wakka wakka
Along lines near to the previous post’s, I’ve been looking for critiques of Ken Wilber. This one is one of the better-written and less prone to ad hominem arguments that I’ve found so far, though do not find it convincing. The author’s reading of Wilber is not my reading of Wilber. Props for the title though: “Bald Ambition.” Funny. =)
For example,
The question of values is as vexed as the question of knowledge within the synthesis. The fundamental value underlying Wilber’s criteria for determining differing levels of advancement in his integral hierarchy is a simple one: more is better. The more emergent features that a holon has the higher it is in his hierarchy. Yet it is never explained why more is better and suspiciously leads to a supreme valuation of humanity.
That’s not quite what I understood Wilber to be saying. Wilber provides two dimensions of value, not just one. Holons may be more or less significant and also more or less fundamental. There is hence value both in breadth across the holarchy and in depth “up” into the holarchy.
The bacteria basically running the biosphere on this planet, for example, are less significant than humans, it is true, but they are far more fundamental. How one finds a specific value for these bacteria in a specific situation is not given, that I’ve found in my (admittedly limited) reading. Wilber gives no specific algorithm, but seems only to suggest that these dimensions may be used for a value system that has greater nuance than those coming before. I am inclined to agree.
When compared to a human life, the life of a single or a colony of bacteria seems to have less value: the colony has little breadth, and little depth. The relative depth of the single human holon would tip the value in his or her favor.
When compared to a human life, the value of the entire ecological system of bacteria is clearly more valuable: it still has little depth, but enormous breadth. That system is fundamental to everything which is more inclusive: humans, plants, cows, alligators, and roaches all depend on bacteria for existence. To destory every bacterium would be to destroy the entire holarchy that depends upon them. (Thankfully it seems unlikely I’ll ever have to act on such a judgement, personally.)
So Wilber’s value system suggests — compellingly, in my view — that bacteria should be honored, yet the life of a single bacteria is not morally equivalent to the life of a single human, as many people’s “flat” system of value would force them to argue, possibly even against their better intuition.
“More is better” is a very weak formulation of Wilber’s notions of value in holarchy. Bit of a straw man, really.
But that was a tangent; sorry. Doesn’t actually have much bearing on the previous post. This does:
This distinction between thinking and being raises a more subtle point regarding Wilber’s entire project. While he wants his thinking to validate and promote an essentially spiritual insight, all of Wilber’s work takes place in the realm of thought. The writings are ideas written in language and argued with reasons. He argues for a spiritual insight that grasps the essence of existence, yet the arguments and the whole of his system is a thought which owes its existence to the realm of thinking. While Wilber uses language to claim that spiritual experience grasps the whole, it is, in practical reality, his thinking which attempts to grasp the whole in the form of his system. Without the printed page, the spoken word, the thoughts that create them and the language that allows them all to exist there is no integral synthesis, no understanding at all. In Wilber’s work it is mind that grasps the Kosmos not spirit.
This is interesting to me. The basic issue is that, if we assume Wilber is operating in good faith, then he has the task of, in a sense, projecting a three-dimensional map onto a two-dimensional surface. If there is no way to fully capture trans-intellectual structure with intellectual, rational, thought-structure, what does one do? Not make the attempt?
Map-makers and map-readers are (or should be) well aware of the fact that flat maps of the earth will unavoidably be distorted. There is no way around this by virtue of the geometry of the situation. This does not stop anyone from making or using maps. If we take Wilber’s world-view at face value, from within our “two-dimensional” intellectual space, we must expect some degree of distortion.
And it turns out, I think, that Wilber is an extremely talented map-maker. (The map-maker part is his own characterization, in fact.) His writing has been described as “hypnotic” and that’s a pretty good description for a couple of my own experiences reading him. I have twice had a sense I can only describe as “altered” awareness while reading some passages. One was explicitly intended to lead the reader into it (you learn after reading it), the other was not explicit about it. I won’t say (here in the intellectual plane) that these experiences validate Wilber’s model or suggest anything other than talent, but having one’s awareness altered in a novel way by reading words on a page is impressive, in my view. If Wilber is operating in good faith, and his map of trans-intellectual, trans-personal space is “entirely in the realm of thought,” using the flat medium of “the printed page, the spoken word, the thoughts that create them and the language that allows them,” then he is using that medium beyond anything I’ve ever seen before. He writes in three-dimensional renderings, not crude diagrams.
If he is not operating in good faith, then either his proposition that there is a trans-intellectual, trans-personal domain is wrong and the two-dimensional intellectual plane is all there is, or the world is in fact round, but Wilber’s projection of it is simply wrong or intentionally misleading.
Personally, I understand the world to be round. Wilber’s projection of it is pretty whiz-bang neat, but it will unavoidably have distortions. Arguments about the projection are hence not really the point, since no projection is geometrically capable of being isomorphic to the “reality.” On the other hand, there is of course no harm in making such arguments, and better projections may be possible in the future.