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PIEZA LAS NOTAS DE LA PARTE IV DE LA PARTE III DE LA PARTE II DE I | | | |
Los Críticos Falsifican Mi Posición?
Un caso de la prueba de un diario académico reciente

Parte IV

PRÉSTAMO

En quizás la parte más embarazosa de su ataque contra mi trabajo, de Quincey me acusa subconsciente de plagiar su trabajo (aunque porqué él desearía demandar que el modelo que él ataca tan agresivamente es su modelo no se hace realmente claramente). Tanto como usted desea ver su torpeza de los críticos la bola cuando unfairly le están atacando, éste era apenas doloroso de mirar.

En 1995 publiqué SES. La base de su argumento, como de Quincey reconoce, era una llamada para integrar " los tres grandes " -- los tres grandes de arte, de moralejas, y de ciencia; o el hermoso, el bueno, y el verdad; o I, nosotros, y él; o primero -, segundo -, y dimensiones de la tercero-persona. [ 7 ]

Tres años más adelante, en 1998, de Quincey presentó un papel que llamó para integrar primero -, segundo -, y acercamientos de la tercero-persona. Él me envió este artículo en 1997. Le dije que conviniera con él, puesto que relanzó mi propio modelo y mis propias conclusiones.

En su artículo de JCS, de Quincey sugiere que, la lectura de su papel, I unconsciously " pidiera prestada " su llamada para integrar los tres grandes. Él dice, " estuve satisfecho ver Wilber posteriormente acentuar para lo que llamaba: un 1r comprensivo , acercamiento de la persona del nd 2, y de 3 rd a los estudios del sentido (que Wilber ahora llama el 1-2-3 de estudios del sentido). " **time-out** pero, por supuesto, yo tener ser acentuar que Big-Three acercamiento comenzando con SES, como su mucho endnotes hacer perfecto claro, y este acercamiento ser relanzar -- incluyendo llamada para uno Big-Three acercamiento sentido estudio -- en ojo alcohol , escribir en 1996 y publicar en 1997 (ver recoger trabajo , volumen 7), que ver luz día antes de que de Quincey papel comenzar circular.

**time-out** en uno endnote, de Quincey decir, " yo desear para indicar para expediente que llamada para uno comprensivo 1, 2, 3 sentido estudio ser primero presentar en mi tucson papel en 1998. " Qué evidencia él tiene para esto, y cómo él se ocupa del hecho torpe de que SES era hacia fuera en 1995? **time-out** De Quincey nunca contestar o aún direccionamiento que, pero él decir evidencia mi préstamo poder ser considerar en hecho de que yo utilizar dos frase en integral psicología que ser similar frase encontrar en su 1998 papel. Estas dos frases son " convienen con uno a " y " teoría comprensiva. "

Esto, como I dicho, es simplemente doloroso. Aprecio profundamente que el cristiano desee hacer sus ideas reconocer, y estoy más que alegre señalar a él pues un camarada digno en el mecanismo impulsor para un acercamiento integral de Big-Three al sentido estudia. Tengo una reputación para escrupulosamente dar crédito donde está debido, mientras que los millares de notas al pie de la página atestiguan fácilmente, solamente la sugerencia el crédito que me conseguí esta idea de la izquierda justa de de Quincey totalmente sin habla (mientras que hizo a cada persona que hablé con alrededor su artículo). Pero de Quincey es cerca de una cosa absolutamente derecha: hay de hecho el cierto continuar que pide prestado extenso, inconsciente aquí. [ 8 ]



ENERGÍAS SUTILES

En mi propio sistema, el componente de " body/energy " es el cuadrante de Upper-Right, y el componente de " mind/consciousness " es el cuadrante de Upper-Left. El modelo integral que estoy sugiriendo que por lo tanto incluye explícitamente una energía sutil correspondiente a todos los niveles del sentido a través del espectro entero (gane en total a sutil a causal, o a la materia al cuerpo para importar al alma al alcohol). Los críticos han faltado a menudo este aspecto de mi modelo porque el diagrama típico del cuatro-cuadrante muestra solamente el cuerpo grueso en el cuadrante de Upper-Right, pero ése es solamente un resumen simplificado del modelo completo presentado en mi trabajo total.

En las tradiciones, se dice a menudo que estos campos sutiles de la energía existen en esferas concéntricas del aumento abrazan. Por ejemplo, el campo etéreo se dice para ampliar algunas pulgadas del cuerpo físico, rodeándolo y envolviendo; el campo astral de la energía rodea y envuelve el campo etéreo y amplía un pie o tan; el campo del pensamiento (o el campo sutil de la energía del cuerpo) rodea y envuelve el astral y amplía incluso más futuro; y el campo causal de la energía extiende al infinito sin forma. **time-out** así, cada uno este sutil energía campo ser uno holon (uno conjunto que ser parte uno grande entero), y entero holonic energía espectro poder ser fácil representar en Upper-Right cuadrante como uno estándar serie cada vez más fino y ancho concéntrico esfera (con cada sutil energía campo superar y incluir su menor campo). Cada holon sutil de la energía es el exterior o el componente derecho de corresponder sentido interior o izquierdo. En cortocircuito, todos los holons tienen cuatro cuadrantes a través del espectro entero, grueso a sutil a causal, y éste incluye " mind/consciousness " y un componente de " body/energy ".

De Quincey nos asegura que las " energías sutiles no caben en cualesquiera de los cuadrantes. " En el contrario, esos expertos de la sutil-energía que son más familiares con mi trabajo, incluyendo Larry Dossey y Michael Murphy, nos tienen indicado que un acercamiento de AQAL a estas energías pudo ser el acercamiento más cercano tienen que una teoría integral del sentido y de las energías sutiles.



CONCLUSIÓN

Hemos visto que, de los diez o de las ediciones tan principales que de Quincey trata en mi trabajo, él falsifica substancialmente cada de ellas. Tengo en cada uno de esos casos dados qué de Quincey dice, seguido por cotizaciones directas el míos que muestran lo que dije realmente, y los programas de lectura pueden ver para sí mismos las discrepancias que sacuden.

Obviamente, la pregunta se presenta en cuanto a porqué sucede ésta. Pondré cualquier motivación a un lado personal o profesional de de Quincey (realmente no le conozco), y en lugar de otro me centro en qué se parece a mí la suficiente razón de tal malentendido extenso de mi trabajo: el volumen escarpado del material. También tengo una tendencia a escribir en dos niveles -- el texto principal y los endnotes voluminosos, y mi nuanced a menudo la posición se entierra en los endnotes. Hay también el hecho de que intento constantemente incorporar la crítica en mi trabajo y alterar mis ideas basadas en la crítica responsable -- por lo tanto las cuatro fases principales de mi trabajo, con otros seguramente a seguir (así, la idea que alguien me critica cada vez yo demanda que me están entendiendo mal es absurda; si ése fuera el caso, nunca habría presentado cualquier modelo más allá de wilber-1. Even de Quincey reconoce que " Wilber tiene una manera de asimilar y de acomodar las lengüetas de sus críticos " -- un elogio backhanded para el hecho de que aprecio grandemente la crítica responsable y hace lo que yo la lata para fijar cualquieres problemas con mi presentación.) **time-out** pero éste a menudo significar que alguien dar uno ampollar ataque en,por ejemplo, wilber-2, y que ataque conseguir relanzar por otro quien ser intentar nudge mí fuera cuadro, con resultado que, a medida que editor uno guía Ken Wilber concluir, concluído 80% publicar y fijar crítica mi trabajo ser basar en malo él.

Keith Thompson ofrece lo que pienso soy dos críticas fuertes de la manera que escribo como contribuyendo a este problema. Creo que él está correcto en ambas cuentas.



Teniendo dicho todo el eso, encuentro Wilber el maddening? Sí. Seguramente no en todos los respectos, sino mucho tan en alguno. **time-out** molesto problema que yo tener encontrar en procurar para criticar Wilber trabajo ser que él a menudo indicar su real, detallado posición en uno asunto en vario obscuro endnotes extender por vario libro (éste ser cierto verdadero con su tratamiento Whitehead; también su teoría de la semiótica, de su postura real en intersubjectivity, de la olografía, del etc.). **time-out** entonces, puesto que en principal texto su libro, él intentar para ser más popular, él a menudo dar simplificar, popularizar, y por lo tanto a veces leve engañar cuenta su verdadero posición. Si usted desea criticarlo, critiqúelo para eso! Ha conseguido a toneladas de revisores en apuro verdadero, porque toman sus declaraciones popularizadas en el valor de cara. Por supuesto, los defensores de Wilber entonces se vuelven con las cotizaciones reales sobre su posición verdadera, cavada para arriba de algunos endnotes obscuros, y el revisor parece un idiota. Esto puede ser muy exasperando, pero aún, no excusa a críticos que falsifican su posición real o más sofisticada.

Discurso de los defensores de Wilber: Shambhala está a punto de agregar una nueva característica al dominio de Wilber del Web site de Shambhala. Va a ser llamado " reloj de Wilber, " y va a identificar malas representaciones de las opiniones de Wilber. Dije a un amigo que trabaja en Shambhala que esto se parecía a mí, bien, un dígito binario divertido. Él dijo en un sentido que él convino... pero entonces él me remitió muchas ilustraciones de las malas representaciones dichas, y franco me sorprendieron. La mayoría de los misreadings notorios implicados de Wilber trabajan, alguno de así que estudiado en sus conclusiones equivocadas que era duro no atribuir la mala fe a sus promulgators. A propósito, no solo de las " malas representaciones dichas " era simplemente una cuestión interpretaciones que alcanzaban del programa de escritura de las diversas que Wilber. Ken ha dicho en varias ocasiones que él no tiene ningún problema lo que con cualquier persona que alcanza diversas conclusiones que el suyo. He mirado muchos instituto integral que los participantes hacen eso repetidamente, a veces absolutamente vociferously discrepando con Ken. Cada hora, Ken ha cabeceado y ha dicho algo como, " diferencia justa de la interpretación.... Puedo ver cómo usted alcanza esa conclusión. "

En el mismo tiempo, Ken tiene un ojo muy afilado para " diversas interpretaciones de los datos " que son en hecho poco más que los misreadings (voluntariosos o no) de su trabajo. No culpo a Ken " defensores " por desear identificar éstos y sostenerlos hasta una audiencia ancha. (la sección de Wilber de Shambhala ha conseguido a más que millón de golpes ya este año.) Una crítica realmente buena y válida, se parece a mí, no debería intentar atacar su posición respecto a una sola edición (como la filosofía de la mente o del intersubjectivity), pero lo llama a la tarea para nunca producir un glosario definitivo. Para el trabajo separado hacia fuera como el suyo, eso es imperdonable. Pienso él o sus estudiantes está trabajando en uno (pasado oí que era 400 paginaciones), solamente él realmente las necesidades de ser golpeado con el pie en el asno para esto.



Punta *** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE *** taken. I have also decided that there is no real way out of this morass of misrepresentation unless I start teaching my material. De Quincey's article was the straw that broke this camel's back. It was so off the wall that I decided I really needed to take some sort of action.

Nor can I count on the editors at professional journals to help me out here (Bob Forman is a major exception), because they face the same difficulties as everybody else. The managing editor of JCS was sent a long email by Keith Thompson pointing out the many inaccuracies in de Quincey's article (portions of that email were reprinted above). The editor declined to do anything about it, or even to print Thompson's corrections. Nor did the editor show me de Quincey's article before it was published; nor did the editor offer me a chance to respond to these distortions. Again, I don't blame editors for this; I doubt that I would give much space to a whiney author who's always complaining "That's not what I said!"

The good news in all this is that it has spurred me to begin taking this material out in the world myself. This will also give people a chance to see me in the flesh, and thus decide if I am really the devil that their projections proclaim. (Of course, they might decide yes! But at least it will be based on real intersubjective impressions, not shadow projections.) I have already started doing this with Integral Institute, as Keith noted above, and we are starting a period in Integral Institute's history where this type of interaction will only be increasing.


Appendix A--My Criticism of Whitehead as True But Partial:
The Move from an Incomplete Dialogical View to an Integral/Quadratic Formulation

Although Alfred North Whitehead, according to the Encyclopedia of Philosophy , has had almost no impact on professional philosophy, he does have a small but loyal cult following, many of whom find in Whitehead a philosophy congenial to spiritual concerns. In many ways I am one of those fans. As I have often pointed out, I believe that when it comes to the microanalysis of moment-to-moment experience, Whitehead's notions are indispensable--notions such as prehension, concrescence, prehensive unification, "the many become one and are increased by one," the hierarchy of real occasions, the transcend and include nature of prehensions themselves, and so on.

But I have also suggested that, especially when it comes to the nature of intersubjectivity, Whitehead's view has the lingering impressions (and limitations) of British empiricism from which it arose (as Whitehead once put it: "Spend your days and nights with David Hume." Now when it comes to any sort of truly integral or AQAL formulation, David Hume is the last gentleman you want to spend much time with). The paradigm of British empiricism is an analysis of immediate experience of an object by a subject. That is, it is an investigation of monological occasions presented to the sensorimotor awareness (using "sensorimotor" to mean both the cognitive and affective dimensions of that level). I see the rock, I see a patch of red, I see an object--those are the occasions that form the basis of most of empiricism.

As usual, I am not saying that is wrong; I am suggesting it is very partial. The more I studied the positive aspects of postmodernism, the more I became convinced that in addition to the immediate and monological apprehension of an object by a subject, there were types of knowing and experiencing that, although never leaving a grounding in immediate experience, were so complex and sophisticated--and involved background cultural contexts that never entered awareness as an object that was once subject--that we needed to supplement immediate empirical knowing (or even immediate conceptual knowing) with interpretive, dialogical, paradoxical, ambiguous, intersubjective awareness, an intersubjectivity that is not just a result of the interaction between a prehending subject and other prehending subjects, but rather forms the priorly existing space or field in which both subject and object arise, after which , the subject then prehends the object in Whiteheadian process terms.

I am not saying that you can't take a Whiteheadian approach and stretch it to cover strong intersubjectivity; I am saying that it is better to start with intersubjectivity and derive Whiteheadian process as a limited subset of that prior field. In other words, instead of starting with the paradigm of "I see the rock"--which is the apprehension of a Right-Hand object by a Left-Hand subject--let us start with a quadratic formulation--which means that not just subjects and objects (or interiors and exteriors) go all the way down, but all four quadrants go all the way down . In this case, the Lower-Left quadrant (of intersubjectivity) plays a constitutive role in the formation of both the subject and the object (which then act to inform and alter the intersubjectivity, so that all four quadrants are mutually co-creating). All four quadrants equally conspire to result in what appears to be the simple "I see the rock," but in fact, both the "I" and "the rock" exist in cultural contexts, preconscious backgrounds, and intersubjective structures that do not themselves enter awareness when "I see the rock," and yet shape and form that prehension without that prehension ever even knowing it.

This is, of course, the standard critique of empiricism by hermeneutics, or the standard critique of Anglo-Saxon philosophy by Continental philosophy. The more I studied philosophers such as Heidegger, Nietzsche, Dilthey, Charles Taylor, Thomas Kuhn, Foucault, and a host of other interpretive philosophers, the more I became convinced that simple empirical knowing (the Left-Hand subject prehends a Right-Hand object) had to be supplemented by a four-quadrant analysis that gave equal emphasis to all four quadrants in the generation of immediate experience, and that the empiricists, by analyzing the picture only in its final stages, were missing several crucial ingredients.

My suggestion, then, is that instead of taking "I prehend the rock" (or "I prehend the concept") and pushing that down into the atoms of experience, we instead take the four quadrants and push those all the way down to the atoms of experience. In other words, the paradigm of prehension is not "I see the red patch," but rather, "I and the red patch arise in the space created (in part) by intersubjectivity, and once I and the red patch have arisen, then I see the patch in an immediate prehension." And ultimately , that intersubjectivity itself can exist--that is, subjects can participate in each other's immediate presence--because the agency of each subject opens directly onto nondual Spirit or pure Emptiness, so that, as I often put it, the agency of each holon acts as an opening or clearing in which other holons can manifest to each other, and that opening or clearing itself is (in part) a product of the four quadrants, so that a holon's culture (LL quadrant) is always already an intrinsic part of the holon's prehension of any objects. This is my attempt to include, all the way down, the enduring insights of the great postmodern writers, writers that, in Whitehead's time, were really just becoming well-known and well-respected.

Thus, I maintain (as explained in SES and elsewhere) that this four-quadrant space "goes all the way down" --because interiors and exteriors go all the way down, and so do singular and plural. This does not particularly contradict anything Whitehead said, but it is a richer, fuller, and more integral expression of the very nature of real occasions, which is not "Left-Hand subject prehends Right-Hand objects," but "All four quadrants arise mutually, the end result of which includes a subject prehending an object (physical, emotional, conceptual, etc.)."

Thus, even in Whitehead's notions of concrescence and prehensive unification, I do not detect a vivid understanding of strong intersubjectivity. Rather, using a merely Whiteheadian process philosophy, one must construct intersubjectivity (and true dialogical experience) from a repeated application of prehensive unifications and concrescences, all of which are to some degree after the fact. I believe this hampers Whiteheadian process philosophy from becoming a truly integral philosophy. By adopting a quadratic, instead of limited dialogical, approach, I am not denying Whitehead but enriching him.

(Interestingly, de Quincey himself maintains that Whitehead does not have a complete understanding of intersubjectivity. De Quincey mentions none of this in his attack on my work, presumably because he wants to use Whitehead--who "solved" the mind-body problem according to de Quincey--in order to beat me senseless, and thus it will not do for him to point out that Whitehead really doesn't understand intersubjectivity. The fact is, only a quadratic formulation can coherently push true or complete intersubjectivity all the way down, and therefore only a quadratic formulation can really handle the mind-body problem [#3a].)

My second objection is that if Whitehead is not "all-quadrant," he is not "all-level" either--he does not have access to a full map of the spectrum of consciousness. This is uncontested by Whitehead scholars (including de Quincey), so I won't dwell on it. My point is simply that, according to even de Quincey, Whitehead is neither all-quadrant nor all-level, and thus an AQAL formulation can "transcend and include" the important contributions of Whitehead without repeating his acknowledged limitations.

(Note also that because Whitehead does not write about the nondual wave of awareness, his writing does not have a solution to aspect #3b of the mind-body problem, either; and thus, once again, by moving to an AQAL formulation this final aspect of the mind-body problem can likewise be solved. I am aware of no other approach that offers plausible solutions to all four aspects of the mind-body problem.)

David Ray Griffin and I had an email exchange on some of the limitations of Whitehead's process philosophy, which is printed with his permission (this conversation was first published in the Introduction to volume 8 of the Collected Works ):

DG: "My only real problem with your discussion of Whiteheadian process thought is your criticism of it as monological....Each occasion is internally influenced by EVERY prior occasion and exerts influence on EVERY future occasion.... How much more relational could an ontology be? Indeed, some members of the camp refer to this as 'process-relational' thought. And some of us refer to this an 'ecological' view of the self...."

KW: "You can be ecological and relational and still be monological. Traditional systems theory, for example, is a relational and ecological model, but it is entirely in third-person it-language (monological). Most ecological sciences are monological. Almost all Gaia theories are monological. And to the extent that some Whiteheadians talk about I-it prehensifications--even in relational and ecological terms--they are often stuck in monological modes."

DG: "Regarding monological: it is true that a Whiteheadian subject prehends only 'objects.' But this is by definition: whatever is prehended by a subject is by definition an object for that subject. It does not imply 'objectivity' in the (dualist) ontological sense.... The objects of the elementary prehensions... are 'objects-that-had-been-subjects,' so that the prehension (or feeling) of them is a 'feeling of feelings.' So it seems very misleading to use the term monological...."

KW: "Well, it's tricky. For me, the intersubjective space is the background out of which the subject arises and in which the subject prehends objects, and that background permeates the subject (even if it entered as object), and then henceforth , as the new subject creatively emerges, it emerges in part from this intersubjectivity, and thus intersubjectivity at that point first enters the subject as part of the subject, not as an object-that-was-once-subject. This intersubjectivity is thus truly dialogical, not monological. Analogous to, e.g., somebody at moral-stage 5 will have his thoughts all arise within that space, but that structure was never an object, but rather forms part of the structure in which the new subject arises moment to moment, and thus enters the subject as prehending subject, not as prehended object that was once subject."

DG: "I think I see your point--that what you call real dialogue involves a more [quadratic] view of the self. But given the subtlety of the distinction between this and Whitehead's view, it seems misleading to characterize it as 'monological.' Why not distinguish between two kinds of dialogical positions--call yours 'complete' and call Whitehead's 'partial.'"

I also discussed with Griffin my belief that both subjectivity and intersubjectivity arise ultimately from nondual Spirit as the real Self of all holons (see below). He again agreed that this could not be easily accommodated in a Whiteheadian system, and he again suggested I refer to Whitehead's view as "incomplete" and mine as "complete" in this regard.

I think that is a good idea, and so I will repeat that I believe that enriching Whitehead's partial view with a more complete, quadratic view of experience allows us to move towards a much more integral framework for Kosmic occasions.

Keith Thompson brings his own reflections on a more integral approach to these issues:

I enthusiastically recommend the writing of Sean Hargens, especially his brilliant paper called Integrating Whitehead: Towards an Environmental Ethic . It is hard to disagree with Sean's insight that Whitehead deserves tremendous credit as a unique historical who broke with the scientific materialism of recent centuries. His philosophy of organism is such a radical break that it is only in the last twenty years that an intellectual climate has emerged allowing Whitehead's work to be received by a wider audience. At the same time, it's clear to me that Whitehead has limitations, and to me these are important because today it is possible to fill in the blanks and extend Whitehead's enterprise. This is not possible in a context where it is seen as of fundamental importance to defend Whitehead, in the sense that many avowed "Whiteheadians" seem constrained to do. Likewise, I have never understand the impulse of "Aurobindonians" to say that Aurobindo's system is "complete." (It is not. Wilber has identified weak areas and fleshed them out impressively.) Heidegger was clearly a Nazi sympathizer. That fact cannot, I believe, rightly be used to attack Being and Time . However, neither can one's appreciation for that book explain away Heidegger's shameless toadying to Hitler.

Let me close out with a few observations about the issues at play regarding Whitehead, beginning with remaining issues in the Wilber-Griffin colloquy.

Griffin says (to Ken), "My only real problem with your discussion of Whiteheadian process thought is your criticism of it as monological...." I found this to be quite telling. Here Griffin doesn't take issue with Ken's criticism of what Ken argues to be Whitehead's incomplete holarchy. This is where Wilber's all-quadrants, all-levels, all-lines approach is quite useful. By using AQAL, you can create a more accurate holarchy of compound individuals in both the Upper Right--atoms to molecules to cells to neural cords to triune brain, etc.--and therefore get a much more accurate holarchy of interiors in Upper Left--prehension to sensation to perception to symbols to concepts to rules to formop to vision-logic to subtle, etc.--and therefore you escape reductionism of all interiors to (mere) prehension. Griffin didn't challenge that at all.

Sean Hargens demonstrates that Whitehead reduces all interiority to prehension: the preconscious experience of a subject "feeling" another subject (as object). Now it's true that Whitehead does explore a variety of prehensions (conceptual, hybrid, impure, negative, and physical) but it seems to me that at the end of the day these are all shades of the same color. With astonishing clarity, Sean shows how Whitehead doesn't fully develop or appreciate the many types of interiority that emerge after prehensions. This takes nothing away from my appreciation of Whitehead, who after all was writing before the major insights of developmental psychology had come onto the scene.

Sean's treatment also makes clear that Whitehead's inability to distinguish the many variations of interiority is a form of reductionism because it collapses all interiors into the concept of prehension (complex as this concept is). Expand interiors beyond the limited (though insightful) notion of prehensions, and a hierarchy of interiors becomes apparent. This hierarchy of interiors (subjectivity) has correlates in the exterior (objective) dimensions of form and it is important to acknowledge these parallel and equivalent hierarchies. Which of course brings us to Wilber's mappings (AQAL). The relationship between the levels in each of these hierarchies is one of "transcend and include" as Wilber famously puts it. Whitehead captures this with his adage: "The many become one and are increased by one."

Whitehead's account is incomplete in an important way because he fails to honor the complexity of interiority in all its varieties. Sean is generous when he notes that it is problematic to assign the concept of "prehension" (the basic unit of interiority) to all exteriors, as Whitehead tends to do. The interior-exterior relationship complexifies with evolution; I don't feel this understanding coursing through Whitehead's intellectual bloodstream. One also needs to account for the post-rational stages of interiority (e.g., the realms discussed at length by such traditions as Buddhism and Vedanta). Whitehead doesn't do this, which is understandable, since there is not a hint of evidence that he had any rigorous practice for opening experientially to trans-rational domains. (Aurobindo did and Wilber does.) Nor, apparently, did Whitehead read widely in those areas. Well, we all have our blind spots....

There is, finally, the "ultimate" meaning of the mind-body problem (#3b) and its relation to "ultimate intersubjectivity." I maintain that any sort of genuine and immediate intersubjectivity can only be derived from nondual consciousness or nondual Spirit. The reason is that, in the relative or manifest dimension, there is no simultaneous subject-to-subject presence , as Whitehead clearly explained. Whitehead pointed out that any actual occasion can only prehend its descendents, not its contemporaries. The reason is that every form of communication from one subject to another must enter the stream of time and travel to the other subject; by the time it reaches the other subject, the immediate present is gone, and thus the other subject prehends only the past (perception and memory being essentially synonymous). Thus, for Whitehead, there is no simultaneous Presence for any two subjects.

(De Quincey does not answer this objection of Whitehead's; de Quincey merely asserts, without any argument or evidence, that he, de Quincey, has a strong form of simultaneous subject-to-subject presence. But without postulating some sort of faster-than-light information transfer, he cannot get around Whitehead's argument.)

This is where the nondual traditions have much to offer. For these traditions, simultaneous subject-to-subject presence is possible because ultimately there is only one Subject (Atman, Buddhamind, Godhead). This means that each subject in the relative, manifest dimension, although prevented from having simultaneous presence in the relative realm (for precisely the reasons outlined by Whitehead), nonetheless possesses an immediate subject-to-subject simultaneous Presence in the ultimate or nondual dimension. Because there is ultimately only one Subject, then genuine intersubjectivity on the relative plane has an ultimate grounding. The reason is exactly as Erwin Schroedinger, cofounder of quantum mechanics, put it: "Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown." Because there is only one "nondual Mind," then all relative minds can possess immediate "touching" or simultaneous Presence, something that Whitehead's view cannot explain or even allow.

According to the nondual traditions, as this nondual Spirit or Mind "steps down" into the relative, manifest plane, each individual mind or subject remains nonlocally and immediately in touch with other minds or subjects (all the way down), which is why, among other things, knowledge of other minds is possible. Once on the manifest or relative dimension, then the relative forms of intersubjectivity arise (three of which were outlined by de Quincey, and four or five of which I outlined). But all of them can exist primarily because of the nondual ultimate nature of consciousness itself, which is "a singular the plural of which is unknown." This is the final and radical meaning of intersubjectivity (namely, grounded in nondual Spirit), and this is likewise the fourth and ultimate meaning of the mind-body problem and its "solution" (namely, awaking to the one Mind or nondual Spirit, which is "not-two, not-one"). My simple suggestion is that all four or five of these meanings and their solutions ought charitably to be included in any integral approach to these important issues.

For further reflections on this issues, see Sean Hargens, "Intersubjective Musings," posted at wilber.shambhala.com/html/watch/042301_intro.cfm .


Appendix B: Intersubjective Nuances (by Sean Hargens)

Figure 1: Intersubjectivity as (Cultural) Context
Definition
The structures created by intersubjective meshworks, which are unavailable as an object. These structures are constitutive of the subject.
Examples
Structures include: Linguistic, ethical, cultural, aesthetics, and syntactic. [9]
Thinkers
Foucault, Derrida, Saussure, and Heidegger.


Figure 2: Intersubjectivity as Resonance
Definition
The degree of "mutual understanding" between two holons based on the degree in which depth and span-domains are shared and similar.

Divisions
Depth-Domain: The degree of depth (vertical axis) of the Kosmos
represented.
Worldspaces: Unconscious resonance between two subjects who
share physical and/or emotional domains.
Worldviews: Conscious resonance between two subjects who share a
subjective level of psychological development.*
Span-Domain: The amount of span or width (horizontal axis) of the
Kosmos represented.
Including: culture, language,
Thinkers
Gebser, Elgin, Schutz, Aurobindo, and Habermas
* See Figure 2.5 for the three dimensions within the concept "worldview."

Figure 2.5: Dimensions of a Worldview
Intersubjective
The cultural worldview resulting from the average level of development of any given culture at any time.
Subjective
The personal worldview resulting from the average level of development of an individual. Can either be in sync with the general culture, but can be both higher and lower then that.
Objective
The level of reality that an individual chooses to focus on with their subjective worldview.*
*This process results in a cartography of over two dozen worldviews.

Figure 3: Intersubjectivity as (Phenomenological) Space
Definition
The felt-experience of dimensions of intersubjectivity.
Divisions
Resonance: How one experiences the depth and span they share with other holons.
Relationships: How one experiences relationship with other subjects.
Spirit: How one experiences the ground of Being.
Thinkers
Husserl, Schutz, Grof, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Abram
*Recall, intersubjective structures are not available to felt-experience, rather this is refers to how one experiences their culture

Figure 4: Intersubjectivity as Relationships
Definition
The way we identify and have relationships with other subjects/objects.
Divisions
It-It: An objective subject in relationship with an objective object.
I-It: A subject in relationship with an object.
I-I: A subject in relationship with a subject.
Solidarity: Relating to another subject because they mirror you (e.g.,
your values, creed, ethnicity, nationality, gender).
Difference: Relating to another subject as a subject despite the fact
that they are different from you in important ways.
Thinkers
Kegan, Irigaray, Benjamin, Buber and Whitehead


Figure 5: Intersubjectivity as Spirit
Definition
The transcendental quality to the relationship that allows for any dimension of intersubjectivity to manifest.
Divisions
All four dimensions: Context, resonance, space, and relationship.
Thinkers
Wilber, Emerson, Schopenhauer

PART I | PART II | PART III | PART IV | NOTES



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