Wilbers new book - "Finding Radical Wholeness"

[zurew]

55 minutes ago, The Renaissance Man said:

I believe there's a compromise to make though. You have limited resources. You can either invest them more in creating solid proof for your claims, or you can invest them in pushing your exploration further.

As long as there's a philosophy of "don't believe me, test it on your own", and a positive intention to help rather than scam, ideas can be incredibly powerful, even if not traditionally proven. A LOT of scientific studies are worth shit for various reasons, so ultimately you need to test stuff for yourself anyway.

Yes you can test stuff on your own, but that has its own downsides also. 1 being that you might waste a lot of time , another could be that even if some change happens in your life - it might not have come from the given practices but from something outside that you didn't track. Anecdotes are really bad in terms of quality and you can mislead a lot of people with your anecdotes. There are other potential downsides as well  - for example maybe some practices will fuck some people up, because they have a different basis to work with compared to you.

So no - having good intentions and telling people to try and test what you say isn't responsible and good enough (imo). It can be good enough in certain contexts, but in those contexts you have to have the honesty and integrity  and make it very clear that you have no tangible evidence that it will work or whether it will be harmful or not. Be clear that you only have a theory that is based on certain set of reasons. You might have strong reasons for your conclusion, but still , empirical claims require evidence, because in practice a lot of theory will fail.

Regarding your point about pushing the exploration further - you can't really push the exploration further without first gathering evidence for your current theory. Your further exploration would be built on underlying premises that are unproven, which doesn't necessarily mean that they are wrong, but it means that you are going blindly forward.

And yes a lot of scientific studies can be shit for various reasons, but that fact shouldn't give anyone a leeway to just make prescriptions based on claims that don't have quality evidence for them.

 

To be clear though - im not sure whether this applies to Wilber's work or to some of his work or to any of his work at all. Im basing it on the claim that Aurum made (about some of Wilber's prescriptions not having scientific evidence for them), but regardless,  this is a general critique that I would apply to anyone who is making prescriptions on unproven or very poorly proven descriptions.

Edited April 16 by zurew

[The Renaissance Man]

20 minutes ago, zurew said:

you have to have the honesty and integrity  and make it very clear that you have no tangible evidence that it will work or whether it will be harmful or not

Yes I agree with you

 

20 minutes ago, zurew said:

you can't really push the exploration further without first gathering evidence for your current theory.

There's a lot of evidence in your personal experience and observations, and it can be combined with the knowledge of many other teachers to propel you to a new level. This isn't always applicable though, it depends on the theory. I'm not sure whether this applies to Wilber's work or to some of his work or to any of his work at all.
Edit: the evidence is not traditionally measured or proven, but intuition can often go beyond anything measurable.

Edited April 16 by The Renaissance Man

[UnbornTao]

16 hours ago, SeaMonster said:

I was referring to Wilber, not you.  Your comments are right on.

My bad, I meant to mention @aurum.

[aurum]

11 hours ago, zurew said:

I think thats irresponsible on his part. Making strong empirical claims without actually establishing with studies how effective those prescriptions are.

The level of confidence in claims should be aligned with the level of evidence you have for it.

Just because some of these studies would be really hard to conduct that doesn't give anyone a free ticket to just freely make claims without needing to provide tangible evidence for those claims.

I would like to see studies as well. I'm pro-empirical data.

The problem is that Wilber's work is inherently not academic-friendly. Saying doing studies would be "really hard" is an understatement.

To really do a convincing study, you need a narrowly defined quantifiable question and an ability to eliminate as many variables as possible. Wilber's work is broad, subjective and arguably trans-rational. It's the opposite of academically rigorous, which is why it's not taken seriously in academia.

In addition, studies cost millions of dollars that need to be funded and published by someone. And usually you need a whole bunch of them to really convince the scientific community. 

 

[aurum]

23 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

whole, unbroken, complete, integral. A vase is either whole or it has a crack, at which point it is no longer complete. Its function is already diminished or broken.

A perspective is partial. How do you define whole?

We could choose to define "whole" in many different ways.

For the purposes of this discussion, we can think of "whole" in terms of holons.

A human cell is whole, which makes up a whole set of tissues, which makes up a whole organ, which makes up a whole human, which makes up a whole population, which makes up a whole society ->>> to infinity.

So we have lesser wholeness within higher wholeness.

But it's not just physical stuff that are holons. The psyche also functions as a holon, as seen with the Tier 2 integration of all Tier 1 stages.

This holonic thinking is fundamental to Wilber's work. 

[How to be wise]

On 13/04/2024 at 7:38 AM, Leo Gura said:

I don't use that term anymore.

What? Why?

[Thought Art]

9 hours ago, LSD-Rumi said:

Right! It is like he saw a wig while he was walking in the street and just bought it and put it on his head 
This is an accurate representation of post-enlightenment behavior ,

Too awake for me with hair like that

Stage Coral Super sayan 

Edited April 16 by Thought Art

[zurew]

12 hours ago, aurum said:

I would like to see studies as well. I'm pro-empirical data.

The problem is that Wilber's work is inherently not academic-friendly. Saying doing studies would be "really hard" is an understatement.

To really do a convincing study, you need a narrowly defined quantifiable question and an ability to eliminate as many variables as possible. Wilber's work is broad, subjective and arguably trans-rational. It's the opposite of academically rigorous, which is why it's not taken seriously in academia.

In addition, studies cost millions of dollars that need to be funded and published by someone. And usually you need a whole bunch of them to really convince the scientific community. 

Well as long as we recognize that we shouldn't give much weight to his empirical claims (treat it as something that needs to be investigated)  and as long as he is honest and open about what quality of evidence he can provide for his empirical claims - I have no problem with it.

Regarding the comment about his work being subjective and trans-rational: I am not completely sure how you use the word "trans-rational" but empirical claims can be investigated and they are not inaccessible. So for example If he makes a claim about how certain things will effect/change the individual, then those effects can either be measured scientifically or at the very least reported by those individuals and then those reports can be investigated further if some patterns can be find in them.

If he makes non-empirical claims as well - well, that kind of thing is a whole different can of worms itself (how those claims can be evaluated or engaged with ), but right now I am explicitly making a comment on the evaluation of empirical claims.

Edited April 17 by zurew

[LambdaDelta]

It's out now. I'll grab the audiobook to start off

[Thought Art]

I preordered it and picked it up a couple days ago. It's getting better as I go and I am learning/ reviewing a lot. It dove tails nicely with the work of Actualized.

[undeather]

The book seems to be more an indroductory/overview of Wilber's work - with a pragmatic twist and a focus on practices. 
If you are already familiar with his concepts, then you will encounter a lot of repetition. 
That said, I enjoy the audiobook - will keep it and recommend to friends who are not familiar with integral theory.

[UnbornTao]

I'm not convinced he's conscious of his nature at all.

Nobody with that wig can be enlightened.

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, UnbornTao said:

I'm not convinced he's conscious of his nature at all.

Nobody with that wig can be enlightened.

It's the other way around, if you can accept the wig, you clearly are enlightened. 

[UnbornTao]

5 hours ago, Scholar said:

It's the other way around, if you can accept the wig, you clearly are enlightened. 

 

Edited June 14 by UnbornTao

[Thought Art]

@UnbornTao The books are incredible

[martins name]

From what I've heard him say about it it's supposed to be the entry point to integral theory. It's long been a problem that these isn't anywhere great to start for someone who is trying to get into his work. Doesn't seem like there will be any new concepts in the book sadly. This one isn't for the hard core fans.

[Thought Art]

@martins name it seems relatively introductory. It's the first book I plan to read in full and am enjoying it. Though, its a strange writing style with lots of repetition which is actually useful. 

[Leo Gura]

He already has intro books to Integral theory. Why make more?  This isn't Chinese calculus.

[jakee]

Basically all of Wilbers works outlines the basics of Integral Theory - the stages of growing up, the states of waking up etc.. before going into the actual topic of the book, so everybody can grasp it. This book seems to be no exception, the topic  now being Wholeness viewed through AQAL (all quadrants, all levels..) lens, and the practical dimensions of it.

You can basically skip through the intro parts, if you're familiar with the tenets of IT already.

[Thought Art]

I do think that if you don’t have already some kind of knowledge of things like spiral dynamics this book has sections that may be difficult to understand. 
 

I do appreciate his use of repeating himself. Often multiple times in the same paragraph. 
 

The book at times feels a big jumbled. I would like more… tables and visuals especially early on. 
 

Overall, it’s a joy to read.

I’ve read nearly have of his book religion of tomorrow. I like this book. Hopefully it encourages me to dive I to his works. I’d like to ready integral psychology and integral spirituality as well.

I like his take on Big Wholeness, and I’m interested in his take on Tantric Sex. Haven’t gotten there yet.

Edited June 25 by Thought Art