You have the premise correct but you missed on the conclusion.

The invisible man in the sky is a product of the mythic stage of development and is part of the pre-rational stage. Narrow science is part of the rational stage and includes more than can be explained by the mythic stage. The "narrow science trumps narrow religion" part of that quote.

The trans-rational stage that is the AQAL framework that the "broad science trumps narrow science" refers to

"Wilber is a staunch advocate of avoiding reducing one of these spheres into the others. In particular, he cautions against what he calls flatland: the attempt to reduce interiors to their exterior correlates (i.e., collapsing subjective and intersubjective realities into their objective aspects). This is often seen in systems approaches to the natural world, which represent consciousness through diagrams of feedback loops and in the process leave out the texture and felt-sense of first- and second-person experience."

In laymen's terms, he believes in giving every belief system a fair shake.

As well as bringing personal experience and an open mind into science AND religion. I may have read that wrong. Damn lack of caffeine.

Because he finds all systems are "true but partial" that have parts that fit into the whole but are not the whole themselves. The Great Holarchy that shows how everthing fits together in context.

Ken Wilber’s Twenty Tenets are:

1. Reality is not composed of things or processes, but of holons, which are wholes that are simultaneously parts.
2. Holons display four fundamental capacities:
a. self-preservation (agency)
b. self-adaptation (communion)
c. self-transcendence
d. self-dissolution
3. Holons emerge.
4. Holons emerge holarchically.
5. Each holon transcends and includes its predecessors.
6. The lower sets the possibilities of the higher; the higher sets the probabilities of the lower.
7. The number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is ‘shallow’ or ‘deep;’ and the number of holons on any given level we shall call its ‘span.’
8. Each successive level of evolution produces greater depth and less span.
9. Destroy any type of holon, and you will destroy all of the holons above it and none of the holons below it.
10. Holarchies co-evolve. The micro is always within the macro (all agency is agency in communion).
11. The micro is in relational exchange with macro at all levels of its depth.
12. Evolution has directionality:
a. increasing complexity.
b. increasing differentiation/integration.
c. increasing organization/structuration.
d. increasing relative autonomy.
e. increasing telos.

So essentially he believes that everything is constantly evolving for the better, and constantly becoming more efficient? Seems stunningly simple.

Stunningly simple in the absolute where all is one, but a lot more complex in the manifest where there are relative concerns between the individual and the collective.

According to Wilber, the Twenty Tenets are an attempt to summarize and draw some basic conclusions from dynamic systems theory and the contemporary evolutionary sciences. Calling them "tendencies of evolution" or "propensities of manifestation," the Twenty Tenets operate throughout the three great domains of evolution: the physiosphere, the biosphere, and the noosphere (or matter, life, and mind).

In his presentation, Leonard pointed out that what is both significant and striking about Wilber’s Twenty Tenets is that they describe regularities stretching from the big bang all the way up to exalted spiritual states of consciousness in humans. Here are some are some of the highlights:

Basic Terms

Wilber uses the terms "holons" and "holarchy" throughout the Twenty Tenets. The author of The Ghost in the Machine (1976) Arthur Koestler originally coined the term "holon" to refer to that which is a whole in one context but simultaneously a part in another. For example, the word "bark" is a whole because by itself it has a recognizable and independent meaning. However, in the sentence "the bark of a dog" the word "bark" has a context-specific meaning, which would be different in a separate context, such as "the bark on a tree." The word "bark" thus can be both a whole by itself and a part within the larger context of a sentence. "Holarchy" refers to the embedded nature of holons. For example, the whole sentence "the bark of a dog scared me" can simultaneously be part of a yet larger whole, such as a paragraph. And, in turn, the paragraph can be part of an essay,

Tenet 1

Reality is not composed of things or processes, but of holons, which are wholes that are simultaneously parts of other wholes with no upward or downward limit. Since reality is not composed of wholes nor of parts, but of whole/parts, then this approach undercuts the old argument between atomism (all things are fundamentally isolated individual wholes that interact by chance) and wholism (all things are merely strands in a larger web). For Wilber, both of these views by themselves are incorrect. This approach also undercuts the argument the materialists and idealists. Reality is not composed of sub-atomic particles (materialism) nor is it composed of ideas, symbols, or thoughts (idealism). It is composed of holons. According to Wilber, holons can be expressed in material, spiritual, or purely abstract terms. Take mathematics, for example. The various paradoxes that have arisen in Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem take us into an irreversible, ever-expanding, no upper limit mathematical universe. The totality of mathematical sets can’t be completely determined. If they could be, we could take that a set and continue to generate still larger sets from it. Sets are arranged in a transfinite hierarchy. In mathematics, what we see as today’s wholes may very well become tomorrow’s parts.

Tenets 2 a,b,c,d

2 a: Self-preservation (or agency). A hydrogen atom in a suitable context can keep on being a hydrogen atom. It displays self-preservation in the simple sense of maintaining identity or agency across time. And maybe that is quite remarkable when you think about it. A holon in a living context is an even more remarkable, sophisticated agency. The term autopoiesis refers to how a holon maintains its pattern or structure even as its material components are exchanged. It assimilates the environment to itself. In short, holons are defined not by the stuff of which they are made but by the pattern they display.

2 b: Self-adaptation (or communion). A holon functions not only as a self-preserving whole but also as a part of a larger whole. The partness aspect of a holon is displayed by its capacity to accommodate, to register other holons, to fit into its existing environment. Even electrons accommodate themselves, for example, to the number of other electrons in an orbital shell. This is not to imply that taboo word "intentionality." It is just the capacity to react to the surrounding environment. So, think of these two opposing tendencies—agency and communion: agency as the self-preserving, self-asserting tendency which expresses wholeness and relative autonomy; and communion as the participatory boding, joining tendency which expresses partness in relationship to something larger. An excess of either tendency can deform or kill a holon, whether the growth of a plant or of the patriarchy.

2 c: Self-transcendence. When an oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms are brought together under suitable conditions, a new and in some way unprecedented holon emerges. This is not just a communion, adaptation, or association. It is a transformation resulting in something novel and emergent. This is what Whitehead calls creativity, the category necessary to describe any other category. This transcendence can result in small or quite large steps in organic evolution in what is called grade. Here, Darwinian gradualism is replaced by Simpson’s quantum evolution, Eldridge and Gould’s punctuated equilibrium, and Michael Murphy’s evolutionary transcendence. In any case, self-transcendence means nothing more or nothing less than that the universe has an intrinsic capacity to go beyond what came before.

2d: Self-dissolution. Holons that are built up through vertical self-transcendence can also break down. When holons dissolve or become unglued, they tend to so along the same vertical sequence along which they were built up.

Leonard pointed out that there is a constant tension among the above four tendencies. For example, helium may be called inert, but a different description is that helium does not want to join into communion (tenet 2b) with other elements.

Tenet 3

Holons emerge. Owing to the self-transcendent capacity of holons, new holons emerge. Sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, polymers, cells, and so on, the emergent holon is in some sense novel. They possess properties and qualities that can’t be strictly and totally deduced from their components, and therefore they and their descriptions can’t be reduced without remainder to their component parts. Emergence always means indeterminacy is sewn into the very fabric of the universe. Quoting from Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (p. 47) Leonard read,

Emergence is neither a rare nor an isolated phenomenon. As Varela, Thompson, and Rosch summarize the available evidence: "It is clear that emergent properties have been found across all domains—vortices and lasers, chemical oscillations, genetic networks, developmental patterns, population genetics, immune networks, ecology, and geophysics. What all these diverse phenomena have in common is that in each case a network gives rise to new properties. . . . The emergence of global patterns or configurations in systems of interacting elements is neither an oddity of isolated cases nor unique to [special] systems. In fact, it seems difficult for any densely connected aggregate to escape emergent properties." (Francisco Varela, et. al., The Embodied Mind, pp. 88-90.)

Tenet 4

Holons emerge holarchically. That is, hierarchically. That is, as a series of increasing whole/parts. Organisms contain cells but not vice versa. Cells contain molecules but not vice versa. Molecules contain atoms but not vice versa. That "not vice versa" at each stage is what constitutes unavoidable asymmetry and hierarchy/holarchy. Each deeper or higher holon embraces its junior predecessors and then adds its own new and more encompassing pattern or holon. This is Whitehead’s famous dictum, "the many become one and are increased by one." Quoting from Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (p. 49) Leonard read,

Bertalanffy put it very bluntly: "Reality, in the modern conception, appears as a tremendous hierarchical order of organized entities, leading, in a superposition of many levels, from physical and chemical to biological and sociological systems. Such hierarchical structure and combination into systems of ever higher order, is characteristic of reality as a whole and is of fundamental importance especially in biology, psychology and sociology." (Ludwig Bertalanffy, General Systems Theory, pp. 74, 87.)

It is this idea of hierarchy and holarchy that has put Wilber at odds with the deep ecologists and ecofeminists.

Tenet 5

Each emergent holon transcends but includes its predecessors. Each newly emergent holon preserves the previous holons themselves but negates their separateness or isolatedness. As Hegel said, "to supercede is at once to preserve and negate." In other words, all the lower is in the higher but not all the higher is in the lower. Hydrogen atoms are in the water molecule but the water molecule is not in the atom. We might say the water molecule pervades or permeates the atom but it isn’t actually in it. Just as all of the word is in the sentence but not all the sentence is in the word. The higher holon preserves the lower, but it does somehow limit freedom. Once in a sentence a word can’t take on alternative meaning. Once in a molecule the hydrogen atom can’t go flying around in space and become part of a proto-galaxy.

Tenet 6

The lower sets the possibilities of the higher; the higher sets the probabilities of the lower. Even though the higher goes beyond the lower level, it does not violate the law or pattern of the lower level. It can’t be reduced to the lower level or determined by the lower level, but neither can it ignore the lower level. Your body follows the laws of gravity. Your mind follows other laws, such as those of symbolic communication and linguistic syntax. But if your body falls off a cliff, your mind goes with it. Clearly, the lower sets the possibility of a large framework within which the higher has to operate, but to which it is not confined. As for the higher restricting the possibility of the lower, here is how Sheldrake puts it (Quoted from Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, p.55),

At every level, the fields of the holons are probabilistic, and the material processes within the holon are somewhat random or indeterminate. Higher-level fields may act upon the fields of lower level holons in such a way that their probability structures are modified. This can be thought of in terms of a restriction of their indeterminism: out of the many possible patterns of events that could have happened, some now become much more likely to happen as a result of the order imposed by the higher-level field. This field organizes and patterns the indeterminism that would be shown by the lower-level holons in isolation. (Rupert Sheldrake, The Presence of the Past, pp. 120-121.)

Tenet 7

The number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is ‘shallow’ or ‘deep;’ and the number of holons on any given level we shall call its ‘span.’ Let us arbitrarily assign atoms a depth of 3 (since they contain components of at least 2 previous levels). Let us imagine a time in the early universe when there were only atoms and no molecules. In that case, we can say that atoms have a small depth but an enormous span stretching through the existent universe. Thus depth equals 3 and span equals zillions. When molecules first emerged, they had a depth of 4, but initially a very small span. When there is greater vertical dimension to the holon, then there is greater depth to that holon.

Tenet 8

Each successive level of evolution produces greater depth and less span. The greater the depth of a holon, the more precarious its situation. Since its existence depends on the existence of a series of other holons internal to it, and since the lower holons are components of the higher, there can’t be more number of the higher than there are number of components. The number of water molecules will always be less than the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the universe. The number of cells in the universe will always be less than the number of molecules in the universe. Also, the span of mental holons is much less than the span of living holons. This is called the pyramid of development. Addition 1 to Tenet 8: The greater the depth of a holon, the greater its degree of consciousness. In the case of the simplest holons, Wilber is not referring to consciousness as humans experience it, but is following the lead of major theorists, such as Spinoza, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Whitehead, Aurobindo, and Schelling, who explicitly recognize the "within" of the universe. Whithead’s prehension, for example, is a sort of rudimentary consciousness. This extends all the way up to high spiritual states, and this makes it an extremely ambitious scheme. One that can’t be proven by our present methods of science.

Tenet 9

Destroy any type of holon, and you will destroy all of the holons above it and none of the holons below it. This is an important tenet because it provides a simple test as to where in the holarchy any holon stands. Let’s again take our familiar holistic sequence, sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, cells, and so on. Here each member includes its predecessor(s) but not vice versa. And thus each successive number is indeed more encompassing or thus more holistic. If we destroyed, for example, all the molecules in the universe, we would also destroy all the cells in the universe—all the holons above molecules. But atoms and subatomic particles would or could still exist. None of the lower holons would have to cease existing. For this tenet, Wilber introduces two words representing two qualities that operate in an inverse relationship: fundamental and significant. The more fundamental a holon is, the less significant it is and vice versa. That is, the less depth a holon has, the more fundamental it is to the cosmos, because it serves as a component to so many other holons. Atoms, for example, are very fundamental because molecules, cells, organisms, life, and mind, and higher states, all depend on them. At the same time, the less depth a holon has the less significant it is to the cosmos because it embraces as its own component so little of the cosmos. Primates, as a counter example, are not very fundamental holons because neither atoms nor molecules depend upon them, but they are very significant because they represent and contain atoms, molecules, and cells. They signify more of the cosmos.

Tenet 10

Holarchies co-evolve. Holons don’t evolve alone, because there are no alone holons (there are only fields within fields within fields). This principle is often referred to as "co-evolution," which simply means that the "unit" of evolution is not an isolated holon but a holon plus its inseparable environment. Even though an individual holon exists inseparably within its social environment, its defining factor is its own particular form or pattern. To the degree that we can reasonably recognize that pattern, we will refer to an individual holon. Its environment we will call the social holon.

Tenet 11

The micro is in relational exchange with macro at all levels of its depth. Take a human being as an example using the three levels of matter, life, and mind. All these levels maintain their own existence through a network of relational exchanges with holons at the same depth in the environment. The physical body exists in a system of relational exchanges with other physical bodies in terms of gravitation, material forces, energies, light, water, and so on. The human race reproduces itself physically through food production and consumption. Humanity reproduces itself biologically through emotional-sexual relations organized by family and appropriate social environment and depends on a whole network of other biological systems. Finally, human beings reproduce themselves mentally through exchanges with cultural and symbolic environments, the very essence of which is the relational exchange of symbols with other symbol exchangers. In short, as holons evolve, each layer of depth continues to exist and depend upon a network of relationships with other holons at the same level of structure and organization.

Tenets 12 a,b,c,d,e

At this point in his presentation Leonard opened up the floor to the other participants for questions and conversation, and thus he did not cover the last five of the Twenty Tenets in detail. Briefly, those last five are:

Evolution has directionality:
a. increasing complexity.
b. increasing differentiation/integration.
c. increasing organization/structuration.
d. increasing relative autonomy.
e. increasing telos.

The point being is that is just an opinion, did you try and follow the methods? Did you do any tests to verifiy it?

Easy to say you've read it but that means no more without something to show that or any evidence to support the statement "Sound and fury signifying nothing" since that is just a Shakespeare quote otherwise. It only shows you've read his plays not anything Wilber has done

I don't care if your opinion is that it is boring since that means nothing. What is the point is that you haven't put any effort to come up with any evidence to support that opinion.

I could give you all my opinions about you also but it doesn't mean anything without anything to support it.

So until you have something useful to say that has something to back it up then forget it.

Stick to the facts, you pushed your opinions onto me. If you have a problem dealing with the facts that have nothing to do with me.

If is always better to have evidence to support your arguments and pathetic to not be able to tell the difference between opinions and facts.

I could care less what you think and insults are useless to prove anything.

The proof of stupidity is trying to win arguments with insults instead of providing evidence. That is what I disagree with and the ignorance of distorting all the arguments just because people refuse put any effort into gathering facts.

It must be that mirror-like aspect that allows people to project that accusation of troll onto me. But who is acting more like a troll? You give a lot more evidence to prove that accusation than I do.

Insulting opinion laden rhetoric, cursing at people and unsubstantiated babble certainly are a lot more of the behavior of a troll than asking for a dialogue to provide facts and presenting evidence that I have done.

Which do you think the admins would decide was a troll?

I like that Carlin quote the trouble with it is easy to accept answers from yourself since they are what you want to believe.

That's fine unless you want answers that are accurate since that requires to test them both with your experience and verify them with other data to confirm them

It would help if you took your own advice to "Join the 21st century and evolve" since those beliefs are SO 19th century.

Claiming to be against against "superstition" but defining "spirituality" in exactly the same way is just as dogmatic as you accuse religion to be since that is what they always claimed "someone HAS to be in charge"

That's not letting go of any of the old definitions that is being "too intellectually lazy" to be able to come up with anything better and fall back on the narrow focus of a single perspective that leaves out all the other evidence.

Apparently you didn't take the next logical step to read the rest of the thread either where other more evolved definitions of spirituality were given that have been developed in the 21st century.

http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/psych_model/psych_model3.cfm/

"In a moment I will suggest that spirituality is commonly given at least four different definitions (the highest levels of any of the lines, a separate line, an altered state, a particular attitude), and a comprehensive or integral theory of spirituality ought charitably to include all four of them. Thus, the developmental aspects we just discussed do not cover the entire story of spirituality, although they appear to be an important part of it.

To give a specific example: If we focus on the cognitive line of development, we would have these general levels or waves in the overall spectrum of cognition: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational, vision-logic, psychic, subtle, causal, and nondual. Those nine general levels or structures Aurobindo respectively calls: sensory/vital, lower mind, concrete mind, logical mind, higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind, overmind, and supermind, stretching along a single rainbow from the densest to the finest to the ground of them all.

The respective worldviews of those nine general structures of consciousness can be described as: archaic, magic, mythic, rational, aperspectival, psychic (yogic), subtle (saintly), causal (sagely), and nondual (siddha)

Those are levels of consciousness or structures (stages), during whose permanent unfolding, no stages can be readily skipped; but at virtually any of those stages, a person can have a peak experience of psychic, subtle, casual, or nondual states. Overall or integral development is thus a continuous process of converting temporary states into permanent traits or structures, and in that integral development, no structures or levels can be bypassed, or the development is not, by definition, integral.

Then your problem is that you're too lazy to read anything in the article because that kind of superstition is exactly what the "not religious" is all about.

Get a grip and get a clue

Yes since that is the whole point that religious superstition does not have to be part of spirituality when it is evolved beyong that.

It is only those with a limited imagination that can't conceive of methods that don't involve superstition since they lumped everything they don't want to take the trouble to figure out as superstition.

Isn't it easier to just say that believing in a Kltpzyxm force is not Kltpzyxm but believing in an organized Kltpzyxm force is?

It amounts to the same thing since you are taking it all and just jumbling it together without trying to understand any of it. So why bother?

Piling on more and more assumptions to defend your dogmatic beliefs. First is that Current sets a smaller images size for their posts, but wouldn't know that since you never bothered to follow the scientific method and actually look at the page with the full size.

Then you assume that it can't be measured or repeated when you never bother to actually do any experiments to find out. There are methods to do that on that site but you'll never know because you're too certain of your narrow perspective

Follow your own advice to "Join the 21st century and evolve" or just be relegated to your outdated dogma and be left behind.

You wanted observations and theories but can't handle them when they are given since you won't do any of "the hard work" to check them out.

Assumptions and opinions with no basis in fact is all you can come up with, since you have no evidence at all for claims of "nonsense" without any data.

You don't know if Integral Theory is anything remotely like "intelligent design" since you lump everything together without bothering to find out.

How is that any different than the "faith" in "magic" that you profess to be against? It is exactly the same kind of "superstition" in only what you want to believe in.

I already did, in several places in this thread but you won't bother to put any effort into reviewing the evidence, all you want to do is dismiss it since it challenges your safe narrow worldview, that is the biggest "cop out" since you won't even bother to read what is here.

You can doubt all you want but until you do some research, your doubts are just opinions. So why bother to ask for peer reviewed papers when you automatically assume that there aren't any?

http://www.imprint.co.uk/Wilber.htm

Now there is superstition for you and the same religious dogma that you claimed to be against. Since you have no evidence to show that opinion is anything but unsubstantiated crap.

Where is your evidence to back up such an opinion? Where is the scientic proof for that?

Easy to talk about "show the scientific methodology used to prove the theory and then show me some peer reveiwed sources that mananged to repeat the experiment and acheive the same results." but when it is done, you refuse to even consider it and won't use any kind of scientific methods to try and refute it.

So why bother to spew your worthless opinions? Just STFU because you have nothing to back up your BS and wouldn't know a fact when it is presented

EPIC FAIL! since there was no evidence at all there just more of worthless opinins with nothing to back them up.

You have already proved that you know nothing about the scientific method since you haven't provided a shred of evidence to refute it.

You were also too lazy to even bother to read any of the evidence that was provided even if you could understand it because it challenges your rigid dogma.

All you did was make stuff up, where is your evidence of smoking pot? All you got is insults because you can't justify it any other way.

Everything is your supposed "pyschobabble" because you don't have enough intelligence to understand the "nomenclature" and I bet you even lack the wit to comprehend that long of a word.

Why bother to with the feeble attempt at saying "He has to follow the scientific method, publish his experiments and results and allow the scientific community to test his methods" when he already has but you would never know about it or even admit it since you refuse to even look at it.

It just proves you to be even more foolish when you try to dismiss it, just like clinging to your faith in superstition of the narrow dogma that you doomed to believe.

Saying that you don't have to prove anything is an even more desperate attempt because when facts and evidence are provided then when all you have is baseless opinions and reckless insults then that shows beyond a shadow of a doubt what a complete idiot you are to defend making them.

"The methodology of an integral study of consciousness would apparently need to include two broad wings: the first is the simultaneous tracking of the various levels and lines in each of the quadrants, and then noting their correlations, each to all the others, and in no way trying to reduce any to the others.

The second is the interior transformation of the researchers themselves. This is the real reason, I suspect, that the Left Hand dimensions of immediate consciousness have been so intensely ignored and aggressively devalued by most `scientific' researchers. Any Right Hand path of knowledge can be engaged without a demand for interior transformation (or change in level of consciousness); one merely learns a new translation (within the same level of consciousness). More specifically, most researchers have already, in the process of growing up, transformed to rationality (formop or vision-logic), and no higher transformations are required for empiric- analytic or systems theory investigations.

The three strands operative in all valid knowledge are injunction, apprehension, confirmation (or exemplar, evidence, confirmation/rejection; or instrumental, data, fallibilism). These three strands operate in the generation of all valid knowledge --
on any level, in any quadrant, or so I maintain.

But each quadrant has a different architecture and thus a different type of validity claim through which the three strands operate: propositional truth (Upper Right), subjective truthfulness (Upper Left), cultural meaning (Lower Left), and functional fit (Lower Right).

Further, there are at least ten major levels of development in each of those quadrants (ranging from the eye of flesh to the eye of mind to the eye of contemplation), and thus the knowledge quest takes on different forms as we move through those various levels in each quadrant. The three strands and four claims are still fully operating in each case, but the specific contours vary.

If you can't understand it and won't read it that's not my problem since I already gave you the definition already. Misinterpreting it doesn't help your ramblings or make a coherent argument.

Follow the methodolgy yourself and find out, but refusing to gather data doesn't prove anything.

Where is your evidence of "disjointed ramblings of a drug crazed guru?" that is an actionable statement of libel with nothing to back it up. That's a crime.

You're just repeating your delusions and trapped by your rigid dogma that lumps everything together only further proof of your madness.

Don't worry about serving time in jail, since you can plead insanity and better spend that time in a rubber room.

I pity your lack of any ability to evolve but it's best to be placed somewhere that you can be taken care of and I don't have to waste any more time on someone that won't make any effort or doesn't have the capacity to understand.

Have fun in the asylum

Rant all you want since that just proves you are crazy, since you have nothing to back that up with. It leaves out so much and distorts all the rest which just shows your idiocy.

Especially since it was proved false in this very thread that you are too dim-witted to pay any attention to. I disagree with those that won't provide any evidence to verify their claims, most definately with those that ask others for it and refuse to even look at it.

Funny you should mention Scientology since there is plenty of evidence of their crimes and eye-witnesses that have gathered plenty of data to prove they are a cult.

Ken Wilber even dealt specifically with all the developmental factors that went into different kinds of cults and mentioned Scientology in his book "Eye to Eye"

Where is the evidence to show that about him? That is the crucial difference that you refuse to admit that proves you're a lunatic. You have nothing to show that yours are anything but "diseased ramblings" while I have given you plenty of facts that you can verify.

But you just go along with your fatal flaw of lumping everything together like a badly programmed robot, it is simply pathetic that you have to struggle along thinking it means anything and that your pathology is anything close to what the facts are.

As long as you won't admit your faults then you'll just repeat the same projections and continually ignore the facts which is very boring so why continue? I'm tired of reading it

WAAAAH WAAAH WAAAH! All you do is whine and project, just a like an two year old saying "No, you are!" since the facts prove otherwise. Do you want some cheese to go with that?

Grow up and stop your obsessive behavior since you wouldn't know the truth if it bit you in the ass. It is pathetic for you to think your rants mean anything.

Let's see you put it to a judge and prove to him that it's not libel. I have evidence to support all my statements, how well do you think you would do?

The golden rule rules (it's all you really need ) .

But all they ever use is "Those that have the gold, make the rules" so obviously there is more motivation needed to use "Treat others as you would want to be treated" and someting to break them out of selfish interests

Well said but do you really think all organised religions are bad? I am not religious myself but i do see the goodness in some of it. Most religions are essentially similar in their core beliefs and based on the same universal truths that can be realised through personal spiritual practice and life experience. I think any spiritual development religious or otherwise is better than none at all. :-)

Actually Wildman, I do think all organized religions are bad. if you've got your own beliefs that you follow, why do you need to give your money to someone that validates your reasoning? The focus of most religions seem to be making the head guys of that religion rich. And maintaining a lavish lifestyle.

I'll keep my money, thanks very much.

"There is no answer yet.."

Something tells me there never will be.

So you are saying to be spiritual is to be moral basically?

Hi Argon

I have already gone around and around with you and your nutty bald headed prophet - all your obfuscation will not change reality - let go of your need for answers that you do not have. Accept reality as it is given.

If you only can accept a narrow tunnel vison of reality that's your problem but don't blame others for being able to handle more.

Evolution always moves forward and leaves behind the unfit since that's as much "drinking the Kool-aide" as you accuse religious fundamentalist of doing.

Transcending prerational religious dogma doesn't stop with only the rational it continues with the transrational.

Did you forget that you advocated post-human? Then why stop with only human, if we've gone past pre-human?

http://blog.enlightennext.org/ew/

I think I like the way I see things if I'm wrong He will forgive me If i'm Right it won't matter.

I don't blame anyone. However, I do find your cult particularly foolish, and I do feel sorry for you. Your bald headed emperor is naked, and I am sorry you have neither the intellect nor will to recognize this rather obvious fact.

Enjoy your little fantasy, but please leave me out of it. I do not wish to engage with your madness, I have no interest in your silly cult.

I already looked at your bald headed prophet, he is a crack pot. I am sorry you lack the intellect to comprehend the fact that you are being duped by a charlatan.

Sell it to somebody else, I am not buying your non-sense. You are worse than some Jehovah's witness.

Where is the scientific method in that? That only proves for certain that you don't have the intellect to know a fact from an opinion.

That article only gives opinions of David Deida "LOOKS like a scam," "SEEMS like it reflects Wilber's mind a lot more than it reflects reality" and "SMELLS more like a scam than satori to me."

So where are the FACTS in that? Where is the EVIDENCE to support those opinions? That is no different than the dogmatic opinions that religions use to smear the scientific method and you claim more intellect than they do?

Did he even try that "Integral Life Practice Kit" before forming those opinions? Where are the records he kept of his experience to prove it was a scam? From the article there is nothing to even suggest he bought it.

That is still refusing to actually do experiments with the telescope and verify if there are moons orbiting Jupiter or not. Until you do then you have no claim to refute their existence.

I had a list of reasons not to date someone hanging on my fridge for a while, and number 7 was "naturalistic bullshit"

You prefer supernatural bullshit?

To each his own.

I prefer not to confuse the pre-modern with the post-modern, the pre-conventional with the post-conventional or the pre-rational with the trans-rational just because they are stages other than the rational.

http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/cowokev1_intro.cfm

The Romantic view has much to recommend it, and I would incorporate many of its essential features in later models. But the crucial problem concerns the nature of the infantile state of "unconscious wholeness with the world." Since infants do not clearly differentiate subject and object, inside and outside, Romantic theorists have taken this as a type of mystica unio, a type of nondual union with the entire world. But are infants really one with the whole world?

They certainly are not one with the world of language, logic, poetry, art, commerce, economics, or even the Oedipal complex--for none of those have yet emerged. The infant exists in a type of fusion state, no doubt, but it is a fusion merely with the sensorimotor world. None of the higher worlds have yet emerged, and thus the early "paradisiacal" state is definitely not one with any of those. And this early fusion state certainly does not transcend the self, because there is not yet any self to transcend.

The Romantics, it appeared, were caught in what I would later call "the pre/trans fallacy." The early infantile fusion is not trans-personal, it is pre-personal; not trans-rational, but pre-rational; not supramental, but inframental. Because both pre-personal and trans -personal are, in their own way, non-personal, it is easy to confuse the two.

The typical mistake is to try to reduce all transpersonal mystical states to prepersonal infantile narcissism, thus dismissing spirituality altogether (e.g., Freud). But the Romantics committed the opposite mistake: they elevated prepersonal infantilisms to transpersonal glory (while simultaneously turning Spirit into an infantile display). Reductionism and elevationism are the two sides of the pre/trans fallacy, and the Romantics were the original elevationists.

Your assumption is that spiritual = supernatural.

"He"?...who is "He"? and with a capital letter? and "Right"? why not "She"? who is this "He" that you reference?

I watched this clip by Ken Wilber and now I a writing my philosophy final paper with zeal; The three wings of science he mentions are only way to responsibly defend any case, here I am using them to defend a theory in cognitive science. I am going to have to provide a case for my point of view beyond my intuition or it's face value. Wilber makes good references to Kuhn and clearly explains the actual scientific process used by Galileo. Wilber is trying to prove his case in a similar way because we have a responsibility to provide evidence and proof before calling something stupid or great. SBNR is not a cop out if people are actively investigating it.

So few actually go to the trouble of following the scientific method to gather data and prove the facts of a theory to true or false since it is much easier to cling to dogma.

But that is the only way to grow is to transcend outdated models and include wider perspectives that fit the facts better.

You don't need spirituality or organized religion to have morals and to know right from wrong.

Sounds like you think everyone is wrong and you are right. Which, oddly enough, is exactly what you are accusing others of doing.

Pot and kettle, you should look in a mirror

I'm not being arrogant when I say this- religious thinking is inferior.

It's not about who is right or wrong, it's about the process used to get an answer.

For example, imagine there are a group of people standing around a big box, like a treasure chest. It is locked tight, no one can open it, and it's too heavy to lift, and no one saw it get delivered- but there it is, a box.

One person, let's call him Bob, says it is filled with digital watches.
He has absolutely no evidence to suport that it is filled with digital watches, he just believes it. It could be true, it could be false, but jumping to the conclusion itself is irrational.

Frank says it contains a two ton purple elephant with wings.
He also has no evidence to suport that notion.
Plus, there is no evidence to suport that there ever has been a two ton purple elephant with wings ever in existence.
Plus, even if a two ton purple elephant with wings DID exist, it would be way too big to fit in that box.

Alex says the box is empty.
Yes, that is also an irrational jump, since it could contain something.

And the last person, well call him George, says: we don't know what's in the box, and we have no way of knowing what's in the box until the locksmith comes next Tuesday between 2 and 6.

Now here is the rub- how these people live their lives.

Bob spends the day researching how much he can get selling digital watches on eBay, because he has CONVINCED himself that there MUST be digital watches in there, and that he will benefit from it. He still leads his life almost normal, but with the belief that just around the corner he is going to be a watch mogul.

Frank starts booking shows in Vegas, certain that he will be exhibiting his two ton purple elephant with wings in a show that would make Siegfried and Roy green with jealousy. He is planning his whole life around this elephant being in that box. He quit his job and dumped his wife because that elephant now rules every aspect of his existence. If anyone even suggests that an elephant can't fit in a box that size he has a fit.

Alex and George are leading their lives as they always have, based on the stuf they know, not based on the stuff they don't know. The box and what's in it are just a curiosity, nothing more.

Yes, Alex the Atheist made an illogical jump that George the Agnostic did not do, but the distinction is minimal. At least they are not wasting their lives like Bob the Believer and Frank the Fundamentalist.

Bravo!

By my definition, that would make you an agnostic.

You accept that the unknown is the unknown, and withhold judgement until it can be known.

Religion is not about witholding judgement- it's about making assertions without evidence.

You are like George, but you are a Curious George. :)

...but lacks at least one level of indirection - that the chest exists at all.

The alleged locked chest is in a closed off room, without a door, and would only perchance be there based on the claims of some people who assert they have entered the room and seen it.

No, the chest is the metaphor for the universe, and the contents of the chest are what is beyond our curent ability to know.

All you are doing is putting it in another layer- for example, does the room exist at all?
How do we know it's there?
Does the building exist at all?
Do any buildings exist?
Does anything exist?

nah...we're all here, so unless you want to go Descarte on me we can safely assume that we exist. What I'm saying is that there's a possibility that there is no chest - no great mysteries to be unlocked and secret to discover. It's possible that we just exist, period. Choosing to decipher the contents of the locked chest is predicated on it really existing in the first place...and in your example, it's not even necessary to believe that there's a chest to wonder about at all.

Of course there are great mysteries still to discover.
If you think that's a valid position to take, I have never heard it.

Are you saying you think our current generation of scientists have answered all questions there are to ask? If so, there are no scientists who agree with that.

There is always a gap in our knowledge.

I thought that was called physics?

Call it what you will.

MTE, or My Thoughts Exactly

What they mean? I don't follow. Who says anything has a meaning?