that

– secondly, being aware of the universe of subconscious psychological constellations exerting their gravitational pull on our thinking, feeling, and being, towards which psychology and typologies can help to point. this is why i was so glad you wrote about this.

i do think that there is much material for all concerned to draw from, taking a step back and looking for underlying dynamics and commonalities, and although it has been a draining exercise with disappointments and disillusionment, i think it has been – and continues to be – very valuable, with potential still for the kind of fundamental resolution that i think we’d all like to see.

best

adam

3 days later

Balder said

Hi, Ben,

I understand your concern about the dynamics between Julian and myself. I personally do not think this symposium was just about “us,” though. Julian and Matt have had differences of opinion around these issues as well, and I have dialogued at length with Adam on a number of different blog posts, so I think we (at least Julian, Adam, Matt, and myself) thought it might be worthwhile to try to approach this in a more systematic way, in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of each other’s positions and possibly also some common ground. I also do not think I’m “locked” back into the “same old” exchange with Julian; I feel something has shifted. And I hope it continues to. I also intend to carry on conversations on several of the blogs. I’ve started a post to Adam several times, for instance; I just haven’t finished one I’m ready to post yet. I also expect James and I will possibly carry on our conversation once he gets back. So, I don’t think it’s fair to characterize this whole event as a Bruce-Julian exchange – although I acknowledge that the “history” of our debates over several months probably does carry a distracting weight in the overall discussion.
For what it’s worth, I felt you responded rather coolly to my initial post here, which is one reason I haven’t been as engaged in this portion of the discussion. (Admitting this could be projection on my part; it’s hard to tell when our communication is restricted to print.) But a bigger reason is that I don’t know much about Myers-Briggs types and don’t have much to add, except to say that I think you are right that this also plays a role, both in individual “worldview” preferences and in our interpersonal exchanges here. I resonated with your description of boundary types and thought it was both instructive and useful.
About reaching a resolution or agreement out of this – I’m not sure we will. An enactive view, which doesn’t presuppose “one right view of the world,” wouldn’t demand that identical agreement on all points be reached. But being a 9, I do hope for an increase in mutual resonance and understanding. 🙂

Best wishes,

Balder

3 days later

Bruce,

It certainly wasn’t my intention that my first response would sound cold. My first response was only slightly to you, but was more a general first post about my intention behind my entire entry. I would’ve given you a more full and direct response if I realized how you might perceive it, and if I realized you weren’t going to post a second post immediately. I was waiting for your second response that I assumed would be posted shortly after the first, and so I was somewhat waiting to give you a further response.

We seem to rub eachother strangely. We have very different personality types. You want to stay solely focused on a single idea or set of ideas, and I want to consider all possibilities. Whenever I’ve brought up different viewpoints, I often don’t feel you respond with delight and wonder. You’re a very focused person as if in these discussions you are in teacher mode with a pre-set class plan. This is probably good for the symposium because you help to keep things focused, but it just ain’t my style.

It can annoy me when I bring up some interesting idea and you say maybe this isn’t the right time (or worse you ignore it), and if my curiosity is thwarted enough I find the whole discussion boring. If something is interesting, its always the right time. I just want to consider all possibilities. I don’t really care if they were on the original agenda.

I’m sure I likewise annoy you for various reasons. You seem to want to keep the personal out of the debates (Thinking type?) and I’m always making everything personal (Feeling type all the way!). For me, there is no discussion without meta-discussion. Its hard to read your emotions in a discussion, but mine are all too obvious. You want to keep things simple and focused (Judging type?), and I want to continually make everything more complex and follow every divergent pathway (Perceiving type). People like me make it diffiult for you to keep the discussion in line. You seem to have a specific goal you want to accomplish and you seem to have a strong desire to stay on target.

As for characterizing this whole event as a Bruce-Julian exchange, all that I meant by that was the distracting weight of previous months that you mentioned. The symposium wasn’t just about you two, but I felt that it constellated around the dynamic between you two if that makes sense. In this way, I felt that the polarization of views (and psychic energy so to speak) was a major issue. I agree that an enactive view wouldn’t presuppose one right view, but neither does it presuppose a polarized dynamic of social interaction. How do we get beyond this polarizing tendency. You and Julian may polarize somewhat, but definitely you and I have a polarizing effect on one another to maybe an even greater degree.

Its partly styles as I see it. You and Julian seem to enjoy debate in a way that I don’t. I prefer just considering possibilities, and debate is secondary to that. I have a set of somewhat consistent interests, but I don’t particularly favor one view over any other. Part of my problem was that I was in an integral symposium with people who value integral theory probably way more than I do. I like integral theory as far as it goes, but its just another theory to me. You and Julian may disagree about certain things, but you both highly value integral theory.

The main reason I have less interest in integral theory than some is because the people who like integral thoery tend to have a different focus than I do. That was my struggle with this blog. I went to great effort to understand enactivism, but most integralists only seem to have a vague interest in many of the subjects that excite me. In discussions with integralists, I feel a lack of reciprocal interest… and understanding. There is a gap and I don’t know how to bridge it.

I’m not entirely sure what it is. I’m sure it has a fair amount to do with personality types. I became aware of the immense sway type has over our way of relating when I joined some type forums. I totally meshed with other INFPs (on an INFP forum) in a way that was quite strange, and INTPs (on an INTP forum) would just rub me wrong no matter how hard I tried to connect with them. I’ve suspected for a long time that many Integralists are NT types. I find it much easier to talk with people on the God Pod. Why might that be? I started a thread there about MBTI and many who posted there said they were NFs.

This symposium was a Thinking type event. I enjoy the debate because it challenges me with new possibilities, but the energy of it is hard for me to deal with in large doses. I prefer more collaborative conversations where how things are being discussed is as important as what is being discussed. At the INFP forum I belong to (globalchatter), almost every discussion involves the analysis of interpersonal dynamics. INFPs love to make everything personal including abstract ideas. In some ways, integralists are interested in the interpersonal, but to a much lesser degree in my experience. The main tool that integralists use for discerning personal differences is developmental stages but that isn’t a very subtle tool when dealing with nuanced interpersonal relationships.

So, how do Thinking types and Feeling types relate well especially in an abstract discussion where the differences are magnified? That is something I’ve been trying to figure out for years.

Thanks for listening anyhow,
Marmalade

3 days later

Balder said

Ben,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for being frank with me. We’ve had some misunderstandings in the past, and I haven’t found a way to get entirely past them. You perceived me awhile back as intentionally ignoring you and looking down on you, for instance, and neither was the case, as I’ve tried to assure you, but I think it will take some time for us to develop more affinity and trust. I am open to that – I value what you bring to these discussions, in spite of impressions to the contrary that I have apparently given you.
It is interesting to me – and useful feedback – that I come across as a teacherly thinking type in these discussions. I think this voice comes across most strongly in my discussions with Julian, actually; because I don’t really relate to or identify with the single-track, thinking/judging, teacherly description. This is a “voice” I have developed, as I’ve attempted to master philosophical and intellectual topics after having spent most of my writing life as a poet and short story writer (and reader). It was actually a real change of gears for me to learn to communicate like this, and maybe it comes across as “heavy” here because it isn’t completely natural. I don’t know. I’ll sit with this some and see what emerges for me. Is it possible for someone to change types in mid-life?
When I mentioned to you on the other blog that I didn’t think this was the place to discuss my dynamics with Julian, I was mostly trying to avoid focusing on the history of “Bruce and Julian,” since I thought this was a publically advertised event about a particular topic and I felt self-conscious about getting into personal issues that weren’t related to the theme of the symposium. I do think personal dynamics are important, as are communication dynamics, types, etc. So maybe I shouldn’t have tried to avoid the conversation at that point. But honestly, I was feeling a little defensive too. I had read both your and James’ characterizations of my interactions with Julian, and I picked up (rightly or wrongly) that both of you were more sympathetic to him than to me (I felt a little caricatured), so I was feeling vulnerable. I was still willing to discuss and explore these things, but in a place that felt safer and more intimate to me.
In my experience of interacting with you, I do feel that some of the “psychic baggage” interfering with our communication comes from you – from your reactions to my voice (especially when in intellectual mode), and the stories you may have built out of it. I think this actually goes directly to thr “enactivism” question, not only for you but for all of us. Varela says we need hardly any excuse at all to start building worlds. With even a little input, we start putting together a whole complexly layered, storeyed structure. In this case, he’s talking about even minimal sensorimotor stimulation leading to world-building. But it’s clear we do this psychologically, too – building stories, constructing worlds of meaning, out of a few verbal or gestural cues. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, as long as we remain open and stay in communication, instead of taking past enactments for a given reality.
Thank you for listening to me as well, and I hope we find ways to communicate more fully and richly.
Warm wishes,
Bruce

3 days later

Thanks for the reply. I’m getting a better sense of all of this.

I get the feeling that you present a more one-sided face when in these discussions. Maybe, as you say, its because this is less natural to you which has interesting similarities to what Julian has said. So, maybe both of you are using a less natural voice when in an intellectual debate. You occasionally speak about another side of yourself, but I rarely see it in your recent blogs. I’ll check out your older blogs sometime to see if I can get a better sense of the other aspects of your personality.

Maybe you aren’t a Thinking type, but have developed a Thinking persona. Or maybe you have switched types… whatever that might mean.

I know that I’ve developed a Thinking persona that I use sometimes, but even when I’m using the persona my Feeling nature shows through. I know that my Thinking persona isn’t quite natural and it can be taxing. As I was raised in a New Agey church, I have an inner green meme New Ager that is always trying to get out. I’m an INFP which means that I’m good at hiding my idealism behind abstractions, but it also means that I’m in the category of being the most idealistic of idealists… I want to believe in something… damn practicality, full speed ahead!

I don’t know about James, but I wasn’t meaning to caricaturize you. I was going out of my way to be sympathetic to Julian. However, the reason for this is because I agree with you more than Julian and so was trying to bridge the gap between myself and Julian. I was trying to understand him and I was trying to be careful in how I described him. Despite our difficulties of communicating, I get the sense that we have much in common. Part of the problem is that I see you most often when you’re relating to Julian and so I tend to only see your debating face. Or else I see you on your post-metaphysical pod and there you seem to be acting as the professional arbiter. In all the places I interact with you here on Gaia, you seem to rarely let your hair down and show that other side of yourself that you speak of. As my experience of you is under unusual circumstances, I’m sure my sense of you is quite distorted. I’d love to clarify my distortions by getting to know that other side of yourself.

I know that I have much psychic baggage. I’m very upfront about that. Part of our difficulty is that I get the sense that your uncomfortable with my being so forward about my psychic baggage (dumping it like a pile of garbage on the table of discussion). I have many messy emotions and I’ve become used to them. I’ve realized its pointless pretending they’re not there. I’m not always direct in dealing with them, but I’ve given up on trying to hide them.

I get the sense that you also have your own psychic baggage (who doesn’t?), but that you’re less willing to show it directly. Maybe you’d prefer to process your issues privately in meditation or whatever, or maybe you think its a moral weakness to air one’s issues openly. I get the sense that my style of processing emotions in my interactions grates upon you or somehow seems wrong to you.

Whatever is the case, my style is somewhat typical for an INFP and so once again it might have a type component to it. INFPs can come off very cold sometimes, but they can also come off as emotionally reactive (going on tirades isn’t uncommon). To give a comparison, INFJs can be much more controlled in their emotions and more interpersonally subtle.

Do you think my analysis is somewhat correct?
Or do you think I’m still projecting?

Another thing… I’d love to bring this blog discussion back to the topic of enactivism and integralism. I was hoping that there might be someone who could help me bridge the subjects I brought up here and the subjects of the symposium. I see how it all connects in a general way, but I’d like to understand the details better.

I realize, Bruce, that you may not understand typology well enough to say much about it, but what do you think about archetypes and how they relate to enactivism and integralism? I appreciate your comments about the stories we tell and the worlds we build. Are there any examples from Varela that would expand upon that?

Blessings,
Marmalade

3 days later

Daate said

hi ben,

i wanted to add a bit of a reply here. i’m grateful that you brought up these interpersonal differences and difficulties, because, as an INFP, that is what automatically interests me and gives me energy.

first off, i think your entry has tremendous value, and would especially so if more people and feeling types were to see it. i know that the women who sometimes pop on here and end up exhausted because of all the theorizing would love the experiential visual feel that you and julian brought to your posts. you speak in a clear, poetic, very human style that comes across as embodied and rich, and can feel very refreshing for a feeling type amid what can often feel like too much “headspace”. that’s how i’ve felt before anyway, and before your entry, i once tried to point out the reality of myers briggs types in reference to debate difficulties. for NT’s, typology can (often, not always) seem like an interesting idea, something to muse about, whereas to me it seems absolutely central, especially in a debate. i’ve been amazed at some of the intense, heated discussions on these blogs without any thought of typology—it seems to be missing half the point, so i’m so glad you reminded us all.

a while back mr. teacup and i had a bit of a debate (if i figure out where it is and how to hyperlink it, i will) in which, if i recall, i believe we both had the same point of view—only i was scared of rational thinkers disregarding the compassion that a situation might require, and he (correct me if i’m wrong, teacup) was scared about feeling types within the new age climate making impetuous judgments and decisions without forethought. both are harmful, but because of our typology we had specific fears that polarized our discussion. i knew we were trying to say the same damn thing and that if, faced with any number of similar situations, we would have reacted in a very similar way—because our fundamental principles are the same. but because of language and the fact that on these blogs, we can’t even hear important things like voice inflections, it looked like a fight. the fears are superficial and related to types, and are what cause a reactionary climate.
i knew that if i met teacup in person i would really like him, we would agree on most things, and that any interpersonal differences could be addressed with humor and generosity.

honestly, if i didn’t understand typology i would think many NT’s are stubborn bastards (sorry boys—i do love you), but as it is, my strength is not theorizing with the same facility they do, so i’m grateful for the challenge and the backup in areas in which my thought process is often diffuse and filled with a sense of artistic meaning and portent which might create a damn good painting, but not much else, and which these boys articulate beautifully in a way to eventually concretize the abstract. that’s kind of how i see these symposiums—efforts to create a sustainable model of some kind from which people can benefit.

that being said, the language of theorizing still makes me tired, because i talk about it in a totally different way and have a feeling you do too. i’ve met so many NT’s who say talking about emotions makes them tired, and vice versa with NF’s.

without sounding condescending, i hope, i’m glad you’re taking your own typology into account here. i think that yes, NT’s do love debate in a way that exhausts me, and they derive energy from it. i think too that NF’s tend to internalize childhood trauma in a very different way from NT’s too. even the NF’s that were totally supported and encouraged in childhood can feel a sense of sadness when what they have to offer isn’t received the way they would like. in my experience, NT’s, even ones who have been traumatized, tend to think other people might be idiots for not getting their point of view. in your response to bruce and to the tension in the symposium, i sense a bit of emotional baggage in addition to being naturally sensitive.

i think what might have been perceived as tension between julian and bruce was, in my view, really just two intelligent guys with large capacities for emotion and an interest in theory making themselves vulnerable to possibly changing. both have genuine curiosity about the other’s perspectiv, and as far as i’ve seen they’ve been generous with each other even when completely disagreeing. as for bruce being methodical, i always actually saw him as emotional, sensitive, and responsive to others’ feelings. i think what you might mistake for “teaching mode” is actually his carefully trying to articulate his ideas in a way that is accessible and understandable. maybe this is what comes across as “teaching mode?” he’s usually the first to acquiesce or apologize if he thinks he’s hurt someone’s feelings, and the open and direct way in which he’s willing to address underlying emotional issues in his post above are not the mark of someone stuck in teaching mode, or that of an NT, for that matter.
i hope it’s in some way helpful to consider that what joys you might derive from the symposium are different from some of the other bloggers. i kind of see this place as others’ turf that i come to check out, but i understand that i can’t expect it to function in a way that would be completely rejuvenating to me in particular, because it wouldn’t be what it is, then. i think there is actually less stress and more genuine wonder in these blogs than you might be perceiving—-i think that amid all the arguing and debating these are a handful of intelligent people who are deeply concerned about the world and are bringing their subjective experiences to the posts, and are all the time trying to sift through what may be cloudy because of personal experience and what may be useful because of it.

and thank you for bringing up your concerns, this is the most open and honest way i’ve seen someone do it in a while, and gave us all the opportunity to think on it in a constructive way. and thanks again for your great posts, it was one of the most accessible and personable that i’ve read, without lacking any intelligence or capacity for theorizing at all.

3 days later

Hey Daate!

Exactly, you understand what I’m attempting to do. I’m not seeking agreement, but a common ground for discussion that allows both the personal and impersonal to merge. The desire for this merging is more of an NF thing (N – abstraction and F – interpersonal), and maybe its unfair of me to want to force my style onto the discussion. Really, though, I just want to be heard. I know that I’m sensitive, but I also know its not all projection.

This conflict between Bruce and I started with a blog where I brought up similar ideas as this blog and he completely ignored it, but gave lengthy responses to every other person who commented. Bruce later admitted that he ignored my comment intentionally because he didn’t want the discussion to get derailed. He could have acknowledged my comment, and it wasn’t as if he lacked time since he gave lengthy replies to everyone else. Is that me being sensitive or is it me expecting common courtesy? Maybe my perception of not being heard is me being overly sensitive, and maybe my complaining lacks tact.

I know that Bruce is a nice guy. Part of his style of niceness is what annoys me. It somewhat reminds me of FJ style behavior. FJ types especially if they’re Introverts can be very sensitive to complaining and will play the mediator. To an INFP, this can feel like a withholding because the IXFJ uses Feeling as a public way of relating rather than as a personal sense of self. Another thing that might relate is that INFJs are the most intellectual of the NFs (because Intuition is their primary function and because Thinking is they’re tertiary function). Maybe what felt like teacher mode wasn’t precisely Thinking and maybe more Extraverted Feeling (?).

I understand the others’ turf view of the situation. That has been part of my wondering. Is integral just a Thinking thing and that is just the way it is. However, if that was the case, then it wouldn’t be very integral. I know from dealing with many NTs that INFPs have a particular way of conflicting with Thinking types (at least on line). INFJs always fit better into a Thinking forum. Maybe the INFP style and integralism just aren’t all that compatible, and any INFP who wishes to be a part of integralism should curtail their natural style to fit in.

I don’t know about the stress, but I do perceive the genuine wonder in these blogs. Oddly enough, its because of Bruce that I’ve become interested in integralism on Gaia. I like Bruce as a person, but I don’t like the strange dynamic I feel between us which preceeded any complaining on my part. I’d love to resolve it because otherwise I’ll just avoid the integral crowd around here entirely.

4 days later

I’m aware that some may think I put too much stock into typology, but I think it has been researched thoroughly enough to show that there is something fundamentally true to it. My understanding of typology isn’t abstract, and I don’t limit myself to a type.

I’m very clear in my knowledge of the INFP type. I know what fits me and I know what doesn’t. As I’ve spent much time on an INFP forum, I understand the nuances of INFPs… how they interact with eachother, how they interact with other types. I know what has to do with my type and I know what is just my personal idiosynchrocies. When I speak of INFPs, I’m referencing my actual experience of hundreds of INFPs and hours of detailed analysis of the INFP type. I know more about typology than any other subject… which is saying a lot!

Even so, typology is just a subset of my larger interest in archetypes. I do think that at least some parts of typology touch upon a deeper archetypal level. This is where I see the connection to enactivism (and integralism).

The problem here is that even though this connection seems extremely obvious to me, it doesn’t apparently seem all that obvious to others. In my websearches, I haven’t found anyone who has made a direct connection between enactivism and archetypes. Why? Enactivism seems more focused on the cognitive-behavioral aspects of biology, and so doesn’t seem as interested in larger contexts of meaning.

Integralism is more interested in these larger contexts, but even there its hard to find much info about Jungian archetypes. Why? Wilber claims its a matter of the pre/trans fallacy, but others have argued that Jung doesn’t fall into that and certainly many later Jungians don’t.

There seems a disconnect of worldviews here. I’ve tried to make some tentative connections on my own with this blog, but I’m working with limited info. I was hoping others would contribute, but none of the commenters so far have shared any further possibilities about archetypes. For instance, I know that Julian knows a fair amount about archetypes and knows as much if not more about enactivism than I at this point. So, why hasn’t Julian followed this avenue of discussion that I’ve offered up? I don’t mean to pick on Julian, but he was the most obvious example I could think of.

Maybe everyone was distracted by all of the discussion of typology. I, however, consider the archetypal issue the more fundamental. I only used typology as an example of how archetypes might relate to enactivism in the context of this symposium. Maybe I need to start a second blog that clarifies this relationship. I think this is important because I think its the archetypal angle that could help to bring enactivism into a larger integral viewpoint.

4 days later

There was another angle to this symposium that I hadn’t yet brought up. I think enactivism gives a further understanding to a different view of integralism that I’ve been trying to figure out for a while now. Integralism as its normally presented is a Theory of Everything (TOE), but this view interests me less in recent years. Some time ago I came across the idea of a Theory for Anything (TFA).

There are two ways a TFA could be considered.

First, as a practical model of relating diverse information. In this case, it doesn’t matter if the model correlates to reality but rather that its practically useful. Even so, it has to be a very flexible model to work in all situations.

Secondly, is more in line with what I’m trying to get at with the relationship between archetypes and enactivism… and also Wilber’s Kosmic habits. The idea here is that there are fundamental structures in the mind that we use when categorizing or modelling any information no matter what it is. Its not so much that the information needs to directly correlate to reality in a simple manner, but that the modelling process itself correlates to our very perception of reality.

4 days later

A mind-blowing aspect to enactivism is how fundamental are these body-mind structures we bring to our engagement to the world, and this is only looking at a small portion of what we filter reality through. The psychological concept of projection is an understatement of immense proportions. Even people who spend their whole life meditating and in therapy, barely are aware of all the factors that go into their sense of identity and their sense of reality.

The aspect of socially-constructed self and social roles brings and even more complex dynamic into the mix. To what degree am I a specific type and to what degree have a learned various roles. We engage eachother here, but we engage in a very one-sided way. Authentic communication seems nearly impossible, and rational debate is mired in the process.

Bruce did affirm my sense that he was somewhat in teacher mode with his concern that students might read what he says here. Julian has also said how he ends up playing the rationalist role. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m sure the same goes for everyone. It makes me wonder what role(s) am I playing?

To complexify this further, I can see where Arnold Mindell’s ideas about the dreambody fits in. Mindell does work as a psychologist of sorts but also does work as a group mediator. He has some very insightful theories about group dynamics. He brings the idea of social roles to a whole new level. His ideas fit into enactivism as he theorizes how our experience blends with the experience of those we interact with.

4 days later

Balder said

Bruce did affirm my sense that he was somewhat in teacher mode with his concern that students might read what he says here.

What I meant by that was just that, because students in my classes (or my employers) might be likely to visit a site like this, I am a bit careful about how much personal material I disclose. But not too careful … that would be boring!

I think your points about social roles and group dynamics are interesting and pertinent here too. Not only are there individual “types” at play in our exchanges here, there are group-level roles we may unconsciously adopt. I just went in the archives of an old Integral forum and dug up an old post on these issues that I wrote several years ago.

I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on this. According to the materials on this that I’ve studied, a number of recurrent roles have been identified by group process therapists and facilitators, which remain pretty constant even though the “faces” change. Here is a list of some of the group roles identified by therapists such as Yalom, Agazarian, Beck, etc.

TASK ORIENTED ROLES

Task Leader
Initiator
Doer
Information Seeker
Information Giver
Clarifier
Consensus Seeker
Summarizer
Recorder

CONTEXTUALIZED ROLES

(these are roles, which can serve to promote or
obstruct group development, depending on their
context)
Scapegoat
Shy One
Isolate
Clown
Monopolizer
Rival
Recognition Seeker
Obstructor

MAINTENANCE ORIENTED ROLES
Socio-Emotional Leader
Harmonizer
Supporter
Gate Keeper
Encourager
Compromiser
Observer
Historian
Follower
Agazarian, a prominent group process theorist, talks about groups “boundarying” – establishing and dissolving boundaries as a means of self-regulation. The above roles are understood as each contributing to this living process. When a person filling a particular role leaves, another will very likely find themselves consciously or unconsciously filling it. From my perspective, awareness of the power of certain roles to polarize energy or bring forth shadow takes on alchemical significance if we can become cognizant, as a group, of these things on the level of process.

5 days later

That is very very interesting, Bruce. I don’t think I’ve heard of Yalom, Agazarian, or Beck.

This reminds me of Mindell, but I don’t know if Mindell details specific roles like this. Mindell does say how certain roles must be filled in a group for the dynamic to work effectively, and someone taking on an unrepresented role can shift the whole group energy. Mindell also writes about how we can play out eachother’s unconscious aspects. For instance, a therapist listening to a patient’s dream might find themselves starting to unintentionally acting out one of the characters of the dream.

To bring this back to archetypes, have you heard of Carol S. Pearson? She wrote some books about how archetypes play out in terms of our sense of identity and our behavior. There was a test that she helped to develop: the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator (PMAI). She has also done work on how archetypes apply to organizations which would relate to group dynamics. I haven’t studied her work carefully yet, but I have been meaning to.

I’m still trying to figure out how this fits into an enactivist paradigm. Do you know if any of the enactivist crowd (Varela, Maturana, Rosch, Lakoff, etc) has theorized about social roles and group dynamics?

5 days later

I just wanted to add some side commentary. I was at first reticent upon seeing Bruce’s comment because I worried that it might be a continuation of the conflict between us, but I was glad that it wasn’t. Instead, he offers me intriguing info, and I was immediately excited. Oh boy, new ideas, new names! I’m easily frustrated, but I’m also easily excited when it comes to certain things. Offering me another viewpoint is like throwing a dog a bone. I’m happy and contented. If I had the time, I could sit here for the rest of the day gnawing on the ideas that Bruce posted.

5 days later

Ben, this was a totally different perspective, with new ideas to consider…i found myself as i was reading trying to type me…LOL…no could do…maybe i am just to damn complex to be confined, but i noticed that you touched on this…

i liked especially the part about the plants; this gave a down to earth example of how plants, we, and everything else interacts whether we are aware of it or not, and of course, as you stated, most of it we are definitely not aware of…but it is cool, like you, while taking my walks, to contemplate this in a scientific way…i have always felt it strongly….and knew it intellectually, but your presentation brought it together even more…

i found myself laughing at all the references to lsd and chemicals…and also thankful that today any opening up of the mind that is done, is not done with any assistance from anything other than what is naturally ingested through what i eat…LOL…but then again, i imagine that we take them in even through our breathing…

anyways, you certainly took a diferent view…thnx for sharing it with us…good job!

5 days later

Howdy Starlight,

Some people fit more closely to a particular type than others. I just see types as tendencies, but INFP does fit my tendencies pretty closely. The other aspect that can confuse matters is that type isn’t static but allows for development into our non-preferences. Still, there are particular ways that types will tend to develop. Of course, real life makes everything more complex than any theory.

I liked the part about the plants too. The example I mentioned about plants communicating through chemicals came from a book I read that utterly fascinated me, but I couldn’t remember which book it was. Its somewhere at home. I’ll find it eventually.

The reference to lsd wasn’t necessary, but I thought it was an easy example to use. I haven’t used psychedelics in many years. I do use plenty of other substances to alter my consciousness though. I particularly like this one drug that is called caffeine. Its good stuff!

5 days later

lol…you are funny…

what do you think constitutes our different experiences with say caffeine? i mean i know a lot of people that can drink coffee all day long, and then go straight to bed…then there’s me…if i drink it past a certain time of day, or intake to much, b/c i have such a sensitivity to it, i’ll be up all night…and there are times, i have noticed that it really makes me nutty if i take in to much…do you think this has to do with our biological evolution and with enactivism indirectly? i never did lsd, however, i knew lots who did, and some would have good trips, and then some would have bad trips…another thing that is interesting, at least to me, that if our evolution does, and i am convinced it does, have anything to do with it, the fact that my brain and body act differently to alcohol and drugs then ordinary people, would speak to that evolution…

i have a bit of Cherokee in me, and it is a known fact that early Americans traded alcohol to Native Americans for their goods…and Indians were known for their addiction to alcohol…and their tendency to alcoholism…i would think that to be relevant here…wouldn’t you? just some thoughts…*

5 days later

Daate said

hey all,

ben i’m glad you feel “back in the game.” yeah, i find the archetype ideas intriguing too….and will have to read up on carol pearson.

5 days later

Balder said

Hi, Ben,

The individuals I mentioned in my last post (Yalom, Agazarian, and Beck) are all therapists, and they have written about these “roles” in the context of group therapy. I am not aware of whether or not Varela or Maturana have explored social roles or group dynamics in any detail, but I believe Lakoff and Johnson have used their cognitive linguistic model to explain social patterns and dynamics (see Metaphors We Live By and Moral Politics).

A central theme in Lakoff and Johnson’s work, as I expect you know, is that a great deal of our thought is metaphoric, much of which is rooted in metaphors provided uniquely by our form of embodiment, so I think their work is directly relevant to – and, in some ways, an extension of or complement to – Varela’s model of enactive cognition.

I have not thought through some of these questions in relation to typology, but intuitively, it seems that these approaches can be mutually informing – that typologies might be rooted in embodiment and embodied metaphors, as emergent patterns of cognition influenced by particular forms of embodied experience and the metaphors they provide; but once established, they are likely also contributors to the co-enactment of our individual and social meaning spaces. What do you think?

Best wishes,

5 days later

bruce, i think it is also amazing to look at these metaphoric experiences through a culteral context too…it is systems theory…everything continuously has affected everything else…

6 days later

Starlight,

I don’t know what the cause of caffeine differences, but I could imagine there might be some evolutionary aspects. Supposedly, people from cultures where agriculture was developed later tend to have wheat allergies and inability to easily digest milk. But caffeine is a bit different than wheat and milk.

I’m of European stock, and I’m not sensitive to caffeine at all. I can drink coffee and fall right to sleep. My mom also isn’t sensitive to caffeine and she has German heritage.

As for lsd, I never had any bad trips. In fact, I had many nice trips, and I had nice trips with other substances too. I took mushrooms once and went for a walk in nature. I viscerally felt the whole world breathing with me in a single breath, no separation between internal and external, the world animistically alive. Now, that is embodied perception.

6 days later

rotflmao…WOW…i have had similiar experiences, but most of mine surprisingly enough, given my history of chemical substance abuse, were without any outside stimulants…

seems that those mind-experiences are strongest, in my experience, because they are only limited by mind, and not chemicals…maybe the chemicals did break the initial barrier…but it is the mind that actually has no limits…i don’t have a clue if what i just said makes any sense to anyone but me…LOL

6 days later

Daate,

If you find anything interesting about Pearson, please share it. I’ll look at her theory again and see if any of it fits in with this symposium.

Bruce,

On Wikipedia, Lakoff and Johnson aren’t listed as enactivism philsophers, but they (along with the enactivists) are listed under embodied philosophy. I’ve been somewhat aware of their ideas as I read Metaphors We Live By years ago (during a phase when I was interested in NLP). The reason I brought them up in my above blog was because I owned one of their books and they kept coming up in my websearches for enactivism.

“intuitively, it seems that these approaches can be mutually informing – that typologies might be rooted in embodiment and embodied metaphors, as emergent patterns of cognition influenced by particular forms of embodied experience and the metaphors they provide; but once established, they are likely also contributors to the co-enactment of our individual and social meaning spaces.”

As typology seems to be cognitive-perceptual structures rooted in the body (ie genetics and brain structure), it made sense to me that there probably was a fairly direct link to enactivism which considers another type of cognitive-perceptual structure rooted in the body. The difficulty in following this line of thought is that most typologists haven’t theorized in terms of embodiment, and embodied philosophers apparently haven’t theorized about types.

Jung was aware of a possible connection between typology and physiology, but he never pursued this.

“The Significance of Constitution and Heredity on Psychology” (1929):
“I personally have the impression that some of Kretschmer’s main types are not so far removed from certain of the basic psychological types I have enumerated. It is conceivable that at these points a bridge might be established between the physiological constitution and the psychological attitude. That this has not been done already may be due to the fact that the physiological findings are still very recent while, on the other hand investigation from the psychological side is very much more difficult and therefore less easy to understand.” (Coll. Wks, 8, p. 108)

Tyra and James Arraj have explored this area. They’ve written some books and have a nice website that goes into great detail.

Another MBTI theoretician is Jonathan P. Niednagel. He developed the system called Brain Types. He theorizes that type correlates to not only body type but also behavior and physical ability.

Socionics is the Russian version of MBTI, but it doesn’t directly correlate to MBTI even though it often uses the same letter code. Socionics is a set of separate theories which includes what is called Visual Identification (VI). VI is a theory that says that type can be observed by physiological appearance and behavior, but I don’t know if its similar to Niednagel’s Brain types.

I couldn’t begin to guess how such theories might correlate with enactivist notions of embodiment and the embodied metaphors of Lakoff and Johnson, but it would seem to fit into the general category of embodied philosophy. Of course, the above theories are probably more hypothetical because I’m sure the scientific evidence is limited.

6 days later

“seems that those mind-experiences are strongest, in my experience, because they are only limited by mind, and not chemicals…maybe the chemicals did break the initial barrier…but it is the mind that actually has no limits…i don’t have a clue if what i just said makes any sense to anyone but me…LOL”

I think I get what you’re saying. In this context, I was considering how mind and chemicals interrelate.

In my blog, I gave an explanation: “One possibility is that the brain structures used to categorize our experience are altered or even suppressed.” I just was thinking of something opposite to this. Instead of the cognitive-perceptual structures being altered or suppressed, maybe they’re more fully engaged and magnified. As DMT already resides in the brain, there are already specific functions for DMT. The increase of DMT wouldn’t change the brains functioning but simply increase the normal functioning of DMT.

However, this theory wouldn’t apply for other psychedelics which aren’t naturally produced by our own biology.

6 days later

ben…that is an excellent point…i was aware of that chemical that is similiar to heroin already being present in the brain, as it has been studied in relation to addiction for sometime now, but i did not connect it till just now reading your post…so, the actual chemical in lsd is also present in the brain already…right?

6 days later

Yeah, Starlight, heroin would relate to endorphins. They are named after morphine (endorphin: indwelling morphine). I suppose a similar thing is true for other psychoactive drugs. They can effect the brain so powerfully because there already are similarly structured chemical compounds in the brain. What is interesting is that there is so much crossover between chemicals in our brain and chemicals in plants.

6 days later

andrew said

yes, i’ve had that trip too ben; in fact, the last time i did mushrooms i was taken on a guided tour of unconscious physiological processes at the nano level which were shown to me to be sentient and intelligent……hmmm…….certainly no credibility here…lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi

here is a link to the paranormal and as much as i admire david hawkins as a teacher i do think that when he claims that kinesiology is the way to discover truth and falsehood; well, that claim needs to be verified or falsified……my own feeling on that issue is if kinesiology is the way the universe has decided to enlighten us then we are in serious trouble, in my opinion……..
i liked your blog because it seemed to me to offer tons of info. on the complexities of horizontal type phenomenon. i find too much of the integral discussions overly concerned with altitude and coincidentally those people in those discussions always seem to imply that they are of high altitude……hmmm……
by the way, i made a comment on a recent blog about how i perceived a discussion between bruce and adam a while back and my perception was based on a general orientation, to borrow a method from wilber. was i correct? or are general orientations not all that useful in a a specified culture, especially in the sciences. now i didn’t mean to label adam or bruce, but at the time the labels did seem appropriate, to a point….did i just make a point?lol

8 days later

Hey Andrew,

So much for credibility. Its overrated anyways.

I’ve looked into one of David Hawkin’s books about kinesiology. I was left unconvinced. If it were true though, it would be easy to test scientifically.

I’m more interested in the horizontal than the vertical. Even human social development isn’t necessarily vertical. There isn’t any particular reason to assume there is a telos to development nor that a later stage is hierarchically better than previous stages. Yes, there is an order to development, but our value judgments of those stages can’t be scientifically proven. They’re just beliefs. To me, the horizontal is the more fundamental category and so it is the most relevant to our everyday experience. The vertical is interesting but more speculative.

9 days later

Balder said

I would agree the higher end of the vertical spectrum is more speculative, but I think the “lower range” (pre-operational, concrete operational, formal operational) is well researched and well substantiated.

11 days later

Hey Balder, I hear what you’re saying. I didn’t mean that the developmental spectrum isn’t substantiated by objective observations. I was pointing out the subjective side of things, all of that which we project onto development: hopes and expectations, value judgments and hierarchies of experience.

Most people turn to development schemas with some ideal or agenda in mind. We want those models to explain more than they’re capable of. We want them to tell us a grand narrative. But all they can fundamentally tell us is that this comes after this, a set of behaviors that seemed to follow a predictable pattern. The correlation is substantiated, but the causal speculations aren’t as strongly substantiated. But most humans aren’t contented to stop at mere observation. I know that I’m not. 🙂

I don’t see the vertical and horizontal as that clearly differentiated. I suspect that much of what is attributed to the vertical is really just a subset of the horizontal. Change can occur on the horizontal. Change only becomes a vertical phenomenon when we attribute a causal schema to it, give it a story so to speak. Most change in life is just change without a specific direction or purpose. And some change that seems to have a direction probably could also be understood in non-hierarchical terms.

All of this isn’t to deny the vertical as a category, but I’m just a bit wary of all the projections that I see mixed into various explanations of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a Telos to the universe or at least many telai. We do experience life as a one way trip and so we seem designd to perceive the world according to explanatory narratives. Are we designed that way because there actually is a Telos? Or are we designed that way because its just an accident of evolution that turned out to have some survival value for the species?

19 days later

1Vector3 said

Ben, this comment isn’t necessarily about your particular contribution to the Symposium; it is a comment about the entire Symposium, so I am just adding it here at the latest official point of the whole thing.

I still haven’t read more than half of the whole, and I still owe a lot of responses, and sooner or later, I shall finish reading, and do them…..

But this little bugger would not be denied this morning, it shoved itself into my mind, into my fingers, onto my blog, very rudely cutting ahead of the rest of the items in the line of Pending and Underway Blog Entries.

It is very long so I am just going to put a link here. It is on the subject of “What is Reality?” and how I believe differing answers to that question interfered with this Symposium in some ways both emotionally and communicatively/cognitively.

http://adliac.gaia.com/blog/2008/9/what_is_reality_part_i

I prefer responses to it there rather than here, pretty please.

Blessings, OM Bastet

19 days later