aurum

I personally think Leo hired the guy that's acting as Paul McCartney, wake up sheeple.

We could choose to define "whole" in many different ways. For the purposes of this discussion, we can think of "whole" in terms of holons. A human cell is whole, which makes up a whole set of tissues, which makes up a whole organ, which makes up a whole human, which makes up a whole population, which makes up a whole society ->>> to infinity. So we have lesser wholeness within higher wholeness. But it's not just physical stuff that are holons. The psyche also functions as a holon, as seen with the Tier 2 integration of all Tier 1 stages. This holonic thinking is fundamental to Wilber's work.

I would like to see studies as well. I'm pro-empirical data. The problem is that Wilber's work is inherently not academic-friendly. Saying doing studies would be "really hard" is an understatement. To really do a convincing study, you need a narrowly defined quantifiable question and an ability to eliminate as many variables as possible. Wilber's work is broad, subjective and arguably trans-rational. It's the opposite of academically rigorous, which is why it's not taken seriously in academia. In addition, studies cost millions of dollars that need to be funded and published by someone. And usually you need a whole bunch of them to really convince the scientific community.

Wild that some people seem to think that Trump's chances of winning the presidency are actually higher now than in 2020. Biden has spent four years doing a decent enough job as president. Meanwhile, Trump has spent four years mostly getting indicted and crying on social media. And this is already after Trump lost as an incumbent. Even if he wins this trial and it galvanizes his base, I still think he is in a losing position.

However much self-deception exists in conscious development, it is less than the self-deception of unconscious development. Those are your only two choices. Conscious development also includes working through self-deception. Also, the entire function of this forum is for people interested in conscious development. So I’m not sure why else you would be here. Yes, he encourages people to development themselves. This is what most people need. If it becomes neurotic at times then that is admittedly a problem. You cannot escape making prescriptions in life. You are making prescriptions right now, in this conversation. Stop telling Wilber that he ought not take an is and turn it into an ought. You can mix the two just fine. Ethics, philosophy and development all interconnect. As far as evidence for Wilber’s prescriptions, I can see them work in my own life. Test them out for yourself. You’re not going to get a scientific study proving his work.

Sure there is definitely some of that. Although at the same time, I’d also argue you are not going to find a teacher / community who doesn’t suffer from the same fate. The question is to what degree and how toxic it is. Development is happening either consciously or unconsciously. Why would unconscious development be superior to conscious development? That’s your particular, limited perspective on wholeness. How do you know there aren’t other more inclusive perspectives?

Not from a holonic perspective. Which is at the center of Wilber’s work.

He probably could have. But most likely he is setting up a comparison between lower degrees and higher degrees of wholeness. This is in alignment with his holonic philosophy of integration. Thus, “radical” wholeness. In addition, it could also be a reference to integration along multiple lines, i.e his ideas around Growing Up, Showing Up, Waking Up, etc. That’s a pretty big assumption based on just a simple book title. What is your beef with Wilber? Not saying the guy is right about everything, but it seems like you really don’t like him.

This is actually incorrect. There are degrees of wholeness. So the title is likely appropriate. That said, I don't suspect there will be much new ground covered in this book.

Fair enough, perhaps I jumped the gun and assumed too much. My only real critique of your vision was timeline and expectations. If those things are in check, then I have no issues.

We don't know any of those things are likely. Wait for more information to come out and avoid catastrophizing.

I wouldn't say it's useless. I think his best contributions were actually his engineering projects. He might have been better off sticking to engineering and staying away from economics / government. He was a good engineer, that was his strength. As far as his work providing the North Star for humans, I'd say that's debatable. Very few people actually even know who he is or anything about his work. It's way too fringe because it's totally impractical from a policy perspective. Maybe in 100 years that will change.

What's utopian is to not understand how far away we are from something like Jacque described.

That is not at all what you implied with your original post. Your original post: "This world here isn't interested in hoarding anything, people are free to do anything, but alone. The goal is that one doesn't interfere or even passively impact the other. There is no need to earn money, or even contribute to the society, you can live a perfectly good life, doing nothing. Infact doing nothing is the norm, it is the best thing to do. Activity is neither encouraged nor discouraged. Flowering of an individual's true nature is celebrated." ^^^This is only possible at a high level of development. Otherwise if everyone is free to live at any level of development, then slavery needs to be allowed. Slavery not only exists at a certain level of development, it's assumed to be a good thing. Are you going to argue slavery is not a contradiction with your vision? Of course it's a contradiction. Because you are advocating for a society that can fundamentally only exist at a high level of development.

That's too far. They have some bad anti-establishment takes, yes. It's very easy to lose balance in politics.

He is not courting the right per say. There are plenty of lefties who love his anti-vaxx takes. Charles Eisenstein and people like him are a perfect example. Mostly RFK is just anti-establishment, anti-corporatist. You can find people on the left and right who support such positions.

I looked up Vietnam on the CPI (https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023/index/vnm). They rank somewhere in the middle at #83, which also makes this significant. Seems their leadership is in the midst of attempting to crackdown on these kind of things. My guess is that she could have continued to get away with what she was doing, if it weren't for the fact that she caused a bank run. A bank run is very bad for the government as a whole. They cannot allow such things.

I am suggesting that many of our current paradigms, mindsets, institutions and otherwise ways of operating society are functional, precisely because they are congruent with our level development. There needs to be a balance of idealism and pragmatism. Fundamentally, the society you are describing will not exist in our lifetime. I understand that is what you are for. And that's a valid perspective. What I am asking you to consider here, is that we are not at a point where society is collectively ready to function like that. And if you attempt to structure society is such a way, it will badly backfire. Yes, the mundane reality of accomplishing goals can be far less exciting than daydreaming. And I think there is something to be said for daydreaming and not immediately getting sucked into the "how's and what's". But wouldn't you also have to agree that if you find your vision exciting, it's exactly because you imagine it could happen in real life? You aren't just excited about it as a theoretically possibility, you imagine that society could actually function this way.

I actually went to visit the Venus Project and got a tour. As far as I can tell, it has been a complete failure. It broke my heart really. Jacque and his partner essentially devoted their entire adult lives to making that project a reality, and they have almost nothing to show for it. And they seemed like genuine people who wanted to do good. Of course, it's possible that Jacque's work will be rediscovered. Or perhaps his ideas will inspire someone else in the future. But I would be wary of chasing these utopian dreams. You might just end up spending your whole life on a dead end.

It's got nothing to do with how I personally feel about doing nothing. Don't get me wrong, you have a beautiful vision in many ways and I want to acknowledge you for that. There are some impulses here that are deeply correct. But society at large is nowhere near stage Turquoise. We barely even know what Turquoise is and what it looks like, because so few people have gotten there. So now here's a test: if you truly care about actualizing this beautiful vision, you need to accept that much of society is going to be a brutual game of survival for still many years to come. Until you accept that, you will just be stuck in utopianism. And you will actually be less successful at helping to bring your vision into reality, not more.

If we can't agree on ~33,000 deaths, which is the estimate I've seen from every reputable source, then this discussion will not go very far. We are not even relying on the same basic information.

That was excellent. They both argued their points quite effectively while keeping the conversation civil. I think what is missing from this dialogue, especially for Dr. Mike, is a few solid transpersonal experiences. Dr. K has had some so he understands the bigger picture better, while Dr. Mike seems more stuck in rational / materialism. And this makes him very skeptical of anything spiritual like Aryuveda, since for him spirituality fundamentally doesn't mean much. This is of course not to say that all of Aryuveda is correct. But when someone understands that the ancients were not just superstitious primitives, and that in some ways their knowledge exceeded that of modern scientists, then you are much more likely to have to seriously consider Eastern practices. Personally I am interested in integrating Eastern ideas into my practice, although I've not yet figured out how exactly that will look. The challenge is sorting out what is actually true and what actually works for patients / clients.

@Michael569 great list. I especially like the part about description, not persuasion (which is mostly just manipulation in this context). That really seems to be the only way high consciousness sales can exist. Here's my piece of wisdom: Drop this idea that simply because a customer is wiling to pay for something, that you are offering them value. This is an incredibly toxic belief that is widespread in the internet marketing community. Rationalization on top of rationalization about why you should just figure out what the market wants and give it to them. Doesn't matter what it is as long as there is demand. In reality, demand =! true value. There might be demand for cigarettes and drugs, can you honestly say selling those things is a high consciousness business that brings value to people? Perhaps in a twisted sort of way you could rationalize it. But it's obvious to me that people can demand all sorts of things that are not higher consciousness and may even hurt them. If you actually loved your customers, you would care about what is best for them. End of story. Of course it practically may be more of a challenge to sell higher consciousness products. You might be get all excited about how your product is going to change the world, only to discover that people just want low consciousness garbage and get outcompeted. So get too idealistic either. You have to find a balance of demand and value.

You went wrong by severely underestimating the challenges of survival and the current development of mankind. The world you are describing is not going to exist for a very long time.

Your graph ends in 2023. We are already 4 months in 2024, with much the damage being done in the last several months. Also consider: 1) How much higher would the population number in 2023 have been without the war? 2) Attempting a genocide does not necessarily mean you have successfully eliminated an entire population. That may take much longer for Israel to accomplish, assuming they continue on their current path. The genocide is ongoing.