INTRODUCTION PART I PART II PART III Page 1 Page 2 PART IV Page 1 Page 2 PART V NOTES Notes 1-8 Notes 9-19 Notes 20-30

Prologue

     Let us begin by giving some examples of Kosmic inheritance as played out in human holons. The general thesis, of course, is that certain individual and collective prehensions and forms (in all quadrants) have been inherited to some degree. This means, for example, that all of the waves up to today's leading edge of evolution (which in humans roughly means, up to around the green wave) have been inherited as morphogenetic grooves and contextual fields. They originally emerged in part as creative novelty at evolution's leading edge, but then were laid down as Kosmic habits and thus form part of the building blocks of future occasions.

      The older the meme, of course, the more fixed a Kosmic habit it has become. Thus, the basic features of beige, or the sensorimotor wave, are similar the world over: all humans, without exception, require food, water, warmth, shelter. Purple has been around for at least 30,000 years; red for at least 10,000 years; blue, for around 3,000 years--so, relatively speaking, there is very little wiggle room left in their deep features: they have become morphogenetic groves of intense habitual patterns almost impossible to break (even though originally they emerged in part as creative freedom). Orange is only 300 years old, but most of its forms seem to have settled in. Green, on the other hand, is only around 30 years old (on any sort of collective scale), so green has a fair amount of wiggle room left in its structure; it is not yet a fully settled habit. The leading-edge today is around yellow, which means that any of you who are pioneering integral ideas and practices are actually creating the Kosmic habits that future generations will inherit, even as future generations continue to move beyond yellow.

      (Note on the use of Spiral Dynamics: as many of you know, Spiral Dynamics is a particular model of psychological development based on the work of the pioneering developmentalist Clare Graves. Graves in particular based his model on the developmental line of values, which is why Spiral Dynamics continues to refer to vMemes, short for "value memes." For Integral Psychology, the values line is one of perhaps two dozen equally important developmental lines or streams of consciousness evolution; what we want to avoid, of course, is any sort of "line absolutism," just as we want to avoid quadrant absolutism, state absolutism, or type absolutisms [see Excerpt C]. Still, the great advantage of the Gravesian values line is that it is easily understood, it has a considerable amount of empirical evidence, and it is one of the most fundamental of human motivators, so it works extremely well as a simple overview/example of human development. But, needless to say, the main points that I am making can be made with any valid developmental line; see Integral Psychology for extensive discussion of this theme; for a brief introduction to Spiral Dynamics, see A Theory of Everything [and the intro to CW7, posted on this site in Archives]. For Don Beck's important extension of Spiral Dynamics into Spiral Dynamics Integral, see www.spiraldynamics.net and www.globalvaluesnetwork.com.)

     As we were saying, the leading edge today is around yellow--the frothy, chaotic, wildly creative leading-edge of consciousness unfolding and evolution, still rough and ready in its newly settling contours, still far from settled habit. This is why today, right now, we want to try to lay down as "healthy" a yellow groove as we possibly can, because we are creating morphic fields in all subsequent Kosmic memory. If a particular wave emerges in a deformed, warped, fragmented, or pathological fashion--due to various types of turbulence in AQAL space--then that unhealthy form will be inherited by the future, with terribly unfortunate results.

     Of course, each subsequent wave is "transcend and include," so subsequent waves can, to some extent, transcend and redress previous pathologies: but at what a cost! To some degree this is what happened with orange--the great emergence of the orange wave during the Enlightenment was fairly quickly warped into its flatland version, and we of today have unavoidably inherited this fractured Kosmic habit--the dissociation of the value spheres instead of their differentiation--a pathological Kosmic habit, a disenchantment of the world, which postmodernism arose to redress.

     With mixed results, alas. In fact, it appears that the great potential of the green meme, which took as its vehicle postmodernism, actually arrived on the scene already corrupted to some degree by the modern flatland pathology: a flatland habit so ingrained that green not only succumbed to it but magnified it, glorified it, drank the hemlock and called it fine wine. The green meme emerged, almost from the start, in a somewhat pathological or malformed version (caught, as it was, in the morphogenetic turbulence caused by the orange flatland warp in the AQAL matrix). This pathological flatland version of green, due to its association with such trends as politically correct coercive movements, we call "the mean green meme"; and the MGM, over the last three decades, settled into a rigid, unyielding, morphogenetic groove that took all human beings who were attempting to move beyond orange and slammed them into the prison of a flatland pluralism.

     Nonetheless, because the green meme and the MGM--and boomeritis--are only three decades old, their morphogenetic grooves have as yet been inscribed only lightly in Kosmic memory, and therefore concerted efforts now--by healthy green and healthy yellow--might yet turn the tide and bequeath to the future the great potentials of the healthy green wave, a Kosmic habit that all future generations could then draw on as a foundation for a more caring, sensitive, truly compassionate world, instead of a world dominated by thought police, green inquisitors, and one brutality or another parading as pluralism: barbarism with a smiley face.

     (Of course, fifty-thousand years from now, green and yellow will be almost as determined as red or blue are now. At that time, most teenagers might be negotiating, not orange as they are now, but turquoise--orange they would have passed through probably around age 8 or 9 with a quick yawn. And the leading edge would likely be somewhere around coral/psychic, whose vast unformed potentials will start to crystallize and take on form as molded by AQAL space through future parameters as yet undetermined, still to emerge in part as creative novelty before they settle into predetermined habit. But that is why, today, it pays to focus on the two waves that are the cusp of the Kosmic action right now--green and yellow--and attempt to contribute, as best we can, to their healthy versions as a gift to tomorrow....)

     In short, the leading-edge of creative novelty is, in today's world, somewhere around yellow, which means that the deep features of the memes from beige to beginning green have already been laid down as Kosmic habits--and the earlier the meme, the more settled and determined it is.⁷ Thus, in today's world, the deep features of memes up to around green are relatively set and "predetermined," not by timeless archetypes but by prehensive unifications and morphic resonances from past creative novelties now settled into habits.

Probability Space in the AQAL Matrix

     Because "postmodernism" has often meant "post-structuralism," laypeople often misunderstand just what a "structure" is (and is not). Among experts, there is actually a broad and strong agreement as to the meaning of a "structure," which is generally defined--by Sheldrake, Piaget, Habermas, Francisco Varela, Carol Gilligan, Jane Loevinger, etc.--as a "dynamic system of self-organizing processes that maintain themselves as patterns through their dynamic reproduction."⁸ As dynamic self-maintaining patterns, structures are not fixed and unchanging, but rather are "unstably stable" (or a mixture of "circularity and openness"--i.e., oldness and newness--i.e., karma and creatively--i.e., include and transcend), and thus are capable of flexible adaptation to fluctuations: they evolve through "structural coupling" with enacted environments (we say, "tetra-evolve"). A structure is materially different moment to moment; its pattern or form, however, is unstably stable and endures as a Kosmic habit for as long as that class of holons exists in spacetime (i.e., for as long as it negotiates the selection pressures in the AQAL matrix).

     It is common in postmodern forms of "new paradigms" to say that "structure" has been replaced by "process." Actually, of course, structure was always defined as dynamic processes that reproduce themselves. But there are indeed two aspects of structures that researchers keep emphasizing: their capacity for fluid change (e.g., accommodation and adaptation--or adjusting to their communions); and their capacity, if conditions are right, for remaining incredibly stable over long periods of time (e.g., autopoiesis and assimilation--or stable agency).

     Keep in mind, for example, that there are living bacteria on earth that have remained unchanged for over one billion years. There are insects species that have remained unchanged for over ten million years; reptilian forms, over 5 million years--not to mention the forms of many atoms and molecules that are close to 15 billion years old: that is an awesome capacity for stable agency! In humans, the beige meme has remained essentially unchanged for 500,000 years; the purple meme, for 30,000 years; red, for 10,000 years; blue, for 3,000; orange, for 300; green, for 30 (and we are now on the frothy, creative edge of human evolution where new and higher potentials, although explored, co-created, and enacted in idiosyncratic forms by relatively rare pioneers, are just starting to emerge and crystallize on a widespread or cultural basis--much more about that later).

     What is required, then, is a way to account for "structure" without falling, shall we say, into structuralism, or a reification of structures as some sort of ontologically existing molds (which is what both the perennial philosophers and the structuralists did, in their own ways, both of which need to be jettisoned in that regard).

     We saw that deep features are inherited, not surface features. That is, even though the general patterns (or morphogenetic grooves) of these holons are handed to us by Kosmic karma, all of the actual contents, surface features, and expressions of these habitual patterns are determined by relative, culturally, and personally contingent factors in all four quadrants.

     But this is where we start to move beyond any of the typical definitions of "deep structures," "deep features," or "deep patterns": for Integral Post-Metaphysics, a "deep pattern" is not an actually existing form or structure but simply a term that represents the probability of finding a particular type of holon in a particular mode of spacetime.

     Thus, if we say that a person is "at the red wave," and the red wave's general features include egocentrism, preconventional morality, and strong power drives (among others), that does not mean that there is some sort of concretely existing structure, pattern, or adaptive intelligence called "the red structure" (or the red meme or the red module, etc.) such that this person is somehow operating within it and bound by it (or that is somehow "in" the person). All it means is that the person that we identify as operating at or from red is acting in a space where the probably of finding those types of responses is very high (i.e., responses that are egocentric, preconventional, power-laden, etc.). The fewer of those responses you find, the less the person is "at red"--the less they are operating in the space of probabilities of that particular Kosmic habit.

     A deep pattern, then, is simply a probability wave. The deep features that are characteristic of that probability wave are discovered by doing a reconstructive investigation after the fact of its existence, and not something that we can deduce in a Platonic or Hegelian or Aurobindian fashion before the fact. In other words, to say that consciousness is "at the red wave" simply means that it is vibrating at a particular probability wave: from the outside, we say that it is flowing along a particular morphogenetic field that represents the probability of finding certain types of behaviors at that point in spacetime; from the inside, we say that the feeling-awareness of that holon arises within a horizon of individual and collective prehensions, such that the probability of feeling a certain type of feeling is very high at that particular wave.

     Some probability waves are so tightly laid down as Kosmic habits that the probability of finding a particular type of holon in that space approaches 100%. This often happens in physical systems (where, as Whitehead pointed out, it was mistaken as pure determinism); but it happens often enough even at higher waves (e.g., the probability of finding certain types of holons at the red probability wave is very high indeed). But that should not obscure the fact that the stages/waves of development, in all quadrants up to the present, originally emerged in part as creative novelty and were then laid down as habits that accordingly represent, not rigid grids of determinism, but organic habits indicating the likelihood or probability of finding a particular event in a particular spacetime.

     (Even an electron, as viewed by quantum mechanics, is not a pre-existing thing but a "tendency to exist" whose probability of being found in a particular spacetime is given by the square of the Schroedinger wave function.)

     Thus, to quickly summarize, the deep features of any holon (quark, atom, molecule, meme, etc.) are simply the types of events that are probable within the Kosmic habits already laid down by past creative emergence. These probability waves are not some sort of clunky concrete structures lying around out there, but are simply the general morphogenetic grooves that represent the probability of finding a particular event at a particular spacetime locale in the creatively unfolding AQAL matrix.

     As for the actual features or concrete structures of those events, they are co-determined, not just by past Kosmic habits that set broad probability patterns, but by actually-existing factors in all four quadrants (experiential prehensions, behavioral patterns, social systems, and cultural contexts).⁹ That, again, is why we say that although some probability waves (morphogenetic grooves or deep patterns) are inherited from the past in a collective fashion, most of the surface features are not.¹⁰

     But please notice: even the deep patterns of the higher waves of consciousness--that is, higher than green--are now in the process of being formed; not even those patterns are predetermined a priori. Of course, pioneering shamans, saints, and sages have pushed into these realms and left lingering traces of their morphic footprints, but these are yet so few and far between as to be gossamer tracings on the spiritual wind. Higher states of consciousness, higher waves of consciousness, higher reaches of human possibilities--there are indeed virtually unlimited higher potentials, but they are just that: unformed potentials, potentials that have not yet crystallized and settled into widely available Kosmic habits....

     As we just saw, the leading edge of creative novelty is, in today's world, somewhere around yellow, which means that the deep features of the memes from beige to green have already been laid down as Kosmic habits--and the earlier the meme, the more set and determined it is. Thus, in today's world, the deep features of memes up to around green are relatively set and "predetermined," not by timeless archetypes but by prehensive unifications and morphic resonances from past creative novelties now settled into habits. In other words, yesterday's a posteriori have become today's a priori. After the fact, we can trace their emergence with a reconstructive inquiry that shows that these patterns were laid down; before the fact we could not predict those patterns in any specific detail at all.

     This is why, even if certain past forms are relatively given as habits, the leading edge is not. For example, what we now call the upper end of "the subtle"--highest of the subtle realm potentials--will likely, thousands of years from now, have differentiated into a dozen or more actualized levels, with no discernable limit or end in sight: the leading edge of Spirit's creative unfolding is frothy, unformed, chaotic, creative, a wild sport and play of bringing forth creative novelty, a creative novelty that is eventually laid down as a Kosmic habit and that, to all subsequent development, then appears as an a priori given, even though it was originally laid down as an a posteriori to Spirit's mysterious and creative play.

     Accordingly, even the deep features of the potentials higher than green are not carried as pregiven levels already formed, but as morphogenetic potentials that, as they begin to crystallize, will be molded by factors in all four quadrants--and IF those deep patterns begin to crystallize in more and more holons around the world, they will eventually settle into deep habitual patterns that will be inherited by subsequent development. Those higher stages (stages higher than green) are, as stages, still in their infancy, available in idiosyncratic forms to highly evolved individuals, but awaiting their emergence on a larger scale in order to become settled Kosmic habits universally bequeathed to the future.

     (How can we speak of higher levels being available in idiosyncratic forms to highly evolved individuals when they do not yet have collectively settled form? Please see "On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality: Response to Habermas and Weis," posted on this site, as well as an important endnote.¹¹ We will be returning to this crucial topic throughout this presentation.)

     Once these Kosmic habits are formed, at any point in evolutionary unfolding, they are actually the stable patterns that will then become the sub-components of all new and creative emergents. For example: atoms, which originally emerged in part as creative novelty, settled into habitual patterns that then become the ingredients or subcomponents of molecules. The forms of those molecules themselves first emerged in part as creative novelty, but then settled into patterns that became the ingredients or subcomponents of cells, and so forth. Once red emerges, it becomes a subcomponent of blue, which becomes a subcomponent of orange, and so on, as the Whiteheadian moment-to-moment holarchy unfolds. This "transcend-and-include" relationship, grounded in Whiteheadian prehension, is the basis, on the feeling-side, of the gentle tilt of the Kosmos towards greater and greater complexity and depth, a tilt that by any other name is Eros.

Selection Pressures in AQAL Space: Validity Claims in Tetra-Mesh

     As each new holon emerges, it emerges into an already-existing worldspace--that is, it emerges in an AQAL space that already has various sorts of waves, streams, states, systems, and so on, each with its own inheritance. (Again, yesterday's a posteriori have become today's a priori.) Each newly-emergent holon therefore must prove itself capable of existing or surviving in that already-existing worldspace--it must mesh with the already-existing AQAL matrix. It is therefore subjected to various selection pressures (or validity claims) representing the types of fit to which it must adapt in order to survive. Of course, it will not only or merely mesh: it will also bring its own moment of creative novelty that goes beyond all meshing altogether; but if it does not mesh to some degree, it will simply be wiped out by existing selection pressures and never get a chance to express or pass on its creativity.

     Because each holon has at least four quadrants or four dimensions of being-in-the-world, and each of those dimensions must mesh with the already-existing worldspace, there are at least four types of selection pressures: each holon must mesh to some degree with its own I, we, it, and its. Thus, each holon must be able to register the external it-world accurately enough (truth); each holon must be able to register its internal I-world accurately enough (truthfulness); it must be able to fit with its communal or social system of its (functional fit); and it must be able to adequately negotiate its cultural milieu of we (meaning).

     Those validity claims of tetra-mesh (it-truth, I-truthfulness, its-functional fit, we-meaning) are not clunky representational pictures but mutually-evoked enactive engagements; and those tetra-selection pressures apply to all holons, from atoms to cells to trees to worms to wolves to apes. Any holon that fails to adequately negotiate all of those selection pressures simply ceases to exist.

     This quadratic formulation gives us purchase on the nature of the relationships between the subjective, objective, intersubjective, and interobjective dimensions of existence. Although, at any given time, we might emphasize the importance of any one of those dimensions, particularly the intersubjective (especially if it is being ignored by most theorists), the technically correct view is that all four dimensions arise simultaneously and tetra-evolve. No quadrant is ontologically prior or primary. Nor is any quadrant actually "in" or "within" another quadrant. Individual holons are not "in" social holons the way that subholons are in compound individuals (see "On Critics, Integral Institute, My Recent Writing, and Other Matters of Little Consequence," posted on this site).

     Thus, we often say that "intersubjectivity is the ground in which both subject and object arise"--and that expresses an important point, but it is still only part of the integral story (a part we emphasize because it is so often ignored). The full story is that the actual ground of arising is not intersubjectivity but the AQAL matrix altogether. That is, the previous moment's AQAL matrix is the a priori ground upon which the present moment arises (a ground that, if all goes well, the present moment will embrace and eventually transcend into the next AQAL moment). Each quadrant therefore hands the future a ground of inheritance (i.e., there is a quadrant-to-quadrant Kosmic karma), and any holon must mesh with all four of those selection pressures or face erasure. It is not that the intersubjective field is there first, and then the subject and object pop out of it, but that every holon has four dimensions that arise simultaneously and with which it must mesh to a significant degree or the holon cannot survive in the already-existing worldspace.

     Certainly this means that the intersubjective field influences the probability waves of the holon's form of emergence; but so do the interobjective fields, the previous subjective prehensions, and the previous objective morphic resonances. And they do so, not one after the other, but all together and at once. If the holon does not mesh in a fundamental fashion with its intersubjective background of previously given mutual prehensions, then it will not arise; but neither will it arise if it fails to fit with the inheritance in the other three quadrants. None of these alone are ontologically or chronologically prior: what is prior is the AQAL matrix en toto. The previous AQAL moment is this AQAL moment's inheritance.

     What generally happened with the postmodern pluralists is that they--correctly sensing that the intersubjective ground had been left out of the equation by an Enlightenment epistemology that ontologically privileged the Upper-Right quadrant--inadvertently careened and crashed in the opposite direction: they ontologically privileged the Lower-Left quadrant of relationships, participatory pluralism, and intersubjectivity (which often degenerated into Lower-Right grammatology). But the common battlecry was: "Relationships are prior to the things that are related."

     Of course, relationship without anything to be related is nothing but an arid abstraction (which secretly elevates green value structures to ontological absolutes). This postmodernist conception reflects a pre-integral, pre-quadratic understanding of the Kosmos, where events are taken to be existing occasions that have to be related by various types of ground/figure or context/content schemes, instead of seeing that they all arise simultaneously in AQAL space and tetra-evolve in mutual mesh. Neither things nor relationships are prior: both are simply different perspectives or dimensions of the AQAL matrix. As we will see, postmodern pluralism got caught in a particularly intense form of quadrant absolutism that took its important but partial insights and established them as a quadrant hegemony that marginalized other, equally important voices, a topic we will return to shortly.