The Legacy of Integral, Rebel Wisdom Podcast
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 มิ.ย. 2024
- Rebel Wisdom recently released a series of films with the philosopher Ken Wilber, creator of Integral theory, a 'theory of everything', which became highly influential in the 1990s and 2000s.
In this Rebel Wisdom podcast, we look at what Integral has to add to the new emergent conversation.
It accompanies our interview with Jamie Wheal, also called The Legacy of Integral: • Jamie Wheal: The Legac...
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Ken Wilber is the OG IDW. Discovered his writing in 2004 by reading "A Theory of Everything", connected so many dots in my mind and further allowed seemless movement between systems of thought that I learned later on. It's really a staggeringly effective way of categorizing how dimensions of knowing, theorizing and philosophizing can talk to each other, elucidating their own perspective in the process.
The post-modernists trepidation with psychogical stages of development, in my view, has been more in theory than in actual harm done, and to add to that, the truth of stages of development has done extraordinarily good and understanding others and actually allowing a more sincere form of connection and compassion.
Really excited to see Integral stepping into this conversation, it's really been long over-due since Wilber has so accurately pointed out and predicted the affect the unfoldment of the post-modern influence would have in society and culture.
Also highly recommend "Integral Spirituality", "The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion", "The Religion of Tomorrow" and "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality".
This guy needs to go on Rogan. He gets it. Great conversation. I found myself nodding my head in agreement consistently throughout. Excellent.
I'd like to see Wilber go on. Since I've listened to Rogan, I've hoped he would become aware of Wilber's work and ask him to be on. Rogan has an interest in everything Wilber talks about and he's not afraid to go down the rabbit hole.
You guys seem to be reading my mind all the time. One of my first thoughts after I settled down after discovering Jordan was of Ken Wilbur. I was very happy to see you interview Ken and hear him integrate Jordan into his own thinking. Thanks. David, you're another one I feel grateful to.
If you listen to the JBP /Camille Paglia interview you'll see near the beginning Jordan was a sort of stunned when she said that the best stuff in the 60s was happening off-campus. Ken Wilber was a med school drop out from the elitist postmodern campus scene and found his home in the bourgeoning East/West Allan Watts/Yogananda etc. movement.
This is so incredibly fascinating! So I've been studying integral theory to a moderate degree for about 5 years. I also became very interested in Peterson's work on science, psychology, and religion when I first encountered it and took a deep dive. Then I discovered Rebel Wisdom and loved your content from the start. More recently with Wilber's interviews, honestly I was struck and excited by everything feeling like it was coming together. As soon as you identified some of these trends with the IDW as an "integral conversation," it seemed clearly obvious to me that the common fascination I've had for years with Wilber and more recently with IDW and RW is bringing these major historical worldviews and paradigms of knowledge together more successfully. And it is also my sense that a major shift in this appears to be a reintegration of our ancient wisdom traditions. Couldn't agree more about that. That's my sense too. Keep up your great work!
Newbie here , forgive me what's IDW , RW?
Okay I think RW is rebel wisdom..
Robert Kegan (leading Developmental Psychologist) interview in April - yes!!
Rebel Wisdom is to sense-making structure (both emergent & ancient) as blockchain is to truth verification - decentralized and immutable. Great work guys, keep it up.
Love this channel, amazing
at about 17:40 - decentralized collective intelligence (and for a little bit after) - Ivan Illich might be helpful here. His wisdom on relational scale is really good. In his books 'Deschooling Society' and 'Tools for Conviviality' and his discussions with David Caley on 'The Corruption of Christianity', he really gets at the heart of the genius of the western wisdom traditions in their non-institutional form. The real power of intellectual investigation comes when in a mode of sacrificial love and relational proximity. His foresight in the 60s on cooperative learning in community was kinda like a yelp concept pre-web for voluntary education.
Thank you!
I see Integral as the *only way* beyond the culture war. We have to believe that Second Tier thinking (Yellow MEME then Turquoise MEME) can be a reality - "transcend and include" as Wilber says, although "include and transcend" seems slightly more logical to me. We absorb the insights of the Petersonian Jungian types and the SJWs and transcend both (and all the rest of the history of thought too). I'm a huge admirer of Ken Wilber - including his AQAL model. But let's recall that Spiral Dynamics (possibly the Integral movement's most potent tool) in its clearest form comes from Beck and Cowan - articulating the work of Dr C. Graves, which itself is influenced by the work of Jean Gebser etc. An excellent discussion, guys. Very relevant.
Be curious of your perceptions of Douglas Rushkoff's work. "Team Human" seemed pretty holistic and relevant to this discussion as well.
Hi David and Alexander. It's great to see a critique! And it's good to hear about theories regarding non communication due to polarity and the models Ken uses. Jamie comments I think might be a bit premature with regards to Ken and a little academic. Perhaps the best way to it is sort of like a complex dance of ideas that Ken plays with in which case it seems only proper to interact with it either as wonderment or as participant, both of which feel welcomed. And it's that inclusivity I admire.. Certainly one which I very much feel as a member of Rebel Wisdom. The Invitation to the dance. Its a great way to form a community and organisation. Thanks guys.
It's great to see Integral having a moment again. Wilber is great on psycho-socio aspects of culture. He does drift into magical thinking with his thoughts on physics and evolution which I find it's best to ignore. One exciting legacy of Integral is the spawning of the Metamodern perspective by Daniel Görtz which eschews the woo of Wilber and applies 2nd tier thinking to present day political practice. Read the book The Listening Society for more on that.
Listen to Jaimie Wheal concerning an Integral/IDW convergence. I remember the emergence of the "who is integral and who isn't" conversation early on in the emergence of the "Integral Movement" in the early 2000's here in Western Washington State USA. =)
Currently reading A brief History of Everything. Its a fascinating read and one can see its wisdom. But yeah I can imagine that hubris could develop in the pursuit of reaching a new step. I knew basically nothing of the history and what happened with it prior to listening to these 2 videos.
I heard David and Jeff Salzman talking about the documentary with Ken Wilber, and I am particularly interested in seeing the animation in the beginning. How do I see this animation?
If you want to simplify your "shadow", just realize it's a tool. Here's a thought experiment for practice:
Time is simply a method for observing the ratios between multiple series of events. No events, no Time.
That's very insightful.
@@consciously73 My humble thanks to you, for the compliment.
I am indignant about the fact that this simple definition has been twisted and misused so badly, that most people don't realize what Time is anymore. Instead of a simple tool that has brought civilization incredible synchronicity and efficiency, the priest class, who common people must trust, are using circular arguments to make them believe that Time is a dimension, and part of a dimension that bends and curves and serves as the explanation for Gravity. Not having a force to cause an object to "fall" "down" on of these curves, hasn't stopped them one bit. A stretched out blanket, some balls, and (drumroll) Gravity are used to explain how gravity works in 3D, which is the real limit to spatial dimensions anyway.
What strikes me is the notion that authoritarianism trumps very high intelligence, in many cases, so easily.
When Einstein got rid of the electric force, with no explanation, in his Cosmological theories, we must realize that he was put on a pedestal by the media and is, to this day, the picture of genius in schools, introduced at an age too young for any relevance.
Never mind that Gravity is 39 zeros weaker, they demand that this puny force keeps galaxies coherent, and will create an infinite number of bandaids (black holes, dark matter, dark energy, etc) which are all just names for mathematical variables that we must trust are what the Priest Class tells us they are.
Nevermind that we have measured galactic scale magnetic fields.
This is what happens when we let thought leaders run wild on their hamster wheels. They also have endless arguments about the false dichotomy between collectivism and individualism, for instance. This is one of the largest divide and conquer psyops, ever, IMO.
We know institutions lie to maintain and increase power. But, they also create a dichotomy between science and reality, so that we think there's no corruption, propaganda (can you even count the number of standard model BS PR agents in the media?) in Science, because of its intrinsically validating methodology. They must have one ingredient for this to work. It's the phrase:
"Math is THE language of physics. "
Math is certainly useful. But its complexity is overused to create learned helplessness in all those who aren't at the top of the math pyramid. Even the natural sciences, which are in silos, contained by Big Daddy, Big Bang, Bunch of BS Cosmology.
Sometimes it's better to start understanding reality in our own mother tongues, because, as you can see from the explanation of Time, above, it makes a hell of a lot more sense.
Authoritarianism is our biggest problem. Thought leaders are just another symptom.
Thanks again, for your consideration.
Robert Diggins how beautiful! Thank you for sharing. One of the many things I took away from Gebsers take on time is a view that anyone who says they don’t have time is simultaneously saying they have no soul. He saw time as an intensity that you can integrally see through rather than a dividing force. This seems to allow an increased transparency that moves us toward a more clear truth.
@@MHAFOOTBALL (I just got interrupted, at the conclusion of a long response, accidentally touched something on my phone, and when I looked at it again, it gave me the choice to discard or continue writing. As my thumb was in motion to "continue writing", the format of my screen changed from horizontal to vertical and my thumb hit the location where "Discard" was repositioned. Ugh. So, now, I'll try to remember, but will need to make this more concise. Maybe it will be better. )
Thank you for your response.
I think the definition of Time as a method, rather than a reified object of some type, underlies the concepts you brought up about Time, the Soul, and Intensity. This can be realized by comprehending that even Descartes' famous revelation reveals the method of Time. Even thinking is made of events. So, I don't believe one can get rid of Time.
That said, the ideas are poetic and must have had some meaning to the author and audience, even if inherently misinformed.
I originally expounded on the cultural variations of these concepts and compared them to "Eskimos having x number of words for snow".
We should realize that Time was propagandized by Einstein and the media which promoted him. This sophistry has created a struggle for us to contend with observations by those who are isolated, experience sensory deprivation, or other altered states of consciousness. These are observations of Time not being a constant.
This led me to consider the eternal quest for "smallest meaning"units, whether in Time or Space, which I think will be ultimately unsatisfactory and offered my poetry "walking the Planck ". (Even atomic clocks on satellites need to be adjusted. I recently heard pulsars are more dependable. There will be endless discoveries of finer accuracy. )
So, I'm not a fan of quantum physics, but I can see some usefulness in quantization, even if it cannot be entirely accurate.
That's it for now. My first draft was better, but I'm colloquially "out of time". And that can help us remember why we describe some cultures as "not living by the clock".) IOW, I got shit to do ;)
Thanks again. I'm sorry, this could have been better, and thanks again for your consideration and feedback.
Great introduction, guys! WWIt seems that you could be the way to help the integral map to get out into the world more quickly than so far.
Yes, I totally agree that integral originally is too much heady and discussions about who is where, and also that the next step is building connections and exploring the topics together, from an integral perspective. I have created an integral chat peer group on video where we learn together to understand our experience and the world , and I am also doing conversations with interesting people from an integral perspective where the way of being and talking is meant to convey integral and not so much theoretical speak. I think that is what you referred to in this video, right?
For anyone enjoying Robert Kegan, Wilbur and Vervaeke, you should definitely seek David Chapman and his site meaningness.com. He's an AI researcher and buddhist scholar (although not a buddhist) who's a very deep thinker and who's main preoccupation is "meaning".
It's interesting I think to filter this through Jamie Wheal's conversation.
Sex, ecology & spirituality by Ken Wilber. Now that’s a Book.
Lol.... no matter what community you develop, there will always be shittalking... “That was very first tier of you.”
Integral smack talk.
What are the possibilities of having these dialogues with subtitles ie in Turkish language which would help most Asian to understand the talks and gain perception expansion from them?!
An argument against Buddhism and regressive beliefs.
The entire field of cognitive sciences, psychology, evolutionary biology, developmental psychology, and human neurology are important sciences and theories for understanding the evolution of consciousness in human beings. Developmental Psychology is a useful tool for helping people understand human development, the process of emotional maturity, self differentiation, individuation, the growth of awareness, agency and personal responsibility. It is however only a map. I have some issues with people like Ken Wilbur, John Vervaeke and the philosophies they promote. Their reliance on Hinduism and especially Buddhism is very dangerous. These philosophies are full of illogical ideas, contradictions, superstition, and dangerous beliefs. The story we are told is that because of corruption among the intellectual class and abuse by religious and political authorities their was need for a new philosophy which would serve and unite humanity. Thus Buddhism was born. Buddhism was a bridge between the old gods of the Vedic Pantheon and an emerging understanding of human consciousness. This may have been mankind's earliest attempt at understanding human nature, consciousness and psychology from a non religious perspective. However, because of the need to appeal to the minds of people in South Asia at the time of its inception buddhist philosophy retains many ideas born in Hindu beliefs. I have studied both philosophies extensively and feel qualified to speak on the matter. Hindus believe in the soul. They believe that the soul is eternal and that the body is a temporary condition. That consciousness is our true nature. That the soul is the origin of consciousness and our identification with the body is an illusion. They believe that humans are born in this world to suffer and learn from their suffering, eventually evolving from their animal nature into higher states of consciousness. According to Hindus the goal of life is to transcend the world and liberate oneself from the hell of reincarnation and worldly existence. In my opinion this is a gross misunderstanding and cowardice. As with many religions the reward for the faithful is a blessed afterlife among the gods. Some traditions believe in merging back into the Godhead. Others believe that we are God is disguise hidden even from ourselves having an earthly experience waiting to reawaken to our true nature. Other traditions or sects of Hindus believe in a return to an autonomous and intimate relationship with the Supreme Deity in an anthropomorphic paradise. All of these philosophies are seen as regressive in the opion of many scientists, anthropologists and psychologists. I would agree. These ideas are born out of our need to understand existence, the universe and our humanity. They are attempts to assuage us from our terror of death, our fear of the world and our need to explain the unknown. We create Gods whom we can pray too. Gods who will save us from calamity and gives us eternal life. Buddhism sought to dismantle the power that the priestly class held over society because of these superstitious beliefs. This was a necessary step in the psychological evolution of humanity. Buddhism teaches us to cultivate self awareness. It teaches people to understand social conditioning, values, beliefs and their impact on our behavior. That our fear, desires, impulses, psychological complexes and instincts disrupt and distort our ability to see reality as it truly is. It is only when we are able to think and see clearly that we can act in a way that is helpful to ourselves and others. Mindfulness, compassion and justice are wonderful concepts but are not original to Buddhist thought. These are all good things, where Buddhism fails however is in its reliance on the idea of reincarnation and karma. Ideas which are illogical and can only be supported if you were retain the idea of the soul and some form of Godhead. Buddhism fails to give us a clear understanding of what Nirvana ultimately is. Buddhist philosophy is essentially Nihilistic. The concept of "Anatma" or no self, no soul, is illogical and contradictory. Buddhists believe that the world is entirely unreal and unsubstantial, an illusion born of the mind. The world is "Maya". This is a term borrowed from Hinduism. They believe that existence does not proceed consciousness. That existence is born from consciousness. That there is no essence or soul. They believe that the mind is an illusion and that existence is essentially empty, nothing but a mirage or phantasmagoria. This makes absolutely no sense.The philosophical concept of "Mutually Dependent Co-Arising" of the world and consciousness is illogical and does not withstand any firm scrutiny. If my body is an illusion, my soul a fabrication of human imagination (which may be true) and the world is unreal than how do we have any experience at all. Even if everything we experience is an illusion or limited by our imperfect senses the fact that we are having any experience whatsoever would lead one to the realization that we do in fact exist. All experiences needs an experiencer. You cannot have a dream without a dreamer. The Buddhists believe there is no distinct self. That the mind is nothing more than the sum total or aggregate of the senses and therefore an illusion. They also believe that the world is unreal and exists only in our mind. These two concepts are incompatible and negate one another. How can the world be a self created illusion that exists only in the mind when the mind is a product of the senses. This is a circular argument and becomes nothing more than a useless philosophical exercise. How can you get something from nothing (perhaps by preaching nonsense and fooling people into following you). There seems to be a lack of healthy distance between subject and object in this philosophy. It is contradictory and narcissistic. We are intimately connected to our environment. Dose our consciousness have an impact on ourselves and the world around us, yes. Does the world influence us, yes. Do we influence the world, yes. Are we driven by our most basic instincts, yes. Are we able to sublimate our primal urges and innate narcissism into wonderful works of art and feats of scientific discovery, absolutely. It is a huge mistake to however to abandon reality and our primal humanity. Religion psychically castrates us from our most fundamental state of being. We are socially conditioned to be ashamed of our humanity and to fear our primal selves. This then becomes a massive shadow. So much so that we scapegoat others and project our darkness, fear and rage out onto the world. There is a real and present danger in philosophies and religions that encourage pathology and distortions in human perception and behavior. Merging with the "transcendent void" is a dead end that leads to pessimism, passivity, nihilism, narcissism, enmeshment, and disassociation. It is regressive, and drags us back into the dark mother complex. All of these are antithetical to our psychological development, acceptance of our human condition and evolution as a species.
Great essay, I enjoyed reading it, especially where you explained the Hindu influence on Buddhism. I'm a little confused by this part though: "There seems to be a lack of healthy distance between subject and object in this philosophy."
Because you go on to explain that we influence the world and the world influences us. I dont understand how those would fit together?
What do you think?
Thanks!
@@madgoldnz In developmental psychology there is a term called magical thinking. It describes the Child's innate narcissism. Children believe the world revolves around them and that they are the center of the universe. That everything in their world is an extension of themselves starting with their mother. They believe that the world exists exclusively to serve their needs. As the child grows a healthy mother will slowly ween her child from this belief. People who did not receive appropriate emotional attunement and attention from their mother and father will suffer from developmental arrest. This can be corrected in adulthood. Sadly often times this does not happen and people can become stuck. They lack the ability to understand what things they have influence over what things they do not. They have delusions of grandeur and entitlement coupled with superstitious beliefs about the extent of their influence. This can also go in the opposite direction as well where they believe that they completely lack any agency at all. That is a brief description, for more I would recommend reading books about childhood development and disorders of the personality.
Your criticism here is all over the place and largely incoherent- When you say "religion psychically castrates us from our most fundamental state of being" - that's a huge claim, because you have to pinpoint exactly what that "fundamental state of being" *is*.
@@yeaown8139 If you are too stupid to understand what was very clearly expressed there is no point in explaining.
An Integral koan: you are more integral than anybody else. Yet all the women are rejecting you. Who's got the problem?
@* *hits student w trans•integral stick* *
Earning a dollar, EH!
psychohistory?
Isn't the IDW just philosophy on the internet? I don't see any need for these mysteriously captivating jargon terms just to describe interesting discourse.
At the root of a philosophy, it must be simple and expand from there so as to be accessible to all within the group. Narrative is the only way to impart this knowledge to all. Integral does not seem to meet this base/simple requirement for it to create and work for a society/culture.
I think you're trying to re-invent a new religion...Oh!
I wish you didn’t put so much emphasis on integral theory. It seems closer to a kind of new age, pseudo scientific framework than anything useful.
that's because you're almost certainly unfamiliar with it and describing your vague projected "feel" of it.
"new age, pseudo scientific framework"
They said the same about Alan Watts, Terence McKenna, and Jordan Peterson among many others.. I'll judge for myself after I read some of his books.
Zack Lyle it is certainly true for McKenna though he is a wonderfully poetic thinker. Don’t know much about Watts. I have studied Peterson and he is deep, coherent and based on solid science. Ken seems to have theories and diagrams and is quite pleasant but his thought is basic and speculative. Anyways that is just my opinion! Don’t get angry with me 🙂
@@erfeyah1401 The only way to have an opinion that means anything is to familiarize yourself. We have a real problem on youtube of people giving ungrounded opinions.
Zack Lyle I have watched the interviews at Rebel Media and examined the diagrams presented. I can see, from the previous video, that Ken does not understand Peterson’s view on truth. I am expressing my current opinion with a fair amount of confidence though I don’t expect anyone to take for granted that I know what I am talking about. This comment was mostly intended to be a voice of disagreement for Rebel Media and other commenters to see as most people are very happy to put attention to Wilber’s framework instead of the more difficult, but I would claim far superior, Peterson’s exposition. Just my two cents I suppose. If you want to go into details on Wilbers framework I am happy to chat 🙂
Inside baseball indeed. Nothing more boring than listen to people geeking out on KW. The elitist jargon is just bad as Derrida. So glad that "Kendalf" is getting the recognition he so deserves.
too many words Wake up
You are going far off topic with this. I hope its not the hill you die on.
Although its quite apparent the utility that can be gained from an understanding of these different ways of thinking, to propose the solution of 'integration' is nieve and ill-thought out.
Many of the frameworks you propose to integrate are in contradiction at their very core. How can you integrate the scientific approach with post modernist critique? Science says things are provable(quite correctly). Post modern suggest nothing can be known, or everything is simultaneously true.
To integrate scientific approach with religion is also foolish. They undermine each other at their very core. One holds logic and fact as the most important, the other belief, faith and feelings.
RW's claim that science ignores these inner beliefs and feelings is also quite a strawman, as science just currently has not much to say on the matter (gaps of knowledge that continually get filled by one particular way of thinking).
Evidence, reason, knowledge; these are the tools we should promote, none of this wish washy we're all correct together. These are the only tools that have led to advancements in our species. A lot of your proposed 'integrated' thinking is backwards, and will be detrimental.
Why do you never talk about the age of enlightenment? When science and reason reigned supreme, and we made massive advances in science, technology, civil rights, art, literature. Post modernism turns us into snide , snarky people that do nothing and criticize everything.
In most of these videos, and comment after comment people are claiming people like me are just ill informed about integral and we're lacking information. Yet I have not seen any good arguments. If so feel free to prove me wrong. But this is far too close to L. Ron Hubbard or Joseph Smith for my liking.