Ken Wilber

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The Religious Grid, Revisited
To see why the four quadrants are important for understanding even individual psychology, we can return to our "religious grid" as an example. We earlier discussed only the Upper-Left quadrant factors (the interior of the individual), which is fine for the phenomenology of spiritual experiences. But for an integral account, we need also to include the other quadrants.

The Upper-Right quadrant (the exterior of the individual): During any spiritual, religious, or nonordinary state of consciousness, what are the neurophysiological and brain-state correlates? These might be investigated by PET scans, EEG patterns, physiological markers, and so on. Conversely, what are the effects of various types of physiological and pharmacological agents on consciousness? An enormous amount of this type of research has already been done, of course, and it continues at an increasing pace. Consciousness is clearly linked in complex ways to objective biological and neurophysiological systems, and continued research on these correlations is surely an important agenda. This type of consciousness research--anchored in the brain side of the brain-mind connection--is now one of the most prevalent in conventional consciousness studies, and I wholeheartedly support it as providing some crucial pieces of the overall puzzle.

Nobody, however, has successfully demonstrated that consciousness can be reduced without remainder to those objective systems; and it is patently obvious that phenomenologically it cannot. Unfortunately, the tendency of the third-person approaches to consciousness is to try to make the Upper-Right quadrant the only quadrant worth considering and thus reduce all consciousness to objective "its" in the individual body/brain--but those cover only one-fourth of the story, so to speak.

Still, this is an incredibly important part of the story. This quadrant, in fact, is the home of the increasingly dominant schools of psychology and consciousness studies that I mentioned in the introduction (e.g., cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, systems theory applied to brain states, neuroscience, biological psychiatry, etc.). This quadrant provides the "brain" side of the equation that needs to be correlated with the "mind" side (represented by, for example, the master template or full-spectrum cartography of waves, streams, and states summarized in this article).^[25] And my further point is that those are just two of the quadrants that need to be brought to the integral table.

The Lower-Left quadrant (the interior of the collective): How do different intersubjective, ethical, linguistic, and cultural contexts mold consciousness and altered states? The postmodernists and constructivists have demonstrated, correctly I believe, the crucial role played by background cultural and intersubjective contexts in fashioning individual consciousness (Wilber, 1995, 1998). But many postmodernists have pushed this insight to absurd extremes, maintaining the self-contradictory stance that cultural contexts create all states. Instead of trying to reduce consciousness to "it"-language, they try to reduce all consciousness to "we"-language. All realities, including those of objective science, are said to be merely cultural constructions. To the contrary, research clearly indicates that there are numerous quasi-universal aspects to many human realities, including many altered states (e.g., all healthy humans show similar brainwave patterns in REM sleep and in deep dreamless sleep). Nonetheless, these patterns are indeed given some of their contents and are significantly molded by the cultural context, which therefore forms an important part of a more integral analysis (Wilber, 1995, 1998, 2000b, 2001). (For the nature of intersubjectivity itself, and the reasons that it cannot be reduced to the exchange of linguistic signifiers, see note 23.)

Lower-Right quadrant (the exterior of the collective): How do various techno-economic modes, institutions, economic circumstances, ecological networks, and social systems affect consciousness and altered states? The profoundly important influence of objective social systems on consciousness has been investigated by a wide variety of approaches, including ecology, geopolitics, ecofeminism, neoMarxism, dynamical systems theory, and chaos and complexity theories (e.g., Capra, 1997; Diamond, 1990; Lenski, 1995). All of them tend to see the world ultimately as a holistic system of interwoven "its." This, too, is an important part of an integral model. Unfortunately, many of these theorists (just like specialists in the other quadrants) have attempted to reduce consciousness to just this quadrant--to reduce consciousness to digital bits in a systems network, a strand in the objective Web of Life, or a holistic pattern of flatland its, thus perfectly gutting the I and the we dimensions. Surely a more integral approach would include all of the quadrants--I, we, it, and its--without trying to reduce any of them merely to the others.^[26]

Of course, the foregoing analysis applies not only to states but also to levels, lines, and self: all of them need to be situated in the four quadrants (intentional, behavioral, cultural, and social) for a more integral understanding, resulting in an "all-quadrants, all-levels, all-lines, all-states" panoptic.

A Research Suggestion
I have tried to suggest that many of the levels, lines, and states in the various quadrants are, in principle, capable of being investigated via a type of "simultracking" (Wilber, "An Integral Theory of Consciousness" in CW7). The specific research agenda is spelled out in that essay, but the point is simple enough: in addition to the extensive research that is now being done separately on the various levels, lines, and states in the various quadrants, the time is now ripe to (1) begin detailed correlations of these events with each other; and thus (2) move toward a more integral theory, not only of consciousness, but of the Kosmos at large; a theory that (3) would begin to show us the how and why of the intrinsic connections between all things in existence.^[27] This would truly be a "theory of everything," at least in outline, even if all of the details remain beyond our grasp.

In short, whether or not one agrees with my particular version of an integral model of consciousness, I believe the evidence is now quite substantial that any comprehensive model would want to at least consider taking into account quadrants, waves, streams, states, and self. This fledging field of integral studies holds great promise, I believe, as an important part of a comprehensive and balanced view of consciousness and Kosmos.