Ken Wilber: Lunatic, Liar or Lord?

[BurtWorm]

Here's an excerpt from Salon.com's interview with Wilubur, another of their continuing slingshot attacks on science and rationalism:


http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/04/28/ken_wilber/



Where do you think the scientific worldview falls short when dealing with religion?

Conventional science has correctly dismantled the pre-rational myths but it goes too far in dismantling the trans-rational. The mythic and magic approaches tend to be pre-rational and pre-verbal, but the meditative or contemplative practices tend to be trans-rational. They completely accept rationality and science. But they point out that there are deeper modes of awareness, which are scientific in their own way.

What do you mean by trans-rational?

People at these higher stages of spiritual development report a "non-dual awareness," a type of awareness that transcends the dichotomy between subject and object. The mystical state is often beyond words. It is trans-rational because you have access to rationality but it's temporarily suspended. A 6-month-old infant, for instance, is in a pre-rational state, whereas the mystic is in a trans-rational state. Unfortunately, "pre" and "trans" get confused. So some theorists say the infant is in a mystical state.

Are you saying people with a rationalist orientation can't make these distinctions?

I'm saying that when people look at mystical states, they often confuse them with pre-rational states. People like Sigmund Freud take trans-rational, oceanic states of oneness and reduce them to infantile states of unity.

Why has the scientific worldview dismissed this trans-personal dimension? For most intellectuals around the world, the secular scientific paradigm has triumphed.

It's understandable. Historically, if you look at these broad stages, the magical era tended to be 50,000 years ago, the mythic era emerged around 5,000 B.C., and the rational era -- secular humanism -- emerged in the Renaissance and Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was an attempt to liberate myth and base truth claims on evidence, not just dogma. But when science threw out the church, they threw out the baby with the bath water.

You can't prove a higher stage to someone who's not at it. If you go to somebody at the mythic stage and try to prove to them something from the rational, scientific stage, it won't work. You go to a fundamentalist who doesn't believe in evolution, who believes the earth was created in six days, and you say, "What about the fossil record"? "Oh yes, the fossil record; God created that on the fifth day." You can't use any of the evidence from a higher stage and prove it to a lower stage. So someone who's at the rational stage has a very hard time seeing these trans-rational, trans-personal stages. The rational scientist looks at all the pre-rational stuff as nonsense -- fairies and ghosts and goblins -- and lumps it together with the trans-rational stuff and says, "That's non-rational. I don't want anything to do with it."

[sam sarrha]

1. i love Ken... i bought the tape set of the book,' Brief History of Everything', so could listen to

to it at work... for weeks.. so fascinating. if one meditates it makes more sense. it explained meditation for me a little better. i always saw meditation as sort of a self help A.A program, an 8 step program for people addicted to to using the conventional mind to deal with reality

[Goblinmonger]

2. Well,

Anytime the argument is "you just don't get it because you aren't at the same level," I pretty much give up.

Plus, does anyone think that calling this "trans-rational" rather than magical bullshit is similar to calling creationism "intelligent design"?

[BurtWorm]

3. Well put.

The line between transrational and irrational seems pretty slim to me. But then what do I trans-know?

[varkam]

4. Wilber is full of trans-shit.

I stopped reading at trans-rational.

[trotsky]

6. You're just stuck at a lower stage, you Neanderthal.

Expecting things like "evidence," I bet. That's SO Enlightenment. ;-)

[varkam]

7. Hey! That's *trans-neanderthal* to you!

:rofl:

[trotsky]

8. *SNORT*

:D

[BurtWorm]

9. It may be shit. but it's a higher form of shit.

:bounce:

[struggle4progress]

12. I agree "you don't get it because you aren't at a high enough level" is usually a cheapshot, but

sometimes it is not

There are some famous examples of this in the mathematical literature, and some famous examples of the opposite "it's obvious to you only because you aren't at a high enough level to understand the problem"

I'm too lazy to comb the literature right now to be sure that I remember the following history correctly, but I'm pretty sure I do: In the late 1970's, Apery published a rather short proof that ζ(3) was irrational, a nice step forward if his proof was correct; unfortunately, everyone who read the "proof" could only see a number of short and technical observations (all of which everybody could verify, after some work) -- followed abruptly by the conclusion that "ζ(3) is irrational." Asking Apery "Why?" was apparently not very helpful, because one got a careful explanation of the technical observations -- followed by "so ζ(3) is irrational." Since the technical observations were nontrivial, and since Apery had a good reputation, the paper was published, but nobody else knew for ten years or more whether Apery was right. And then finally the light dawned, and people found that if they just identified precisely enough the problems they had understanding the proof, it was possible to add a few sentences and Voila! the matter was clear: Apery was right. One assumes Apery's natural reaction would have been, "Well, duh!"

[BurtWorm]

13. They would have gotten it if Apery had been at a high enough level to explain himself clearly.

Apparently he wasn't. I wonder if he still isn't or if he's caught up with the rest of his peers.

[struggle4progress]

19. After you yourself have proved some comparable theorems, I might find your views

about Apery's alleged intellectual defects more interesting

[Jim__]

15. It's disappointing that reviewers would pass on an article that they didn't really understand.

Unless the reviewers knew that Apery were head and shoulders above them, I would hope they would push him to clarify his conclusion.

[struggle4progress]

20. Your view seems to be that the reviewer's task is to keep good papers away from the public

[Jim__]

23. How do you arrive at that conclusion?

My understanding of the review process is that part of its purpose is to keep unwarranted claims from being published. If the reviewers can't understand how the conclusion is arrived at, how can they verify that the claim is not unwarranted? A paper containing an unwarranted claim is not a "good paper". So, if the reviewers can't understand how the conclusion was arrived at, they can't possibly decide whether or not the this paper is "good".

[struggle4progress]

26. The object of publication is to advance the field; referees' task is therefore to determine (based

on their own expertise) whether the paper is likely to advance the field

To insist (as you would), that referees should always oppose publication of papers they cannot fully certify as correct, is to insist that only the simplest papers be published: a complete evaluation of correctness or significance of a substantial paper may take years (and in fact the author(s) may themselves have invested years in producing the paper) aside

[John Gauger]

17. As Carl Sagan points out in "Demon-Haunted World,"

it is still a logical fallacy when mathematicians do it. He uses the example of quantum mechanics. While it may be true that in trying to understand quantum mechanics that we don't know enough math, it's not valid in an argument to say, "you just don't know enough." It doesn't do anything to show your claims to be either true or false, so it's a dodge.

[struggle4progress]

18. It cannot possibly be a logical fallacy that someone notices something obvious,

and such an observation does not become a logical fallacy simply because others remain blind (even for a long time) to some fact another person clearly and accurately sees a fact

I myself don't pay any particular attention to the sort of view linked in the OP, since it does not reflect my interests, intellectual instincts or tastes. But I do say: it is simultaneously naive and arrogant to assume that one is capable of understanding everyone else's insights into the world

[John Gauger]

21. It may be the truth, but it is still a logical fallacy.

A fallacy is something that does not constitute valid logic. The fact that others cannot understand your position does not make it any more true. Thus using that fact in an attempt to bolster your argument is fallacious, even when skeptics do it.

[struggle4progress]

24. A "logical fallacy" is an argument scheme that does not necessarily produce

correct conclusions from correct antecedents

"You're not smart or perceptive enough to see X yourself" is not even an argument scheme, so cannot be a logical fallacy. Under many circumstances, it is merely a rude psychological attack; nevertheless, when one cannot see X for oneself, although purportedly "X is obvious," it can be a sign of intellectual maturity to hold open the possibility "If I were smart or perceptive enough, I'd see X myself" (although one might hold this possibility open while simultaneously holding open the possibility "Those who claim 'X is obvious' are mistaken or insane or lying")

[cyborg_jim]

25. The "Obvious" is the first thing you have to prove

No ifs, no buts.

[struggle4progress]

27. Long experience suggests attempts, to explain "obvious" matters, are seldom helpful

[cyborg_jim]

28. Then they aren't "obvious" and hence the fallacy of "this is too obvious to prove"

[struggle4progress]

29. On any materialistic account of the world, "facts" are prior to "logic,"

which merely serves as a linguistic device for communicating about "facts." And it is similarly possible to view "proofs" in mathematics as merely reflecting an effort to communicate certain "facts": on this view, a "proof" merely functions as a map, telling someone how to travel to a certain intellectual place where certain "facts" can be observed

What is "obvious" in the material world and in certain intellectual places, of course, may depend on the observer: some people are colorblind, some people hallucinate, some see far like eagles, and so on

[John Gauger]

16. Special pleading, pure and simple.

"God works in mysterious ways," "You haven't reached the requisite level of spiritual development," and "you can only understand Enlightenment once you reach it," are all examples of the logical fallacy of special pleading. They are just cop-outs, and they tell you nothing.

[Evoman]

22. Well, your way ahead of me.

I don't feel like giving up as much as giving them a flying roundhouse to the head.

It's a cop out, plain and simple. If there is one thing I hate about woo-woo shit, religion, and the new age "trans-rational" type bullshit, it's the out and out vanity of it all. I think that spirituality crap is more about feeling high and mighty and special, than about anything else. Oh, look at me. I'm so enlightened. All those other people have yet to reach my level. They have non-dualistic thought....blah blah fucking blah.

Sorry trans-rational dude, but your not at a higher level. Being at a higher level means that you aware of your own bullshit, that you understand enough about human nature that you know your not separate from it.

It's human nature to delude yourself into thinking that the way you think is the way the world is. It's human nature to cover your eyes with your delusions. If you were at a higher level, as soon as you said "trans-rational", you would think to yourself....man, I'm so full of shit.





Man, I need a vacation.

[Odin2005]

31. I consider his notion of "trans-rational" be be nonsensical.

Wilbur creates a straw-man by claiming that us "materialist" types consider the emotional response of awe and wonder about nature and existance to be inferior to pure reason. A notion Einstein and Sagan would loudly protest against were they still around.

[trotsky]

5. "scientific in their own way"

:rofl:
That's like saying 2+3 adds up to 4 "in its own way."

Bottom line is, some folks don't like what simple observation & experimentation have to say about their pet beliefs, so they wall it off and say "Science doesn't live here." Rabid rightie fundies do it with creationism, this guy does it with "trans-rationalism."

And of course he has to throw in a gem like this:

"You can't prove a higher stage to someone who's not at it."

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. "It's anything you want it to be"

Well, if you look cross-culturally, what you'll find is that spirit or godhead can be looked at either through first-person, second-person or third-person perspectives. The third-person perspective is to see spirit as a grand "it." In other words, a vast web of life. Gaia in this third-person is the sum total of everything that exists. A second-person way of looking sees spirit as a "thou," as an actual intelligence that is present and is something you can, in a sense, have a conversation with, keeping in mind the ultimately unknowable nature of godhead. Many of the contemplative traditions go further and say you can approach spirit as a first person. So that spirit is "I." Or that would be Big Self.

Or, as a great philosopher once said:

"Take a little good advice,
Take a trip to paradise,
It's really not too hard to find,
You've got it in you mind.
It's whatever thing you want.
Goodies.........Goodies
It's anything you want it to be,
A record or an O.B.E.
A sausage or a seaside pier,
We make it happen here.
Fun for all the family,
Goodies........Goodies
Goodies, goody goody yum yum."

Yes, that great philosopher was Bill Oddie. But he not only said this before Wilber, he set it to music. And then co-wrote the damn good comedy programme it introduced. I'll stick with The Goodies to give be a better idea of the eternal verities, thank you.

[Silent3]

11. As someone who has reached the post trans-rational stage...

...I can tell you that trans-rationalism is mostly a step backward, and that the rationalists mostly have it right, except for missing out on the spiritual value of sweat lodges and high colonics.

Naturally I can't explain how I know this to anyone who hasn't reached my level. For those of you who have... well, no explanation is necessary.

[BurtWorm]

14. You ain't seen nothin' yet, my friend.

Just wait till you get to the pre-post-post-post-transrational stage. (I wonder what could possibly come after this one...)

[Odin2005]

30. Lunatic. He's an arrogant New Age nutball.

To him any criticism of his nonsense is simply the result of the critic being at a lower level of "value system memes" or some-such then he is, so basically his notions are unfalsifiable garbage. At lot of his stuff is a bastardization of a perfectly good theory of the psychology of worldviews called Spiral Dynamics

[cosmik debris]

32. People who brag about being on a higher level

are looking down, not up.

If this dumb ass was looking up he would see that there are a lot of trans-superstitious people on much higher levels than he is.

But it is easier and more reassuring to look down.