Michael (AugustLeo), I'm brainstorming a new idea for a dynamic model of development.

Imagine two diagonal line segments intersecting at the bottom to form a "V".

Each of the line segments represents a developmental axis. We'll color the line segment on the left red. It represents access to lenses. Let's overlay Cook-Greuter's model directly onto it. The bottom of the line segment corresponds to the earliest/lowest phase of development, and the top represents the highest. It's a continuum, so all of Cook-Greuter's stages are represented somewhere on the line segment.

The segment on the right is colored blue. It represents embeddedness/disembeddedness... more embedded towards the bottom, less embedded towards the top.

When the line segments intersect at the bottom to form a "V", the graphs represents complete embeddedness at the earliest level of development. This is what a baby's chart would look like. When the line segments intersect at the top to form a pyramid, the graph represents complete disembeddedness at the highest levels of development. This is the theoretical pinnacle of enlightenment according to this two-axis model. Many different combinations are possible, most of which look something like an "X".

The red line segment roughly corresponds to an Advaita view: there is a Right Way to Be, so get to it and stay there.

The blue line segment roughly corresponds to a Buddhist view: every way of being is dukkha, so don't cling to anything.

In this model, a pyramid shape represents the best of both worlds; all available lenses are accessible, but there is no attachment to any of them. But it's also possible to be highly developed, aka enlightened or awakened, on one of the axes and not very advanced on the other. A highly adept Buddhist might not have stabilized access to all possible lenses, but still be able to see that all currently available as well as all potential lenses are not to be clung to. And a highly adept Advaitist might have stable access to the highest developmental lenses while being completely embedded in those perspectives.

According to this model, there are two legitimate ways to be enlightened, and although they can coexist in the same individual, they don't have to.

What do you think of the model? And could you make an animation of this model, maybe even interactive, so people could see how different combinations would look? The animations you made before really touched people. There is something very powerful about seeing a complex model as a graphic, and while a written description like this takes patience and focus to understand, a visual can often be grasped immediately.

Random, unorganized thoughts:

A person who is highly developed along both axes probably isn't crowing about nonduality. This person sees the entire spectrum of development as an ecosytem with niches to be filled at every level. All are necessary, and without all the lenses, the whole would not function. A lens that is developmentally "highest," meaning that it builds upon many previous lenses and is therefore one that most people will not get to in a lifetime, is not better than a lower lens. It is not more valuabe, more virtuous, more desirable, or indicative of greatness or specialness.

Even when a person has stable access to the theoretically highest lens, he/she/they need not privilege it over another. These lenses come online of their own accord, without a need (or perceived ability) to control the process. From the perspecitive of the highest lens(es), this person is not even a person. But access to other lenses does not disappear; all previously stabilized lenses continue to come online according to conditions, even after higher lenses have become baseline, and there is no need to deny or invalidate any lens. A person who can see that s/he is not a person from one lens does not have to insist that they are not a person from another.

The highest lenses are postpersonal and postautonomous. There is no identification with experience as oneself, and no sense of autonomy or agency. There is no identification of experience as a force or a being, or an intelligence. This is just happening. There is no need to reconcile all the lenses into a mishmash in which all levels of meaning-making appear simultaneously and coherently. The idea that this might be possible occurs only at developmentally lower lenses; in developmentally higher lenses, much of meaning making is nonverbal, so complex conceptual structures are not relevant.

As peaceful and relatively pleasant as the higher lenses are, they are seen on an equal footing with lower lenses. None are to be clung to or identified with. No one needs to function from any lens other than the one that happens to be online at the moment. Arguments that seek to browbeat others into a postpersonal lens are not coming from a postpersonal lens. Arguments that seek to aggrandize oneself for having access to a postpersonal lens are not coming from a postpersonal lens. They are coming from a developmentally lower lens in which one is attached to a concpept of a higher lens (which may or may not have been experienced in the past) and self-identifying as a person with accomplishments and a reputation to defend. All of this is fine and normal; I only point it out here so that we can all keep it in mind next time we are tempted to tell everyone how enlightened we are. Claims of enlightenment are not necessarily false, but they are not coming from a place of enlightenment in the moment of making the claim.

Kenneth Folk wrote:
Nicely put.

Kenneth Folk wrote:
I think I have to digest this before I could even begin to visualize an animation, but it's a tempting task.

Hi, Kenneth

Very interesting post, I'll take my time to process it and hopefully be able to contribute.

Meanwhile, I would like to clarify a few things, that I feel you may be misperceiving.

First, I was very glad to hear in our last session Cook-Greuter's terminology I have been nerding in her research and that of others for some time too.

I have a feeling that you put ego development and — hmm — awakening development alongside the same continuum. This may or not be true, and may or not be wrong (of course, it's both in both).

I have found a model presented in the Streams of Wisdom book by Dustin DiPerna very sensible, simple and with great explanatory power. He says there are:
1. State-stages
2. Structure-stages
3. States
(4. Also structures, but he left them for the next book)

These three can be rephrased as:
1. From where it is looking
2. How it interprets what it sees
3. What it is looking at

States (3) are the world we have to observe. Waking state, dreaming, dreamless sleep, DMT hyperspace, etc.

State-stages (1) correspond to different processes we identify as me (ego, non-personal looker, Witness, etc).

Structure-stages (2) are our lenses, stages of development for different lines. Anyone being at any structure-stage may identify with it (as an ego), or identify with a Witness, or with non-dual reality or Santa Claus. But what he experiences will still be an interpretation made by this particular structure-stage of the world (state) that is here to observe.

So any structure-stage (no matter how advanced and how disidentified a being is with it), can not see itself objectively. And getting access to more inclusive vantage points (from ego to non-dual whatever) will not necessarily lead to more complex ways of meaning-making.

I will take my time later today to work carefully through your original post.

For example:
1. I can have stable access to post-autonomous structure-stage.
2. I can have stable access to the Pure Witness vantage point.
3. I can smoke DMT and see beings or mechanism-like structures.

How will I tell you about this experience? What metaphors will I use?

It is very likely I'll be talking in the terms of Whole Universe, holographic structure, multiple planes of reality operating at once etc. With little or no reference to something concerning a single person (me).

What if instead of Witness vantage point, I was stable at a personal looker? Or even at ego? (however it's probably very hard even impossible to get to post-autonomous with ego vantage point).

My story would be completely different.

And what if stable Achiever with stable ego vantage point smokes DMT and sees some beings or mechanisms?

That would very often scare the shit out of them. I personally know cases like this.

first attempt at trying to figure out/ visualize what you are imagining....

Kenneth, I think there are two things going on with this model that have precedents, so this info might help refine it further....

The first is it sounds like you are adding additional stages to the Wilber/Cook-Greuter models. (The stages above "Unitive" have not been mapped by cook-greuter). If you search on "Wilber turquoise coral teal", for example, you'll start getting some ideas of previous folks who wanted to map more stages.

The second is creating a horizontal dimension, which is similar to the The Wilber-Combs Lattice idea, where each developmental stage can have access to different spiritual experiences, similar to embeddedness/nonembeddedness, thus creating a matrix of possibilities. (This horizontal dimension was developed to explain how zen masters could support nationalistic/fascist efforts in WW2 - awakened in one dimension, but at the level of national identity in the other dimension.)

It's been so long since I read Bill Hamilton's book that I don't remember if he includes any diagrams. Here's my GIMP version, drawn from memory:

I have no idea if this is what you mean, but here's another diagram with different labels:

Here's the drawing tool if someone else wants to have a go:

www.gimp.org/

Wow! Thanks, Michael, Egor, Elizabeth, Shargrol, and Derek! You made my day. It felt so good to wake up to these posts this morning.

Michael, Elizabeth's visualizations are just what I had in mind.

Egor, I will research research DiPerna's model.

Elizabeth, you nailed it.

Shargrol, I will research the Wilber/Combs Lattice.

Derek, this visualization of Bill Hamilton's ideas is great. And the ordinary/Buddhist/nondualist/Nisargadatta matrix is hilarious. Love the sense of humor.

DiPerna's model is actually an extension of Wilber/Combs lattice. It was first introduced by Wilber himself in Integral Spirituality.

Is this why there's no publicly visible progress on your book, Kenneth?

I can suggest another two directions for building a more comprehensive map. They both have very good explanatory and predictive power.

I'll give a brief overview and can go on with more details on request.

First. The model of cessation event from The Mind Illuminated book.

1. Our mind is composed of multiple sub-minds organized in complex forest-like hierarchies.
2. These sub-minds can form committees with different agendas/intentions.
3. They debate, and the winning committee takes the executive seat and from now on is both observer and producer of experience.
4. Other sub-minds either follow the winner or shut up and hide.
5. With training in concentration we can unite more and more sub-minds under the same intention.
6. Cessation event happens when there is a committee of sub-minds as observer but for some reason they do not produce any experience. So it's blank, no space, no time.
7. But this cessation event is observed only by the committee that is now in the executive seat. Those hiding do not have the direct knowledge of emptiness.
8. Subsequent cessation events are (hopefully) observed by more and more sub-minds, eventually by all of them as one.

This, for example, can explain why for some people first cessation produces major changes in thinking and behavior, and for some only minor if at all. There can be a very small but powerful "meditator committee" that effectively shuts down every other part of mind but itself. This "meditator" observes cessation, he is happy and his belief in himself may actually get reinforced, but the "actor" remains just the same.

The more separated our beings are, the more different committees there are, the more unification we need for cessation to produce real changes.

We can also derive some falsifiable predictions from this model and wait for some ingenious bastard to test them.

Second. Enneagram as the global cyclic pattern of change for every process. From the book Essential Wholeness.

For reference — www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-descriptions/

I've always neglected the "types" part in the AQAL formula (All Quadrants, All Levels, All States, All Lines, All Types). The time has come to dig deeper and I was blown away but what I've found.

Enneagram does not only describe 9 types of personality that people can express, it is also a pattern of cyclical change that every known system seems to follow. Humans, cells, societies, families, ecosystems, economies, galaxies.

And as every system is a holon (both part and whole), for example, a single person evolves following this pattern and at the same time plays a part in evolution of society as a specific type. I am type 5, and my role in the wholes I inhabit is to relentlessly ask the question why. But I still evolve through all the steps of the cycle in structure-stage and state-stage development.

There are also complex interactions inside the cycle, interactions between different steps/types etc.

Understanding this cycle, where the particular person is in personal development and what role she/he plays in surrounding groups, I believe is of great practical value.

I've found the Enneagram helpful in my practice for pointing to unconscious patterns.

Another option to consider for models of development is Jeffery Martin's model, which is derived from 50 in-depth interviews he conducted with individuals he describes as having “persistent non-symbolic experience” (PNSE). The interviewees included those from different traditions, including Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, native religions, and atheism, and also individuals who were not affiliated with any tradition. The interviewees also included both individuals who practiced prior to awakening and those who did not.

The data offer an assortment of backgrounds and experience from which Martin distilled commonalities to formulate his model. There are four “locations” in Martin’s model, and the number of interviewees he identified as in the fourth, i.e., most "advanced," location was nine, or 18% of the sample. Not a large amount, but Martin did notice very distinct commonalities among those in the fourth location that differed from those in prior locations.

Finally, another interesting tidbit from Martin’s research is that when interviewees awakened, they landed in any of the four locations. For the most part, interviewees remained in the location that they first landed in, although some moved either “forward” or “backward” between locations. There was also a tendency for individuals who did not have much contact with those in other locations or those outside of their tradition to label individuals with PNSE that is different from theirs as “not experiencing PNSE.” However, those who shifted locations often dropped this dogmatism.

His findings are found in the following paper:
Clusters of Individual Experiences form a Continuum of Persistent Non-Symbolic Experiences in Adults

Also, here is a table I created that provides brief descriptions of the four locations along six domains of experience that Martin focused on in his interviews.

Nice! I'm stealing this for my facebook page, but I'll pull it back if you disapprove.

I see Jeffery Martin's model to be a huge oversimplification that may be doing more harm than good.

He collapses at least four dimensions of being into one with four discrete values possible.

Four dimensions are:
1. Lines of intelligence (cognitive, emotional, sexual, interpersonal, musical, etc www.sunypress.edu/pdf/19445091.05.04.02.pdf)
2. Structure-stages (www.integralchurch.se/media/9levelsofincreasingembrace.pdf)
3. State-stages (Four Paths model, etc)
4. States (waking, dreaming, deep sleep, non-dual, DMT hyperspace, etc).

Humanity has identified (depending on the models we choose) about 15 possible values for (1), 9 for (2), 5 for (3) and 5 for (4). Combining all at the very least we get 15 x 9 x 5 x 5 = 3375 possibilities for human expression. Each individual can at each specific moment express any of them.

Some examples:

1. Composing music; with post-autonomous meaning-making capabilities; from a third path vantage point; while in a dreaming state.

2. Having sex; with conformist meaning-making capabilities; from a pre-path vantage point; while in a waking state.

3. Talking with beings; with individualistic meaning-making capabilities; from a first path vantage point; while in a DMT hyperspace state.

Collapsing 3375+ possibilities for human expression into just 4 achieves nothing useful, from my point of view.

On the other hand, acknowledging such multidimensionality and very complex interactions between different modes of expression inside each and every one of us (and between us), leads to faster and healthier growth in all dimensions.

There are so many developmental maps out there. Most of them are one-dimensional. We can easily see how they both correlate with and contradict each other. My best guess, this happens because they all make the same mistake — collapsing several dimensions into one.

Personally, I can relate to almost every description from the table at different times. I may even intentionally choose to operate as a specific location in a specific domain. I may unintentionally drop (or jump, depending on perspective) into another location in some domain.

One of the main reasons that Martin's model appeals to me is that it is directly tied to data from a relatively large sample of interviewees. Moreover, the data was collected in a thorough manner. As you mention, it could definitely be oversimplified; for example, it would be interesting to me if Martin had information on the interviewees' views on morality, as this is a very contentious topic that is influenced by cultural, philosophical, and religious backgrounds.

When I was studying Integral, I really enjoyed the holistic approach. However, it also feels intellectualized, and I have not come across specific, dedicated data sets like Martin's upon which Integral Theory is based. Mostly it seems that Integral is derived from Wilber's expansive study of religious and psychological literature; however, it is indeterminate whether the combination of these wide-ranging disciplines in Integral Theory meets Einstein's dictum "to make things as simple as they can be, but no simpler" to which I generally subscribe. Instead, it feels like some of the lines of development that are used could potentially reinforce a sense of separation between the practitioner and world, as one believes that he or she is developing along different lines and that these lines are distinguishable. This is evident in the Inquiry Questions in the paper you shared. Each question has an "I" as a focus, and other than the question "Who am I?", could lead to further intellectualization about one's "condition." But I am not an Integral Therapist, nor have I experienced Integral Therapy; nonetheless, these are concerns I have about the Theory.

Finally, Martin indicates that some individuals can "access" other locations, but that this takes effort. One thing that I think we can derive from Martin's research is that the locations represent experience that is more or less "stable," that is, it does not require effort to stay in one's location. The location where an individual does not need to expend effort to remain there is their location in Martin's model. At least, that's my interpretation.

In all honesty, my eyes are glazing over in this discussion, but I appreciate the erudition. That said, I have to ask what possible value there is in having outlined 3375+ states (or whatever you want to call them)? How can that help?

More concretely, how does this Enneagram work, in a nutshell? Yes, I can follow the link and dig in, but it might be helpful to readers here to give a short synopsis. I am intrigued by something that describes my development, and that of galaxies, at the same time.

There are much more extensive data sets for structure-stage development in different lines of intelligence (on the several orders of magnitude larger than Martin's sample).

Taking Cook-Greuter's research as an example, they have scored more than a hundred individuals from all over the world at the highest identified stage (Ironist). And with that data they can not draw definite conclusions whether it is one stage or several and what are its (their) features.

So Martin's sample and such a strong-worded conclusions seems very opportunistic.

Jake, I understand your concern with too much details leading to possible inside separation. I have experienced (and suffered from) this moving through the Strategist stage. However, this is exactly what is predicted by Cook-Greuter's theory of ego development!

I also see how Integral Theory is too complex, overwhelming and with little actionable value for the seekers (and it's just plain nonsense for non-seekers).

I believe, Wilber himself sees it too.

What we are doing here seems to be just that — trying to build a better map of the territory we know is far too complex to be described in any one-dimensional way.

Going back to my subjective experience. I am stable (operating most of the time without effort or support) at different locations in different domains. I can't put myself in one location, although I've had experiences at location 4 in every domain and I'm stable at it in some.

What we also don't know is whether Martin's interviewees reported their peak experiences, experiences they would've liked to identify themselves with or a genuine stable location.

Cook-Greuter's research and that of others is much more objective and comprehensive. You can find out more about their method here www.amazon.com/Integral-Theory-Action-Co...id=1447341641&sr=8-1

How does the progressively deeper knowledge of the structure and inter-relations of cells, molecules and atoms help us?

I will expand on Enneagram later today.

I must confess, I was a bit overstretching with the galaxies We do not have nearly enough knowledge of how they get born, evolve and die.

But systems that we have good historical knowledge of all seem to follow the same cyclical-spiral pattern of nine steps (starting with the 9th).

9. Homeostasis — feedback loops are working properly to keep system in balance, everything is working smoothly and without much effort.

1. Awareness of limitations — there are some disturbances (internal or external) that can't be dealt with by existing feedback loops. But the system still is very stable and is doing more or less the same.

2. Adaptive behavior — disturbances increase and system starts to probe for new behaviors but within the same paradigm.

3. Limits of capabilities — system reached the peak of what's possible. Disturbances are too big to ignore but there's no way to deal with them effectively yet.

4. Inadequacies revealed — existing feedback loops start to break down under stress, system seems to be crashing.

5. Diffuse boundaries — broken feedback loops no longer constrain the inflow of information, system starts to look for the new ways of being. Asking the question "Why is this happening?"

6. Integrity and disintegration — deep insights revealed at the previous stage start to form new feedback loops around themselves. Old patterns continue to disintegrate, some of them on the other hand are reutilized with some fine-tuning.

7. Exploration and experimentation — system tests what it can do with these new feedback loops.

8. Self reorganization — system has chosen what it should do and starts to reorganize itself around this new direction.

9. Homeostasis — new feedback loops are fully formed, system is stable. For now.

This pattern applies to human birth, human growth through structure-stages, human growth through state-stages, evolution of other species, evolution of societies and ecosystems etc.

We can find it in the Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey www.movieoutline.com/articles/the-hero-j...mpbell-monomyth.html or in the Progress of Insight map.

Each person being both a whole and a part, goes through her/his growth following this pattern and plays a role in the evolution of family/society/state/humanity/planet expressing a specific part of the cycle. States too evolve following this pattern and express a specific part of the cycle in the evolution of humanity/planet as a whole.

More on the point why we need comprehensive maps.

At each moment we operate as a complex multiplicity of sub-beings, organized in a forest-like hierarchies. Each sub-being can be mapped to the point on this four-dimensional matrix.

The goal is not to "grow out" of "lower" modes of expression. But (1) to balance and organize all sub-beings so that the system as a whole operates smoothly and with little tension aka suffering (2) grow into and/or create more interesting modes of expression. Process of growth/evolution happens naturally when there's little additional unnecessary tension/suffering.

Knowing the different types of expression, different types of interaction between them and patterns of their evolution help us achieve just that. Minimize suffering and promote healthy being-becoming.

This applies to humans and groups of humans and ecosystems and planetary systems as well.

Thanks Egor for the response. Any recommendations for learning more about Cook-Greuter?