The limits of Leo's models

[Harmony342]

I have noticed Leo likes to wrap spiral dynamics and self-bias around a lot of different scenarios that may be more nuanced and  complex. I have no problem with this, I'd just like to offer a place for counter-arguments to these different models and theories so we can all be more open-minded and learn.

Thanks

[traveler]

Just take everything with a grain of salt. Non duality can not be understood nor teached, what is impossible for the "me" to understand is that everything is unknown already. Every teachings adds to your library of conceptual knowledge. How can non duality be understood when it literally points to not two? There has to be a subject and an object/a distance; duality, for something to be known. This isn't a finding, it is the death of the illusory "me" in the body that claims that this is dual.

It is just what it is, the final bit of knowledge that will destroy your doubt forever is a dream. There is no end, this will never be known, it doesn't need too, it is without boundaries, it has no requirements, unconditional Love.

[Byun Sean]

its your job to study the models and determine for yourself what is true and what is not. Otherwise your just believing an external authority figure or relying on them to find the truth for you.

Study the models and use them as one of your many lenses to look at reality through but don't mistake the map for the territory.

[RedLine]

Spiral dynamics is a very limited tool to analyze society and politics.

 

Also, the idea that, the highest someone is in the model the best is not clear. The creator or the model, Clare Graves stated that none sage is better than other, all states are ok. He said he was in stages red and blue. Imagine now somebody saying "Trump is bad because he is orange stage" It is basically the arguments they use in the society subforum here.

Edited August 21, 2020 by RedLine

[Johnny5]

I think Leo does a pretty good job of warning about limitations and nuances and whatnot, in fact I do believe he has a whole episode dedicated to that for SD.

It's good to discuss these things. The most obvious one that comes to mind for me, aside from mistaking the map for the territory, is that models easily lend themselves to pigeon holing, and of course making those ubiquitous comparisons like right/wrong, inferior/superior, etc.

Interested to see what anyone else comes up with.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Johnny5

[RedLine]

1 hour ago, Johnny5 said:

I think Leo does a pretty good job of warning about limitations and nuances and whatnot, in fact I do believe he has a whole episode dedicated to that for SD.

It's good to discuss these things. The most obvious one that comes to mind for me, aside from mistaking the map for the territory, is that models easily lend themselves to pigeon holing, and of course making those ubiquitous comparisons like right/wrong, inferior/superior, etc.

Interested to see what anyone else comes up with.

The problem of this model is it doesn't have internal logic.

 

You can't say there is a hierachy of comsmovisions and say there are not better or worst levels and the same time.

 

If you think green is better than red for example you can't be yellow/turquoise because you are not "integrating" red. However, if you are totally relativist and think/feel all the levels are equally ok there is no spyral dynamics anymore.

 

 

Also, how do you fit spyral dinamics with and ethics of compassion vs vanity (ego vs no ego). It looks like the "individual" stages (red, orage) are worst that colective stages (blue, green), since you are not just worried about yourself but about the others.

 

First you talk about spiral  dynamics you need to define this deep question, otherwise everything ia confuse: Is there progress in history or just change (for example progress=Ken Wilber, just change=alt right, kali yuga)? What is good (what goes towards God) and what is bad? (if you state there is progress you need to show how history goes from "bad" to "good" as Wilber does through the idea the human being evolving towards higher stages of consciusness and carry with all the consequences of it.

Edited August 21, 2020 by RedLine

[Fran11]

2 hours ago, RedLine said:

Also, the idea that, the highest someone is in the model the best is not clear. The creator or the model, Clare Graves stated that none sate is better than other, all states are ok. 

It's not the higher the better but it is more evolved.

For an individual might be negative to not match his/her enviroment (for example a green person may have a difficult sime surviving in a red enviroment).

But for society as a whole, transitions from one state to another do solve important problems, that's why they emerge in the first place (for examole, if we don't transition from orange to green we destroy the enviroment).

It could have negative aspects if previous stages are not fully integrated, in my country (Argentina, third world) green denies the importance of a healthy capitalism for economical development and basically want a state that spends the same a first world country can afford, which really hurts the economy and backfires.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Fran11

[fridjonk]

@RedLine The universe is evolving to its highest potential expression of love. The lower you are on the spiral, the less love and more fear you have. So in a sense, one could say orange is worse than green relative to where reality is headed. Reality wants to know itself, that's why you created it, it wants to love as much as possible. 

But if you put all evolution aside, then of course no stage is better than other. It just depends on what lens you're looking through. 

[Fran11]

6 minutes ago, fridjonk said:

@RedLine The universe is evolving to its highest potential expression of love. The lower you are on the spiral, the less love and more fear you have. So in a sense, one could say orange is worse than green relative to where reality is headed. Reality wants to know itself, that's why you created it, it wants to love as much as possible. 

But if you put all evolution aside, then of course no stage is better than other. It just depends on what lens you're looking through. 

Agree, good answer

[RedLine]

36 minutes ago, fridjonk said:

@RedLine The universe is evolving to its highest potential expression of love. The lower you are on the spiral, the less love and more fear you have. So in a sense, one could say orange is worse than green relative to where reality is headed. Reality wants to know itself, that's why you created it, it wants to love as much as possible. 

But if you put all evolution aside, then of course no stage is better than other. It just depends on what lens you're looking through. 

What you are saying in the second paragraph is the opposite you said in first paragraph.

 

What I am saying is intelectual understanding of reality (spiral dynamics) and contemplation go in opposite directions.

 

1. Lets go with intelectual understanding first (Relative reality, phillosophy, words):

 

I agree with your first paragraph here. The universe evolving towards highest levels or love. There is progress in history/evolution. Be aware that if you agree with this you are implicitly admitting there is good and bad (you are assuming an ethical system). What is bad? (what goes away from God), what is good? What goes close to God. Lower levels of consciusness (low in spiral dynamics) → away from God. Highest levels of consciusness (high in spiral dynamics) → closest to God.

 

Now, you internalize, you think there are "worst" ways of living/behaviors/cosmovisions and better ways of living/behaviors/cosmovisions. It means you have form an ethic.  So now you are gonna subjectively interpret reality trough this ethic (since you are not enlighten you are still judging reality, the ethics is the way we interpet reality, what we think it is good and what we think it is bad. So, if you see a hustler who is in red stage you are gonna judge him, because there is good and bad and he is in lower stages (bad); he should become a liberal, a green for example, that is what you could think. If you look at the society subforum a lot of people has this mind: I judge/reject/condemn this public person because he is in lower spiral dynmaics stages, even Leo has this kind of attitude sometimes.

 

2. Lets go now with the comptemplative understanding (Absolute reality, contemplation, pure experience): you dont judge anything; everthing is God, everything is ok. There is no progress or hierachies, everything is perfect, everything is already ok, there is not need for change. Of course you cannot accept or interpret reality though spiral dynmicas becacse it implies there are better and worst stages. Your ethics is now: everything is ok, it is not: good and bad.

 

 

I guess you understand the complex paradax I am trying to express here. It is an exciting field to tackle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Johnny5]

There are probably degrees of skill in the art of floral arrangement. Higher skill would mean you are better, at floral arrangement. So what? Good for you.  ? 

God already loves as much as possible and always has. It doesn't depend on human evolution, nor does it deny human evolution. In a sandbox, all the various sand castles are still sand.

[Nahm]

Limit is never an object observed, but rather is within observation. 

[Fran11]

1 hour ago, RedLine said:

Be aware that if you agree with this you are implicitly admitting there is good and bad (you are assuming an ethical system). 

No, you are assuming less or more evolved mean good and bad. Has nothing to do with an ethical system.

Are minerals and plants worse than humans? No, humans are more sophisticated and took more time to develop, but they couldn't have evolved if minerals and plants weren't there in the first place.

Higher conciousness doesn't make you more loving and compassionate because you suscribe to an "objective" ethical system, but rather because you recognize your own conciousness in other beings, and why would you wanna hurt yourself? 

There's a BIG difference beetween buying into some objective morality (which if you follow you clasify people as "good" or "bad") and recognizing developement makes you more loving (you don't think of people as good or bad, rather you see there is a progression form selfishness to selflesness). The huge consecuence is that you stop judging "bad" people.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Fran11

[RedLine]

1 hour ago, Fran11 said:

No, you are assuming less or more evolved mean good and bad. Has nothing to do with an ethical system.

[...]

 

You still don´t get the tremendous implications of what I am talking about.

 

Ehtic alway relate to God because God=Good. If you talk about ethics you are obliged to talk about theology.

 

What is good and bad and how do they relate to God? Answer this.

 

For example: if you choose to follow spiritual/enlighment path, you believe it is better (ethic) to choose that path over don´t choosing it and follow a normal samsara life. Can you get what I mean by ethic? Now answer the question of the previous paragraph if you want we go deep into the matter.

Edited August 21, 2020 by RedLine

[Fran11]

1 hour ago, RedLine said:

What is good and bad and how do they relate to God? Answer this.

They are RELATIVE human notions that change over time. God is absolute truth beyond such notions. Everything you call "bad" is also part of God/Reality by definition. 

If lower SD stages were "bad" and God was "good" like you say, those stages wouldn't exist and we would automatically be born turquoise.

Regading the spiritual path being "better" than samsara, again, only YOU are saying that, I didn't. It's a matter of evolution, FIRST we get disatisfied with samsara (probably over many lives) and THEN we pursue spirituality. I don't consider people who haven't got to spirituality yet "less ethical".

Stop trying to equate evolution with morality/ethics, they are not the same.

Yes, evolution does go in a particular way, but calling the early "bad" and the advanced "good" is a human projection

Edited August 21, 2020 by Fran11

[RedLine]

48 minutes ago, Fran11 said:

 

Regading the spiritual path being "better" than samsara, again, only YOU are saying that, I didn't. It's a matter of evolution, FIRST we get disatisfied with samsara (probably over many lives) and THEN we pursue spirituality. 

 

Why do you pursue spirituality? Because you think it is better than not chasing it. Better implies a judgment an this judgment is an ethic judgment.

 

All decisions are drived by ethics, by what is good and what is bad. Even when you take bad deicisions, short term decisions, you take it becuase it gives you pleasure in the short time and you consdier pleasure is good.  

If you remove ethics from the equation you wouldn´t even wake up from bed neither eat and you would die. Why do you survive? becuase you think living is better than die → ethics. 

Elections and ethic are the same. When there is election there is something better over something worse.

 

48 minutes ago, Fran11 said:

They are RELATIVE human notions that change over time. God is absolute truth beyond good and bad. Everything you call "bad" is also part of God/Reality by definition. 

 

This is why I am specifically using the term ethic and not moral. I am using ethic in a metaphisical/pure way, not  in a materialistic/sociological way.

 

48 minutes ago, Fran11 said:

 

If lower SD stages were "bad" and God was "good" like you say, those stages wouldn't exist and we would automatically be born turquoise.

 

You start geting it. That is the Mistery of life that nobody can solve: God is perfect, God is everything but the world is not pefect, there are suffer. This is classically formulated as the Relative vs Absolute paradox. Leo is not right when he pretend he solve the final mistery of universe. Mysticism did not solve everything. There is reality beyond your subjectivity.

 

48 minutes ago, Fran11 said:

 

Stop trying to equate evolution with morality/ethics, they are not the same.

Think about the notion of progress. If you believe there is a progress in evolution/history of course this is about ethics. Progress is progress in ethics, otherwise it is just change. Change is neutral, progress isn´t.

 

48 minutes ago, Fran11 said:

 

Yes, evolution does go in a particular way, but calling the early "bad" and the advanced "good" is a human projection

 

Everything is a human projection. This assertion does not explain anything.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by RedLine

[Gesundheit]

23 hours ago, Harmony342 said:

The limits of Leo's models

?

[Fran11]

26 minutes ago, RedLine said:

Think about the notion of progress. If you believe there is a progress in evolution/history of course this is about ethics. Progress is progress in ethics, otherwise it is just change. Change is neutral, progress.

So basically your whole point is that you call "ethics" what I was calling "evolution". Enough word game. Have a nice day 

[fridjonk]

14 hours ago, RedLine said:

Why do you pursue spirituality? Because you think it is better than not chasing it. Better implies a judgment an this judgment is an ethic judgment.

 

I find this to be too much of tier 1 thinking. I don't choose spirituality because it's "better" than some other path. I just love it, that's why we all do it,  love transcends "better". I don't consider myself better than someone who would vote for Trump when I wouldn't, It's just that I've been to a path which led me to realize higher love and managed to steer clear of falling into the devil's lap. That doesn't mean I'm better than anyone, the same goes for choices I make in my life. 

Only one thing lies behind ethics and that's love. Love is the driving force of all you do and all you don't do. 

15 hours ago, RedLine said:

God is everything but the world is not pefect, there are suffer. This is classically formulated as the Relative vs Absolute paradox.

Everything is perfect, all suffering, all devilry, it's absolute perfection. God loves everything equally because it's all him. You judge suffering from a human perspective, but from realities perspective, it has to happen in order for reality to exist. The relative is not separate from the absolute, it's the illusion that makes it appear to be so. There was no separation, it was always ONE. 

[Johnny5]

this^^

 

...except there is no devil's lap.

Edited August 22, 2020 by Johnny5