OVERVIEW PART I PART II PART III Notes 1-9

The Calculus of Uncomfort

     In a universe where hundreds of paradigms are already arising and being competently practiced by the knowledge communities organized around those paradigms--whether in biochemistry, art, cooking, systems sociology, the mathematics of complexity, archeology, hermeneutics, meditation, neurophysiology, shamanic vision quest, computer chaos modeling, engineering a bridge over a river, putting a person on the moon, producing Chateau Lafitte Rothschild--in a universe where all of that is already happening in knowledge communities that can reproduce their knowledge and pass it forward to succeeding generations--and have already done so for years, decades, sometimes centuries--finding ways to comfortably allow them all to co-exist confronts one eventually with what might be called the calculus of uncomfort.

     Here is the basic problem. If I am going to act on the principle that "Everybody is right," then, as we have seen, sooner or later I run into the fact that everybody cannot be totally right or equally right. Some views are "more right" than others. And as soon as we say that somebody is "more right" than somebody else, we generate pain or uncomfort on the part of those judged less right, as well as on the part of those who even dare to make such unkind judgments.

     But my point is that those judgments are categorically impossible to avoid. I know not a single person who is innocent of such judgments (and the reason that nobody is innocent is that some views are indeed "more right" than others, and we all already know that some views are more right than others, which is exactly why we all have those kinds of judgments in the first place). The question, needless to say, then becomes: "Fine, some views are more right than others. So which views are more right, wise guy?"

     And there begins the calculus of torment. For all parties involved. As we have seen, I believe that the principle of unfoldment can help us with that difficult question. The reason that I believe so is that, on balance, it is the solution that causes the least pain.

     As we have seen, the principle of enfoldment suggests that if one state of affairs contains the essentials of another state, yet adds essentials not found in the previous state, then the previous state is "right" and the latter state is "more right." We used the example of molecules containing atoms but not vice versa--"all of the lower is in the higher but not all of the higher is in the lower"--and we correlated this with things like Whitehead's prehensive unification ("all of the past is enfolded in the present but not all of the present is enfolded in the past"). Enfoldment thus suggests ways in which some things can be "right" and "true" and other things can be "more right" and "more true."

     Atoms and molecules are one thing; human beings and their views, quite another. But let it be said that human beings (or any sentient beings) are not what is being judged or ranked here, but simply the views that they may or may not adopt. And, generally speaking, there are two major ways that people (both professional philosophers and ordinary folk) have adopted in regard to this "who is more right" question. Let us take two of the extreme (and somewhat caricatured) examples just to show the difficulties involved. Human history over the last 50,000 years: evolution or devolution? Which view is "more right"?

     One view tends to believe that the early, human, tribal state of affairs was in some sense "more right" and subsequent human history has in some important ways deviated from or destroyed that state. The early state is often called "nondissociated," in that the subject of awareness and nature existed in state of oneness or union; subsequent history, especially the modern, is referred to as "dissociated consciousness," by virtue of what is seen as a profound splitting or dissociation between subject and object. Basically all humans now living in Western democracies are subject to the modern dissociated state.

     In other versions of devolution, the preferred state that was lost is referred to as a "partnership" or "linking" society, and the dissociated state that replaced it is called a "hierarchical" or "ranking" society. (There is a bit of semantic sleight of hand here, in that all societies, individuals, and theorists are involved in ranking. In this view, for example, linking societies are ranked as better than ranking societies.) But these partnership notions are attempting to convey a belief that something "more right" existed yesterday, and today itself is therefore problematic.

     In short, the judgment here is that the early nondissociated state is more right than the modern dissociated state (or the nondissociated-partnership state is ranked as being a better, more authentic state, and the modern state is ranked as inferior). Indeed, the extreme versions of this view condemn the modern dissociated consciousness altogether as being "pathological" or "diseased."

      The other view is basically the opposite. Modern consciousness, whatever its problems, contains capacities and perspectives not available to the early state, and thus in important ways the modern consciousness is "more right" than the early or tribal consciousness. Indeed, the extreme versions of this view simply see the early state as "primitive," "ignorant," "superstitious," or even "diseased."

     As stated, each view sees the other as diseased. But even if we operate within those terms, which of those view inflicts more pain on more souls? Very clearly the tribal view, in that it champions a state that existed among perhaps a few million people, while it condemns as inferior a state that now characterizes billions of people. I am not saying that might makes right; I am simply pointing out that the tribal view judges and ranks billions of people to be inferior to those who possess a different state, and that is a great deal of pain handed out by this particular ranking.

     (Remember I am not condemning this or any view because it is involved in ranking, because ranking is categorically unavoidable; I am simply suggesting that because ranking is unavoidable we should look instead to the calculus of torment that any ranking inflicts, and at first pass, the tribal view inflicts a hundredfold more pain.)

     The modern view fares better in terms of the numbers of those hurt by its particular ranking system, but fares just as poorly, perhaps worse, on the scale of animosity. Neither of these views, as stated, has a believable scheme that can relate the two views in a way that allows both of them to be healthy.

     That is where the principle of unfoldment can help; it is basically a calculus for reducing both the depth and span of torment inflicted by categorically unavoidable ranking. Using enfoldment as a heuristic guideline (itself transcendentally deduced from the already-acknowledged existence of many worlds), the suggestion is that, when it comes to its essential or defining features, tribal consciousness was a healthy and appropriate expression of the evolving universe at that time; and the modern consciousness is likewise, in its defining or emergent form, a healthy expression of the universe for its own time. (Both tribal and modern have pathological forms, but the point right now is that neither is essentially or necessarily pathological.) At the very least, the principle of nonexclusion prevents either of these worlds, from within their own horizons, condemning or judging the other as inferior.

     But between those two worlds, there is at least the possibility of unfoldment, and if that is so, then enfoldment can be compassionately used to reduce the degree of suffering inflicted by our unavoidable ranking judgments.

     That is the path that I personally find the least objectionable, or the one that inflicts the least amount of insult to the depth and span of an unfolding Kosmos. In that view--which is embraced in various forms, as we have seen, by theorists from Jean Gebser to James Baldwin to Clare Graves to Carol Gilligan--the essentially healthy components of one wave of unfoldment are taken up, transcended-and-included, in the ongoing waves of the unfolding universe. If any two worlds have horizons that overlap in history, then they are related by the path-directional flow of mutual understanding between those worlds, and therefore, via Whiteheadian necessity, those overlaps will stand in a relation of unfoldment and enfoldment.

     One version of that interpretation, for example, would be that of Spiral Dynamics, which suggests that the early tribes were expressing the "purple" vMeme or wave of adaptive intelligence, a wave exquisitely suited to the life conditions of the time; and modernity is expressing, in its healthy form, the "orange" vMeme; and finally, that they stand in relation to each other in a Spiral of development, or unfolding adaptive capacities, which is why modern individuals at orange can indeed reactivate and cultivate the purple vMeme in themselves, but 50,000 years ago, individuals at purple could not, in fact, activate orange (because it had not yet emerged). This is exactly why the orange theorist can recontact and appreciate his or her purple roots, but not vice versa. They stand to each other in the relation of prehensive unification in time's stream.⁷

     And not just with views such as the tribalist and modernist. Staying with the Spiral Dynamics examples, each first-tier set of values (from magic-purple to traditional-blue to modern-orange to postmodern-green) sincerely believes that its values are the correct or most important values, and that the world would be a better place if everybody adopted these values. Blue believes that society will return to real values if everybody moved away from rampant permissiveness and adopted religious, communal, and family values based on enduring moral principles. Orange believes that what this country needs is more individual responsibility, initiative, and a business-like drive to help progress, profit, and excellence. Green believes that the entire human race is suffering from a lack of mutual respect, love, and compassion extended to all beings in equality and friendship.

     The problem is, none of those views agree with each other; nor can any of those views rest easy as long the others are taken seriously. Blue says that all people are loved and included by God (but only if you accept their particular God; otherwise you are very likely going to hell). Orange says that when the ocean of excellence rises, all boats rise (but those not contributing to the rising water line are still harshly considered "losers"). Green says that it is caring and all-inclusive and wants to marginalize nobody (but in fact it vocally condemns blue Republicans and usually despises orange business). Each meme will not accept the other memes in their own terms. The simple fact is, each first-tier meme pronounces a ranking judgment on every other meme, and a harsh judgment at that. To a first-tier meme, the other memes are mistakes or diseases, however politely phrased.

     Beginning with second-tier waves, however, there occurs what Clare Graves called "a monumental shift in meaning"--namely, the values of all the previous waves are honored and acknowledged in their own terms. And therefore a new possibility, a new territory, comes slowly into view on the horizon--namely, that of integral endeavors of an entirely different order. It is from within the horizon of integral possibilities that metatheories such as AQAL arise, metatheories that attempt to escape the "correct" versus "incorrect" conflicts of the previous waves.

     A thoughtful critic might respond, "Ah, but aren't you saying that your AQAL metatheory is right and the other theories wrong?" Not really; I am suggesting that AQAL is a metatheory that allows the most number of theories to be right. "But you are saying that as an integral metatheory, AQAL is better than other integral metatheories." In a sense, yes, but those integral metatheories are then working within an essentially similar paradigm or injunction (namely, everybody is right), and as we have seen, theories within similar paradigms can, do, and should make competing claims because those can be judged on the merits within a similar horizon. To the extent that different integral metatheories cover the same territory, there are means to adjudicate which is the more adequate. If, for example, one metatheory includes the essentials of another, but adds elements not contained in the other, then the former metatheory is likely the more adequate (in the sense that Kepler is more adequate that Ptolemy). But even if AQAL were the "more right" view, it would still be just a moment in the ongoing integral stream, bound to be transcended-and-included in the yet more adequate views of its own Einsteinian tomorrow, which themselves would pass into a faster-than-light future whose contours we can only guess.

     The point is that the principle of unfoldment can indeed make "more right" judgments, but compared to the other ways of making "more right" judgments, it inflicts the least amount of pain on the least number of souls.⁸ Even if there are "higher" states or stages in any unfolding sequence, it is from within that sequence that judgments are made; the principle of unfoldment sees each wave as being intrinsically healthy, appropriate, and adequate; sees each succeeding wave as being intrinsically healthy, appropriate, and adequate; and, finally, sees them standing to each other in the relation "right" and "more right." Precisely because all three of the views of "rightness" that we discussed--the tribal view, the modernist view, and the unfoldment view--will in fact pronounce a ranking judgment that unavoidably inflicts pain on the views that are ranked (and on theorist doing the ranking if he or she has a conscience), then I respectfully submit that the principle of unfoldment and enfoldment inflicts the least amount of harm.

An Integral Operating System (IOS)

     AQAL is sometimes referred to as an IOS, or an Integral Operating System, using a computer software analogy.⁹ Once you install IOS, it sweeps the system looking to see whether any endeavor that you are pursuing at least touches bases with all the known quadrants (I, we, and it); all the known waves (such as preconventional, conventional, postconventional); all the known streams (e.g., cognitive, interpersonal, emotional, spiritual, etc.); states (e.g., gross-waking, subtle-dreaming, causal-formless); types (e.g., masculine and feminine, autonomy and relationship, agency and communion); and so on. AQAL or IOS does not in any way substitute for first-person (singular and plural, subjective and intersubjective) experiences of those relevant domains or the concrete social practices that bring them forth. AQAL, used appropriately, is merely a self-scanning software that checks to make sure that you yourself are engaging in those actual practices if you want anything resembling an integral embrace to emerge in your own case.

     For example, IOS scans the system to see if first-, second-, and third-person dimensions of being-in-the-world are being acknowledged and consulted in any particular situation, and it sends up a red flag if a major human potential (suggested by an integral methodological pluralism) is not being included in the discussion. Broken and partial maps are not reliable for any sort of sustained journey through the Kosmos, and although no map is ever complete, some maps are more complete than others.

     An IOS specifically attempts to coordinate the very best of the major paradigms in order to produce a more balanced and comprehensive approach to the Kosmos. IOS combines the strengths of the major types of human inquiry in order to produce an approach to any occasion that "touches all the bases," that refuses to leave some dimension untouched or ignored, that honors all of the important aspects of holons in all of the their richness and fullness.

     IOS, of course, is itself nothing but a pale and abstract map; it is itself merely a third-person system of signifiers. That again needs to be emphasized, because too many people, critics and students alike, mistake AQAL for some sort of reality, whereas it is simply a third-person system of artifacts that attempts to represent all sorts of other realities, modes, dimensions, and paradigms--and really, nobody nowadays mistakes the map for the territory.

     However--to continue the computerese--if IOS is properly downloaded and installed in any human system, it essentially activates the first-, second-, and third-person dimensions themselves, simply because those are the active signifieds of the IOS signifiers. That is, even though AQAL is merely a third-person map, it is a map that audibly prompts, every time you boot up: "In addition to any third-person maps, are you also including first-person singular, and first-person plural, and second-person singular, and second-person plural dimensions of being-in-the-world in your awareness?"

     The result is that any system operating on IOS automatically scans all phenomena--interior as well as exterior--for any quadrants, waves, streams, or states that are not being included in awareness. IOS then acts to redress this imbalance and help move the system toward a more integral, harmonious, and inclusive stance. IOS acts as an autopoietic holism, if you will. And it does so, not by replacing any other practices, but by pointing out the importance of actually engaging them yourself (which IOS itself does not, cannot, and was not meant to do).

     When IOS suggests things such as, "Be sure to include waking states, dream states, and formless states in any overall approach to consciousness," it is not telling you, for example, what you should be dreaming, or how you should be dreaming, or what the contents of your dreams should be, or anything like that at all. It is simply saying, if you are not including in your approach a wide spectrum of states of consciousness, then you are not being as inclusive as you could be. Likewise with first-, second-, and third-person perspectives: IOS is not in any way telling you, for example, what the first person should be thinking or feeling or how it should act, only that first-, second-, and third-person perspectives are already out there so you might as well include them if you want what you are doing to be called "integral" in any meaningful sense. All of those "check-points" in the IOS software are simply the sum total of legitimated paradigms coordinated with the heuristic principles of nonexclusion, enfoldment, and enactment.

     We will continue to discuss IOS in subsequent sections. But don't let the third-person signifiers mislead. What we are talking about are the contents of lived, felt, breathed awareness. We are talking about what aspects of the Kosmos we will allow ourselves to feel. Can we allow ourselves to feel deeply into all dimensions of the self-disclosing Kosmos, or we will recoil, contact, pull away from the Kosmos, and from our Self, and run instead into one partiality or another, one absolutism or another, one broken fragment or another? IOS, although a third-person operating system, simply acts as a reminder, a self-scanning alert, that there might be more ways of being-in-the-world than are presently acknowledged, a reminder that can prompt actions in the direction of a more integral embrace, and can even offer one overview of those actions, but can never, under any circumstances, be a substitute for them.

Holonic Conferencing

     Nonexclusion, enfoldment, and enactment, as useful guidelines for an integral metatheory, allow what is perhaps one of the most helpful applications of AQAL (or apps of an IOS): holonic indexing or holonic conferencing. Different quadrants, waves, streams, and states bring forth different phenomena; and therefore different modes of inquiry, different methodologies, different paradigms and human practices can be nonthreateningly situated in an AQAL space that makes room for all of them. Holonic conferencing allows us, for example, to index most of the significant and time-honored modes of human inquiry, understanding where each of them are useful and effective, as well where they might need to be supplemented by approaches covering some of the other important bases.

     Any field--business, medicine, psychology/therapy, consciousness studies, history, art, spirituality--can quickly be reconfigured using an IOS to suggest ways to make the field considerably more integral. The reason AQAL or IOS has had such a rapid acceptance in many of those fields is that, based on honoring human capacities across a full range, IOS opens up even further potentials for any field to advance in depth and fullness, simply by recognizing those aspects of an AQAL space not yet tapped by the particular field. Doctors, lawyers, educators, therapists, businessmen and women, spiritual teachers, among others, have very quickly enriched their own practices by using AQAL to flesh out a more integral approach that many of them were moving towards anyway. Examples of integral business, integral education, integral ecology, integral feminism, integral politics, integral therapy will be given throughout this discussion.

     Holonic conferencing also leads to what has perhaps been the most immediately helpful IOS apps, which is usually referred to as integrally informed practices. What that phrase means is that, whether one is a doctor, a lawyer, a janitor, or a waitress, one's practice can be integrally informed. This does not necessarily change the behavior of the practice itself--if you are a janitor, you are still sweeping floors--but it profoundly changes the consciousness of the one doing the sweeping. A more comprehensive map of where you are located allows you to see the context in which even the simplest activity exists, at which point sweeping the floors becomes an act of the Kosmos conducted through the consciousness of the integrally informed soul.

     Some people imagine that in order to have an integral practice of, say, dentistry, one must bring every quadrant, every level, and every line to bear on the poor patient sitting in the chair in a vigorously coordinated assault on tooth decay. Well, you could if you wanted, I suppose, but that's not the basic point. The point is that an integrally informed dentist, or lawyer, or therapist, or spiritual teacher is using a holonic indexing system in order to locate their own services in a larger scheme, and thus they can more effectively concentrate their efforts on what they do best, and refer the person to other paradigm-practitioners if other services are required.

     But they can indeed make their own practices more integral or comprehensive by incorporating directly into their practice some of the aspects and dimensions of AQAL space that are appropriate but not yet utilized. Dentists soon realize that the psychological state of the patient accounts for at least half of how any session goes; therapists soon realize that physical states and mental states go together, and those are inextricably linked to the family and the culture at large; spiritual teachers soon realize that meditation may help the soul but won't necessarily cure a broken bone. An integrally informed practice in each of those fields allows one, at the very least, to situate one's practice in a larger Kosmos, while expanding the potential of the practice itself where appropriate.

     As a specialist in any field, I do not have to be integral; as a human being, I do. Integral lawyers are not ones who drop all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, and all types on a client's head, but ones whose consciousness is integrally informed by the existence of all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, and all types. Such an integrally informed consciousness will bring to any practice all that can be brought to it, and in so doing will begin to change dramatically the nature of the practice itself, whether performing brain surgery or sweeping the floor with awareness.

     An important side benefit is that, by locating one's practice or paradigm in an integral space such as AQAL, one "frees the paradigm by limiting it." For example, when Eastern meditation was first introduced to this country on a widespread scale about three decades ago (e.g., Transcendental Mediation, Zen, Vedanta), many practitioners and teachers thought that it was a cure-all. Just meditate and you will get that new job, cure most illness, heal all neurosis. Thirty years later, a more sober view prevails, among practitioners and teachers alike. However, as we were saying, holonic or integral indexing prevents such misunderstandings from the start, while highlighting those areas in the AQAL matrix that meditation, and meditation alone, can show you (namely, the upper reaches of the Upper-Left quadrant). That is, most forms of traditional meditation (East or West) are activating or highlighting the first-person dimensions of being-in-the-world at a third-tier state. Meditation is the premier time-tested paradigm for the bringing forth and illuminating of those domains--domains that, within their enacted horizons, disclose what practitioners invariably report to be deeper and more meaningful occasions (which, if mastered competently, might even lead to nirvanic states, by whatever name).

     But those higher states will not, in and of themselves, cure problems at lower waves, or in other streams, or in other quadrants. And when both teachers and practitioners realize that from the start, not only are they spared the sweeping disappointment, anger, and despair of discovering that inadequacy the hard way, they can actually focus on and celebrate even more joyously what meditation itself does that no other paradigm can do.

     As we will especially see in subsequent Excerpts, the same holonic conferencing can be helpfully used when it comes to systems theory, eco-philosophies, cultural studies, structuralism, collaborative inquiry, phenomenology, and so on. Each paradigm is appreciated all the more, not less, through a larger holonic conferencing. Each is limited, and thereby freed, to bring its own extraordinary, irreplaceable, and crucial insights to the Council of All Beings.

Prospectus

     If there is ever to be an Integral Age at the Leading Edge--a genuine revolutionary transformation in the cultural elite as a harbinger of a wider societal shift--I believe it will very likely involve meta-practices like "integral methodological pluralism" and metatheories like AQAL.

     But by whatever name and in whatever context, integral salons are in fact already forming around the world, pockets of care and consciousness where individuals exercise second-tier potentials in an ongoing effort to embrace as gracefully as possible all dimensions of the radiant Kosmos. The more one actually practices an integral meta-paradigm (in personal life, in business, in education, in politics, in medicine, in spirituality), the more Eros is set rumbling through the system, agitating and pulling toward a second-tier transformation that explodes the legitimacy crisis inherent in all first-tier waves and throws them open to an enrichment beyond their first-tier imprisonment, an enrichment that is their own inherent potential and divine birthright set free in the deeper and wider spaces enacted by integral practices.

     How to extend this compassion and clarity to all sentient beings is a fiery concern that blazes forth in these salons and circles of unfolding and enfolding care, circles that you are almost certainly involved in or you would not have read this far; circles that call out to you to give the best that you can, and then more; circles that call forth from you the best that you can be, and then more; and circles that are beginning to deposit the Kosmic habits of a tomorrow dedicated to compassion, a horizon luminous with intimacy, a future hopelessly fallen in love with love, circles drenched in the tears of a beauty descending on all beings, accepting each as they are, insisting each be more, assisting them to be so, catching them if not.

     It is to those salons that I respectfully submit a consideration of three helpful guidelines for integrally informed practice--nonexclusion, enfoldment, and enactment--with the hope that they will help make room for whatever is arising, moment to moment to radiant moment, while causing the least amount of pain and extending the most amount of compassion to all our brothers and sisters manifesting with us.

     We must forgive each other our arising, for our existence always torments others. The golden rule in the midst of this mutual misery has always been, not to do no harm, but as little as possible; and not to love one another, but as much as you can. Therefore, let a calculus of torment as well as one of compassion guide the maps with which we navigate samsara.

     In the end, yes, that which is samsara is not other than nirvana, and that which is nirvana is not other than samsara: the world of finite, manifest, temporal things crashing into each other, torturing each other, loving each other for a moment or two, every now and then, turns out to be the domain of the very and only Divine, with each and every thing, just as it is, a shimmering gesture, a luminous glance, a sparkling jewel, spontaneously arising in the sea of the Great Perfection, the entire show nothing but the radiant smile of your own Original Face.

     But in the meantime, there is this manifest mess. As long as the world is arising around you, then this is samsara, and therefore calculate your actions on the least harm and the most care. When the very same world is arising within you, then this is nirvana, and all your actions will take care of themselves, while the calculus of pain and compassion will unfold of its own accord, treating every sentient being with the utmost concern, vowing to liberate each and every one of them, knowing full well that in reality there are no others to liberate--because in the entire Kosmos there are no others at all, no inside and no outside anywhere, but merely and only This. Greet the day within you as the unfolding of your kin, watch the sun arise without opening your eyes, feel the distant galaxies rising and falling with each and every heartbeat of the only heart there is--you can feel it beating right now--and bless the entire universe arising within by consenting to feel it again, now and now and now. In the great unfoldment that enfolds all, bow to the suchness of all beings, in the only place that is ever real, and the only time that is only now.