On another thread I recently posted a very entertaining rant by Stuart Davis railing against what he refers to as "flatland fuck-faces". 

Subsequently I mentioned the following:

I have a friend who is still very much in that kind of rational/atheistic camp; these days he's not very interested in debating (more focused on raising family) but in the past we used to argue about this kind of stuff on occasion.  He found it interesting to talk to me about such things - even though I was wrong, lol - because, as he put it, "you can tell the rational from the rats," whereas other people he talked to about such things were by implication superstitious idiots.  I sent him the Stuart Davis rant as an experiment, just to see what he would think about it.  No response yet, but a while back when I sent him some developmental stuff (Spiral Dynamics) he found it a plausible hypothesis but not completely convincing.

Today I got the following response from my friend:

I’m very interested in your views on this whole integral/spiral thing, but I don’t have a clue where you are coming from.  Hopefully this makes the discussion more interesting.  Thanks for the Richard Dawkins link.  As you probably know from conversations past he is one of my heroes, right up there with James Randi. Unfortunately James has fallen out of the public eye somewhat lately but Richard Dawkins seems to be in the middle of a explosive resurgance.  I bought his last book The Ancestor’s Tale and I have all of his earlier stuff with the exception of The Selfish Gene.  I’d buy the God Delusion except that I don’t seem to read much anymore (which I hate – but anyway) so I think it would just sit on the bedside table.   This dude definitely speaks to me when he explains genetic propagation, selection etc.  I know we’ve discussed “memes” in the past and I find it the most useful model for understanding religions, patriotic movements, and other mass-belief happenings both good and bad.  

Anyway I found the rant interesting but I have some questions.  

Why are the pluralistic and integral levels outside of rationalism?   Can these levels not be explained using rational arguments?  And if not why do you think these are true?  Does this require a new definition of true?  Or is this the wrong word?  Anyway every level takes it for their own so does it really mean anything?  Can you describe the integral dynamics belief set in simple terms?  Goggling it doesn’t get me the 50 word summary that I’ve come to expect and demand in today’s sound-byte driven frenzied existence.

Let me in.

Anyway here I am stuck in the Rational phase, metaphorically 27 years old, looking up at the seniors above me and I’m wondering if they see the world in a better way than I do.  Do they have techniques that explain my surroundings better than my scientific method.  Is there something up there that I can’t see?  Can they describe it?  And if so how can I prove it to myself in a way that is falsifiable. 

That last bit is key of course.  It’s what let’s me know when I have to upgrade my wetware.  Hacked versions of wetware that omit the falsifiable conditions get stuck in loops.  Their poor hosts remain 5 years old forever, having no way of knowing that their archaic models no longer match the observed universe.

Help me push past these bonds of rationality

Help me.....

Now I sense tongue-in-cheek sarcasm here, but also genuine openness.  I will ponder my response carefully, but meanwhile I thought it would also be interesting to ask for feedback from others on this forum.

This is a perfect example of someone at rational saying: convince me, if you can.  I suspect that the best I'll be able to do is provide a rational justification for the possibility of transrational perspectives, because unless you start to perceive such things directly, it's all just talk anyway.  (Hmm...maybe I'll invite him to an Ayahuasca ceremony sometime, hehehe.)

I won't post further content from our email exchange unless he knows I'm doing so; however his text above provides an excellent launching point for this discussion, which can evolve on its own.

How would you approach this?

arthur

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I am seeking meaningful work.

bio: http://aqalicious.gaia.com/

I spend most of my "forum time" these days on The Integral Pod: http://pods.gaia.com/ii/

"You've never seen everything." - Bruce Cockburn

Yes, this is a very interesting situation and fairly common I would guess for integral folks.

My take on this is that rational people who are at orange both cognitively and value-wise will be very hard to convince or even have a discussion with about integral stuff. But if they are interested in or can be made interested in RQ material such as systems theory and chaos theory (ie indicating cognitive development above orange), then I would say it's on.... Once you snare them with this stuff then move on to brain complexity and from there take them to the left quadrants....

So I guess my main point is that the cognitive structure really has to be there otherwise one can spend hours convincing healthy open-minded orange and all you will get out of it is them respectfully disagreeing.

The feeling I get when reading your friend's writing is that he might very well be teal cognitively and orange in the values line. Isn't that why you enjoyed talking to him in the past, even finding him intruiging? (of course this last part could be my own projection)

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http://integraleurope.org
http://pelle.gaia.com
http://malmointegral.blogspot.com

Don't ask me.  I can't even explain transrational concepts to transrational people

Maybe you could offer this quote...

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." -- Donald Rumsfeld

Keith

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Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. -unknown

Ask him how deep down the rabbit hole he wants to go.  Rationalism is not untainted by cultural biases.  Logic is a product of preferences brought forth by the interior.  A computer functions by exterior data alone, and has no preferences and no soul.  Logic is merely a tool.

You would have to find a compelling aguement for postmodernism.  He would have to be willing to question the absolute basis for his logic.  Keep asking "why?" until he realizes it's turtles all the way down.

For logic to work, you need to appy two things. (this is my personal view, by the way, and might not reflect the popular beliefs)  First, you have to "frame" what you want to focus on.  This involves acknowledging what you are including and what you are excluding, and acknowledging that you are automatically excluding that which you don't know about.

Second, you have to apply a set of rules to the frame.  Then, a condition of right or wrong can exist.

Then, you question the frame by asking what is culturally biased and not, and you question the rules by asking what is culturally biased.  The conclusion will be that everything is culturally biased and no such thing as unbiased observation exists.  (Postmodernism).

This involves acknowledging that the interior has an "upper hand" over the exterior.  Is he comfortable with that?

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myspace.com/zentaimusic

its a good question Arthur,

possibly they have to be there and open to the "mystery" before someone comes in with cognitive descriptions

in the film contact the cognitive scientist jodie foster asked something like how do you explain god? and the priestfella replied how do you explain love

that sort of befuddled her but I suppose she could have given a biological explanation!

maybe its a question of practices that open chinks

tell him to sit queitly in a quiet room like his hero pascal

Gita

Adastra:
How would you approach this?

Hm. This is probably not too helpful, but if it were my friend, I would talk to him in person or on the phone so I can tune into his energy fluctuations from moment to moment... This kind of attuning forces me to abandon all positions I might have internally regarding what should happen. In this open space I can then experiment with surprising myself... listening to what comes out of my mouth... listening to the quality of his response... free falling together... free floating... not knowing beforehand. Not even hoping that it will be great, makes it great - without having to say a single, prefabricated word.

I think that freedom is a higher value than even love (lower case love, that is). This freedom is beyond reason; deeper, higher, wider than rationality.

M

Wow Mascha this is very cool. I mean Im attracted to this response and want to be able to do so with my friends and lovers! in general. This freedom requires a ggreat discipline too...Any tips from your experience?

Gita

That's just it - there is no formula. And no discipline either. Does it take some kind of discipline to be genuinely curious about your friend's responses, or your own spontaneous unfolding? If we are not really curious and willing to meet without formulas coming in between... then why are we getting together in the first place? Then it's more like business... using each other to sell prefab, endlessly regurgitated versions of our past selves, rather than being what we presently are.

Sometimes it's difficult for me to stay present. Maybe impossible. But all I have to do is say so... and that would be friendship speaking. I owe that to the other, though I may have to remind myself that others are absolutely free and owe me nuthin', even if I insist that they really do, and I'm 100 % certain I'm right.

A part of my 'practice' (not quite the right word, but it'll have to do) has been to feel deeply into this sentence: It is best not to want anything from anybody.

Thanks for coming to sing your song, Gita. Like Pelle, I love to dance... honing my skills so that I can dance all the time without people noticing what I'm doing. But that would probably be too ideal to be real

M

The first step out is Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. One very interesting discussion of the philosophical implications is Godel, Escher, Bash: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, especially for computer programmer types, which is sounds like your friend might be. But even though this book is quite accessible, its still a massive undertaking. An easier read might be Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel by Rebecca Goldstein.

But I fear that there might be no hope of any kind of success with your friends. Consider this poem by Walt Whitman:

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
      measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
      applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

This poem is deeply offensive to Orange rationalist types, and if you find yourself reading and agreeing with it, then it's likely that you will come off arrogant and condescending to a rationalist. Many of those kinds of people believe that mathematics is meaningful, even spiritual, including Johannes Kepler, a famous astronomer who held mystical beliefs. For them, having understanding and insight into the natural world, the proofs and the figures actually reveals the mind of God, and its sad that Whitman casually dismisses that because he's bored by it, believing that his own preferences are vastly superior. Of course, looking out into the stars can be a mystical experience in its own right, but why does Whitman insist that we choose? Not everyone has the inclination to pursue science, nor should they be expected to, but must we heap abuse on those that choose to do that? As I've said before, neo-Romantic Green is aggressively anti-rationalist and anti-science. I would hate to think that Integral thinkers continue to fall into this trap, and its confusing to me, given that we are supposed to include all viewpoints.

Elsewhere on this thread, Mascha suggests speaking in person, in a more moment-to-moment way that's attuned to immediate experience. I wholeheartedly agree with this approach, but I'd like to suggest that this can't be done if we decide at the outset that Orange ways of thinking are inherently inferior to our own. Can you be completely comfortable operating from a rational worldview, and explaining to your friend how you transcended and included it? My concern is that many people may not have actually transcended and included Orange, they have simply excluded it, possibly because they personally find it dry and boring. If we are truly integral, shouldn't we be capable of sharing in the excitement and enjoyment of science with the scientists?

I'm not sure if I'm remembering this correctly, but I think in the movie Contact when the priest fellow challenges the Jodie Foster scientist he asks her if she loved her father (he knows she loved him very much), and she says "Yes!" and he says "Prove it." And indeed she was befuddled.

I like this approach. I've used it a few times, but one orange-devotee friend said "That's irrelevant." I can't remember how the others responded. I'm guessing "it's irrelevant" because it's an interior experience they cannot deny, prove or quantify, and because interiors are usually either ignored or considered to be effects of measurable exteriors. But to me, that response seems like very poor scientific method.

Hey guys, I've finally expanded my membership, so... here I am.

I've recently had some discussions with online friends who have high cognitive lines, reasonably high spiritual lines, etc. -- but have green values.  They consider some of my ideas more in the orange sense (you know, too dry and scientific), and sometimes even racist.  Even when I explain that the levels are pan-human and not related to race, they still see it as racist.  These are intelligent and nice people, and it pains me that they get stuck all the time in various pretrans fallacies.  It's proving very difficult for me to let go of the need to bring them along with me, but I think people are ultimately only going to "get it" when they are ready.

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Gavin

Haunted by the familiarity of inner softness behind frozen eyes