Carl-Richard

Put a human baby in a black box and see what SD stage they develop.

There is also a problem with sample size. According to wikipedia, the initial student sample that Graves used to construct the main levels consisted of 1065 people in the ages of 18-61. According to The Never Ending Quest (2005, p. 66), "most of these were in the lower age group", presumably ages 18-30. Now, for virtually all people, in order to develop a SD stage, there has to at least be a SD stage below it that is well-integrated into society which you can critique. The only exception is if you're a super-genius like Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein who can develop revolutionary new paradigms completely on their own, which is obviously way more rare than 1 in 1000. As we speak, the highest stage that is well-integrated into society (i.e. that has an abundance of communities, institutions and organizations) is Green. In the 1970s, when the research was being done, this was way more questionable, but let's assume it was also Green. How on Earth would you expect Turquoise to be measured in a sample of 1065 people, mostly in a "lower age group" who are probably not at their developmental peak, in a questionably Green society, in the 1970s? There is no Yellow society to critique! Where is Graves getting his super-geniuses from? How big is that sample? How many Einsteins, Newtons, Darwins? No, it is in my opinion much more likely that he sampled some people at Green-Yellow who would've had mystical experiences influenced by the 60s wave of New Age, who would've rated it as the most life-changing experience of their life and that revolutionized the way they think about the world, and that this is what has been described as Turquoise. I'll leave you with some quotes. Try to guess which ones are a description of Turquoise and which ones are simply descriptions of New Age ideas: Spoiler: All of them are Graves' own descriptions of Turquoise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graves's_emergent_cyclical_levels_of_existence

As an empirical scientist, your job is to follow the data, and when your data is characterized by sampling bias, this will be reflected in your conclusions, especially if you are an expert scientist. If it's not, you're not doing something right. I'm not pointing to a flaw in their scientific expertise. I'm pointing to a flaw in their scientific process. Science always has flaws, and this particular flaw I'm claiming has quite particular consequences. If you want to dispute that claim, I'm much more interested in you doing that than trying to explain what Turquoise is for the fourth time. So tell me for example: 1. How is the sampling bias not a problem for the model in general? 2. How does the sampling bias not affect Turquoise specifically? 3. How does the increase in Western adoption of mysticism at Green/Yellow not affect Turquoise specifically?

Do you have any specific examples of that? In what way? Sounds like mysticism or intuition, which again, is present at all stages. How do you elevate human consciousness?

What problems does Turquoise solve that Yellow is unable to solve?

I said it has been significantly repressed, for example due to theologians like Augustine of Hippo who influenced the modern conception of faith. Let's put it this way: who here is into Jewish Kabbalah or Christian mysticism?

Contemplate with it how many mistakes it makes.

As you point to yourself, SD (Don Beck) does not make this Waking vs. Growing up distinction theoretically (only Ken Wilber does), nor would you expect it to be able to sift out this distinction empirically (in the data interpretation process), again because of the sample bias. Had the sample been more universal, specifically including cultures with prevalent non-dual mysticism, then you could expect such a distinction to be found, and "Turquoise" would be considered as a phenomena of Waking up rather than Growing up. Ken Wilber found this distinction theoretically by learning about the history and different cultures with non-dual mysticism, but I'm saying you will find it empirically as well using the very methods that were used to create SD, given that you sample the same cultures. Systems thinking in Yellow and systems thinking in Turquoise are not "symbolically different" (to borrow Hanzi's term), only in specific areas application, which does not provide a radical new view, does not critique Yellow's "way of thinking" or produce radical new solutions to problems. Hence, it's not a meaningfully new stage.

There is nothing to critique about Coral, because basically nothing has been said about it.

While Don Beck might've insisted on that, the SD book chapter describing Turquoise oozes with New Age non-dualisms, it's actually comical: Imagine if you had said "Orange is just a different application of Blue dogmatism". That doesn't quite make sense. It's not a significant step up. It doesn't provide a radical new view of things. It doesn't provide a radical new way of solving problems. So I just don't see how Turquoise meaningfully critiques Yellow. "It's kinda like mysticism, but not really", "people at this stage may have non-dual experiences, but it's not that". I don't buy it. But let's assume you are pointing to some true differences: I doubt thematic analysis of single-question essays is even able to catch such nuances. When interpreting the data, based on my limited experience with thematic analysis, it's much more likely that you will siphon all of it under the same theme (Turquoise).

I don't think that's possible, but I would show them TikTok. That's the current human predicament condensed down to its essence.

Also stress from lack of feeling competent or in control of your own actions?

I don't understand what you mean by "complexly navigated journey" or "vertical thinking" or really most of what you said. But let's assume that's a critique ("transcend") of Yellow: what does it embrace ("include") from Yellow?

Sure. Very few people use academic defintions of words.

Let me tell you word salad is fun until it has to interface with the real world.

By "incoherent", I don't mean that the stage is incomprehensible or lacks internal inconsistency. It's that it's not consistent with the rest of the model (it doesn't critique or transcend the previous stage, Yellow), and it just also happens to be based on flawed empiricism (WEIRD bias). The description of Turquoise is in fact entirely comprehensible and internally consistent: it's the New Age religion of Western rich kids. I really recommend The Listening Society by Hanzi Freinacht though. It's really sobering for anyone who is interested in Spiral Dynamics.

That's funny. I was just reading The Listening Society describing downward assimilation: taking symbolic code (language, culture) from a higher stage of cognitive complexity and using it at a lower stage of cognitive complexity. That's of course a concept I'm intuitively familiar with, but it's good to hear it being echoed. But if that is what was meant, I still don't understand how it explains the incoherence of Turquoise. By the way, The Listening Society claims Turquoise is incoherent because 1. it doesn't provide any critique towards Yellow (which I agree with), 2. the cognitive development it requires is simply too rare (which connects to 3.), and 3. it has no social manifestations (communities, institutions or organizations). It also describes Turquoise as "new-agey 'holistic' or 'integral' people", which echoes my hypothesis. People who object to 3. (e.g. in this thread), are most certainly subject to the same New Age conflation that I used to explain why Turquoise is incoherent: American college hippies discovering Eastern mysticism is not equal to the emergence of a new symbolic code, nor is it indicative of the cognitive development required to understand it.

I honestly understood 0% of what you wrote.

This triggers me.

https://unconsciousagile.com/2023/05/21/motivation.html Self-determination theory. I wrote my bachelor's thesis relying on this theory.

I don't see how you get freaked out by that but when Leo says he can shapeshift into a literal lizard alien you're probably letting that shit fly.

But you always have to judge where that point is. There have been times where I could work through the neck pain and it didn't get this bad. If I just have a minor headache, I won't lay down on the sofa all day.

Then we can always ask the question: where do we exactly draw the line between simply working through a headache and "not prioritizing your health"? That's maybe not so black and white 😛

Chronic pain sufferers have my eternal respect.

Sometimes you just have different priorities. I'm a bit like Sadhguru in that way: I hurt my neck at the gym recently, and instead of skipping my program, I kept going, and of course I hurt myself more because of that. Then the next day, neck still hurting, I decided to not skip my sprint session, and that made my neck significantly worse, so much worse I couldn't think straight because of the pain. Then the next day, I decided to not skip leg day, because I've trained my legs before with neck pain and it helped somewhat. This time, it only got worse, but I had also just caught a virus which enhanced the pain. Despite the pain, I decided to not take painkillers for the night, which turned out not so good, because I couldn't fall asleep. Only early in the morning, I decided to take the painkillers, and here we are. It's not that I didn't know the possible outcomes of my actions. It's that I prioritized one thing over the other, took the risk, and at some point, it didn't work out anymore, so I had to change my strategy. You also obviously can't be omniscient and predict everything perfectly, and being enlightened doesn't change that. I think Sadhguru chose to run himself into the ground before changing his strategy last moment, because that is just how he is.