Hunting the Snark

                                                            A Commentary Upon Collins:

(From the Perspective of an Admirer of Ken Wilber’s Works)

Mike Mc Dermott

"For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that won't

Be caught in a commonplace way.

Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:

Not a chance must be wasted today!

Lewis Carroll: The Hunting of the Snark

Chapter One

I don’t know if you have ever been in a train carriage where all you can see from the window is another train carriage. When one carriage moves, unless the start is betrayed by a jolt you may find yourself in a state of total confusion concerning whether you are moving or the adjoining train is moving - until such time as you can identify another frame of reference (from out of the opposite window, for example).

Ruminations on such phenomena led Einstein along the path of relativity theory - his famous thought experiment about travelling alongside a light beam. I suppose that ruminations on such phenomena led Peter Collins - who lists physics among his many interests - along the path to Holistic Mathematics.

My experience of first reading Peter Collins was rather akin to my experience of being in a train carriage in the above circumstances. I first experience ‘Einstein’s carriage’ when a still a small boy, when I used to travel by train a good deal. Unlike with Einstein, the seed of my puzzlement fell on stony ground.  However, the seed of my puzzlement with Collins fell on richer and mature soil, fertilised with significant dollops of Wilber’s thought (uh oh - Ken, kindly ignore any unintended parallels organic fertiliser!). Upon first reading Collins work, I felt as if it was dropping a series of ‘depth charges’ into my psyche, or that it was like getting my spine realigned by a chiropractor. 

This is a reaction I find is often rewarding to pursue.  I now identify it as often applying to one of Kohlberg’s observations about stage development:

3. In stage development individuals are cognitively attracted to reasoning one level above their own present predominant level.

http://home.earthlink.net/~plantarian/kohlberg.html.

So, in the hope that Collins was a facilitator to that ‘one level above’, I embarked upon the hunt.

I now have a manageably-sized frame of reference to conduct the exploration largely within - 

Ref 1 Peter Collins’ 42 page monograph “The Dynamics of Development: A True Integral Approach”, at http://people.a2000.nl/fvisser/wilber/collins.html

Ref 2 Ken Wilber’s one paragraph response, as follows:

“Peter Collins has been sending me his many interesting essays, and the one posted here is very typical of his contributions. Many people who read his material say that they cannot understand it. Developmental psychologists tend to find that it is not very current on recent research. I myself find it a provocative piece. I, of course, do not believe that Collins's particular version of "integral" is totally convincing; it particularly seems to lack a subtle grasp of transpersonal realities. Nor does he seem to acknowledge any of the nuances of my own work. Still, I always enjoy reading his material and I hope that he finds a large audience for his thoughtful contributions”;

http://people.a2000.nl/fvisser/wilber/collins2.html

Ref 3 A 5 page response to Wilber’s paragraph by Collins (personal correspondence);

Ref 4 A 14 page article by Collins entitled “The Pre/Trans Fallacy; a Spectrum of Translations (personal correspondence), and finally; 

Ref 5 Collins’ “A Spectrum of Translation Methods” (personal correspondence).

The broader frame of reference includes almost all of Wilber’s works (which, like Collins, I have been avidly reading now for just under twenty years), and Collins’ works available from his homepage at:

http://homepages.iol.ie/~peter/index.html

Who Should Read This? Those of you of the “a pox on both your houses” view can perhaps be better engaged elsewhere - unless that view comes from within Kohlberg’s second observation: 

2. In stage development, subjects cannot comprehend . . .  reasoning at a stage more than one stage beyond their own - 

http://home.earthlink.net/~plantarian/kohlberg.html.

in which case I hope that this paper may help such readers as a means towards Kohlberg’s third observation. However, it is mainly directed at those of you out there who were like me - reasonably well versed in Wilber’s works, but were thinking “nah, surely this guy’s just too good to be true! There must be major flaws in his thinking that I’m too dense to notice on my own; let’s see if someone else can help me here.” That’s why I went to the KWF, only to discover it’s mainly about someone whom Wilber has praised “to infinity and beyond” but who nevertheless leaves me cold: Adi Da. However, I have since discovered many critics of Wilber, amongst whom there generally appears to be an inverse proportion between passion and intellectual content. Generally, they reduce Wilber to “this’, say “this” is horrid, bad, ugly, politically incorrect or whatever, and walk off convinced that they have put the upstart in his place. They cut off his bald head to fit him on their Procrustean bed. Serves him right for disturbing their comfort zone!

I’m embarking upon this exercise partly to see how much, if at all, Collins fits this description, but mainly to continue to explore just how robust Wilber’s and Collins’ models are. However, although I think that I’m now reasonably well-versed in the works of both, I’m only at a middling stage in my understanding of the relationship between Wilber and Collins. Therefore, this paper is not to be read as a personal judgement upon their works; that would be presumptuous of me. I do not see them in an either/or relationship in the first place, and my understanding is still insufficient to make such judgements. Please read it as my subjective interpretation; a hunt for the Snark, not a bagging of it. So, even if I get declamatory at times, they are provisional declamations (!) to facilitate the dialectical exploration process - that is, they are not as strong as they may read as being. Like I have accused others of doing, I may put my (mis)understandings into the mouths of Wilber and Collins, and thereby also be guilty of what I shall now term the Procrustean Error (PE). Where I suspect I may be guilty of that, I shall insert “(PE?)” as a warning to the reader. However, it may also happen in contexts where I do not suspect its existence.

Peter Collins’ work has become progressively clearer - at least partly as a result of his interactions on the Ken Wilber Forum (KWF), and this (Ref 1) is one of his clearest expositions yet. One only has to read his Transforming Voyage to appreciate how arduous Peter’s spiritual growth has been.  Now, he is attempting to convey to others what he has discovered at such a cost. What has impressed both me and many others on the KWF is Peter’s seemingly inexhaustible patience, courtesy and care in setting about this task.

Nonetheless, Wilber correctly points out that “many people who read [Collins’] material say that they cannot understand it”(Ref 2). At least some of those many may not understand due to the Kohlbergian reasons quoted above, but in terms of my personal process towards understanding Collins, I thought that looking from another angle may help - based upon another Wilber concept that Collins has criticised (or rather, has criticised Wilber’s means of using it - “Ken clearly does not provide an integral interpretation of the quadrants”[ref 1, p. 9/42]).

Wilber’s four quadrants are:

51165900. Exterior individual (Upper Right) - cells, bodies, etc (including their interiors - i.e,      their visible aspects);

51165901. Exterior social (Lower Right) - societal infrastructure

51165902. Interior individual (Upper Left) - thoughts, feelings, values, etc

51165903. Interior social (Lower Left) - culturally shared memes, values, etc

Wilber’s view is that all four quadrants of a holon must be examined as a necessary precondition for an integral understanding. Collins emphasises that the relationship between the quadrants is dynamic, and considers the division into axes can be somewhat misleading - useful for first approximations, but misleading if taken as is too far beyond that. For example, the adding or removing of chemicals (UR) can affect one’s thoughts (UL), which can be conveyed to affect both the LR and LL quadrants positively, towards growth, or negatively, towards contraction or destruction. To give a positive example: one conjecture about ‘growth’ from just such a process involves Gautama Buddha, the tree under which he obtained enlightenment being said to have figs which contain chemicals which affect serotonin levels (not that everyone eating these figs would thereby become enlightened, but that a certain level of serotonin may be necessary before enlightenment can happen, otherwise ‘the seed falls on stony ground’). Buddha then preached, which resulted in massive changes to many of the world’s exterior and interior social quadrants. A negative example would be a taker of massive overdoses of anabolic steroids going out and killing someone - an act that he would not otherwise have performed (not that everyone taking anabolic steroids would thereby become a murderer, but that a certain level of steroid imbalance may be necessary before endarkening can happen, otherwise ‘the seed falls on stony ground’). The killer thereby inflicted damage not just to the murdered party, but to exterior and interior social quadrants. Examples of both types could begin in any quadrant. 

So at first it appeared to me that there were significant similarities between what Collins is describing in the paper (focussing on interior individual - UL) and what has been observed about the way the brain progressively organises its tasks in terms of developing hemispheric specialisation (exterior individual - UR). “As an orienting approximation at least”, I wondered, “could Collins’ linear understanding be seen as predominantly left hemisphere, circular as predominantly right hemisphere, and radial as the emergent integrated understanding from both hemispheres?” The prevailing UR perspective sees this aspect of the brain’s tasks organised as follows:

Left Hemisphere - Verbal, linguistic, details, concrete, orderly sequences;

Right Hemisphere - Visual, spatial, overall picture, abstract, shapes and patterns, emotion

(Moir & Jessel, p. 88)

Empirically though, there is nothing rigid about this left-right dichotomy. There are significant differences between individuals, with women generally having “their brain functions scattered more widely between the two hemispheres, and have many more connections between the various sites”, and men generally having “their brain functions in much more compartmentalized little boxes”(ibid), and thus being more likely to commit the PE. Moreover, functions which are more developed in one hemisphere may have a ‘foggy’ mirror equivalent in the other, accessible when the dominant hemisphere is damaged. A realistic model, then, should be able to account for such differences - at least at the more detailed levels of articulation, and orienting generalizations should not be in conflict with it. Similarly, there was nothing rigid about this orienting approximation of mine on Collins’ work.

Collins’ central criticism of Wilber in Ref 1 is that “vision logic as used by Ken Wilber is a sophisticated analytic method, and is not appropriate therefore for genuine integral synthesis.” (Note that, as Gebser did not go beyond the “integral-aperspectival” level, he had to collapse any higher order structures into it, while both Wilber and Collins include still higher-order integration levels. This leads to an important distinction between “integral-aperspectival” and “vision-logic”).

I consider that the understanding of the vision-logic level as “being integral only relative to the lower levels, and in fact being less integrated than the higher levels”, is the remedy for some of the differences between Wilber and Collins. From this perspective, Collins observation is manifestly agreed to by Wilber, and applicable to any level below the Nondual, not just vision-logic. The conflations of Gebser’s “integral-aperspectival” level, made necessary by Gebser not developing his model above that level, do not apply to vision-logic, which Wilber quite specifically states is an incomplete translation of reality.

Vision-logic is defined by Wilber as the stage above rationality, as commonly understood. “Where rationality gives all possible perspectives, vision-logic adds them up into a totality, which is simply the new and higher interior holon. . . [which] can hold in mind contradictions, it can unify opposites, it is dialectical and non-linear, and it weaves together what otherwise appear to be incompatible notions, as long as they relate together in the new and higher holon, negated in their partiality but preserved in their positive contribution”. Vision-logic is Hegel’s Reason, “unifying opposites and seeing identity in differences”, transcending “the simpler empiric-analytic rationality of propositions, or Aristotelean logic” (SES, p. 185). “Vision” - visual/right hemisphere; “logic” - orderly sequences/left hemisphere. 

This type of understanding should therefore require the understandings of both hemispheres, not merely a more developed left-hemisphere view. So Collins’ criticism of it being just “a sophisticated analytic method” (which really rankles with my self-imposed dogma that nothing is ‘just’ anything) is equivalent to saying in UR terms that Wilber sticks to his left hemisphere in preference to his right hemisphere: that is not vision-logic at all, as defined by Wilber. As we are talking about books, and therefore the left hemisphere’s (verbal, linguistic) communication tools, it should be taken into account that it is far more difficult to avoid that impression in a book than it would be in direct person-to-person communication.  Perhaps Wilber is using vision-logic as he defines it, after all, but only expressing it by left hemisphere means.  Whether that is so or not, true (dual hemispheric) vision-logic understanding itself, as defined by Wilber, becomes a foothold for still higher-level integrations - “new and higher interior holon[s]”.  “No direct experience can be put into words without remainder” (SES, p. 271); every description is a limitation - the mind is capable of far more accurate modellings than the merely verbal, the merely abstract, the merely emotional, the merely pictorial, the merely any of those hemispheric task-divisions, and even the merely vision-logical! 

While the Beaver confessed, with affectionate looks

More eloquent even than tears,

It had learned in ten minutes far more than all books

Would have taught it in seventy years.

Lewis Carroll: The Hunting of the Snark

So while Collins’ criticism is not applicable to Gebser’s integral-aperspectival level (because Gebser has conflated all the higher levels within it), it is applicable to Wilber’s vision-logic level, both as defined by Wilber, and as used by Wilber - even if there is the difference that Collins asserts. Vision-logic does not complete “genuine integral synthesis”, period. And I consider that Wilber would completely agree with that: the hemispheric perceptual integration is a beginning at every stage of its progress, not just an end. As Collins states: “quite simply, if full mind and body integration could be achieved at the centaur, there would be no need for transpersonal development” (Ref 1, 11/42; “full mind” presumably meaning Atman).

Towards the end of that progressively more inclusive process of transcend-and-include, Wilber states, are increasing opportunities for jumping-off the merry-go-round to One Taste, the Nondual. That one taste, of necessity, involves the dropping out from the “Atman Project,” the description of which Collins is criticising Wilber about. Wilber:

At any sufficiently developed point in an individual’s development, a radical leap (Eckhart’s “breakthrough”) into the Formless can occur. The higher the development, the easier and more likely the jump will occur. Yet the Formless itself is not the result of that jump, nor does it then come to be. It is there, from the start, as one’s own Original Face. . . Evolution seeks only this Formless summum bonum - it wants only this ultimate Omega - it rushes forward only and solely in search of this - and it will never find it, because evolution unfolds in the world of form. The Kosmos is driven forward endlessly, searching in the world of time for that which is altogether timeless. And since it will never find it, it will never cease the search. Samsara circles endlessly, and that is always the brutal nightmare hidden in its heart.

(SES, p. 316)

It follows from this that those who jump off before the highest levels of form may not be able to articulate them terribly well. As Wilber points out in a paragraph within the omitted section of the above quote - “Abide in Emptiness, embrace all Form: the liberation is in the Emptiness, never finally in the Form (though never apart from it)”. That abiding and embracing is Wilber’s main point, though, not how exalted you are along one developmental line or another, nor how precisely you articulate the Atman Project - although in that world of form, we can find grace and beauty (particularly along highly advanced developmental lines - like a cheetah’s sprinting, a ballerina’s dancing, a maestro’s playing . . .) as well as the brutal nightmares Wilber identifies as “hidden in its heart”. 

The point of saying this is to stress, with Wilber, that whether we use a Wilmap or a Colmap (or our own, like my Mackmap), we are going to where we already are. But wouldn’t we still rather just go for the drive? I would - let’s go for a spin! At least, neither Wilber or Collins are like the Bellman in “The Hunting of the Snark.” (But it does remind me of someone - can you guess who?)

THE Bellman himself they all praised to the skies

Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!

Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,

The moment one looked in his face!

He had bought a large map representing the sea,

Without the least vestige of land:

And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be

A map they could all understand.

"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,

Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"

So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply

"They are merely conventional signs!”

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!

But we've got our brave Captain to thank"

(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best

A perfect and absolute blank!"

This was charming, no doubt: but they shortly found out

That the Captain they trusted so well

Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,

And that was to tingle his bell.

Lewis Carroll: The Hunting of the Snark

Back at the time I was using that hemispheric model to find a frame of reference for my “Einstein’s carriage” disorientation with Collins, I thought that it would help knowing learning how to drive it if the instruction manual were even clearer than Collins has made it so far. For example, he calls circular logic bi-directional (Ref 1, p 26/42) in one place, and formless in another (p.2/42), and the logic of emptiness in others. Bi-directional seemed to me a more accurate term than either circular or formless, using as he does the example of cars retreating from one another (similar to ‘Einstein’s carriage’). In other words, if it did refer to Formless, Emptiness etc, where’s the place in his model for the right hemisphere’s activities? Where’s the emergence to radial coming from?  It is of no use to call circular formless, it’s circular; bi-directional is neither empty nor formless. “There appeared to be a conflation here”, I thought. Collins says in footnote 4 (p. 27/42) that one needs a Zen-like paradox to recognise the limitations of rigid (dualistic) understanding; but equal recognition of opposite (excluded) poles on different levels does not mean that molecules are included in atoms!

If I had conveyed this to him, Collins rejoinder to this may have been that I had failed to fully realise his point about needing partarchy to balance the holarchy - to see the world in a grain of sand as well as the grain of sand in the world, the necessary reciprocity of immanence and transcendence. Ah, Peter, I feared you may have said:

The method employed I would gladly explain,

While I have it so clear in my head,

If I had but the time and you had but the brain 

But much yet remains to be said.

Lewis Carroll: The Hunting of the Snark

I would have retorted “there’s a difference between paradox and imprecision; you don’t have to destroy the sense of linear logic, you just have to see its limitations and inevitable partiality. One transcends and includes to get to these ‘higher’ spiritual stages, not transcends and confuses. Seeing the world in a grain of sand is not the same as confusing the grain of sand for the world! Similarly, the paradox of immanence/transcendence is neither expressed nor facilitated by saying that the molecule is in the atom. A better vocabulary is required.”

From the above quote, Wilber’s position is that immanence is an involution of the Formless, and that insight can be more readily recognised through evolution, but never realised by evolution. Collins seems to be saying, “well, whether that’s so or not, a complete model must account for that immanence at every stage, not just the process of transcendence.” Again in that aspect, I believe that Wilber would agree.

If my UR reading of Collins had been correct, then his abovementioned apparent conflation of the words ‘bi-directional’, ‘formless’, ‘emptiness’ and ‘circular’ would have been completely understandable, because his right hemispheric faculties are attempting to grasp the left hemispheric tools of words! Although I didn’t say so at the time, it was with this in mind that I suggested to Collins that visual, spatial shapes and patterns may be a more effective method of communication. Mandalas, such as the Star Key, may communicate his meanings better, because they were the main means of communication of the right hemisphere. Certainly, the visualising example of the two drivers driving away from each other considerably facilitated my understanding of what he is talking about. The closest approximations, however, would share the dimensions of our universe - three space, one time, and many emergent levels.

But my reading was not correct; Collins is not talking about that at all. I do not know whether Collins has made any reference to the brain’s UR organisation (although Wilber has [SES 95ff, for example], but perhaps only to the vertical divides [reptilian - paleomammalian - neomammalian], not the horizontal/hemispheric). 

No, Collins’ is saying something far more radical. He is saying that within every 1 (holon), there is a 0 (Wilber’s Formless); Collins places as strong an emphasis upon immanence as Wilber does upon transcendence (when talking from within the Atman Project)! There is nowhere that immanence is not.

And Wilber says that, too! Wilber has not come to praise Caesar (the Atman Project), but to bury him. They also both say that the realisation of that immanence is not omnipresent amongst us, that the subjective view is clearer from the heights but that the view is still there, even when we are mired in the depths and can’t see it. We are not just talking abstractions here. The most revolting tortures mankind has suffered are not all of mankind’s devising. Any philosophy that cannot contend with the appalling sufferings inflicted by disease and indifference is trite. How does your philosophy explain to a child its mother’s appalling suffering while dying of cancer, for example? Or explain to an emaciated mother watching her child die of diarrhoea that upgrading your computer, or buying a new perfume, is more important to you than is their plight - does your philosophy cover that? Not in fatuous, simplistic, nicey-poo platitudes, but honestly, directly. Does Wilber’s? Does Collins’?

Despite these abstractions, I consider that they both do; that transcendence is required to see, and immanence, to do. That’s why I’m bothering with them. And Collins is bothering Wilber because he considers that Wilber is not expressing this insight as accurately as Collins is.

But still, my puzzlement with Collins was not resolved. Bidirectionality cannot apply to the Nondual, emptiness, the formless; there is no direction towards it at all, not horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, nor anywhere within a 3-D matrix, because it is not within dimensionality! In our mathematical processes, we are apt to skip along from -2 to -1 to 0 to +1 to +2 without missing a beat: “oh yeah, zero - that’s between -1 and +1, right? That’s what you get when you add those two together, or any such pair of negative and positive numbers.”

Is that a sufficient description of zero? It’s true in a trivial sense, like the sense of saying that apples are one of those things that grow on trees, but that description doesn’t give you a taste of the apple. Was Collins’ criticism of Wilber equivalent to saying “Ken, you’ve failed! You haven’t pointed out that inside every 1 there is a 0”? (PE?) But “0" is the signifier for nothing at all, not anything that can be described as “Formless” (a quality), “empty” (a quality), or “circular” (a shape or method). Holons do not have a quality of non-existence: holons have to exist before they can be called holons. So if one wants opposites, whether seen as complementary or not, is 0 the ‘opposite’ of 1, or of infinity? Or is 0 the opposite of nothing at all, otherwise implying as it does a dialectic, and therefore a holonic existence? Opposites are intra-holonic.

“But”, I thought, “Peter must know this. I get it! He must be speaking of the eternal Tao, the one that ‘cannot be known’ in the Tao te Ching, the ‘eternal non-existence’ from where we can view the whole picture, in contrast with the ‘eternal existence’ from which we clearly see its apparent distinctions. He’s using 0 figuratively, to express Divine Immanence.”

“Dang!”, I thought: “if so, a new vocabulary is required.” Sad of heart, I dived back into Collins work, still in Einstein’s carriage, still looking for another window from which to get my bearings.

Chapter Two

I decided to try to explain Collins in my own terms - writing what I have learned from grappling with him, putting it within a framework more familiar to me, and seeing what I’ve left out, or what I’m still confused about. A kind of “Collins for Dummies” approach, but with the dummy being both the reader and the writer!

So from Collins’ several works on his home page (mainly “Transforming Voyage”), I drew up the following summary (going from the bottom up; kindly note that almost all the below is direct quotes from Collins, but, as I did this precis for my own private study, some is not. the reader is advised to consult the originals - Peter’s homepage is linked above - for a more complete understanding).

Developmental Level: Linear

Age of Emergence: Less than 15

Type of Stage Emergent Mindset

1. Binary First conscious/unconscious separation

2. Prime First cognitive/affective separation.

3. Natural First subjective/objective separation.

4. Integer/integral Self knowledge; objects permanent in consciousness.

5. Rational: Concrete Can fragment and analyse experiences (cognitive and affective aspects; objective and subjective experiences).

6. Rational: Formal Can analyse concepts (aspects as for concrete).

7. Rational: Integration Integration of all below.

After this linear level come the anti-rational stages: purgation - mirror structures (less rational; undoing of conscious phenomena).

Developmental Level: Transition to Circular

Age of Emergence: 15-17

Type of Stage: Emergent Mindset

8. Anti-Rational: Concrete Undoing concrete experiences.

9. Anti-Rational: Formal Undoing formal experiences (minor in comparison to concrete).

Next, the irrational & anti-rational stages: A dynamic and relative world view based on alternative logic.

Developmental Level: Circular

Age of Emergence: 17-26

Type of Stage: Emergent Mindset

10. Ir- and anti-rational (concrete +) Peak intuitive illuminations: translations by paradoxes.

11. Ir- and anti-rational (concrete -) Undoing positive peak illuminations: existentialism -

1. Peak illuminations of the misery of self.

2. Undoing of earlier translations.

3. Exposing of negative internal structures.

Profoundly existentialist based upon spiritual conviction.

12. Ir- and anti-rational (Formal +) Concepts interpreted re complementarities:

1. Affective; translating emotions through spatial images.

2. Cognitive translations of joyful peak illuminations.

13. Ir- and anti-rational (Formal -) Undoing of all earlier translations - all conscious phenomena, rigid or subtle: the toughest stage - The DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL. 

1. Misery of the self and the human condition generally realised.

2. Undoing of all conscious phenomena in both modes.

3. Emergence of highly refined cognitive intellectual structures; very conscientious identification with the suffering of all others.

4. Emptying of belief. Faith arises.

After this dark night of the soul (which Combs, on p. 245 of his “Radiance of Being” states is largely palliated in the East by skilled teachers), we enter the Imaginary stages: Before, the world was “out there”; now it’s “in here”, indirectly expressible as “out there”.

Developmental Level: Transition to Point

Age of Emergence: 26-30

Type of Stage: Emergent Mindset

14.Imaginary: Concrete Rational Like the linear, but indirectly conscious, not ‘real’. Dismisses transient, illusive structures.

15.Imaginary: Formal Rational Like the linear - essentially projections of unconscious desire. Also dismisses transient, illusive structures.

We then enter the Transcendental stages: the key defining aspect - attempts to reconcile the line and the circle. Like pi, these stages are transcendental. That is, reality not just linear (rational), or not just circular (irrational), but a relationship between both

Developmental Level: Point

Age of Emergence: 30-40

Type of Stage: Emergent Mindset

16. Concrete Transcendental: Real Advanced superstructures from higher rational aspect of personality. Highly subtle and intuitive.

17. Formal Trans: Imaginary As for above, advanced superstructures, i.e. harmonics (my term) of ‘lower’ instinctive personality aspects. This formal stage is approximately equal to superegoic control of fantasies.

18. Formal. Transcendental: Real Psycho-mathematical world view. Rationally intuitive denuded of instinctive interference. Only a cognitive mode.

19. Concrete Trans: Imaginary Instinctive response freed from rational control. Internal marriage. Existence is real (impersonal); imaginary (personal)

Then comes the transition to Radial developmental level, which contains the Transfinite stages: a purely intuitive understanding of reality, free of secondary translations.

Developmental Level: Transition to Radial

Age of Emergence: 40-45

Type of Stage: Emergent Mindset

20. Transfinite: Concrete The “particle” aspect of spiritual illumination: Provides the light to psychologically appreciate the uniqueness of physical phenomena; the contemplation of immanence.

21. Transfinite: Formal The “wave” aspect of spiritual illumination: the contemplation of transcendence. Provides the light to psychologically transcend phenomena; the universal generality of all relationships.

22. Transfinite: Complete The synthesis of formal and concrete - pure spiritual awareness: the “plenum void” or “dazzling darkness”.

Only at this following newly emergent level does the word “radial” enter Collins’ hierarchy. The Complex Radial stages result in the complete harmonisation of positive and negative directions, and complete harmonisation of real and imaginary modes, as dynamically complex stages of development. Initially - some degree of separation in terms of process - that is, finite and transfinite understandings.

Developmental Level: Radial

Age of Emergence: 45+

Type of Stage: Emergent Mindset

23. Complex: Finite Everything seen as complex finite - that is, having a fourfold aspect (in terms of mode - cognitive and affective; in terms of direction - internal and external), but highly interpenetrating.

24. Complex: Transfinite Pure intuition experiencing finite phenomena. The four (cognitive and affective mode, internal and external direction) are identified, interpenetrating.

And finally, the stage of Transforming Union: full differentiation and integration of all activity. Merger of transpersonal psychology and mathematics. Every (static) maths operation has a (dynamic) psychological operation. 

25. Simple Objective and subjective directions are positive and negative with respect to each other.

Cognitive and affective modes are real and imaginary with respect to each other.

So: thinking, perception, judgement and feeling can be represented by the four axes in the complex plane.

Conscious (phenomenal) and unconscious (spiritual) experiences are finite and transfinite with respect to each other.

Well, what a developed - differentiated, articulated, and hierarchically integrated - model that is! It clearly shows a 3-D Hegelian dialectic, and a progressive increase in complexity through differentiation and integration resulting in emergent wholes. I have no doubt that it is a picture of Collin’s personal odyssey and, just as surely, parts of it resonate with what I remember at particular stages and ages. But how far is it possible to extrapolate our personal experience to universals? Collins has assuredly sought confirmations from the literature; presumably, it was in just such a context that he encountered Wilber in the first place, and is the context in which he seeks feedback on his model by putting up his homepage, and engaging in discussions on the KWF. 

As far as I know, Collins’ model has not been empirically verified or refuted by statistically valid surveys in its own right (but Collins is a statistician, so maybe!). Yet Wilber tells us that “developmental psychologists tend to find that it is not very current on recent research” - a comment that Collins found unsupported and somewhat gratuitous, and disputes (Ref 3). I am not qualified in that field, and so feel incompetent to comment. However, it seems apparent to me that Collins’ descriptions of the various levels and stages could not have been intended as all being necessarily only interpretable through Holistic Mathematics (HM). Otherwise, the only ones to have ever become enlightened would all have to have arrived there along a holistic mathematical path - the path that Collins has pioneered! Clearly, he is using HM as a translative medium that he finds allows more precision than the left hemisphere’s linguistic tools do alone. If he were asserting that his HM method of translation should be regarded as the only path, his model would collapse into a pile of self-contradictions and should be kicked out the door. Reading his works, the thought occurred to me that some may even infer that, but I do not. He is simply using one mathematical vocabulary to describe the process of differentiation and integration required for the growth of complexity, another for a description of the emergent stages through life’s path, and integrating them.

“What’s so strange or difficult to understand about that?”, I asked myself. “There isn’t anything”, I politely replied, and set about re-reading Collins’ critique of Wilber, and found myself scratching my head again!

“Dammit, Peter”, I thought: “how can you say the writer of the chapter ‘The Way Up is the Way Down’ in SES, the unrelenting excortiator of mere ascenders, and the provider of the most explicit descriptions of transpersonal realms that I have seen (and the identifier of Zen quotes etc that certainly resonated in me) - how can you say that he ‘continually reduces integration to differentiation in development’? That would be an infantile error, for Pete’s sake. And how can you say that ‘his approach is very distorted from a dynamic perspective’? Are you sure that you are not confining the definition of ‘a dynamic perspective’ to your HM model? Pushing too hard in an attempt to set up a dialogue, and instead setting the stage for trench warfare? Are you blind to any perspectives beyond HM, that may be worthy of the appellation ‘dynamic perspective’? If Ken’s isn’t, can you think of any others that are? If not, doesn’t that tell you something? Immanence is THE POINT of what Ken’s saying! He’s emphasising the 3D aspect of reality (within the Atman Project) because he’s predominantly trying to wake up flatlanders towards vision-logic, but that isn’t all he says and does, it’s the weighing he gives his work because of the prevailing mindsets! Are you being selective to be tendentious? Are you committing the PE to push your own barrow? Do you see Ken as the fastest gun in the wild, wild west of transpersonal studies, with them thar fancy shooting irons from back East, and that if you can outdraw him, you’ll be Top Gun?”

I finished with a resounding “Humph!” With that off my chest, I settled back, looking again at Collins’ model rather than Collins critique, and gradually became no longer so complacent as to think that I had a grip on where he was coming from, after all. Calming down, I realised that my emotional reactions expressed in the paragraph above were largely tommyrot. That kind of person was not the Collins I know, who is one calm, sophisticated, highly rational individual in my (cyber only) experience, and such beyond such nonsense. “No,” I thought, “Collins is acting from a sincere intellectual conviction. I need to look closer.”

I had mentioned to Collins that I felt intuitively that there may be some eusynthesis possible between the mathematically-related paths that he had been exploring and those I had been independently exploring. The quintessence of what I had been exploring is posted on the web as “The Star Key” at:

http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Forum/5375/

But that is just the tiniest sampling; there are all sorts of resonances possible from it, which I am mainly leaving to the readers of the Star Key to discover for themselves. For instance, I had just been studying Michael Mc Carron’s paper on the web at:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/5016/cosmo.html

with the formidable title:

“Symbolic Cosmology in Shi’a Islam: ‘Irfani Philosophy, Isma’iliyya, Sufiyya and Baha’iyya Perspectives compared”. 

It examines the similarities between the philosophy of Plotinus and those perspectives in the title - an area that, as far as I am aware, Wilber has not explored (as he’s been mainly using Far East, rather than Middle East, models - Buddhist, Hindu, etc). I noted phrases such as “there are 12 spiritual beings (ruhaniyun) that the seven wazirs resolve within”, and that the Divine Pentad “is embodied within each individual self.” The seven zones of heaven, the seven zones of Earth, the seven Cherubim within the twelve spiritual ranks of angels which created a median pentad, etc, etc - I began to think of the Star Key as a generally handy holonic handle, and then again began to wonder if I was falling prey to the dreaded PE myself vis a vis those perceptions! 

“Just the same, let’s look at Collins’ work through the Star Key”, I thought. There aren’t 25 stages in the Star Key; there are seven nines along its spine, but wait! - 12 lines and 13 points with its radius of six (12+13 = 25). Sort of fits, but a bit of a stretch. “But there are 7 developmental levels, so they fit!” Let’s see how well they fit, by going to Ref 1, Collins’ “Dynamic Model of Spectrum” (I am using edited quotes from Collins):

L3 - archaic subject-object confusion: curved space-time.

L3 to L2 - form separated from emptiness; beginning of bodyself/world differentiation.

L2 - lower point. The Magic Stage . Spacetime less curved.

L2 to L1 - whole is now separated from part, and individual identity from collective environment.

L1 - Lower circular. The Mythic Stage. Confused integration of horizontal polarities. Confusion of objective with subjective meaning.

L1 to L0 - linear differentiation of the remaining horizontal polarities

LO/HO - fully linear spacetime; analytical science

HO to H1 - explicit understanding of mirror translation, and the integration of horizontal polarities. All dualistic explanations now have mirror images.

H1 - higher circular level (the Psychic and Subtle stages). Integrated circular and horizontal understanding, 

H1 to H2 - the unfolding of virtual understanding (‘the unconscious aspect, indirectly expressed - of all conscious phenomena’), and the integration of vertical polarities.

H2 - higher point level. The Causal stage. (Circular) integration of both horizontal and vertical with (linear)differentiatipon of remaining diagonal polarities. Space-time now becomes increasingly curved.

H2 to H3 - the unfolding of complex understanding; integration of diagonal levels; integration of both horizontal and vertical polarities.

H3 - circular integration of all polarities - diagonal, vertical, and horizontal. The Nundle stage. Because we are now approaching total curvature of space-time the very notion of a level (which is a linear distinction)ultimately breaks down. Strictly, He and L3 represent no levels (diagonal polarity). Radial Reality involves the increasingly dynamic interpenetration of form with emptiness (and emptiness with form).

Placing these levels alongside the Star Key resulted in a - for me illuminating - fit, as follows:

He 9

 H2 to He 18

 H2 495

 H1 to H2 0123. . .

 H1 1357. . . 

.H0 to H1 4837. . . 

 L0 and H0 3219. . . 

 L1 to L0 7531. . .

 L1 7384. . . 

 L2 to L1 0123. . .

 L2 792

 L3 to L2 72

L3 9

Collins’ comments about the curved space-time for me jelled better with this visual description. So did the horizontally widest point being “fully linear,” the first at the last differentiations being the ‘72’ and ‘18’ lines respectively, and so on. Moreover, the ‘mirror’ and ‘polarity’ aspects of Collins’ model have rich reflections in the numbers within the Star Key - diagonally, vertically, and horizontally - and the two triangles can be interpreted as hemispheric differentiation going up the downward-pointing triangle, and integration going up the upward-pointing, all ultimately within an integrated whole, and all upon the Ground of “One Taste”. 

I see the Star Key as (at worst) an early approximation to what Collins describes in footnote 21 of  Ref 1, and at best its template:

“The most complete development would be best represented by a mandalic type approach that I refer to as the radial model. This involves a circle with horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines drawn from the midpoint to the circumference (which in holistic terms would be an unbounded circumference). So here we combine the important notions of point, horizontal vertical and null lines (in both directions) and circular circumference. So the radial model which is based on absolute Spirit (at the center) and at the unbounded circumference has relative expressions in both (absolute) linear and (relative) circular terms. 

“Interestingly the "lower" stages would be complementary to the corresponding "higher" (where they represent a confused understanding). This would strongly suggest that the holarchical model equally is not appropriate for these "lower" stages.”

Ref 1

So engaging the right hemisphere with this visual depiction did help me in my formerly mainly left hemisphere appreciation of Collins! For the last time, I went back to his critique of Wilber, this time, attempting to grapple his take on the pre/trans fallacy.

Collins accepts the pre/trans fallacy’s validity within a linear context, but says it makes little sense in the circular context, explains what he means by this, and concludes:

“The truth is that pre and trans are necessarily interlinked in the dynamics of development. Actual experience of pre and trans can vary greatly from very confused to deeply integrated understanding. 

“However rigid insistence on their clear separation is inconsistent with experiential dynamics and can in fact greatly hinder accurate recognition of these same dynamics. 

“Therefore the extension by Ken of his pre/trans fallacy beyond its valid range of interpretation, has had unfortunate consequences. It has led to an undue emphasis on the process of differentiation rather than integration in development. Also, because of its rigid formulation it has led to a somewhat closed approach in dialogue with critics.”

Ref 1

I do not think that for one second Wilber would dispute that “The truth is that pre and trans are necessarily interlinked in the dynamics of development.” And yet Collins is criticising Wilber on that ground! Let me take a long quote from Wilber:

“I have often written about what I think are the three main types of value in the world: intrinsic vale, extrinsic value, and Ground value.  Intrinsic value is the value a thing has in itself.  Extrinsic value is the value a thing has for others.  And Ground value is the value that all things have by reason of being manifestations of Spirit.

“Intrinsic value is ranked according to its degree of inclusiveness and wholeness. A molecule, for example, has more intrinsic value than an atom, because molecules contain atoms.  Molecules, being more inclusive, contain more being in their own makeup, and thus their intrinsic value is greater.  Cells have more intrinsic value than molecules; organisms, more than cells; and so on. Likewise, worldcentric has more intrinsic value than sociocentric, which has more than egocentric, because the former, in each case, has more depth and more wholeness.

“But to say that a cell has more intrinsic value than a molecule is not to say the molecule has no value at all.  It’s a sliding scale, depending upon how much of the universe is embraced in a holon. The more being that is internal to a holon, the more intrinsic value it has.  The greater the depth, the greater the wholeness, the greater the intrinsic value.

“Extrinsic value is pretty much the opposite of intrinsic.  An atom has more extrinsic value than a molecule, because more holons depend for their existence on atoms than on molecules. Molecules themselves depend for their existence on atoms - but not vice versa - so atoms have more extrinsic value, or value for others.

“It’s pretty easy to see: the higher a holon is on the Great Holarchy, the more intrinsic value it has. The lower a holon is on the chain, the more extrinsic value it has.  Both are absolutely mandatory, because they can’t exist without each other.  Without the higher, the lower would have no meaning; without the lower, the higher would have no manifest existence.

“Intrinsic value is the value a thing has by virtue of being a whole with agency (and the greater the depth of the whole - or the more levels it contains - then the greater its intrinsic value, or the more of the universe it embraces and enfolds into its own being).  Extrinsic value, on the other hand, is the value a thing has by being virtue of a part in communion (and the more things it is part of, the greater its extrinsic value).  Agency concerns rights (we are individual wholes with individual rights, grounded in justice); communion concerns responsibilities (we are also parts or members of many relationships, grounded in care). All things are wholes that are also parts (all holons, without exception, are agency-in-communion), and thus all holons have both intrinsic and extrinsic value, both rights and responsibilities.

“Intrinsic and extrinsic are relative values; Ground value is absolute. Ground value is the value that each and every holon has by virtue of being a radiant manifestation of Spirit, of Godhead, of Emptiness. All Holons, high or low, have the same Ground value - namely, One Taste.  Holons can have greater or lesser intrinsic value (the greater the depth, the greater the value), but all holons have absolutely equal ground value: they all share equal Suchness, Thusness, Isness, which is the face of Spirit as it shines in manifestation, One Taste in all its wonder.”

(Ken Wilber, One Taste, pp. 346-348)

Perhaps Collins comment that “a comprehensive approach would require a qualitative binary system based on the use at each stage of development of both the logic of form and the logic of emptiness (i.e. linear and circular logic)” could be stated by Wilber as “a comprehensive approach would require a qualitative binary system based on the recognition at each stage of development of both the intrinsic and extrinsic value of a holon.” Is Collins collapsing Wilber into speaking only of ‘intrinsic’ value when he makes such criticisms? Because if he is, I consider that to be a flagrant PE. Logic doesn’t contain values, but logic is used towards values. So, Wilber’s valuational model can enfold logic in their assessment, while Collins’ multilogical model requires values for its engagement. Does Collins’ assertion of “the molecule being in the atom” involve a conflation of intrinsic, extrinsic and Ground values? 

But what about PE errors from Wilber? Wilber says that “it (note: Wilber doesn’t say ‘he’ - Wilber means the model, not the person) particularly seems to lack a subtle grasp of transpersonal realities.” But it must be mutually agreeable that the mathematical translative method is also necessarily confining at those levels - insufficient, but nonetheless not irrelevant, and potentially illuminating. Neither a mathematical nor a verbal description is particularly adept at describing the taste of, say, elephant meat. What model but the Kosmos itself could ever be fully adequate in its translative capacity? 

Nothing Wilber says implies that the transpersonal lacks experience of Collins; he merely doubts the model’s translative capacity. Nothing Collins says implies that the transpersonal lacks experience of Wilber; he merely doubts the model’s translative capacity. They are giving different descriptions of the same elephant. But at such stages, aren’t we already supposed to have achieved the vision-logic level, and much of what Gebser has described as integral-aperspectival? We’re supposed to be well beyond the “either-or” here; according to Torbert, our management approach should be beyond multi-method eclecticism, too; and post-modern interpretivism; and even co-operative inquiry! Those developed to transpersonal levels should find Torbert’s Developmental Action Inquiry approach to be the most congenial (see my “Funny Weather” monograph at http://lightmind.com/library/mmcd/, chapter three), wherein “each paradigmatic perspective is a positively powerful and beneficial analogue of the preeminent features of a situation at different moments and in recognized complementarity to the other approaches” (phew). 

And that is where I stand, vis a vis Collins and Wilber. Their paradigmatic perspectives are. . . well, like Torbert says, to me. And my interpretation of how they stand, vis a vis each other?

I agree with Collins that “within Ken’s own frame of reference . . . he is doing a superb job embracing a vast range of material in a coherent and profound way.” However Collins sees his own perspective as being very different. “From the very start I have been engaged on an extremely important issue that Ken does not properly recognize. Once again this is related to the key insight that there are a number of valid scientific approaches (based on the understanding of each respective level of the Spectrum)”(private correspondence).

I agree with this “key insight” of Collins. But I don’t see Collins’ “very different” perspective as requiring any endorsement, or even comment, from Wilber. If I had been Collins, and found what I considered had within it enormous potential benefits for mankind, and had taken it to a person whom I enormously admired and respected, and received no response whatsoever for a considerable period, and then, after all that waiting, just got the above paragraph - I’d be pissed off! Whatever the practical difficulties of Wilber dealing with God knows how many such approaches, he must know that our emotional brain centres find it difficult to contend with indifference or rejection, even when we are highly developed! Despite Wilber’s best intentions, that’s something he will have to face with his increasing fame that we (mercifully) less famous will be better able to keep within manageable limits.

But Collins has come to terms with that, I believe (as I have with the ‘past tense’ criticisms of Collins I made above; they are in the past). What he finds hard to swallow is that he has discovered significant flaws in Wilber’s model by application of his own to it, and that Wilber still virtually ignores him!

But has he? Let me quote Wilber again in giving my answer to that: 

“I sought an integral philosophy, one that would believably weave together the many pluralistic contexts of science, morals, aesthetics, Eastern as well as Western philosophy, and the world's great wisdom traditions.  Not on the level of detailsthat is finitely impossible; but on the level of orienting generalizations: a way to suggest that the world really is one, undivided, whole, and related to itself in every way: a holistic philosophy for a holistic Kosmos: a world philosophy, an integral philosophy. . . 

 

“I also know that every tomorrow brings new truths, opens new vistas, and creates the demand for even more encompassing views.  SES is simply the latest in a long line of holistic visions, and will itself pass into a greater tomorrow where it is merely a footnote to more glorious views.  In the meantime, it is quite a ride.”

Ken Wilber, Introduction to Volume 6, Collected Works

I think that, at the level of orienting generalizations, Wilber’s work works just fine. I do not accept Collins criticisms of Wilber at that level. I think that, at the level of 3-D cognitive translation, Collins’ work works just fine. I accept some of Collins’ criticisms of Wilber at that level. But, as Wilber points out above, he is not working “on the level of details  that is finitely impossible”: the mathematical physicists’ nightmare of infinities looms its head here, and the Atman Project’s danger that “since it will never find it [ultimate precision], it will never cease the search”[like the search for the value of pi]! Collins’ criticisms are not so much in the nature of ‘no’, but in the nature of ‘yes, but. . .’ and ‘yes, and. . .’. His acceptable criticisms are those towards more precise articulation, such as Collins’ model can provide. OK, but as Wilber points out elsewhere, orienting generalisations are often all that is needed to move through the stages. A degree in nuclear physics is not a prerequisite for One Taste! Wilber is talking about facilitating transformative growth within the Atman Project, and going beyond the Atman Project; Collins is talking about a framework for enriching the scientific understanding of that Atman Project process of growth. “Very different”, but different people may require different approaches, and different levels of articulation, for that growth to occur. 

And the end of all this? Well, perhaps if they would just engage in a “developmental action enquiry” approach:

Such friends, as the Beaver and Butcher became,

Have seldom if ever been known;

In winter or summer, 'twas always the same

You could never meet either alone.

And when quarrels arose as one frequently finds

Quarrels will, spite of every endeavour

The song of the Jubjub recurred to their minds,

And cemented their friendship for ever!

(“(PE?)”????)

Lewis Carroll: The Hunting of the Snark

And the end of the hunt for the Snark?

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,

In the midst of his laughter and glee,

He had softly and suddenly vanished away

For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

THE END