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Speaker 2: It talked about going from that awareness to a vast
Speaker 2: emptiness to an ultimate unity or oneness with everything, and
Speaker 2: that's a waking up experience.
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome
Speaker 1: Ken Wilbur to the show. Ken Wilber is the legendary
Speaker 1: developer of integral theory. He's also the founder of the
Speaker 1: Integral Institute, which was formed in collaboration with over two
Speaker 1: hundred scholars and experts specializing in education, politics, business, medicine, psychology, spirituality,
Speaker 1: law and criminal justice. His twenty five books have been
Speaker 1: translated into thirty foreign languages. Ken one of the most
Speaker 1: widely translated academic writers in America. In age seventy four,
Speaker 1: he is still very much active as a philosopher, author
Speaker 1: and teacher, with all of his major publications still in print.
Speaker 1: In this episode, I talked to Ken Wilbur about his
Speaker 1: integral theory. Instead of trying to tackle it all in
Speaker 1: its complexity, Ken hones in on the application of his
Speaker 1: theory to intelligence, consciousness, and transcendence. He believes that development
Speaker 1: in these areas follows a predictable path, such as in
Speaker 1: the case of enlightenment. Borrowing from Zen Buddhism, Ken talks
Speaker 1: about what it's like to awaken to the truth of reality.
Speaker 1: We also touch on the topics of psychological research, diversity,
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, social media, and of course we talked about
Speaker 1: Abraham Maslow. So, without further ado, I bring you Ken Wilbur. Hey,
Speaker 1: Ken Wilbur. It is such an honor to chat with
Speaker 1: you today. It's been a long time coming.
Speaker 2: It's good to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. I just want to start off by
Speaker 1: asking how are you doing? Like, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Good good. I mean, there's such a huge wealth of
Speaker 1: information that you've put out into the world throughout your
Speaker 1: course of your whole lifetime. Right, What are some of
Speaker 1: the some of the things that some of the applications
Speaker 1: of integral theory that most excite you these days?
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate the developmental components a lot, and the
Speaker 2: fact that everybody is going through a certain stage of
Speaker 2: development and one or more of their multiple intelligences, and
Speaker 2: so the number of multiple intelligences a person has it
Speaker 2: varies from theorists theorists. Most give around a or so
Speaker 2: multiple intelligences, some none are, but they're all important. I mean,
Speaker 2: we have not only a cognitive intelligence, we have an
Speaker 2: emotional intelligence, a moral intelligence, an esthetic intelligence, an interpersonal intelligence,
Speaker 2: a spiritual intelligence, and so on. And for each of
Speaker 2: those intelligences, we're going through a given number of around
Speaker 2: eight or so stages of development. And that's a very
Speaker 2: important piece of information because not only can you identify
Speaker 2: different multiple intelligences that you have, you can recognize that
Speaker 2: each of them will be coming from essentially the same
Speaker 2: level of development, although they go through it at different
Speaker 2: speeds and at different times and so on. But that's
Speaker 2: an piece of information to know and understand, and it's
Speaker 2: one of the favorite aspects that I have for integral theory,
Speaker 2: so I appreciate that there also we have different states
Speaker 2: of consciousness. Commonly they're waking, dreaming, deep sleep, and then
Speaker 2: one called turia, which is a transcendental self awareness. It's
Speaker 2: your awareness of your inpendent individual self right now. There's
Speaker 2: a huge witness this witnessing yourself, and so when you
Speaker 2: look with them and see yourself, you're in touch with
Speaker 2: a witness experience. And that witness is actually your true
Speaker 2: self or or your real self or your big self,
Speaker 2: and that witness is also one with everything you're witnessing
Speaker 2: right now, which is called the state of turial tita,
Speaker 2: which basically means beyond turia or beyond identifying. With this witness,
Speaker 2: you can notice that everything that you're aware of right
Speaker 2: now is actually existing, coming from a state that Douglas
Speaker 2: Harding called our handless condition. And what headless means is
Speaker 2: if you look, you can see every part of your
Speaker 2: body except your head, and you can't see your head.
Speaker 2: You're headless. What you see when you look out of
Speaker 2: your two eyes is you can see two sort of
Speaker 2: fleshy blobs on each side of your awareness. But then
Speaker 2: there's a whole world of objects. This seems to be
Speaker 2: arising out there, but they're not really arising out there.
Speaker 2: They're arising right one with your own awareness, So they're
Speaker 2: shitting right where you thought your had was. Is an
Speaker 2: objective world arising out there, but it's not arising out there.
Speaker 2: It's a rising right here, right where I thought my
Speaker 2: head used to be. So I really am headless except
Speaker 2: one with everything that's arising in my headless space.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's take a pause for a second. Within the
Speaker 1: span of three minutes, you you seamlessly rode between the
Speaker 1: multiple intelligences, to the self, to the being one with everything.
Speaker 1: There's so many juicy, juicy threads. Can we start with intelligence?
Speaker 1: Because I've spent my whole career studying intelligence and studying
Speaker 1: g or general intelligence?
Speaker 2: Sure do you think?
Speaker 1: I have two questions ruly inked intelligence. One do you
Speaker 1: think we society overvalues certain forms? Which ones do you
Speaker 1: think society or values and which ones do you think
Speaker 1: society undervalues, especially in education? And the second question is
Speaker 1: do you see any value to general intelligence? Do you
Speaker 1: even believe there is such a thing. So there are
Speaker 1: two questions if we if we double click on intelligence
Speaker 1: for a second.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so which ones do I think we over the side?
Speaker 2: I think we definitely give a fair amount of attention
Speaker 2: to cognitive intelligence, and so that's whether it's an actual
Speaker 2: feel like mathematics or some form of intelligence very specific
Speaker 2: like that. But in general, we give a great deal
Speaker 2: of attention to whatever cognitive awareness we have, and not
Speaker 2: as much your tention into like emotional intelligence or spiritual
Speaker 2: intelligence or even esthetic intelligence. Although there are specific disciplines
Speaker 2: for each of those, and of course, if we sign
Speaker 2: up to one of those classes, will get a fair
Speaker 2: amount of attention paid to that intelligence. It might be
Speaker 2: our moral intelligence, or our esthetic intelligence, or even our
Speaker 2: emotional intelligence. And what was your second question. I didn't
Speaker 2: understand it when you first said it.
Speaker 1: Sure, it was about general intelligence. But let's close the
Speaker 1: thread on the first thing first, the idea of multiple intelligences.
Speaker 1: And then I know you've been particularly interested in spiritual
Speaker 1: intelligence and have written beautifully about it, and have delineated
Speaker 1: many different subcomponents of spiritual intelligence. And you've argued that
Speaker 1: some sub components are more evolve so speak, or higher
Speaker 1: order than others. And I heard in one of your
Speaker 1: talks you said that unfortunately, the more lower order ones
Speaker 1: are the most prevalent ones, and the more higher ones
Speaker 1: or the least prevalent. Let's even go zoom and further
Speaker 1: on spiritual intelligence for a second. Tell me some of
Speaker 1: the ones you think are some higher than others.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, first of all, I talk about two different
Speaker 2: types of spiritual intelligence. One involves states of consciousness and
Speaker 2: one involves structures or specific stages of consciousness. And the
Speaker 2: stages is one that goes through the relative overall structures
Speaker 2: of growing up or development in general. So it'll go
Speaker 2: from archaic stage to pre operational stage, concrete, operational, the formal, operational,
Speaker 2: to integral stages of development, and each of those, of
Speaker 2: course have a different worldview, a different view of the world,
Speaker 2: and when it comes to the line of spiritual intelligence
Speaker 2: as it goes through those stages, they're often referred to
Speaker 2: in teen geptsu's terms as archaic stage, magic stage, mythic stage,
Speaker 2: rational stage, and an integral stage, and those are each
Speaker 2: very real components. There's a spiritual worldview from each one
Speaker 2: of those levels, and it does include an understanding of
Speaker 2: the innerwoven nature of all reality and the oneness of
Speaker 2: all reality, and you can directly experience that oneness in
Speaker 2: a state of consciousness, not just a structure stage of consciousness.
Speaker 2: So US structure stages use something like pha's cognitive stage,
Speaker 2: and so they are pre operational, concrete, operational, formal, operational,
Speaker 2: and the states of spiritual awareness. At the magic stage,
Speaker 2: you're simply if you have a spiritual experience of magical
Speaker 2: then you become one with the magical world. What you
Speaker 2: tend to believe is that this oneness with everything that
Speaker 2: you're aware of is indeed has a magical quality to it.
Speaker 2: You feel that you're one with something that's arising, because
Speaker 2: your subject of awareness is one with the mental world
Speaker 2: you that's arising, and so to change objective component of
Speaker 2: the worldview is actually change your subjective awareness of it
Speaker 2: as well. And that's what magic means basically. So if
Speaker 2: I change my worldview of an object and it goes
Speaker 2: from magical oneness to a mythic oneness, in the world
Speaker 2: that's arising does appear to be mythic in nature, and
Speaker 2: so that might be an actual mythic story or fairy
Speaker 2: tale or some Greek mythology or something along those lines.
Speaker 2: And then we have a rational stage of development, and
Speaker 2: that's a third person awareness. Magic is always first or
Speaker 2: second person, and mythic is usually second person. And then
Speaker 2: as we move into formal operational we move into mathematical
Speaker 2: capacities and a definite third person awareness. So a ham
Speaker 2: or her or day or them or it or it's
Speaker 2: and that's becomes a very real reality. And if we
Speaker 2: change our third person representation, then will change the way
Speaker 2: we relate to those third person objects, to he or
Speaker 2: him or they or them. Even if I refer to
Speaker 2: you as he or him or part of us or
Speaker 2: a part of them relationship, then that is different than
Speaker 2: if I talk to you by using your first person
Speaker 2: name or if I refer to you as a second person.
Speaker 2: So I'll say, oh, that squad cast is being done
Speaker 2: by him, and not use your name or not refer
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: Does this is Martin Bieber's work relevant here at all
Speaker 1: in the eye thou relationship versus relationships Martin Bueber's sort
Speaker 1: of delineation of different kinds of relationships.
Speaker 2: And well, an I thou relationship is Bieber used, it
Speaker 2: was a very profound spiritual experience, so direct and immediate
Speaker 2: experience of being one with an everlasting or transcendental sense
Speaker 2: of selfhood and that was the thou capital t. So
Speaker 2: we have an I thou relationship with that ultimate reality,
Speaker 2: and that's a very profound experiential experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so you can have it with trees, we
Speaker 1: can have it with things in nature, yeah, argued Yeah,
Speaker 1: not just people.
Speaker 2: Basically, but it does have a sense that you're actually
Speaker 2: talking or experiencing a real person, which is why it's
Speaker 2: an eye thou relationship. And that Tao is a very
Speaker 2: real consciousness. It's a very real awareness. It's a very
Speaker 2: real experiential reality. And I will experience that thou much
Speaker 2: as I'm experiencing you as the thou right now. And
Speaker 2: so that's why Boober selected those terms, because it's just
Speaker 2: almost I keep talking to God when you have an
Speaker 2: id experience and in a certain sense you are.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, we could double cook on that. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just dawned in me that a lot of what you're
Speaker 1: saying connects to some of the things that we were said.
Speaker 1: How much were you influenced by Abraham Maslow. I'm just
Speaker 1: curious because he's been a huge influence on my own
Speaker 1: career and work.
Speaker 2: I'm pausing because I've been experienced by so many modern
Speaker 2: day developmental psychologists, and Ed Maslow was certainly one of them.
Speaker 2: I think that his system of developmental needs is a
Speaker 2: fairly good system if you look at integral psychology. I
Speaker 2: include charts in the back of that book that refer
Speaker 2: to over a hundred developmental psychologists, and I have charts
Speaker 2: of all of the stages of development they've given, and
Speaker 2: almost all of the structures, the actual ones that have
Speaker 2: stages that are real structures that can usually be stated
Speaker 2: as a first person or a second person or a
Speaker 2: third person structure that they're referring to. Almost all of
Speaker 2: those go through the same basic levels of development, and
Speaker 2: that inclate its Maslows. So you go from physiological to safety,
Speaker 2: two mythic realities, and then self actualization and ultimately a
Speaker 2: self transcendence and then an ultimate unifying stage. And I
Speaker 2: think those are all fairly real stages, and they do
Speaker 2: correspond to these major stages that all one hundred of
Speaker 2: these developmental models accurately reflect, but from a different perspective
Speaker 2: and a different person perspective of development and so on.
Speaker 2: But those are all very real and very important aspects
Speaker 2: of our own being. And I've really appreciated that part
Speaker 2: of the integral framework, the developmental component, and I've gotten
Speaker 2: a lot of those. I've gotten almost all of those
Speaker 2: structure stages from various modern day developmental psychologists, and that
Speaker 2: includes a Manslow. So here's an important and because his
Speaker 2: model is so well known, he was a fairly important
Speaker 2: influence on me.
Speaker 1: Wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the whole way he discusses the arising of
Speaker 2: these basic needs of development was also very important for me,
Speaker 2: and basically you have to have one stage emerge and
Speaker 2: be fairly well existing before the next stage will automatically
Speaker 2: start to emerge.
Speaker 1: I would argue that's a misunderstanding of Maslow's work. Do
Speaker 1: you know that he never drew a pyramid. Not many
Speaker 1: people know this, but he never actually drew the pyramid
Speaker 1: that has been so used in textbooks and things. And yeah,
Speaker 1: he always he really emphasized the being realm versus the
Speaker 1: deficiency realm, and I think went to great pains to
Speaker 1: argue that we target multiple needs simultaneously. That it's not
Speaker 1: Life's not like a video game where you have to
Speaker 1: reach a certain level before you're allowed to get unlock
Speaker 1: the next level. I wanted to have a discussion with
Speaker 1: you about if you see any limitations to stage theories
Speaker 1: of development, because I've been a little critical of stage theories.
Speaker 1: I have like the sailboat model, where I like to
Speaker 1: think about it as an integrated harmony of pieces as
Speaker 1: opposed to stages. I actually think that a integrated sailboat
Speaker 1: model is more in wine with integral theory than stage theories.
Speaker 1: So I'm actually surprised that you embrace stage theories. I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear some of your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's stage story versus.
Speaker 1: What Yeah, I mean that's a good question. That's a
Speaker 1: good question. What is the alternative as I view it? So,
Speaker 1: for instance, if I'm thinking of like an operating unit
Speaker 1: like a sailboat, and various different needs that must be met,
Speaker 1: they all have to work together as a unifying piece.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense to talk about about levels in
Speaker 1: that kind of situation. It's more about harmony among parts.
Speaker 1: So I actually just wondering if you see some limitations
Speaker 1: to stage theories, because I've been a little bit critical
Speaker 1: that that's the way, that's how we should think about
Speaker 1: self actualization as stages.
Speaker 2: Well, sure, I mean what stage theory is talking about
Speaker 2: in particular that has some merit is when it's talking
Speaker 2: about the components of a stage, what actually the stage
Speaker 2: is made of? And sometimes the stage is made of
Speaker 2: components from a previous state.
Speaker 1: That's right, That's yeah, that's transcendence.
Speaker 2: And for you not want that stage to emerge until
Speaker 2: that previous state has emerged. Like first person, second person,
Speaker 2: in third person, they do emerge in our awareness in
Speaker 2: that order, and we don't have a third person without
Speaker 2: having a second person and a first person. And so
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that all the developmental sequences have to
Speaker 2: go through those stages, but to the extent that they do,
Speaker 2: to the extent that you actually spot a third person
Speaker 2: stage of mathematical development, there has to be a second
Speaker 2: person that's part of that third person, And of course
Speaker 2: there has to be a first person that's aware of
Speaker 2: the second person and the third person, and those are
Speaker 2: They of course can occur simultaneously, but we have to
Speaker 2: have a first person before we have a second person,
Speaker 2: and we have to have a second person before we
Speaker 2: have the third person.
Speaker 1: It's a very good point.
Speaker 2: And that's those is made of his previous stage of development.
Speaker 1: Like Russian nesting dolls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's a
Speaker 1: really important point. But that point is often overlooked in
Speaker 1: discussions of stage.
Speaker 2: There is.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad that we're we're really highlight because it's
Speaker 1: about transcendence is about including, right, it's not about excluding.
Speaker 1: I think some people think of transcendence as oh, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to transcend my ego, as though the ego
Speaker 1: is going to magically be gone. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: No? That doesn't work at all.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work it doesn't work. Try that, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: That's where stage theory does tend to have an important application.
Speaker 2: I mean, things like mathematics itself have stages of increasing complexity.
Speaker 2: So you go from arithmetic to algebra with a variable x,
Speaker 2: and you can then go on to calculus and so on.
Speaker 2: And there are different schools, different types of mathematics that
Speaker 2: develop at more complex stages of awareness, and that's an
Speaker 2: important aspect as well. That doesn't mean that we have
Speaker 2: to completely do all of one stage of mathematics before
Speaker 2: we can be aware of another stage, And once they're
Speaker 2: sort of all flowing, you can be aware of all
Speaker 2: of them simultaneous if you want to be. So that's
Speaker 2: a major issue. But the ways that like, you're not
Speaker 2: going to be aware of what a third person consciousness is,
Speaker 2: what it feels like if you don't have a first
Speaker 2: person and you generally need a second person. That's an
Speaker 2: understanding that there is not only an I, there's a you,
Speaker 2: there's a val yeah, and then not only that, but
Speaker 2: we can have a hymn or her or they or them,
Speaker 2: and so those are fairly important and particularly I mean
Speaker 2: that's the way grammar is outlined, and the different forms
Speaker 2: of I, thou and him her are unfolded and outlined,
Speaker 2: and they're fairly significant. So that's just part of an
Speaker 2: overall integral approach is when can include all of those first, second,
Speaker 2: and third persons stages of development in every multiple intelligence
Speaker 2: that we have. And that's usually it comes as a
Speaker 2: bit of a surprise to most people to learn that
Speaker 2: they do have available general stages of development. And they
Speaker 2: started out as a first person kid, just aware of
Speaker 2: their own awareness, and then they became aware of their mother,
Speaker 2: their father, siblings, or some second person that they were
Speaker 2: directly talking to, and a stream of exchange where they
Speaker 2: would take the other person's perspective and then they would
Speaker 2: go back to their own perspective and so on, and
Speaker 2: then they would understand that there's a third person perspective
Speaker 2: that I don't have to be talking to you in
Speaker 2: order for you to exist, because you can just be
Speaker 2: that person over there, that third person him or her,
Speaker 2: it or they or them. But when people realize that
Speaker 2: they have first person like Maswa's stages of development is
Speaker 2: one example, or Jane Levenger's or Robert Keith, they're often
Speaker 2: surprised to find that those stages have been named and
Speaker 2: that they can recognize them if they look within generally speaking,
Speaker 2: so that becomes very interesting as a novel experience for
Speaker 2: most people if they read ge Levenger's Stages of Ego Development,
Speaker 2: for example, and they'll see it going from very interior, infantile,
Speaker 2: just first person stages of development to a full U
Speaker 2: development to they or them development. They're interested to find
Speaker 2: that they have those stages in themselves that are arising.
Speaker 2: And I think it's a very interesting component of integral overall.
Speaker 2: And so I spend a fair amount of time when
Speaker 2: I talk about the magic stage, or the mythic stage,
Speaker 2: or the rational stage, the formal operational stage, or the
Speaker 2: integrative stage of development. Yeah, and a lot of people
Speaker 2: are very interested in finding that out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, You're obviously a legend when it comes to integrating
Speaker 1: stage theories. I mean, it's the amount of work and
Speaker 1: thought you've put into it is hard to surpass. But
Speaker 1: I do want to get your thinking about something and
Speaker 1: let this be a conversation between us. You know, there's
Speaker 1: different forms of transcendence. There's vertical and horizontal forms. I've
Speaker 1: been trying to emphasize in my own research horizontal like
Speaker 1: what Masow called synergy, which is a concept he took
Speaker 1: from you know, the anthropologist I believe Ruth benedict the
Speaker 1: idea of synergy that what's automatically good for me is
Speaker 1: good for me is automatically good for the world. So
Speaker 1: there's like it's a huge integration between self and world
Speaker 1: as opposed to a vertical form of transcendence where you
Speaker 1: can fall prey to I think spiritual narcissism and this
Speaker 1: what's psychologists called the I'm enlightened and you're not effect
Speaker 1: you know, where you take some sort of meditation retreat
Speaker 1: and you think that you're more enlightened than everyone else
Speaker 1: and you're better than everyone else, you know. So I
Speaker 1: just want to get your thoughts on vertical verse horizontal transcendence.
Speaker 2: What did you call it?
Speaker 1: So horizontal versus vertical transcendence. It seems like your work
Speaker 1: focused a lot on vertical Am I wrong? Because am
Speaker 1: I wrong about that?
Speaker 2: Well? It does spend a great deal of time outlining
Speaker 2: the vertical stages, Yeah, but I recognize horizontal development as well.
Speaker 1: How can one who reaches one of these higher some
Speaker 1: of the highest stages possible still meaning in a real
Speaker 1: sense of modesty and a lack of narcissism, where they
Speaker 1: don't think they're somehow better than their fellow humans even
Speaker 1: though they have a different sort of way of being
Speaker 1: in this world.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, a person has to know some
Speaker 2: developmental model to even be aware that if they're on
Speaker 2: a higher stage, they're actually on a higher stage. Most
Speaker 2: people don't feel these stages. They don't feel, Oh, I'm
Speaker 2: at a really low stage of inner person. Oh wait,
Speaker 2: I just moved up to concrete operational. That's fantastic. I
Speaker 2: still have a ways to go, but am much higher
Speaker 2: than I used to be. People don't track that, and
Speaker 2: they certainly don't know when they're at the highest stage
Speaker 2: of a particular stage. Like Levinger called her highest stage
Speaker 2: the integral or integrated stage of development, and this came
Speaker 2: right after an autonomous stage, which came after a formal,
Speaker 2: operational or authentic stage, and that came after a conformist stage.
Speaker 2: But when you're at a conformist stage, you don't know
Speaker 2: you're at a conformist stage. So you're not going to
Speaker 2: feel that much greater when you go post conventional. So
Speaker 2: you have to have some sense that you're moving through
Speaker 2: these stages, and then you don't generally feel superior. That's
Speaker 2: not the nature of the experience that most people have
Speaker 2: at different stages of development. It's not, oh, two thirds
Speaker 2: of the way up, I'm better than two thirds of
Speaker 2: those people out there are. That just doesn't cross your mind.
Speaker 2: It doesn't come up as an experiential reality that, oh,
Speaker 2: now I'm at a higher stage than somebody else. Is
Speaker 2: It's that you can think that you're at a higher stage,
Speaker 2: but you won't necessarily, at the same time think higher
Speaker 2: than that person or higher than those people who aren't
Speaker 2: at this high stage. That just doesn't come with your awareness. Okay,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, Now I'm on mass Low's self transcendent
Speaker 2: stage or I'm on his self authentic stage. It just
Speaker 2: doesn't come in that type of experience. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, there are many examples though, of spiritual narcissism, because
Speaker 1: I'm sure you would agree. You know of gurus who
Speaker 1: think that they are more enlightened and they use that
Speaker 1: as justification for exploitation. Right.
Speaker 2: Usually narcissism goes down with development, you would hope slowly,
Speaker 2: but it does. The higher the stage of development, the
Speaker 2: less narcissistic it is, and that's just pretty much all
Speaker 2: stage models agree with that empirical finding. Now, it is
Speaker 2: possible that when that, you go through different lines of
Speaker 2: development at different types, at different stages, so somebody can
Speaker 2: have it's at least theoretically possible that they could have
Speaker 2: a spiritual intelligence experience and tag it to their own narcissism, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's completely possible, but it doesn't occur as
Speaker 2: a typical condition. So when you have, like if you're
Speaker 2: practicing Zen Buddhism and you have your first satory, you
Speaker 2: feel fantastic, you feel one everything, and it's a great,
Speaker 2: great feeling and all. But you won't tend to think, oh,
Speaker 2: I've had a satori and nobody else here has or
Speaker 2: all those people over there haven't had the satory. It's
Speaker 2: just not part of the satori experience. That's not how
Speaker 2: and why and what you experience when you experience a satti.
Speaker 2: It's discovering your own true in nature, your own true
Speaker 2: so and that feels fantastic obviously, but you don't therefore
Speaker 2: tend to look down on people who haven't had satories.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can, there's nothing preventing you, but it's
Speaker 2: not described as a typical experience of a satory. That's
Speaker 2: not how satori is defined or described.
Speaker 1: But can it make you more prone to think that
Speaker 1: that you know what's best for others, you know, and
Speaker 1: that like you can dictate to people how they should
Speaker 1: live their lives. Can't you fall a prey because we're
Speaker 1: all human, we're all human, you know. Can't some people
Speaker 1: fall prey to that where they kind of think, well,
Speaker 1: they know what they see great, they think they see
Speaker 1: great clarity into the into the real way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that can particularly arise when they can think
Speaker 2: better than the average or most people, and they're genuinely
Speaker 2: reaching some higher aspect of their own awareness. Maybe they
Speaker 2: understand advanced mathematics and not very many people do, and
Speaker 2: if they think about that, they would have the thought, well,
Speaker 2: I'm more advanced than most people. And that would be
Speaker 2: true if they really were at an advanced stage of
Speaker 2: mathematical development, for example. But again it's not my understanding
Speaker 2: nor my experience of people that do reach great heights
Speaker 2: of mathematical understanding that they're always thinking, Wow, I've got
Speaker 2: this great mathematical brain and most nobody else can match it.
Speaker 2: It just doesn't that's more likely to occur in the
Speaker 2: earlier stages of development, the developments developmental. That's actually called
Speaker 2: narcissistic stage or an ego power stage, and people there
Speaker 2: often think that they're better than a lot of other
Speaker 2: people because that's the nature of that stage. It thinks
Speaker 2: only that its own ideas are true and important, and
Speaker 2: that's because they really can't take another person's perspective. So
Speaker 2: you can have like a six year old who thinks
Speaker 2: that they're the world's greatest, and they're particularly at the
Speaker 2: stage of development that Levinger narcissist stick or egoic power,
Speaker 2: and that's exactly what they're experiencing. Their own ego has
Speaker 2: an enormous amount of power and that way, and so
Speaker 2: they will sometimes make that comparison when I have more
Speaker 2: power than you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but can't like stages wax and wane throughout the
Speaker 1: course of even one's day. I mean, you talk about
Speaker 1: stages though, it's like you've you've reached a stage and
Speaker 1: then you're there and you don't revert back to the
Speaker 1: old one, right, I mean, isn't it possible? This is
Speaker 1: why I have some criticism of stage way of thinking
Speaker 1: about it, because throughout the course of a day. You
Speaker 1: can have a profoundly narcissistic moment, and then the next
Speaker 1: moment you could think at a higher level, Right is
Speaker 1: that is that? Right?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: It can it can change, you know, don't don't you
Speaker 1: have your narcissistic moments or completely over it?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Sure we all do.
Speaker 2: And that's again, that's not what developmental theory is generally saying.
Speaker 2: It acknowledges as Maslow does that these needs can arise multiply,
Speaker 2: they can arise together, they can arise alongside of each other.
Speaker 2: But there does tend to be a general shift in
Speaker 2: your center of awareness, your center of gravity, from a
Speaker 2: lower stage to a higher stage. And if the higher
Speaker 2: stage does include as an actual component of its own
Speaker 2: self being that actually includes a previous stage, then that
Speaker 2: previous stage has to be there in some sense for
Speaker 2: the higher stage to include it. Yeah, and so that
Speaker 2: are we comment just like we have to have a
Speaker 2: first person awareness and first person words, I need mine
Speaker 2: before we can be aware of another person? Are you
Speaker 2: a thou? And so on? I like that.
Speaker 1: I like I like the way you just frame that
Speaker 1: in terms of different kinds of awareness. Right, I'm getting
Speaker 1: triggered over the word stage for some reason. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: something I need to get over. Maybe I need to
Speaker 1: get to higher stage to get over it. That framework
Speaker 1: way of thinking. But I like that. I like the
Speaker 1: awareness aspect a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think stages can be very misused, correct,
Speaker 2: And that's something any sane person beyond seven years old
Speaker 2: who tend to be able to be aware of that
Speaker 2: and to agree with that. But stage theories are particularly
Speaker 2: bad when they refer to themselves as stages and they
Speaker 2: do understand that there's a higher stage. And so somebody
Speaker 2: like an Adolf Hitler, it's going to be proud and
Speaker 2: glad to say that, Yeah, he's at the highest stage
Speaker 2: or right, And that's not a good sign. No, it's
Speaker 2: actually a sign that you're at one of the earliest
Speaker 2: stages of narcissistic development.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean Hitler was not an integral He wasn't
Speaker 1: a very integral human being, let's be honest. Yeah, Hey,
Speaker 1: I really like your distinction between waking up and growing up.
Speaker 1: Can you talk to our audience a little bit about
Speaker 1: what you're thinking? Is that all right?
Speaker 2: It sort of came upon that distinction when I started
Speaker 2: studying developmental psychology. And it was in my early teenage years,
Speaker 2: and I was at that time a profan and intense
Speaker 2: practitioner of Zen Buddhism, So I would meditate daily and
Speaker 2: all sorts of things like that, and I had actual
Speaker 2: Zen teacher and so on. And as I started to
Speaker 2: and I knew that Zen had a sort of developmental perspective,
Speaker 2: and what was called the ten ox Herding Pictures, which
Speaker 2: showed ten broad the overall developmental stages of Zen awareness.
Speaker 2: And so it goes through these different pictorial representations called
Speaker 2: the ox Hurting pictures. For the ox means are large,
Speaker 2: our big mind, our true mind, and how we first
Speaker 2: are not aware of it at all, so it just
Speaker 2: looks like an ordinary world out there. And then we
Speaker 2: start to become aware of higher states or stages, even
Speaker 2: to the point that we get to the eighth stage,
Speaker 2: which just shows an empty circle. And when you sit
Speaker 2: in meditation and you meditate, that's what comes up absolutely nothing.
Speaker 2: There's a vast formless emptiness to awareness, and that's your
Speaker 2: eighth then ox Hurting picture, because it really is does
Speaker 2: feel like a vast formless emptiness and nothing arising. And
Speaker 2: then you get to the tenths and hurting picture, and
Speaker 2: it's essentially the same as the first ox hurting picture,
Speaker 2: except you've gone through all of these previous stages. And
Speaker 2: so I always at those stages of development in mind,
Speaker 2: and when I started actually studying developmental psychology, I naturally
Speaker 2: would sort of compare their stages that they presented, and
Speaker 2: all of them presented six seven, eight, nine or so
Speaker 2: stages of development, and none of them lined up directly
Speaker 2: with the can box hurting pictures. There was some sort
Speaker 2: of different something going on, and I couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 2: And what I was looking at, of course, was Zen
Speaker 2: was talking about stages in the waking up process, a
Speaker 2: process of enlightenment, which is where you come to realize
Speaker 2: that your real self is not this little self that
Speaker 2: you think exists behind in between your eyes in your
Speaker 2: head looking out at the world and is separate from
Speaker 2: everything it sees and is above all of it. It
Speaker 2: doesn't talk about those the stages that that awareness goes through.
Speaker 2: It talks about going from that awareness to a vast
Speaker 2: emptiness to an ultimate unity or oneness with everything. And
Speaker 2: that's a waking up experience. And as you experience some
Speaker 2: of those, it's like six, fifth, six seventh, eighth, ninth
Speaker 2: stages of the xenoxerning pictures. You'll often feel like you're
Speaker 2: actually waking up, and that feels just like you've been asleep.
Speaker 2: And then when you first open your eyes and the
Speaker 2: world comes in, that's a waking up. And that's what
Speaker 2: a zen satory feels like. It feels like, Wow, I've
Speaker 2: been a sleep in this waking world for a long
Speaker 2: period of time, and now I'm actually aware of reality
Speaker 2: and I happen to be one with that reality.
Speaker 1: Let me just take a pause there and link that
Speaker 1: waking up that. Let's call it unitive consciousness, that unit
Speaker 1: of consciousness. What is the role of more analytical IQ
Speaker 1: type intelligences for that? Is it you know or someone
Speaker 1: I'm returning to my older question about general intelligence. People
Speaker 1: have argued that there's that IQ measures general intelligence, but
Speaker 1: to me, it seems like it's not that relevant. It
Speaker 1: seems like there's plenty of people with sky high IQ
Speaker 1: scores who do not have unitive consciousness. So I'd love
Speaker 1: for you to talk to me about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there seems to be First of all, we
Speaker 2: would say that general intelligence general IQ intelligence really responds
Speaker 2: to a few of our lines of multiple intelligence, and
Speaker 2: it can just be called that our general intelligence stage
Speaker 2: of development. And that seems to be a certain minimal
Speaker 2: achievement in that IQ stream does seem a very helpful,
Speaker 2: in some sense necessary stage of development for a SATORI
Speaker 2: or a waking up experience. Now, you don't have to
Speaker 2: go off the scale in your IQ. You don't have
Speaker 2: to be at one hundred and forty or one hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty to have a satory. You do have to
Speaker 2: be at least have some degree of adult growing.
Speaker 1: Up reasoning ability.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there has to be like you have to
Speaker 2: have at least a concrete operational capacity and awareness. And
Speaker 2: then if you have a satory, it's generally a formal
Speaker 2: operational state that you're coming from. But all that's absolutely
Speaker 2: necessary is to get through concrete operational thinking and then
Speaker 2: you can are open to a type of satory. And
Speaker 2: the satory, of course, can itself be fairly small, or
Speaker 2: maybe you experience go from first person the tens and
Speaker 2: titious to the third person when you have your first satory,
Speaker 2: but that can still feel like a genuine awakening that
Speaker 2: you're seeing stuff that you've never seen before, and that
Speaker 2: includes some degree of your headless condition of realizing, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't have a head, and my head is one
Speaker 2: with everything that's looking at.
Speaker 1: Do people with intellectual disabilities? Are they capable of enlightenment
Speaker 1: at all? People with intellectual disabilities.
Speaker 2: Well, if it's severe disabilities, the actually is not generally no.
Speaker 2: But if it's a minor problem, it's so interestingency they
Speaker 2: can have some sort of experiential awakening.
Speaker 1: What is it about? This is so interesting because I'm
Speaker 1: very interested in neurodiversity, and so I've studied in researched
Speaker 1: the link between like the schizophrenia spectrum and creativity. For instance,
Speaker 1: the spectrum, you know, those who aren't hospitalized but score
Speaker 1: high in psychotic like treats. There's a certain like inverted
Speaker 1: use shaped curve, so like there's a maximum point where
Speaker 1: it's maximally conducive to creativity, and then you fall off
Speaker 1: the cliff and end up in the mental institution if
Speaker 1: you have too much. But there is there is a
Speaker 1: certain point where it's good to have schizotiple like traits.
Speaker 1: Have you heard the phrase schizo tippy skizo tippy like
Speaker 1: schizotiple It's like it's like the personality dimension of schizophrenia,
Speaker 1: so all of us. Yeah, yeah, so being uh, you know,
Speaker 1: having being prone to magical thinking, being prone to unusual
Speaker 1: ways of thinking of at sometimes it can cause an
Speaker 1: affect difference. You know, these are these are not things
Speaker 1: that we would want to psychopathologize, right, These aren't things
Speaker 1: we want to stick a DSM on. We just say
Speaker 1: people differ in these traits naturally occurring in the general population.
Speaker 1: What do you make about these findings that those who
Speaker 1: score higher on these questionnaires, these schizo typal questionnaires, do
Speaker 1: tend to score higher in in openness to experience and
Speaker 1: soft drinks and experiences and maybe even experiences of enlightenment.
Speaker 2: From what I understand of your sern, you're talking about
Speaker 2: some experiences that could be viewed as very positive being
Speaker 2: a part of a schizophrenic personality.
Speaker 1: Well, we talked about how i Q might relate to
Speaker 1: some of this, but personality seems to relate to some
Speaker 1: of this. So I'm trying to think through what are
Speaker 1: the personality characteristics that kind of predispose you in some
Speaker 1: way to higher stages of thinking in your model.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you gave some examples.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for my own research, Yeah. I gave example of
Speaker 1: openness to experience and schizotippy for instance. Yeah, and schizo
Speaker 1: tippy schizotippy.
Speaker 2: Well, I think there are a whole fairly small but
Speaker 2: not insignificant number of predisposing factors that can lead one
Speaker 2: too actually help one to have a suitory okayence, and
Speaker 2: that certainly and clears openness.
Speaker 1: Seems to be a big one. It seems to be
Speaker 1: a big one. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And in the same way that there are a
Speaker 2: certain number of factors that can prevent one from having
Speaker 2: a satory And we talked to have at least a
Speaker 2: certain degree of cognitive intelligence, but you don't have to
Speaker 2: be anywhere near a genius.
Speaker 1: That's good news, good news for everyone. A lot of geniuses,
Speaker 1: don't you know, or you know, intellectual geniuses, have not
Speaker 1: even experienced some of this, so that seems to be
Speaker 1: really important. Yeah. I'm super interested in individual differences. That's
Speaker 1: a large thread of my research. So just trying to
Speaker 1: connect the individual differences work to stage development, because I
Speaker 1: think that's a super interesting link, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And those are important connections, Those are important traits to
Speaker 2: track and understand and follow, and I think that's why
Speaker 2: a few developmental models have people get to certain stages
Speaker 2: of development and they'll seem to have expansive or opening
Speaker 2: or united experiences. Not everybody, but a large number larger
Speaker 2: than the previous stage or stages of development. And so
Speaker 2: I think that's very interesting, and they generally all tend
Speaker 2: to occur when that particular developmental model is tracing stages
Speaker 2: that are about two thirds of the weights as high
Speaker 2: as they can go. And that just seems to be
Speaker 2: just a generalized characteristic that you'll notice in a lot
Speaker 2: of the developmental models. And that's always been a very
Speaker 2: interesting experience to me, because very few models that I'm
Speaker 2: aware of, Maslow tracted actually track the experience of satire.
Speaker 2: They don't say, oh, let's look for what stage people
Speaker 2: start to have satori, But that's what you do tend
Speaker 2: to see in some vague, undefined way. So that's always
Speaker 2: been interesting to me. And about two thirds of the
Speaker 2: way through their stages that they present.
Speaker 1: Could integral theory be falsified scientifically? Like in what ways
Speaker 1: has it been tested? Because there's so many components to it,
Speaker 1: it's a lot to Yeah.
Speaker 2: It depends upon whether you're talking about stages themselves, because
Speaker 2: I think those are constantly being scientifically checked and validate
Speaker 2: because they almost every developmentalists, once they discover their own
Speaker 2: model with his own stages, get empirical evidence from their
Speaker 2: subjects that they're studying, and so they'll they're always checking
Speaker 2: and scientifically testing for the stage of development. And so
Speaker 2: since I'm simply referring to the sub total of all
Speaker 2: of those stage models, the particular stage is not going
Speaker 2: to be generally disproven. But how those models actually fit
Speaker 2: together that's something that is open to discussion and dispute.
Speaker 2: So my claim that I give one hundred stage models
Speaker 2: and that they're all going through the same similar levels
Speaker 2: of development, that could certainly be discussed and dismissed. It
Speaker 2: would be a little bit hard because I include so
Speaker 2: many different models. But when at the beginning, when I'm
Speaker 2: putting together three or four or five, each way that
Speaker 2: I would put them together could be disputed and checked,
Speaker 2: and it might be that they're just appear to be
Speaker 2: going through similar stages of development, but they're actually not
Speaker 2: when you look at the real evidence at each stage.
Speaker 2: But I think because I have my sell such a
Speaker 2: high respect for the scientific method and scientific models of reality,
Speaker 2: I don't want to present some idea that doesn't have
Speaker 2: a lot of evidence supporting it. And so that's why
Speaker 2: if you want to go through my claims and integral psychology,
Speaker 2: you're going to have to look at one hundred developmental models. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and take evidence from me to that. Oh, but that's
Speaker 2: the whole point. A model got to be included in
Speaker 2: that one hundred models because it's supported the general idea
Speaker 2: that I was presenting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish there was more research in psychology or
Speaker 1: interest in modern day psychology on development stages in higher
Speaker 1: forms of development. It was bigger in the humanistic psychology
Speaker 1: the era than this era, I think, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly, Yeah, I wish there was two, and I don't
Speaker 2: really understand why there isn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, there's been Yeah, I mean either,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm interested in it. I'm like, why isn't
Speaker 1: more people interrusted in it? I know, I know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I wish.
Speaker 1: I wish I knew the answer.
Speaker 2: Evidence that we do have from well respected and well
Speaker 2: accepted models of development. Those are looked upon with a
Speaker 2: fair amount of acceptance, and they're sort of happy with
Speaker 2: what they're showing. So even when Maslow would introduce his needs,
Speaker 2: even though there was and continues to be some disagreement
Speaker 2: about which level there isn't what actually ingredients or the
Speaker 2: name make sure of that level is. And that's completely
Speaker 2: I agree with all of the questioning about that aspect
Speaker 2: of stages. But he had demonstrated so much important to
Speaker 2: the general ideas that he presented that he did have
Speaker 2: a profound impact on psychology. I mean, he founded two
Speaker 2: of the four forces. He founded humanistic psychology, and he
Speaker 2: went on to help discover trans personal psychology, and those
Speaker 2: were pretty major.
Speaker 1: Well, I agree, I agree, but I would say neither
Speaker 1: of them are are considered part of mainstream psychology in
Speaker 1: modern day If you compare it to the amount of
Speaker 1: conferences and work being done like cognitive science, for instance,
Speaker 1: it pales in comparison. So but uh oh, but for sure,
Speaker 1: I mean that was a big My attempt to write
Speaker 1: my book transcend was to bring back Maslow and and
Speaker 1: the science of humanism, humanistic psychology, and transcendence. So I'm
Speaker 1: with you, I'm with you. Can we talk about the
Speaker 1: societal level for a second and some of your thoughts
Speaker 1: about this, because in some of the work I've read.
Speaker 1: You seem to suggest that we are progressing to higher
Speaker 1: levels of society, but I can say that doesn't appear
Speaker 1: to be the case. It seems like society right now
Speaker 1: is the opposite of the especially American society. Everything is
Speaker 1: so polarized on every issue. Isn't that the exact opposite
Speaker 1: of the spirit of integral theory?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, I'm not thrilled with the direction.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that it's a whole had Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that.
Speaker 2: Developing in a regressive I know, fashion, And I'm just
Speaker 2: not that thrill with the type of civil culture that
Speaker 2: we have. And it does seem to be itself highly
Speaker 2: polarized and to left hand progressive approaches and right hand
Speaker 2: traditional conservative approaches, and they both tend to be presented
Speaker 2: in extreme ways, as if the only members of both
Speaker 2: of those parties are extremists, I know. And it's just
Speaker 2: really disappointing in general.
Speaker 1: So this is what America needs integral theory now than ever.
Speaker 2: And I'm not proud of what we call society right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me, neither me, neither brother.
Speaker 2: Well in some ways, and I have to be very
Speaker 2: careful with what I'm saying now, but in some ways
Speaker 2: some aspects of our social engagement seems to have actually
Speaker 2: regressed of it. Certainly, when we hit the sixties, there
Speaker 2: was a fair amount of increase in our interests in
Speaker 2: spiritual experience. So there were things like Caroac and dharma
Speaker 2: bums and zeno and satory experiences, and in large measure
Speaker 2: that was probably because of the psychedelic influx that began
Speaker 2: in the fifties and throughout the sixties, and people would
Speaker 2: have psychedelic unity experiences, yes, and that's what Caroac was
Speaker 2: writing about. That's what a lot of human potential organizations
Speaker 2: were talking about. And they weren't necessarily recommending psychedelics, but
Speaker 2: they were talking about the psychedelic sort of unity experience,
Speaker 2: and that was that sort of had an impact on
Speaker 2: our society at large. And so we sort of went
Speaker 2: through us in period in our social awareness and those
Speaker 2: seemed to die down along with the psychedelic experience, and
Speaker 2: we seemed to lease interest in both of those at
Speaker 2: about the same time. And I'm not sure why, except
Speaker 2: it could be a causal. It could be the psychedelics
Speaker 2: induce satory like experiences, and as long as psychedelics are
Speaker 2: sort of a crass hit in our culture, then a
Speaker 2: psychedelic type satory experience is going to be fairly common
Speaker 2: and talked about and referred to. But as we just
Speaker 2: sort of got over psychedelics, we also got over the
Speaker 2: zen satori.
Speaker 1: But there seems to be a renaissance in scientific understanding
Speaker 1: of the benefits of psychedelics. Don't you see a new
Speaker 1: resident renaissance of psychedelic interest writ and right now.
Speaker 2: Not a huge amount really.
Speaker 1: Like Michael Pollin's documentary and book, and that seems a
Speaker 1: broad to brought a lot of interest, and and Roland
Speaker 1: Griffith's research.
Speaker 2: Well that's true. Well that research is there, and so
Speaker 2: that's important, and I'm glad they've done it. Mm hm,
Speaker 2: that's really important. But I'm just not sure how much
Speaker 2: awareness the average public has of that type of experience
Speaker 2: or research. I don't see a great deal of it myself.
Speaker 1: There does seem to be a to be wrong about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know the precise I don't know where we're
Speaker 1: really at. I just know that maybe it could be
Speaker 1: the certain circles ice women as opposed to society at large.
Speaker 1: It could just be all I hear about is psychedelics
Speaker 1: and in the in my field right now. But don't
Speaker 1: you think there's a great paradox that we're so focused
Speaker 1: on diversity and yet we couldn't be more polarized. I mean,
Speaker 1: can we just be honest for a second.
Speaker 2: I know, And I think it's because there is that
Speaker 2: very real diversity going on that that is what infects
Speaker 2: our social awareness. And so we're not really specifically aware
Speaker 2: of the actual research on diversity of multiple intelligences and
Speaker 2: ideas and so on, but we just we do come
Speaker 2: from a diverse perspective.
Speaker 1: Well, we're focusing on racial and gender diversity and not
Speaker 1: things that are more skin deep, like perceptual diversity, neurodiverse,
Speaker 1: the biodiversity right well.
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons seems to be that when
Speaker 2: we talk about diversity, it largely is either a racial
Speaker 2: diversity or a gender and these are the things that
Speaker 2: we immediately see that are different between people. We see
Speaker 2: if a person's black or white, we say if they're
Speaker 2: a boy or a girl, And so even without recognizing it,
Speaker 2: when we talk about diversity, we're really reducing human beings
Speaker 2: to their simplest perceptual differences.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I agree, but it's you know, controversial
Speaker 1: to say that to some people.
Speaker 2: I suppose it is, but I agree.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that if people really try, really
Speaker 1: understood your writings and it came from it, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, I've read a lot of your writings, so
Speaker 1: I really have deep respect. And then this whole conversation today,
Speaker 1: I hope you feel it comes from a place of
Speaker 1: deep respect. It just seems to me, you're welcome. It
Speaker 1: seems to me like if people really understood what you
Speaker 1: were trying to say, and we had a society that
Speaker 1: revolved around it, we would all come from a spirit
Speaker 1: of huh. I may disagree with you, but maybe there's
Speaker 1: some truth to what you're saying that I can incorporate
Speaker 1: into my truth. But you know, no one thinks like
Speaker 1: that these days.
Speaker 2: That's right, and so we're not very diverse in our
Speaker 2: actual viewpoint.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: No, and yet even to talk about that is not allowable. No, no, general,
Speaker 2: it's not a recognized good thing.
Speaker 1: No. No, Because I or thinking right, it's like yeah,
Speaker 1: not like oh, we can absolutely have racial diversity, we
Speaker 1: can absolutely have generversity, and we can have a view
Speaker 1: point divers I mean we can have all these like
Speaker 1: why but yeah, people think of it as you either
Speaker 1: can pick one piece of the pot or the other.
Speaker 1: That's so antithetical to integral thinking, so antithetical. In a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes we have left, can I ask you
Speaker 1: some reader questions from Twitter? Twitter questions? What are the
Speaker 1: ways in which you think research psychology could improve and
Speaker 1: is off track? We talked a little bit about that earlier.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've anything further same of it
Speaker 1: the way modern day research psychology could improve and is
Speaker 1: off track?
Speaker 2: Right? Well again, you sort of you mentioned that the
Speaker 2: field you were involved it was full of psychedelic awareness.
Speaker 2: But other than those sort of one or two references
Speaker 2: you gave, I'm not aware of a great deal of
Speaker 2: research on the psychedelic experience. Now. I know some fundamental
Speaker 2: research has been done. I think even a team at
Speaker 2: Princeton and in London on psychedelics tended to have psychedelic
Speaker 2: unifying experiences and that got a fair amount of wide acceptance.
Speaker 2: But I haven't seen a series of specific testing and
Speaker 2: a large degree of the type of psychedelic experiences or
Speaker 2: alternate experiential awareness is able to be generated from different
Speaker 2: types of drugs.
Speaker 1: I'll send you my podcast chat with Roland Griffiths because
Speaker 1: there's some really exciting we're coming out on that right now.
Speaker 2: That's great to hear. Well, that's one thing I would
Speaker 2: like to see from psychology. Yeah, and so who did
Speaker 2: you say your conversation was.
Speaker 1: With Roland Griffiths at Johns Hopkins, right, yeah, yeah, Griffic Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're really leading the way. They're really leading leading the way.
Speaker 2: And yeah, that's fantastic. I think I don't really understand
Speaker 2: why developmental research has dropped off as much as it has.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good point.
Speaker 2: So I would like to see some response to that
Speaker 2: situation the in terms of the introduction of new developmental
Speaker 2: model or developmental models with a new set of data
Speaker 2: or a new set of experience or understanding. I can
Speaker 2: only I'm really only aware of one or two major
Speaker 2: new introductions to developmental theory that have been offered recently,
Speaker 2: and that includes some of the work done by Jane Lovenger.
Speaker 2: When she produced her like eight or nine Stages of Development.
Speaker 2: She came up with written tests sometimes just to fill
Speaker 2: in my mother is still in the blank or I
Speaker 2: am still in the blank, but she would get responses
Speaker 2: that clearly fell into about eight or nine different classes,
Speaker 2: and those classes tended to come one after the other
Speaker 2: in the stage like fashion. But her developmental model and
Speaker 2: its test is now the most I don't used psychological
Speaker 2: tests worldwide, So that's great. But that was she developed
Speaker 2: that some piece.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even longer than that even as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then Robert Keegan from Harvard has produced his
Speaker 2: five broad conceptual realms of broad states of Consciousness, and
Speaker 2: that's relatively new, but it's also relatively simple by s.
Speaker 2: But I like Keegan and I like his work, and
Speaker 2: I know him because he's particularly connected with my work,
Speaker 2: and so we've had a lot of discussions about that.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Yeah, I know he's he's awesome. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: do you think life is just a test run?
Speaker 2: Well, in a certain sense, depending upon what you think
Speaker 2: the your overall states of consciousness map is like. And
Speaker 2: the idea that when we die we all go to
Speaker 2: some higher state of whatever variety is. If that's true,
Speaker 2: then the stages of waking life that we go through
Speaker 2: would just be a sort of test run for the
Speaker 2: final after life great advance in awareness that we're going
Speaker 2: to experience or go through. Well, I don't know that
Speaker 2: that's true in my theoretical model, and I would expect
Speaker 2: that if we went on in some way, we would
Speaker 2: be in effect growing upon what had come before. Makes
Speaker 2: a certain amount of sense. And then apparently when we're reborn,
Speaker 2: we ditch all of that and go back to stage one.
Speaker 2: But some place in our awareness is an understanding of
Speaker 2: what we have to do to get to stage two
Speaker 2: and stage three and stage four, because there's no doubt
Speaker 2: that human beings grow and develop, and we can spot
Speaker 2: certain broad stages to that growth and development, so it
Speaker 2: appears to be very real. And then when developmentalollegists started
Speaker 2: in the forties and fifties actually measuring this amount of
Speaker 2: growth and development and they would notice these seemingly stage
Speaker 2: like aspects to it, then we got all these models
Speaker 2: of development, and there were, as I say today, there
Speaker 2: are like one hundred different developmental models in existence, and
Speaker 2: there are at least some fifteen to twenty that are
Speaker 2: fairly well known. And if you take a class in
Speaker 2: developmental psychology, you'll get exposed about a dozen different developmental
Speaker 2: maps of awareness, and they're presented with a great deal
Speaker 2: of authority, like these are really real and really exists.
Speaker 2: And here's the experimental data that measured each stage of development,
Speaker 2: real experiential evidence or scientific data on this stuff. So
Speaker 2: that's all fine. And how that so the fact that
Speaker 2: that likely if consciousness goes on in any degree in
Speaker 2: an after life, I have no doubt that development will continue, right,
Speaker 2: because that's what consciousness does. It We learn from our
Speaker 2: mistake and from our successes. A lot of what we
Speaker 2: do now is based on what we did yesterday, right,
Speaker 2: And so that can I mean, if there is an
Speaker 2: after life, I'm sure it'll be a developmental concern and
Speaker 2: we can spot growing up in our degrees of Christ's
Speaker 2: consciousness or whatever the hell we're actually introduced to.
Speaker 1: Whatever the hell. Hopefully it's not hell that we end.
Speaker 2: Up in in you in some way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's I know. That was a deep question.
Speaker 1: Let's let's go a little bit lighter. I haven't heard
Speaker 1: I haven't heard his takes on the social media landscape,
Speaker 1: platform culture, big data, big tech, et cetera. I'd love
Speaker 1: to your prognosis in that regard. How would an integral
Speaker 1: social media be?
Speaker 2: Like, Well, I think one of the first and interesting
Speaker 2: things that would happen as a large number of people
Speaker 2: started to discuss like the developmental component of our awareness
Speaker 2: that they would of course look at all the various
Speaker 2: models that were available and discuss their pluses and minuses.
Speaker 2: But I think one of the most interesting things they
Speaker 2: would get into is how can we personally increase our
Speaker 2: stage of development? And what can we do to talk
Speaker 2: about it or help in that fashion, or does that
Speaker 2: help at all just talking about it? But I'm sure
Speaker 2: that would be an area that we would look into
Speaker 2: because it would be a bunch of people, a bunch
Speaker 2: of second person use brought together into a large third
Speaker 2: person social environment, and they would naturally be talking about
Speaker 2: all these things, and so it would be very curious
Speaker 2: to see what developmental capacities emerge from that.
Speaker 1: It would it would, I mean, just social media seems
Speaker 1: so polar like set up to polarize us as much
Speaker 1: as possible.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Mostly what you get on social media today,
Speaker 2: first of all, isn't social. It's very nasty spirited and
Speaker 2: very aggressive and very anti this and anti that. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's very easy to get a certain type of argumentative
Speaker 2: spirit going yeah, that's not terrific. And when you do
Speaker 2: look at any of the positive things that are happening.
Speaker 2: They're happening to a very small degree and in a
Speaker 2: very small percentage of the overall population of social environmental situation.
Speaker 2: And I'm not sure why degree or level of our
Speaker 2: conscious discussion isn't higher than it appears to be because
Speaker 2: it doesn't appear to be that high. And I don't
Speaker 2: know what your experience of social media.
Speaker 1: Is like very low levels of of of stage of
Speaker 1: development there.
Speaker 2: I would agree with that, but no, I no reason
Speaker 2: why it's so low. Jumption on, there's no reason. No.
Speaker 1: My colleague Courtney Biginnie is trying to spearhead a whole
Speaker 1: new field positive product design, you know, positive uses of
Speaker 1: social media and stuff. But there's some there's something in
Speaker 1: humans that really gets excited by the muck, the controversy,
Speaker 1: the that there's something more exciting about that in a way. Then,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not saying to me and you because
Speaker 1: we're at such a high level, I'm joking, but you know,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying, I think there's something in humans that
Speaker 1: that really entertainment. You know, there's a lot of entertainment value.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's probably close to the specific and
Speaker 2: you know, God bless our spirit that it does seem
Speaker 2: to be the unremarkable unremarkable.
Speaker 1: Okay, here, this is a whopper doozy question. Please take
Speaker 1: this with with don't get mad at me for asking it.
Speaker 1: Some readers have characterized your work as both a new
Speaker 1: age prestige for smart people and idealist religious apologetics, including
Speaker 1: gussied up creation science and claims of transcendent divinity. How
Speaker 1: holy shit? How have you thought about and addressed these
Speaker 1: critiques over time?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I mean you can just start with the
Speaker 2: whole creation issue. And one thing is certain about evolution,
Speaker 2: and that is that Darwin does not cover all of
Speaker 2: the issue. There's a what the evolution, and there's a
Speaker 2: how devolution, and there's a why the evolution. And Darwin
Speaker 2: got started pretty good on the how of evolution, not
Speaker 2: the why, but as to the why, that natural selection
Speaker 2: in spontaneous mutation is just not going to cut it.
Speaker 2: It is so inadequate. I mean, some of the calculations
Speaker 2: have been done showing that the overall number of mutations
Speaker 2: that would be required in order to produce not only
Speaker 2: just a living being, but a horse or a deer
Speaker 2: or a human being would take like it's somewhere over
Speaker 2: three volumes of five hundred pages interesting in a set
Speaker 2: of Encyclopedia Britannica, so three sets of ency to even
Speaker 2: get close to the amount, I mean, it's something like
Speaker 2: one to the ten forty zeros. It's some aaggering amount
Speaker 2: like that. And so they're clearly and most evolutionary biologists
Speaker 2: now seem to acknowledge this. You'll see a lot of
Speaker 2: YouTube presentations on why evolution is occurring, what is forcing
Speaker 2: that dramatic increase in the diversity of option, And I
Speaker 2: happen to agree with that, and so you're sometimes that
Speaker 2: I'm tagged with creation science or something along that line,
Speaker 2: and all that it's doing is pointing out that there
Speaker 2: has to be some sort of drive or force or
Speaker 2: desire or some thing that's driving this. Why of evolution
Speaker 2: goes to go from a simple bacteria to a deer.
Speaker 2: It just takes an enormous amount of mutations. And the
Speaker 2: natural selection, which is supposed to be the selective force,
Speaker 2: but that's just natural selection, is just talking about whether
Speaker 2: an organism manages to pass on its DNA. And the
Speaker 2: claim is that well, the stronger, the fitter, the better
Speaker 2: of all, the more likely that it will carry on,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't say much. That's not telling us very much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the survival of the fittest myth. Yeah yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I hear you, and I feel like we hit shit
Speaker 1: table that directionality of evolution as well as the universe,
Speaker 1: because I have great conversations with some of my scientists
Speaker 1: friends about there does seem to be some sort of
Speaker 1: direction out of the universe, and that's fascinating. I mean,
Speaker 1: holy cow, there's so much we don't know. Look, I'm
Speaker 1: having this chat with you right now, and I'm finding
Speaker 1: you to be quite open minded, modest. I think there
Speaker 1: might be some misconceptions about you because someone else to
Speaker 1: ask this, they said, some people have said you have
Speaker 1: an inability to deal with criticism. What do you think
Speaker 1: of that criticism? They can try to catch you to
Speaker 1: catch twenty two there.
Speaker 2: Well, the hell with that, I don't think so. I
Speaker 2: think because I've written on so many topics in their
Speaker 2: general amount a great deal of general critique. I accept
Speaker 2: most of it. But when I see a clear misrepresentation
Speaker 2: or what I consider a clear mistake, I'll try to
Speaker 2: point it out, just because I'm trying to move the
Speaker 2: conversation in an adequate direction, not because I'm trying to
Speaker 2: prove Ken Wilbur is this or Ken Wilbert is that.
Speaker 2: But I I get that criticism as well. Oh he's hypersensusive,
Speaker 2: and he's because he's got You're not.
Speaker 1: You're not presenting yourself as that today I can say
Speaker 1: you're not.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I understand why some people would think that,
Speaker 2: if nothing else, I've just written so much, I mean
Speaker 2: the odd books and they've been widely translated.
Speaker 1: That's an understatement. Hold on, that's an understatement. You've written
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: You've written a lot.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many people have written more words
Speaker 1: that have been published in you. Let's be honest, Holy shit,
Speaker 1: A couple more short questions and then uh, I'll set
Speaker 1: you free. This has been a real stimulant conversation for me.
Speaker 1: Does in this one's I'm super interested your your your
Speaker 1: your thoughts about this? Does an objective reality exist? Or
Speaker 1: is it all super positions? Because you do focus a
Speaker 1: lot on superpositions, you do focus a lot on on
Speaker 1: there being green of truth to all kind of perspectives.
Speaker 1: What do you think about objective truth?
Speaker 2: Well, I think there is such a thing as an
Speaker 2: objective world. M Bert. I do happen to believe that
Speaker 2: that objective world itself has authentic subjective features, that the
Speaker 2: four quadrants, in other words, are exist everywhere, and that
Speaker 2: we have an upper left and upper right and the
Speaker 2: lower left and the lower right at all levels of evolution,
Speaker 2: including simple bacteria. I think they come with an individual
Speaker 2: subjective awareness, and they're aware of an actual objective something
Speaker 2: or other, and they come together and form collectives in
Speaker 2: the lower quadrants, and those collectives have an interior consciousness
Speaker 2: and an exterior awareness. So there is subject and object
Speaker 2: and intersubjective and interobjective all the way up and all
Speaker 2: the way down. And I believe that, and so I
Speaker 2: don't have any trouble when there are, of course, various
Speaker 2: forces operating in all of them. So I don't have
Speaker 2: any trouble when I watch all these evolutionary programs on
Speaker 2: YouTube and they're talking about the extraordinary mutational rate and
Speaker 2: natural selection of these hundreds of thousands of mutation selective processes,
Speaker 2: and they are all describing something that happens in an
Speaker 2: objective world. And I believe that objective world is real.
Speaker 2: I don't believe it's just apart from subjective reality. As
Speaker 2: I said, subjective realities go all the way down, and
Speaker 2: that's true in the creation of the universe and the
Speaker 2: creation of life in that universe. So I don't have
Speaker 2: any trouble watching those kind of YouTube presentations. It makes
Speaker 2: sense to me. So there's a real objective world. But
Speaker 2: then how each subjective creature interprets that world varies. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's true for human beings. The way you and
Speaker 2: I are interpreting this conversation has significant, important differences. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And the incredible thing about human perspectives is we can
Speaker 2: talk about those differences in the way we see thing.
Speaker 2: So we have a perception of our perceptual differences and
Speaker 2: that's great. But all of those are available to us
Speaker 2: in this in these quadrants that are subjective and objective
Speaker 2: and inter subjective and inter objective, and all of those
Speaker 2: realities are very real.
Speaker 1: Look, this is so important because you're basically saying that, Look,
Speaker 1: none of us has the whole truth, and we need
Speaker 1: each other and we need Uh, there's a great there's
Speaker 1: there's ultimately a great modesty. There isn't there you know?
Speaker 2: Well, I suppose though, but it's definitely true that the
Speaker 2: first part that you say, yeah, I mean, I really
Speaker 2: do need each other. Yeah, and yeah, that's the whole
Speaker 2: point of science is you have to reproduce what you
Speaker 2: claim is the truth. If it's true, do it again,
Speaker 2: let's see. And thank god, we've got a whole lot
Speaker 2: of people that are doing that. So we're getting vaccines
Speaker 2: or different sorts of diseases, and we're getting binding moving
Speaker 2: towards cures for cancer, and all of those are because
Speaker 2: we're dealing with some of these very real realities, and
Speaker 2: we can test our approaches to them, and we can
Speaker 2: create things that will alter any of those quadrants, any
Speaker 2: of those forms of awareness. Those are all real issues.
Speaker 1: Don't you agree that it requires a large amount of
Speaker 1: humility to comment in the search for truth, knowing that
Speaker 1: you'll never know the full thing.
Speaker 2: Also, in its own strange way, it's a very attract
Speaker 2: do feature When you meet somebody that has a large
Speaker 2: amount of humility, you're generally attracted to their I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a very beautiful thing, really.
Speaker 1: Great way to pick up chicks. And artificial intelligence, do
Speaker 1: you do you think we'll get to a point where
Speaker 1: they will have different levels of consciousness, Like we'll be
Speaker 1: like stage that computer is at stage two. That computer's
Speaker 1: at stage four green. That's that computers at green level.
Speaker 2: I don't stay that there would be any problem. I mean,
Speaker 2: what a lot of programmers are doing now is they
Speaker 2: just sort of leave the computer alone and start tracking
Speaker 2: its own life and start making up its own programming
Speaker 2: to do different things. And the researchers can just watch
Speaker 2: this happen. They don't step in and tell the computer
Speaker 2: what to do. So it's paying attention. These computers that
Speaker 2: we're discussing are paying attention to their past, and because
Speaker 2: of that, they're altering their present. And that's a sense
Speaker 2: of growth. That's a type of growth. And depending on
Speaker 2: whether we're going to start tracking the degree of complexity
Speaker 2: that each computer brings to the present situation, and we
Speaker 2: see those complexities grow and we follow the ways that
Speaker 2: they grow and find that there are certain similarities in them,
Speaker 2: then that would start to indicate a certain type of
Speaker 2: stage like development of the very complex computer awareness. And
Speaker 2: that wouldn't surprise me if something like that started to happen.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I mean, other than the fact that
Speaker 2: we do have computers that, in the sense grow and
Speaker 2: develop their own programming and create those kinds of stages,
Speaker 2: if you will, that's already been demonstrated. I mean, these
Speaker 2: computers do create their own programming and go through it,
Speaker 2: and they more complex and go through that. Nobody's gotten
Speaker 2: onto a stage conception of what these computers are knowing
Speaker 2: why In large measure, that's because psychology itself continues to
Speaker 2: sort of ignore the issue. And we've told talked about
Speaker 2: why this is, and the answer is, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm very disappointed in it and very happy to see
Speaker 2: when somebody like Keegan or Lovinger comes out with another
Speaker 2: model of what's going on. I'm not sure that's just
Speaker 2: as we talked about. Maybe psychedelics are everywhere you look,
Speaker 2: but stages of psychedelic growth and development are not everywhere.
Speaker 2: So that still tends to be not totally ignored, but
Speaker 2: it's not a great rush of research and awareness on
Speaker 2: that type of reality.
Speaker 1: Well I agree, I agree. I'm just so curious the
Speaker 1: future when we when we integrate mind with machine, we
Speaker 1: meld all these things together, and and we try to
Speaker 1: upload our consciousness to eternity, and we're taking psychedelics while
Speaker 1: we're in that state of consciousness. Oh my gosh, it'll.
Speaker 2: Be There was a real online we were talking about
Speaker 2: what would they work on. Yeah, that question would clearly
Speaker 2: be one of the central issues, and I think would
Speaker 2: draw a lot of people too.
Speaker 1: I agree. I'll ask you one last question today. I
Speaker 1: find it fascinating by the way your early life and
Speaker 1: you're you were a prodigy in school, I believe, and
Speaker 1: I've studied prodigies. I mean that's something that's part of
Speaker 1: my research. I'm interested in that. Where do you see
Speaker 1: your And I also want to acknowledge you know, you've
Speaker 1: gone through a lot of suffering in your life. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've had some really significant losses and you've grown from them.
Speaker 1: And you have a movie, you know, about the loss
Speaker 1: of your wife, and it was like, if you don't
Speaker 1: if someone doesn't cry in that movie, why watching that movie?
Speaker 1: They're not human in in my view. So, you've had
Speaker 1: such a remarkable life so far, I mean not over yet,
Speaker 1: You've had a remarkable life so far. Where do you
Speaker 1: this is my question? Where do you see your consciousness
Speaker 1: as it is right now? How would you classify it
Speaker 1: right now? And then is there any room for growth anymore?
Speaker 1: This is my final question for you. Is there anywhere
Speaker 1: for your conscious Can you still do better.
Speaker 2: Well, I can definitely do better in the degree of
Speaker 2: waking up now. I find this sort of curious because
Speaker 2: I've been studying and practicing various types of waking up,
Speaker 2: particularly Zen Buddhism, since i was eighteen seventeen, eighteen years old.
Speaker 2: I know, and I've had several suitory experiences and have
Speaker 2: gotten transmitted, but I still don't feel that I'm at
Speaker 2: the top of the heat. Wow. It's just that doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to be that feeling and awaking up like when
Speaker 2: you first wake up, you're aware, oh I've gone from
Speaker 2: being asleep that I'm really waking now, and you can
Speaker 2: be oh, you're aware of that transition, but you don't
Speaker 2: walk around for days afterwards thinking, wow, I'm at the
Speaker 2: top of this pile of levels of development. I'm right
Speaker 2: up and it feels good. It just doesn't. It doesn't
Speaker 2: appear to you that way. You can't really feel stages
Speaker 2: of growth undevelopment, although you can sort of feel your
Speaker 2: expansion when you move to a higher state, but it
Speaker 2: never you never get to a point where you say
Speaker 2: I'm there, oh right. I don't even know any awakened
Speaker 2: Zen masters they feel that. And I've talked to several
Speaker 2: of them, and I know several of them are personal friends,
Speaker 2: and I just I've never gotten that since. And when
Speaker 2: I've talked with them about it, they've all denied that
Speaker 2: anything like that goes on. And I think that's true.
Speaker 2: So all I can say is I'm quite advanced in
Speaker 2: waking up certain experiential aspects of that. And I don't
Speaker 2: mind saying that it doesn't feel non humble or something.
Speaker 2: I know, but I'm not claiming that I'm totally enlightened
Speaker 2: or anything like that. And again, I don't know anybody
Speaker 2: who does. But and on the growing upscale, I'm somewhere
Speaker 2: in third tier. And I mean I had gone through
Speaker 2: Lovenger's first tier and second tier of development by the
Speaker 2: time I was a teenager, And so that's just based
Speaker 2: on tests that I have taken. Yeah, And so are
Speaker 2: there any stages higher in Lovenger scale? Definitely? I mean
Speaker 2: I think that's also something that almost anybody that you
Speaker 2: talk to who seems fairly developed, if you ask them,
Speaker 2: do you feel yourself are as far up as you
Speaker 2: can go up? And I don't know very many people
Speaker 2: that have that experience, even if they are really highly
Speaker 2: developed I just don't hear many of them saying, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm at the top of the scale, you can't get
Speaker 2: me higher and where I'm at because they first know
Speaker 2: it's not true. They know if they look within that
Speaker 2: they can still go higher. So I think that outside
Speaker 2: of the handful of models that have actual tests for
Speaker 2: their stages of growing up, and there are at least
Speaker 2: a dozen very good tests for the PHE's test, the
Speaker 2: Lovinger's test, the Keegan and you can measure where you
Speaker 2: are in that growing up scale and to the scent
Speaker 2: that they have the highest scale, like Levinger has a
Speaker 2: turquoise second tier fully integrated stage of development. You can
Speaker 2: measure that. But notice that the percentage of the people
Speaker 2: in the population that are at Jane Levenger's highest stage
Speaker 2: is zero point five percent. That's not a lot of people,
Speaker 2: you know, it's not Stay.
Speaker 1: Wow, did you actually take some of these tests when
Speaker 1: you were a teenager?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: Wow? Well no, you said sure, and most teenagers are not.
Speaker 1: But by the way, I love taking these kinds of
Speaker 1: testament as a teenager too, So I bought.
Speaker 2: I get I've broughtten so much in to developmental studies
Speaker 2: that I would look up if they had any tests.
Speaker 1: Liberately, I took all these IQ tests as a teenager
Speaker 1: and only saved the ones that made me look good.
Speaker 2: Right, but zero point five percent of the population is
Speaker 2: not great, whereas the percentage of the population at green,
Speaker 2: which first here and is the basis of most postmodern approaches,
Speaker 2: that's about twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven percent of
Speaker 2: the population. Yeah, you are scale, So I mean that
Speaker 2: she's actually measured the general population, that's what she finds.
Speaker 2: So that does a lot to show us why post
Speaker 2: modern multicultural, pluralistic, relativistic approaches are so common, but truly
Speaker 2: integrated approaches are not very Zero point five percent is
Speaker 2: not a lot of the population.
Speaker 1: It must be lonely being there and seeing and seeing,
Speaker 1: being frustrated with what you see around you with your
Speaker 1: fellow humans.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, you sort of, I guess if you're actually
Speaker 2: at that zero point five. What if you're there do
Speaker 2: is adapt to being at only zero point five of
Speaker 2: the population, And so you'll notice that it's hard to
Speaker 2: find like a deep friendship with somebody who you can
Speaker 2: feel hard from the heart with. Right, It's not a
Speaker 2: big deal, I mean, because you're stuck with it, So
Speaker 2: what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: Maswell talked about this. Maswell talked about this in his
Speaker 1: book about transcenders. Transcenders he called them, and he said
Speaker 1: that there's a He said, transcenders have a bit of
Speaker 1: have a cosmic sadness toward their fell humans, right, they
Speaker 1: see the greater potential in them. I always thought that
Speaker 1: was beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that is a great part of a higher
Speaker 2: stage of development.
Speaker 1: Oh Ken, thank you so much for chatting with me
Speaker 1: today and for the legendary work you've done in your career.
Speaker 2: Wonderful. Thank you so much. I really appreciate today's conversation.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to react in some way to something
Speaker 1: you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
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