Beyond Integral: Rethinking Ontology After Postmodernism

[Nilsi]

The problem at hand is integration - how to take what is commonly referred to as postmodernism, that diffuse and unstable field of post-Hegelian continental thought, and incorporate its insights without negating them. The case being made here is that Ken Wilber’s integral philosophy is not the radical new paradigm it presents itself as but rather a return to the dialectical movement of Hegel, albeit one expanded to accommodate the discursive explosions of the 20th century. The issue is not just academic; it concerns how we determine what is good, true, and beautiful, how we rank reality without falling into an arbitrary pluralism, and how we approach the implicit order of things without imposing an external hierarchy upon them.

Wilber’s method, his transcend-and-include logic, is not neutral. It assumes that each stage of development is both preserved and subsumed into a higher order, which implicitly imposes a hierarchical structure that may not reflect the lived reality of difference and multiplicity. This suggests that the method functions as a filtering mechanism that selects what is worth retaining while discarding other elements as lower-order remnants. Implicit in his holarchic model is a movement that functions through negation - each stage of consciousness or development is preserved, but in a way that assumes its essential sublation into a higher, more comprehensive form. This is an old structure, deeply familiar: the teleological unfolding of Spirit in Hegel. While Wilber may resist such a framing, the end is always already assumed in his model - there is always a higher integration, always a new synthesis that situates previous stages within a broader framework. And yet, a rigorous experiential exploration of consciousness shows beyond doubt that such a priori assumptions do not exist as actual structures but are, at best, contingent projections of flawed sensemaking. This is where Wilber’s project begins to break down, and where Nietzsche and Deleuze offer an alternative that does not require the negation of difference, the subordination of experience to an unseen totality, or the smuggling in of a final state.

The Problem of Wilber’s Holarchy: A Return to Hegelian Negation

Wilber presents his integral framework as an open system, incorporating science, psychology, and spirituality within a developmental sequence. His AQAL (All Quadrants, All Levels) model is structured holarchically: each level of reality contains and transcends the previous one. This applies to everything - matter, life, mind, culture, consciousness. But what remains unquestioned is the structural assumption that these levels form a necessary progression. While Wilber presents this as a natural unfolding of reality, it could be argued that this progression is an imposed framework rather than an emergent property of reality itself. Wilber does acknowledge variations and regressions in development, yet his framework ultimately leans toward an upward trajectory that does not fully account for radical breaks or ontological disruptions.

At its core, this is Hegel’s dialectical movement restated in evolutionary terms. Wilber’s model replicates the logic of Aufhebung - sublation - where contradiction is not left as difference but resolved at a higher level. He incorporates postmodern critiques, but only as another layer to be subsumed. His problem is that he does not take postmodernism seriously on its own terms; rather, he treats it as a necessary but ultimately incomplete phase. The insights of Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard are framed as important correctives but ultimately steps toward a greater integral synthesis.

This, however, is precisely where the teleology becomes apparent. Wilber claims that each new stage is a genuine transcendence, but if the structure itself is preordained, then what is happening is not truly an open-ended unfolding but a confirmation of an already-determined totality. There is no radical contingency, no fundamental rupture - only the reassurance that the next phase will arrive and that it will integrate what came before it. But reality does not move in such a way.

Nietzsche and Deleuze: Difference, Immanence, and the Refusal of Totality

Nietzsche does not think in terms of developmental stages but in terms of forces, intensities, and values. There is no single arc of evolution, no universal ladder of consciousness - only the play of will to power, structuring and restructuring itself through infinite configurations. Wilber’s problem is precisely Nietzsche’s critique of Hegel: that the dialectic assumes negation as its engine, when what is actually needed is affirmation - an expansion and intensification of difference rather than its resolution into a synthetic whole.

Deleuze follows Nietzsche in rejecting the logic of negation and sublation. The dialectic, for Deleuze, is always a reduction - a way of taming difference by forcing it into a developmental sequence where each contradiction is resolved within a higher unity. Instead, Deleuze proposes multiplicity, assemblage, and becoming. The real movement of thought and being is not a progression from lower to higher states but a constant differentiation, an open system where intensities shift and interact without an overarching synthesis.

This is why Wilber’s holarchy is suspect - it presupposes a reality that unfolds in a necessarily upward motion, while Deleuze insists that reality is always immanent, lateral, and without pre-given hierarchy. Wilber might counter this by arguing that his model is open-ended and adaptive, capable of integrating new perspectives. However, the underlying structure still functions as a telos-driven model that organizes difference into a synthesized unity rather than allowing it to proliferate as singular and incommensurable intensities. Difference is not a problem to be solved but the very condition of existence.

Ranking Reality Without Teleology: A Non-Negational Hierarchy

If Wilber is wrong to assume a structured totality, then the question remains: how do we rank reality? Not all ideas, states of consciousness, or ways of being are equal. There is still the question of higher and lower, but it must be formulated differently.

Nietzsche’s answer is found in will to power - what is “higher” is that which affirms itself, which intensifies its own power and expands its capacity for creation. There is no developmental necessity, only degrees of strength and intensity. What is higher is not that which transcends and includes but that which overcomes without negation, that which multiplies difference rather than subordinating it to a greater whole.

Deleuze’s answer lies in assemblages and intensities - there are thresholds of complexity, but they do not form a fixed sequence. Instead, hierarchies emerge through zones of intensity, through qualitative shifts in capacity and relation. One does not “move up” in a predetermined way but enters into different configurations of being.

Thus, a new model must be hierarchical without being teleological. Such a model would rank reality not based on a predetermined endpoint but through intensities of force, creativity, and expansion. Instead of moving through a rigid sequence of transcendence, hierarchies should emerge contextually, adapting fluidly to the interactions of forces at play, much like Nietzsche’s understanding of will to power as a shifting, contingent structure of domination and resistance. Rather than a holarchy that assumes a final synthesis, we need a structure that allows for ever-expanding relations of complexity and force, without closure. Some things are more powerful than others, some experiences richer, some thoughts more transformative - but this is not because they are preordained stages but because they constitute singular intensities, irreducible to any given sequence.

Conclusion: Integration Without Totalization

Wilber’s project is an attempt to solve a real problem - how to bring disparate philosophical insights into dialogue. To his credit, his model succeeds in providing a broad framework where multiple perspectives can interact. However, the challenge is ensuring that this inclusivity does not neutralize the disruptive power of difference. If integration becomes a process of containment, then the very possibility of true multiplicity is foreclosed. A genuinely integrative framework must allow for antagonism, contradiction, and radical breaks, rather than smoothing over tensions into a prefabricated synthesis. But his solution is a disguised return to dialectical totalization, a movement that assumes negation as its method and teleology as its structure.

Nietzsche and Deleuze offer a different path, one that does not reject hierarchy but rethinks it in terms of force, difference, and immanence. The challenge is not to transcend and include but to affirm and expand. The new paradigm must be integrative without being totalizing, ranking without reducing, dynamic without assuming a final point of arrival. It must be an open hierarchy of intensities, a field of becoming rather than a preordained arc of evolution.

Reality presents itself with implicit order, but that order is always shifting, always singular, always in the process of being made. Wilber seeks to resolve this into a whole, but the only true integration is that which leaves room for the unassimilable, the excessive, and the uncontainable movement of difference itself.

Appendix

It must be acknowledged that in critiquing Wilber’s integral framework and Hegelian dialectics, one inevitably engages in a performative contradiction. To argue against totalization is still to enact a form of ordering - constructing a structured critique that, even if based on intensities and immanence rather than synthesis, still imposes a certain logic. In rejecting negation, one must also confront the irony of implicitly negating negation itself.

Deleuze, however, offers a way through this paradox - what he calls double affirmation. Instead of simply negating negation (which would still remain within a dialectical structure), he posits an affirmation that does not require an underlying opposition. The first affirmation is the rejection of negation as the motor of thought. The second, more radical affirmation, is the recognition that reality is composed of forces and intensities that do not require resolution into a higher unity. This is not a passive acceptance but a generative expansion - difference proliferates rather than being contained.

Yet, even this doubling of affirmation, this strategy of avoiding negation while affirming difference, remains within the sphere of discourse. Philosophy, even in its most radical forms, remains bound to language, to concept, to the endless interplay of thought. But there is a point at which one must ask: what is the lived reality of this critique? To challenge hierarchy, to undo totalization, to refuse negation - these are not merely conceptual maneuvers, but gestures toward a different way of being. And yet, to live otherwise is not merely to continue the process of thinking about alternatives, but to step outside of thought itself, into the space of silence and direct experience.

Both Nietzsche and Deleuze, in their own ways, hint at this. There is a point where affirmation is no longer a conceptual strategy but a way of being - one in which philosophy does not resolve itself into another theory, but dissolves into action, embodiment, intensity. To truly affirm difference is not just to argue for it, but to live it; not just to construct an ontology, but to discard the need for one. At a certain point, the only real response to the dialectic is not another theory, but a life that refuses to be contained by it.

Perhaps the highest affirmation is not a new synthesis, not even an alternative structure, but a relinquishing of the need for structure altogether. To step beyond the mind’s compulsion to order, to negate, to include - to move instead toward a lived immediacy, where the movement of difference does not need to be spoken, only enacted. In the end, one must be silent, not in resignation but in the fullest affirmation: not to debate life, but to live it.

Edited Friday at 06:53 PM by Nilsi

[Cireeric]

Dude I dont know how you pull this up. To my knowledge you are really furthering the field. I really like this view of reality, it feels more rich, more open-end, more expansive and more open to possibility. I really like Ken Wilbers work and his worldview was expansive in many ways, but there was always a certain closedness that felt rather boring than alive. I really need to dive into Deleuzes work.

[aurum]

@Nilsi

What is your relationship to mysticism? Have you realized God yet?

Your work is academically impressive, which I respect. But I think you are ultimately missing the larger point. 

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Wilber’s problem is precisely Nietzsche’s critique of Hegel: that the dialectic assumes negation as its engine, when what is actually needed is affirmation - an expansion and intensification of difference rather than its resolution into a synthetic whole.

The reason for the resolution into a synthetic whole is because reality IS ONE.

That includes the distinction between sameness / difference.

The genius of Hegelian dialectic is that it moves the mind towards ONENESS. 

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

This is why Wilber’s holarchy is suspect - it presupposes a reality that unfolds in a necessarily upward motion, while Deleuze insists that reality is always immanent, lateral, and without pre-given hierarchy.

Both have some truth.

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Difference is not a problem to be solved but the very condition of existence.

No, the very condition is God. Which is infinity, which is ONE.

Any difference you can make is included in this.

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Nietzsche’s answer is found in will to power - what is “higher” is that which affirms itself, which intensifies its own power and expands its capacity for creation. There is no developmental necessity, only degrees of strength and intensity. What is higher is not that which transcends and includes but that which overcomes without negation, that which multiplies difference rather than subordinating it to a greater whole.

Maybe I don't understand what Nietzsche means by "will to power", but this sounds very wrong to me.

There is no relationship between personal power and higher states of consciousness.

6 hours ago, Nilsi said:

Nietzsche and Deleuze offer a different path, one that does not reject hierarchy but rethinks it in terms of force, difference, and immanence. The challenge is not to transcend and include but to affirm and expand. The new paradigm must be integrative without being totalizing, ranking without reducing, dynamic without assuming a final point of arrival. It must be an open hierarchy of intensities, a field of becoming rather than a preordained arc of evolution.

I think the bottom line is that neither Nietzsche or Deleuze understood God all that well. So it's a mistake to take these guys too seriously when it comes to the ultimate questions.

[Nilsi]

21 hours ago, aurum said:

@Nilsi

What is your relationship to mysticism? Have you realized God yet?

Your work is academically impressive, which I respect. But I think you are ultimately missing the larger point. 

I’ve been doing deep spiritual work for almost a decade now, and of course, any real spiritual experience is profound and meaningful. But I find myself seeking them out less and less - not because they’ve lost their depth, but because I no longer see them as destinations. They’re like breathtaking panoramic views along the way - beautiful, yes, but I’m not about to set up camp there. The real journey is in the wandering.

That’s precisely what I find so vulgar about Ken Wilber - he’s so fixated on gazing at the mountain peak that he doesn’t even see the path beneath his feet. He misses the infinite possibilities of the valley, the wild, untamed landscapes beyond, or the fact that there is no singular “top” to arrive at in the first place. It’s a strangely myopic way to look at reality - ironically, not very spiritual at all.

Not all those who wander are lost, you know.

Edited Saturday at 09:44 PM by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

22 hours ago, Cireeric said:

Dude I dont know how you pull this up. To my knowledge you are really furthering the field. I really like this view of reality, it feels more rich, more open-end, more expansive and more open to possibility. I really like Ken Wilbers work and his worldview was expansive in many ways, but there was always a certain closedness that felt rather boring than alive. I really need to dive into Deleuzes work.

This lecture series offers a great introduction to Deleuze’s metaphysics and its significance within the Western philosophical tradition.

[Rafael Thundercat]

24 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

That’s precisely what I find so vulgar about Ken Wilber - he’s so fixated on gazing at the mountain peak that he doesn’t even see the path beneath his feet. He misses the infinite possibilities of the valley, the wild, untamed landscapes beyond, or the fact that there is no singular “top” to arrive at in the first place. It’s a strangely myopic way to look at reality - ironically, not very spiritual at all.

What do  you propose instead? 

[Nilsi]

2 minutes ago, Rafael Thundercat said:

What do  you propose instead? 

I literally wrote a whole fucking essay on this - which you’re commenting on right now.

[aurum]

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

I’ve been doing deep spiritual work for almost a decade now, and of course, any real spiritual experience is profound and meaningful. But I find myself seeking them out less and less - not because they’ve lost their depth, but because I no longer see them as destinations. They’re like breathtaking panoramic views along the way - beautiful, yes, but I’m not about to set up camp there. The real journey is in the wandering.

That’s precisely what I find so vulgar about Ken Wilber - he’s so fixated on gazing at the mountain peak that he doesn’t even see the path beneath his feet. He misses the infinite possibilities of the valley, the wild, untamed landscapes beyond, or the fact that there is no singular “top” to arrive at in the first place. It’s a strangely myopic way to look at reality - ironically, not very spiritual at all.

Not all those who wander are lost, you know.

I don't understand your perspective then.

If you've been having profound spiritual experiences for almost a decade, you must have realized God. And you must have realized awakening is not just about aimlessly wandering forever, however poetic that may sound.

What are some of the infinite possibilities of the valley that Wilber is missing?

[The Crocodile]

Yeah, if you were just reading Ken Wilber life would be very boring. Ken Wilber is a cereal box version of Sri Aurobindo.

[Cireeric]

14 hours ago, Nilsi said:

This lecture series offers a great introduction to Deleuze’s metaphysics and its significance within the Western philosophical tradition.

 

Nice, thx!

[Nilsi]

11 hours ago, aurum said:

I don't understand your perspective then.

If you've been having profound spiritual experiences for almost a decade, you must have realized God. And you must have realized awakening is not just about aimlessly wandering forever, however poetic that may sound.

Why assume I haven’t realized "God"? Nothing I’ve said contradicts the reality of oneness - this just isn’t a conversation I care to have. I have no need to argue this, nor do I seek your approval or validation.

What interests me are the implications and possibilities of this reality. I don’t know about your "awakenings," but be careful not to fall into a myopic, post hoc interpretation of your experience. Reality is infinite possibility, and I’m here to explore it. If that’s not your thing, I couldn’t care less. There are plenty of people who will indulge your particular flavor of mysticism - you don’t need me for that.

12 hours ago, aurum said:

What are some of the infinite possibilities of the valley that Wilber is missing?

Anything you can imagine.

[saif2]

@Nilsi

Thank you for sharing! I like your post, you put the issue I was having into words.

At first I was agreeing with you that the transcend and include logic implies a negation, but this is not necessary. Your angle casts a doubt on evolution as a grand narrative, but I don’t see how the transcend and include logic implies a negation.

[integral]

People develop in a lopsided way. Your at many stages of development all at the same time. The model understands this.

The biggest issue I'm seeing here is people are confusing the model for the examples it gives.

For example "stage 8 is supposed to be wise and in unison with nature." < this is a general example that does not at all represent what the model is trying to communicate. 

You could be at stage 8 and into BDSM, it makes no difference.

You could be mature at any stage of development.

You could be wise at any stage of development.

The stages only suggest one slice of reality and that's your values.

Your values tend to go up in a hierarchical way cuz some values are more inclusive than others they take more into consideration.

Let me complete and expand on this important clarification:

Adding to this crucial point:

1. What The Model Actually Addresses:
- It's specifically about the evolution of value systems
- Not about personality traits, lifestyle choices, or personal preferences
- Not about wisdom, maturity, or "being a good person"
- Just about how you make sense of and value things in the world

2. Common Misconceptions:
- People think higher stages mean "better person" - they don't
- People confuse examples (like "connection with nature") with the actual structure
- People think it prescribes specific behaviors or lifestyles
- People assume it judges personal choices or preferences

3. What "Higher Stages" Actually Mean:
- More inclusive value systems
- Greater capacity to understand different perspectives
- More complex ways of making sense of the world
- NOT better lifestyle choices or personal characteristics

4. Example to Illustrate:
Someone at a "higher stage" might:
- Be terrible at relationships
- Have unconventional lifestyle choices
- Struggle with basic life skills
- Have any kind of personality or preferences
BUT they would have a more inclusive way of understanding and valuing different perspectives

5. The Real Hierarchy:
- Not about personal worth
- Not about lifestyle choices
- Not about wisdom or maturity
- Just about the complexity and inclusiveness of value systems

This clarification helps resolve some of the criticism in the original text - the model isn't actually trying to create a universal hierarchy of human development, just mapping how value systems tend to evolve in complexity.

 

Let me break this down with concrete examples of how value systems can evolve in complexity while being separate from personality, wisdom, or lifestyle choices:

1. Simple to Complex Value Evolution Example:
- Stage 1: "I value what's directly good for me"
- Stage 2: "I value what's good for my family/tribe"
- Stage 3: "I value what's good for my nation/belief group"
- Stage 4: "I value what's good for all humans"
- Stage 5: "I value what's good for all living things"
- Higher: "I can understand and work with all these value systems while seeing their limitations"

2. Business Ethics Example:
Lower Complexity:
- "Profit is all that matters"
- Can't see why environmental concerns should affect business decisions
- Views regulations as pure obstacles

Higher Complexity:
- Can balance profit with environmental impact
- Understands both shareholder and stakeholder perspectives
- Can navigate between short-term and long-term benefits
- Note: Might still choose profit over environment, but understands the full complexity of the choice

3. Political Views Example:
Lower Complexity:
- "My political party is always right"
- "The other side is evil/stupid"
- Can't understand why anyone would disagree

Higher Complexity:
- Can understand multiple political perspectives
- Sees value and flaws in different systems
- Can hold contradictory viewpoints in mind
- Note: Might still strongly prefer one party, but understands the larger context

4. Cultural Values Example:
Lower Complexity:
- "My culture's way is the only right way"
- Judges other cultures by own standards
- Can't see value in different approaches

Higher Complexity:
- Can appreciate multiple cultural perspectives
- Understands cultural practices in their context
- Can navigate between different cultural frameworks
- Note: Might still prefer own culture but understands why others value theirs

5. Personal Choices Example:
Someone with a higher complexity value system:
- Might be into extreme sports
- Might be very traditional in some ways
- Might have any sexual preferences
- Might be messy or organized
BUT can understand and work with multiple perspectives about these choices

6. Religious/Spiritual Example:
Lower Complexity:
- "My religion is the only true one"
- Can't understand other faiths
- Rigid interpretation of beliefs

Higher Complexity:
- Can see value in multiple religious perspectives
- Understands metaphorical and literal interpretations
- Can hold strong personal beliefs while respecting others
- Note: Might still be deeply committed to one religion but understands the validity of other paths

The key point: In each case, what's "higher" isn't:
- The specific choices made
- The lifestyle lived
- The beliefs held
- The personality expressed

What's "higher" is:
- The ability to understand multiple perspectives
- The capacity to hold complexity
- The breadth of what's included in the value system
- The flexibility in navigating different viewpoints

A person could be at a "higher stage" and:
- Be a CEO or a janitor
- Be religious or atheist
- Be traditional or unconventional
- Have any personality type
- Make any lifestyle choices

 

Edited Sunday at 04:03 PM by integral

[integral]

Alan Watts was an alcoholic.

[UnbornTao]

Should be on the Intellectual subforum.

[Nilsi]

8 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Should be on the Intellectual subforum.

Feel free to move it there.

[Nilsi]

3 hours ago, integral said:

People develop in a lopsided way. Your at many stages of development all at the same time. The model understands this.

The biggest issue I'm seeing here is people are confusing the model for the examples it gives.

For example "stage 8 is supposed to be wise and in unison with nature." < this is a general example that does not at all represent what the model is trying to communicate. 

You could be at stage 8 and into BDSM, it makes no difference.

You could be mature at any stage of development.

You could be wise at any stage of development.

The stages only suggest one slice of reality and that's your values.

Your values tend to go up in a hierarchical way cuz some values are more inclusive than others they take more into consideration.

Let me complete and expand on this important clarification:

Adding to this crucial point:

1. What The Model Actually Addresses:
- It's specifically about the evolution of value systems
- Not about personality traits, lifestyle choices, or personal preferences
- Not about wisdom, maturity, or "being a good person"
- Just about how you make sense of and value things in the world

2. Common Misconceptions:
- People think higher stages mean "better person" - they don't
- People confuse examples (like "connection with nature") with the actual structure
- People think it prescribes specific behaviors or lifestyles
- People assume it judges personal choices or preferences

3. What "Higher Stages" Actually Mean:
- More inclusive value systems
- Greater capacity to understand different perspectives
- More complex ways of making sense of the world
- NOT better lifestyle choices or personal characteristics

4. Example to Illustrate:
Someone at a "higher stage" might:
- Be terrible at relationships
- Have unconventional lifestyle choices
- Struggle with basic life skills
- Have any kind of personality or preferences
BUT they would have a more inclusive way of understanding and valuing different perspectives

5. The Real Hierarchy:
- Not about personal worth
- Not about lifestyle choices
- Not about wisdom or maturity
- Just about the complexity and inclusiveness of value systems

This clarification helps resolve some of the criticism in the original text - the model isn't actually trying to create a universal hierarchy of human development, just mapping how value systems tend to evolve in complexity.

 

Let me break this down with concrete examples of how value systems can evolve in complexity while being separate from personality, wisdom, or lifestyle choices:

1. Simple to Complex Value Evolution Example:
- Stage 1: "I value what's directly good for me"
- Stage 2: "I value what's good for my family/tribe"
- Stage 3: "I value what's good for my nation/belief group"
- Stage 4: "I value what's good for all humans"
- Stage 5: "I value what's good for all living things"
- Higher: "I can understand and work with all these value systems while seeing their limitations"

2. Business Ethics Example:
Lower Complexity:
- "Profit is all that matters"
- Can't see why environmental concerns should affect business decisions
- Views regulations as pure obstacles

Higher Complexity:
- Can balance profit with environmental impact
- Understands both shareholder and stakeholder perspectives
- Can navigate between short-term and long-term benefits
- Note: Might still choose profit over environment, but understands the full complexity of the choice

3. Political Views Example:
Lower Complexity:
- "My political party is always right"
- "The other side is evil/stupid"
- Can't understand why anyone would disagree

Higher Complexity:
- Can understand multiple political perspectives
- Sees value and flaws in different systems
- Can hold contradictory viewpoints in mind
- Note: Might still strongly prefer one party, but understands the larger context

4. Cultural Values Example:
Lower Complexity:
- "My culture's way is the only right way"
- Judges other cultures by own standards
- Can't see value in different approaches

Higher Complexity:
- Can appreciate multiple cultural perspectives
- Understands cultural practices in their context
- Can navigate between different cultural frameworks
- Note: Might still prefer own culture but understands why others value theirs

5. Personal Choices Example:
Someone with a higher complexity value system:
- Might be into extreme sports
- Might be very traditional in some ways
- Might have any sexual preferences
- Might be messy or organized
BUT can understand and work with multiple perspectives about these choices

6. Religious/Spiritual Example:
Lower Complexity:
- "My religion is the only true one"
- Can't understand other faiths
- Rigid interpretation of beliefs

Higher Complexity:
- Can see value in multiple religious perspectives
- Understands metaphorical and literal interpretations
- Can hold strong personal beliefs while respecting others
- Note: Might still be deeply committed to one religion but understands the validity of other paths

The key point: In each case, what's "higher" isn't:
- The specific choices made
- The lifestyle lived
- The beliefs held
- The personality expressed

What's "higher" is:
- The ability to understand multiple perspectives
- The capacity to hold complexity
- The breadth of what's included in the value system
- The flexibility in navigating different viewpoints

A person could be at a "higher stage" and:
- Be a CEO or a janitor
- Be religious or atheist
- Be traditional or unconventional
- Have any personality type
- Make any lifestyle choices

 

You’re turning what is not yet actual into the highest form of being, as if potentiality itself contained some hidden superiority. But this is precisely the trick of negation: dissolving the real into an abstract, passive virtuality that never fully arrives. You can’t act from this suspended state of complexity, this endless “holding” of perspectives, because action is not a movement between states - it is an immanent surge, an unfolding that does not wait for permission.

The moment you act, you reveal that so-called integration was never stable, never whole - only a temporary crystallization of forces that now shift, mutate, and reform in new configurations. Every real action affirms itself, not by negating what came before, but by intensifying and differentiating what it brings into existence.

This is precisely what Nietzsche’s Will to Power points toward - not an equilibrium, not a dialectic, but an unfolding of intensities, a force that expands without needing to justify itself against some external framework. The real test of what is "low" or "high" is how an action composes itself, how it unfolds difference, how it creates anew.

When you paint, you’re not operating from a reconciled, integrated state. You are affirming an intensity that insists on its own existence. The greater its force, the more real it becomes - not because it integrates more, but because it extends, mutates, pushes into new zones of becoming.

Edited Sunday at 07:13 PM by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

22 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

You’re essentially just elevating whatever is not yet actual as the highest form of being. This is precisely what I mean by negating actuality - dissolving it into some passive, formless potentiality that never arrives. But you can’t do anything from this suspended state of complexity, this endless “holding” of perspectives. The moment you act, you cut through integration. Every real action wills itself, affirms itself, and in doing so, necessarily breaks from a state of total synthesis.

This is precisely what Nietzsche’s Will to Power points toward - not an equilibrium, but an intensification, a differentiation, a force expanding itself without reference to some external justification. What interests me is reframing what we call low and high - not in terms of transcendence or synthesis, but by asking: how much can an action affirm itself? How much can it intensify and differentiate itself?

When you paint, you’re not doing it from some balanced, reconciled state of being. You’re affirming a singular intensity that wants to bring itself into existence. The greater the force of that affirmation, the more real the act, the higher the painting. Not because it integrates more, but because it becomes more.

Again, it’s undeniable - surrendering to pure virtuality, dissolving into the primordial flux from which everything arises, is a profound and transformative experience. But it is not an ultimate state. It has always been there, shifting yet ungraspable, which is precisely why life does not consist in retreating to it, but in riding the waves of its differentiation.

That’s why transvaluation is not about replacing one framework with another but experimenting with new modes of existence. If one truly seeks to explore life on its own terms, then the fixation on dissolution - on passive absorption into the infinite - must not be "broken" in the sense of negation, but rather abandoned in favor of an unfolding, an expansion of singular intensities. Life isn’t found in retreating to pure potential, but in the force of what is particular, the movement of what becomes, the creation of what was never prefigured.

Edited Sunday at 07:09 PM by Nilsi

[Ero]

What is your view on evolutionary epistemology and the ontology of abstraction hierarchies? I contest that evolution and transcendence have ontological basis and are not simply features of perspectives. You cannot get past the fact that reality operates on many layers.