Carl-Richard

"The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight" - Joseph Campbell. The mystic does not shun sanity. He holds both sanity and insanity. You don't shun language just because you discover a part of yourself beyond language. Being troubled, chaotic and ungrounded is not a sign of wisdom, not a sign of maturity, not a sign of awakening. It's a sign of change and potentially a transition into the former. So no, conflating the relative with the absolute is not excused.

I don't think so. Doing intense work for a short period (20 minutes) and then resting for the next 47 hours and 40 minutes before you work again is most definitely not going to lead to "burnout", unless those 20 minutes are the most terrorizing and traumatic 20 minutes of your life. It will lead to an adaptation response which will increase your ability to handle those 47 hours and 40 minutes spent doing other things, which will actually lead to an overall reduction in burnout, and that is what you're after. Reading this sentence is more difficult than a 7-Back task.

I've started on 7-Back and it's ridiculous. It's essentially challenging the 7±2 rule every 3 seconds (or every 7 trials depending on how you define it).

My favorite stage Red psychopath That wig is certainly stage Red

Not necessarily me either, but that's at least Wilber's model

Mysticism ("union with God"), awakening; I treat them as the same concept, and I think Wilber does as well (not that it matters much). Tier 3 is the transition from Tier 2 without mysticism to Tier 2 with mysticism.

He has the model with Tier 3, which to my understanding is when you are Tier 2 but you are also developing your mysticism. I have less problems with that model for a few reasons. Firstly, his models are not based on structured empirical methods like giving sentence completion tests to people. So there is nothing to really critique about things like sampling, because there really are no such things. He is basing his models on his reading of philosophical texts, history and scientific literature. Secondly, he has the system of "Tiers", which mark a significant disjunction between previous stages. If he wants to denote the transition of Tier 2 (high cognitive complexity) into a focus on mysticism (trans-cognitive, trans-personal) as Tier 3, that's at least more illustrative then having it all under the same umbrella of "ego development". After all, Cook-Greuter calls the stage in question "Ego-Transcendence". It lies in the word (but not only that) that you have in large part abandoned ego development, in favor of "trans-ego" development. Now, of course even after significant ego-transcendence, there is a dialectic between ego and trans-ego development, but nevertheless, there is a significant disjunction between them. Thirdly, it is indeed accurate to say that once you max out Tier 2, then maxing out mysticism is a "step up", which would make Tier 3 more developed. But of course, mysticism by itself is not more developed than Tier 2 (it's a different game). I think Wilber is more explicit about this than Cook-Greuter (but maybe I'm wrong). One issue though is that it makes the model in a sense historically contigent in a discontinuous way, in that any potential development past Tier 2 that is not classifiable as mysticism will not be captured by Tier 3 and would therefore need to be amended like a patch update. It's more intuitive that you would add stages that develop later in history (and that are more cognitively complex) on the very top of the hierarchy, but this would not be the case here. But maybe as the world develops that even lower stages could start to show discontinuity like this given enough time. Imagine a new stage popping up between Orange and Green.

It's a shame I was only parroting Wilber then 😂

The highest levels also include eating food and breathing air. But these also occur at lower stages. Same with awakening.

Well, let me then re-iterate: I'm not the one lumping things together. I'm talking about what I think the model is doing, trying to interpret what it is saying on its own terms (as far as that is possible), and that requires reading what the author said and the methods they used to construct it. And like, if you want to talk about your own understanding of reality, don't call it "Susanne Cook-Greuter's Ego Development Theory", if you see what I'm saying 😆 Maybe I will 🤓 (I've actually seriously considered this, for maybe a few minutes 🙂).

You would have to spell it out to me with concrete text examples from her 90-page document because I'm not convinced. It is, but I'm saying those are attributable to the stages below Unitive/Ego-Transcendent, not the stage in itself. Maybe she should have done more in-depth tests than sentence completions then (jk) That's good, I like swimming in those waters in this situation. And it was just a tongue in cheek way of describing the people who dominate the top of these models. I'm not lumping them together. I'm saying the people making the models are inadvertently lumping them together with the lack of diversity in their samples. See my above comment or just remember my whole thread on this. Notice this beautiful juxtaposition which underscores both my points (that Unitive = mysticism, and that the lack of diversity of samples is the probable cause of it being included as a stage at all): "Nine Levels Of Increasing Embrace In Ego Development: A Full-Spectrum Theory Of Vertical Growth And Meaning Making" (Cook-Greuter, 2013, p. 74). If only the samples had included rigorous selections of both Eastern and Western peoples at various levels of currently conceived "ego development", I believe this notion of Unitive/Ego-Transcendent as an ego development stage would collapse.

I'm simply not convinced that Unitive or Ego-Transcendent in its essence describes anything else than mysticism or awakening; whatever word you want to put on it. Maybe the only significant difference would be that you are also cognitively complex and are able to describe your mysticism in a "complex way" (and are also unlikely to steal, rape, abuse, etc.) rather than what the state of consciousness implies in itself. Which is again, the white collar, intellectual elite spirituality.

Not even some of the shamans? 🤔

But will some of them also be "Unitive" and "Ego-Transcendent"? 🤔 If you study these people from birth and into adulthood, you will likely find a distinctive developmental course, probably with some similarities to Western models, but maybe also some differences. But we won't know that before somebody actually does the study

It's more like looking around at the selection of restaurants in the area and expressing exasperation at what you find. Or even better, you travel from town to town and you find that all the restaurants are essentially the same, like McDonalds: seductive on the graphic, consistent in delivery, actually decently tasty, but leaves you with a weird taste in your mouth and maybe a stomach ache. And as a consequence, you become a bit skeptical of McDonalds. It's not an overstatement: all famous linear, sequential developmental psychological theories have significant Western bias, both empirical and theoretical. What I'm most concerned about is the empirical aspect, and it's possible to work towards reasonably rectifying that. It will never be completely rectified, but no science is perfect. There is no absolute universality, no absolute statistical significance, causal explanation, etc. But there is still a reasonable level you can try to aim at, and it's at least above zero (which is basically the current norm in developmental psychology). A couple of cross-cultural samples that also controls for assumptions like modernity is a step in that direction. Some point out it has individualistic assumptions that doesn't translate well to collectivist cultures (e.g. Africa, Asia) and that it applies more to "American men" than other people. What does Wilber say about that? Again, what I doubt is that current models are other than Western, and I think you can make reasonable steps towards rectifying that. Well, for one, those things are made more explicit. It's in the name ("psychosocial", "ego development", etc.). But EDT is not for example called "Western Ego Development Theory". It's called "Ego Development Theory". So again, when looking at the name and the neat graphics, it has a facade (surface appearance) of universality. And when you suggest that it essentially doesn't matter that it's not actually universal, you subtly fuel that facade. This is a general phenomena that I believe happens when you survey Westerners about their "development" (particularly when not strongly distinguishing it from their "values"): On the almost top of the model, you will generally have Western, highly educated, rich people and their multiplistic, self-aware systems view of reality (the "intellectual elite"). And on top of those, you will have the ones who re-discover "spirituality" within that context (so-called "Unitive"), which is virtually always New Age. And in a sense, it is a logically "next step" in that context: people feel a bit better about themselves (stepping out from the spiritual black hole of modernity); people become more "open", "expansive", "flexible", "nuanced"; they get access to a "new" dimension of life (mysticism, "union with God"); etc. So this logically seems to place them higher. But of course, a step into spirituality can happen at any level of "true" ego development (which history proves and which e.g. Wilber has pointed out). Therefore, if you in your sample also control for cultures where spirituality has been shown to be stepped into at lower stages, then you can expect to conclude in your construction of the model that it's not a next step of "ego development" but rather something else (which Wilber identifies as "Waking up" as contrasted to "Growing up"). All in all, with a more culturally diverse sample, you would expect to shave off (at least) the top of the model and place it somewhere else (e.g. in its own developmental line). @Sandhu is not a Westerner (strictly speaking). We have many non-Westerners on the forum (again, cultural imperialism makes this more difficult, and us Zoomer internet kids are essentially all cross-cultural kids). Cross-cultural development (emphasis on cross) is also a whole other can of worms. It makes it specific in a sense, but it also makes it incoherent in a sense or at least unelegant. Namely, is it an "ego development model" or is it a "cultural development model"? Just look at what I described earlier: the model presents a cultural aesthetic that has been suppressed for cultural reasons at lower stages and which sometimes boils to the surface for other cultural reasons at higher stages, as the actual "progression of the psyche", rather than what it is: a cultural artefact. Also, because it's assumed to be an "ego developmental model" and not a cultural one, these cultural dynamics are not systematically accounted for. They are indeed only mentioned as a caveat about the limitations of the model and then brushed under the rug (something which Hanzi Freinacht has helped to address). And in this way, ironically, the model is quite Orange in its approach. Orange models routinely fail to systematically account for connections between seemingly disparate domains (and suffer accordingly). And you can expect to get such cultural conflation problems with all the stages, not just the higher stages (like with the earlier mentioned individualistic and male bias). Again, absolute universality is practically impossible, but my demand is at least some attempt at diversity, which aims at universality. It's possible to do it better than what is currently the norm (which again, is essentially zero). And it is extremely costly, but that is the story of science. Pushing the science requires pushing the boundaries, be it on a purely practical resource level or theoretically. Maybe AI can help us with that in the future. It could also inform us about what human development is rather than what happens in white collar suites where people happened to drop acid once and started taking more seriously the hippie magazine they just walked past.

I had the same thought, but you know what? I don't think these people are actually being "not careful" with their rhetoric. This is mostly Dave virtue signalling to his audience and strengthening his pathos. He is just as not careful with his clickbaity titles about whatever suits his narrative for the day as anybody else. Also, if we want to make some topics inherently off limits because of social risk, let's take Dave criticism of conservatism and religiosity. I don't imagine him being "careful with his rhetoric" there. If you're not "careful" about criticizing conservatism or religiosity, society will revert back to tribal warfare, crime and despotism. People will take drugs and drink themselves to death with unhinged hedonism, people will lose their meaning, connection, purpose, community, hope. Nope. At some point you have to let the grown ups talk and not let the babies dictate the narrative.

“I identified nine different self-stories, nine different ways of defining what is real and important in the Western world. These ways develop sequentially and represent increasing levels of individuation and integration.” That's exactly my point 😂. It's a Western-centric model. If you're interested, I have looked at her samples, and based on the information provided, you can deduce with virtually full certainty that none of the samples included people from pre-modern societies. She had UK and US samples and one "international sample". She mentioned nothing about the countries of origin in the international sample (for all we know, it could be 100% European). And when you call it "international sample" without specifying the countries of origin, the only reasonable explanation is that you used internet surveys where you didn't screen for the country of origin (probably because you wanted to maintain participant anonymity and simplify the ethical approval process). And of course, internet surveys skew heavily Western in general, either purely statistically based on the amount of Western internet users or culturally through Western imperialism. And of course, there is virtually zero internet in pre-modern tribes, almost certainly zero people surfing on their free time while randomly running into a survey on Western psychology. She could in principle (I re-iterate: in principle) have targeted such people through stratified sampling, but then it would be natural to mention at least something about that. So no, in no reasonable scenario were pre-modern tribal people included in the sample, and that is my request 😀 I doubt that claim. Source? It places a stereotypic, historically contigent, Western cultural phenomenon on top of the model: New Age spirituality. Yes, and I want to know how it develops independently of stereotypic, historically contigent cultural influences. Is my ego somehow less developed if I don't watch YouTube videos of Mooji and Eckhart Tolle? Feel free to read the part about the samples. Maybe I missed something 😗

That's understandable, because they literally don't.

Somebody help me from my cynicism towards Western-centric models and fly Cook-Greuter out to some island people or something and study them for the model. I can't stand the facade universality that oozes from the neat graphics and flashy colors.

It's more illuminating to say the absolute includes the relative, but the relative does not include the absolute. One is all-encompassing, the other is not. It's true that once we decide to speak, we have to concede that we're using concepts and diving things into parts (relative vs absolute), and the absolute is of course beyond any concept. However, when we have made that concession and we are willing to use concepts, we do it in a rigorous way, and that is when you should not conflate the relative with the absolute. We have different words for each for a reason. The contents of the frame are relative. If you make claims about the contents (e.g. "other apes are merely NPCs"), you are in the relative. That's conventional metaphysics (materialism), rather than science. Nevertheless, I'm not really a "conventional scientist" either. For example, I think psychic phenomena have legitimate scientific evidence. But I'm also quite comfortable with conventional science, e.g. the "role" of the brain (without assuming a materialists metaphysics), i.e. the brain seems to correlate with (not cause) certain phenomena (some thoughts, perceptions, sensations, etc.). But these are also just statements about the relative. Speaking has rules and boundaries. As a side note, what is funnily implicated by your conceptual nihilism is that there is no difference between apes being NPCs and apes being conscious in their own right, so again, we contradict solipsism.

No, only some, until you no longer see the point. Ironically, all of spirituality up until the point of complete surrender is lots of including; spiritual ego. The ego thinks it wants what it thinks to be enlightenment and constructs an identity around that and pursues a set of techniques, practices, ideals; all happening within the relative, all constructing an ego. So including is always happening and is unavoidable, and for many, it's really the only thing that that is happening while pursuing "spirituality"(because they get stuck). And the reason they get stuck is that they use it as a compensating mechanism for other things they are really wishing to include but which they are unaware or too bothered to pursue (because like the Puer Aeternus fears, it tends to involve some discomfort). You just have to come to terms with it and be aware of everything you actually want to include, which generally includes petty "non-spiritual ego" stuff as well. And when you are really done with that and no longer see the point, then you actually transcend.

You can re-define the words all you want, but at the end of the day, the true absolute does not exclude what your "absolute" excludes. Because it's absolute. It does not exclude, does not contrast, does not divide itself into parts. When you divide, contrast and exclude, you are in the relative. Likewise, there is nothing about the true absolute that suggests there is "nothing behind the scenes" in the sense that your homosapien perceptual dashboard is the only perceptual dashboard there is; that other homosapien apes are merely NPCs in your dashboard with no dashboards of their own. You are way into the relative when making those claims. And I don't think this is a problem of not having enough awakening experiences. It's a problem of drawing conclusions and seeing the implications of your awakening experiences. Because that requires a rigorous understanding of the relative, things like metaphysics, science, cognition, evolution, biology, physiology, etc. If you don't have a rigorous understanding of the relative, then of course you will confuse it with the absolute. You need to be very adept at drawing distinctions to see how the absolute clearly lacks these distinctions. I consider myself lucky in this respect as I had awakening experiences in my late teens and then had time to reconstruct a scientific worldview in university afterwards which forced me to reconcile my experiences and integrate them with the science, not sidestep it. And even then, it took a lot of deliberate work. If you are not in the same position, you have to work even harder.

You know the saying "you cannot be reasoned out of something you weren't reasoned into". I think this applies on some level all the time for all people; that you are never really reasoned into anything, which is simply in line with how survival and limited attentional resources produce bias. This is why I feel that when I listen to people who I think are being sincere, even if a part of me scoffs at them and thinks they are silly, there is always another part that wants to listen to their perspective, because I know deep down that I could be mistaken and it could have been me speaking from their position. I don't feel ultimately responsible for my beliefs. I inherited them through my biases, not necessarily from someone else (but that also), but simply from being limited. Now, that doesn't stop me from trying to follow what I think is right. But it's just an underlying sense of openness. You can hold both. Now, while I have had this feeling for a long time, I started particularly thinking about this while watching the Chris Langan interview by Michael Knowles. I share very little with these guys politically (they both support Trump), but both of them, even Knowles, speak decently coherently, I can understand what they are saying, and I even appreciate some of their ideas on e.g. metaphysics and religion. I would like to know if you have watched the interview and what your reaction to it was. Do you feel like you were able to hold multiple things at the same time? Did they not simply seem like the devil through all they were saying, despite how profoundly you disconnected with them on some issue? And if so, why did you feel that way? Let me hear about it.