INTRODUCTION Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 PART II Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 PART III Page 1 Page 2 PART IV Page 1 Page 2 APPENDIX A APPENDIX B NOTES Notes 1-15 Notes 16-35 Notes 36-44 Notes 45-56

Part IV. THE NATURE OF HERMENEUTICS: One "I" Understands Another "I" Only Via a "We" (page 2)

Vertical and Horizontal Solidarity

     There are, as we were saying, two types of solidarity--horizontal and vertical. We just gave an overview of solidarity as it is usually understood, which is a type of horizontal solidarity, or how two "I's" become a "we" within the same horizon of depth. But clearly, if two holons are to reach some sort of mutual understanding, they have to be able to share not only a common cultural solidarity, but a similar level of cultural solidarity. It will do no good if you and I live in the same social system or ecosystem, but I am conventional and you are postconventional, or I am blue and you are yellow. Under those circumstances, we will never reach a mutual understanding about your yellow ideas, desires, and needs, because I literally cannot see yellow phenomenological realities--they are all "over my head"--they are all Greek to me. Even if we share the same language with the same syntax, some of the semantic realities that can be carried by that language, such as yellow thoughts and ideas, will still be like a foreign language to me. I will hear the words (i.e., the written or spoken signifiers in the system of syntax), but never grasp their actual meaning (i.e., I get the signifiers in their syntax, but not the signifieds in their semantic [see "Integral Semiotics," Excerpt E].)

     On the other hand, if you are yellow and I am blue, and we exchange blue symbols, words, or tokens (blue signifiers), then we can usually reach some sort of mutual understanding at that level of depth, because we both have access to the blue probability wave in the AQAL ocean. Because of that, we both have access to an intersubjective field of mutual prehensions through which a cultural solidarity can resonate, serving as a background cultural context within which we can exchange mutually understandable (and decodable) symbols.⁵¹ You and I can therefore enter a blue worldspace (as given form by the cultural context we share)--and thus we can participate in cultural solidarity at that particular locale in the AQAL matrix (we can resonate both vertically and horizontally).

     If we then discuss blue values (or phenomena arising within the event horizon of the probability space of blue)--such as the importance of family values, the need for a national defense, or the importance of religious tradition--you and I will at least be able to understand each other, even though we might disagree about all of those items: both of us can at least see what we are talking about (whereas I cannot see yellow phenomena at all, let alone agree or disagree about them).

     In short, you and I can become members of a "we" because our intersections can become internal to a nexus-agency at the same level of depth (and thus we can enact and bring forth a phenomenological event horizon of a first-person plural worldspace, which indicates the probability of finding our exchanges in state of a similar signification or internal solidarity.)

     We saw that mutual understanding involves the exchange of third-person signifiers (or "its")--like the words on this page--in an attempt to understand a second-person individual (or "you") as having a first-person subject (or "I"), so that your "I" and my "I" can intersect in a first-person plural "we." This entire process implies that there is some degree of access to those first- and second-person realities. If an important part of your awareness is vibrating at the yellow probability wave, then in order for me to understand you, I must have some sort of access to yellow in myself, or there will be no communication of any sort at that wavelength.

     In ways we will continue to explore, a major difference between a first-person reality and a third-person reality is that first-person realities are known by acquaintance, whereas third-person realities can be known by description. "Yellow," as an actual first-person phenomenological space, cannot be known by description, only by acquaintance. If I am at blue, and I do not have access to yellow in myself, then the yellow part of you will remain an "it" to me (remain "all Greek" to me), because I will not be able to convert that "it" into a "you" or "I" in any authentic fashion. Part of you will remain "over my head" and thus at most appear as a series of not-understandable "its," or words and behaviors without real meaning for me. Because you and I lack vertical solidarity--or the same depth of exchange--part of you will remain forever inaccessible to me (unless I myself transform to yellow).

     Although blue cannot understand yellow, yellow can understand blue--yellow can comprehend blue but not vice versa (the typical asymmetrical gradient in all holarchies). Thus, both you and I can be a member of a blue culture; but only you can be a member of a yellow culture. Because I am not accessing a yellow phenomenological space in my own I-awareness, there is no way for our intersections to intersect in a yellow domain: we cannot actually run into each other in that world.

     (For a discussion of this theme, see "On Critics, Integral Institute, My Recent Writing, and Other Matters of Little Consequence" [posted on this site], as well as the work of Fred Kofman referred to in that interview. We will return to this important notion later, when we discuss the difference between first-person methodologies that require acquaintance--e.g., phenomenology, hermeneutics--and third-person methodologies that can work with description--e.g., systems theory, structuralism).

     Our point for now is that hermeneutics, to be authentic, requires (among other things) a similar depth of unfoldment in both holons. Generally speaking, a senior holon can comprehend a junior holon (in itself or in others), but not vice versa. A cell can comprehend a molecule, but a molecule cannot comprehend a cell; yellow can comprehend blue, but blue cannot comprehend yellow. (The reason is that a senior is external to a junior, but the junior is internal to a senior: "all of the lower is in the higher, but not all of the higher is in the lower"--and thus the higher can rather literally com-prehend the lower, but not vice versa.)⁵²

     Thus, much as pluralists attempt to deny it, a developmental gradient is built into all hermeneutics and all collaborative inquiry: depth only understands similar depth. Outside of its own range of depth, a holon is outside of both the morphic resonance (RH) and the empathic resonance (LH) of other holons in its probability space. Particularly when it comes to holons that are "over its head," there is no mutual understanding because there are no shared signifieds (see Excerpt E, "Integral Semiotics").

     Vertical solidarity, then, means that two holons share a similar depth or level of consciousness, and accordingly this level of consciousness can form part of the fabric of cultural or horizontal solidarity that is prerequisite for mutual understanding. In order for intersubjectivities to be actual intersections, they must collide in a real phenomenological space: they cannot be near misses but must be direct hits or prehensions. This means that the intersections or shared signifieds that are internal to the "we" must be of the same general depth or else they will slide over and under each other and fail to mutually resonate. Atoms and cells cannot have a discussion about the trials and tribulations of being a cell.

     Horizontal solidarity refers to cultural solidarity as it unfolds at similar depths--it simply refers to all the things that can "horizontally" or "translatively" happen to cultural intersubjectivity at a given probability wave. There is, for example, the problem of cultural legitimation, or how a particular solidarity maintains the allegiance of its members (which we discussed briefly in Excerpt A).⁵³ Whenever we say that "members are inside a hermeneutic circle when their intersections are internal to the nexus-agency of that circle," it is always implied that the circle is legitimated (otherwise, there is no solidarity of understanding). Legitimation is a crucial concept that we will return to time and again throughout this presentation.

Solidarity: Conclusion

     Solidarity in general simply means a shared horizon (or shared inside-interiors, first-person plural "we"). Vertical solidarity means that two or more holons share a similar depth in the AQAL ocean: in order for mutual understanding to occur, holons must be surfing similar developmental waves. Holons at different depths can develop various types of understanding of each other (as we will see), but in order for that understanding to be authentically mutual, similar-depth resonance, or vertical solidarity, must be a part of the intersubjective fabric. Horizontal solidarity refers to the varieties of solidarity occurring at any given depth.

     Genuinely mutual understanding therefore demands the presence of both vertical solidarity (or shared depth) and horizontal solidarity (or shared horizons). In the AQAL matrix of primordial perspectives, we need to share not only perspectives but the same height or depth of those perspectives, or again, there is no phenomenological space in which we can collide.

     When both shared depth and shared horizons are present, we can speak of adequate resonance (or genuinely overlapping intersubjectivity). Unless otherwise stated, henceforth by cultural solidarity--or simply solidarity--we will mean adequate resonance, or the presence of both vertical and horizontal solidarity. In order for you and I to be able to evoke an understanding of each other's interiors, the tokens (or signifiers) that we exchange must be anchored not only in a horizontal cultural context (shared horizons), but in a vertical developmental depth that allows a corresponding phenomenal world (or signified) to be called forth.

     All the way up, all the way down. Two or more holons can communicate if and only if they share some slice, however small, of cultural solidarity (in both vertical and horizontal dimensions)--if, in other words, there is some sort of adequate resonance. Atoms register each other's existence because they share not only exterior surfaces but atomic solidarity (i.e., if atoms have exteriors, they must have interiors; and if they have exteriors in common, which they obviously do, they also have interiors in common--and that is their inter-interiority or proto-intersubjectivity, or atomic culture and atomic solidarity). If atoms have prehension or proto-experience, then the form of their inter-interiority would likely include harmonic resonance with each other, vibrating together not only in their exteriors but in their interiors--the registering of one is the registering of the other.

     But my point is not to argue whether intersubjectivity or inter-interiority goes all the way down--I have done so in a dozen books. I am right now simply assuming that it does, and I am therefore suggesting that all holons--including quarks, atoms, molecules, cells, organisms--would be expected to possess not just exterior registration of each other, but interior vibration or harmonic resonance with each other.⁵⁴ In my opinion, there is simply no way to end the sliding chain of signification unless at some point it smacks into tele-prehension of one sort or another. Exteriors cannot register each other without interiors, and interiors cannot register each other without teleprehension, or direct depth-to-depth resonance. Interiors cannot merely be reconstructed by exchange of exterior signs--that makes no sense whatsoever. The entire string of communicative signals, at whatever level--atoms to ants to apes--can only get started (and stopped) with interior resonance.

     Molecules register each other because they share not only exterior surfaces but molecular solidarity (and molecules also participate in atomic solidarity, since atoms are now internal parts of molecules and continue to resonate with other atoms or similar-depthed holons). Cells share cellular solidarity and molecular solidarity and atomic solidarity, and so on. AQAL meta-theory summarizes this as: all holons have a LL dimension, all the way up, all the way down.

     Throughout these discussions I will continue to repeat that if you are uncomfortable with pushing interiority or inter-interiority all the way down, then please feel free to pick up the discussion at whatever level you believe interiority emerges. What is sometimes useful is, even if you believe that interiority or prehension does not emerge until higher forms of evolutionary unfolding, you can still trace all of their precursors in the four quadrants. That is, you can still make use of something like figure 1 in order to situate various perspectives and dimensions relative to each other, even if you don't believe that consciousness itself emerges until quite late in the game. The quadrants in the AQAL matrix can be read as precursors up to the point you feel that perspectives emerge. Presumably, by the time we reach humans, we are acknowledging an intersubjective dimension of being-in-the-world, whose existence is signaled by cultural solidarity and mutual understanding in its many forms.

     (If you are comfortable pushing higher, at the other end, so to speak, Kosmic consciousness is the awakening of the ultimate Self or nondual I-I of all holons, which brings with it the full recognition of the Kosmic solidarity or ultimate We of all holons, a recognition of that infinite depth or nondual Spirit that grounds all intersubjectivity and solidarity, as disclosed and illumined by causal and nondual paradigms. But again, if you are uncomfortable with pushing consciousness higher than its typical forms, feel free to not only start the account at a certain level, but end it there as well. IOS can fruitfully serve to integrate the quadrants--or first-, second-, and third-person perspectives--at whatever level you feel they exist. In my opinion, the universe is composed of sentient beings, and hence the universe is a self-organizing, self-reflexive matrix of perspectives, all the way up, all the way down.)

     In general, then, cultural solidarity represents the shared inside-interiors of Kosmic habits (the Lower Left)--cultural pathways cut in AQAL space, shared feelings in the Kosmic groove, a history of communal prehensions and harmonic empathies felt from within. Resonate with those, and you have truth as intersubjective meaning, justness, rightness, and appropriateness, not merely objective representation or systems functional fit. Accordingly, another way to state one of the four major tetra-selection pressures is that all holons must mesh with some sort of solidarity or face extinction--and that is the real meaning of the impact of the intersubjective background on subjectivity. (See the following endnote for Excursus: Solidarity and Post-Kantian Internality).⁵⁵

     In short, the entire spectrum of holons exists in waves of solidarity with similar-depthed holons everywhere, not only connected on the exterior by various types of physical causality, interactions, morphic resonance, formative causation, systems memories, chaos and complexity dynamics, but also connected on the interior by correlative sorts of cultural solidarity, tele-prehensions, shared feelings, and empathic resonance. Quadratic reality allows knowability of the Kosmos, not only because of a shared Whiteheadian prehensive internality,⁵⁶ and not only because of various types of shared exteriors and systems interactions--but most especially and extraordinarily because of a deeply shared slice of Kosmic solidarity, which is the ultimate inside story.

Where Perspectives End

     Such is the miracle of a "we," the intersection in the heart of the Kosmos where all sentient beings know each other from within, resonating with a mutual aliveness arising in a sea of electric luminosity. As one I deepens into its own infinity, it subsumes its lesser I's and pretensions, opening onto its own true Self, its Original Face, which is nothing other than the radical First Person of the entire Kosmos, the First Person looking out through all first persons, high or low, sacred or profane--the First Person reading this sentence right now--and thus when I have truly realized or deeply awakened as that First Person, I have found the Self of all.

     As the I relaxes into the infinite depths of its own primordial awareness, it expands its circle of care to more and more We's, more and more second persons in whom it can see a Spirit shining, in whom it can recognize a first person radiating, hear a God calling, feel a Goddess's grace. As We's get wider and wider, they swallow not other souls but their own lesser incarnations and pitiful intersections, until the circle of care expands to include all sentient beings as such, a luminescent interior thread of loving light that simultaneously touches all hearts from within its ecstatic intimacy, at which point the one and only First Person finds his one and only Second Person, the hidden Beloved in all domains, the secret sight within every world, and She in turn, now as First, finds him as her Beloved, too.

     Every "I" that looks at a "thou" is Shiva adoring Shakti, God gazing upon the Goddess, the Unmoved Mover nonetheless hopelessly in love with the Mother of the World: transparent empty consciousness harboring awe-struck equanimity. As the pure Witness, Shiva does not move, cannot move, because Shakti took his breath away. And so, in turn, every "thou" that is ever seen is Shakti radiating light to the entire universe, a gift of her uncontrollable adoration for the Shiva that is her everything. If you can feel to infinity, then when you are I-I, you are God, and when you are Thou, you are Goddess: every Seer is only Shiva, every seen is only Shakti, in the secret, ecstatic, erotic union that is this and every moment.

     The reckless infinity of their enraptured embrace enfolds all third persons in the circle of passionate care, the shocking recognition of radical One Taste, at which point, it has been truly noted, every I in the entire Kosmos becomes a radiant God, and every We becomes God's sincerest worship in loving solidarity, and every It, God's most gracious temple, woven only and always of the luxurious textures of a Spirit come to reclaim the interiors of its own manifestation, a Spirit none other than the one reading this sentence at this very moment, and a reclamation none other than a confession of who and what you always already are.

     In that moment, which is this moment, it is truly finished. And until that moment, which is this moment, what dream walkers we all are! The whole point of walking through our indigenous perspectives is to walk through the dream and awaken to the One for whom these perspectives are infinite reflections of its own Original Face. The only reason that you can, in fact, take all of these perspectives is that you are none of them, but rather the vast Emptiness and Openness in which they all arise, and the vast Fullness or Radiance through which they all shine.

     The universe is composed of perspectives that you have taken in order to play a Kosmic Game of chess with yourself. The Kosmos is composed of sentient beings, each of whom is the one and only, nonlocal and nondual, First Person to the perspectives arising as its reflections, touching and loving its one and only Second Person, courting each and every Third Person, all of whom are, in turn, the one and only First, who is reading this right now. Your very own Original Face, the Face you had before the Big Bang--the I AM that I AM--is still looking out through your eyes, even here and now.

     Remember?

     Well, if not, then you have slammed your foot down in the cascading stream, and all around you has sprung up the AQAL matrix of your own indigenous perspectives....