This is the second episode of a three part series on Integral Philosopher Ken Wilber s
work exploring the nature of spiritual development. In the first episode we looked at
the possibility of framing the difference between those experiencing higher spiritual
states and us regular folk as being comparable to the difference between a blind
person and a sighted person. In this thought experiment we played with the possibility
that what the spiritual and religious mystics are trying to communicate is an
experience that is as impossible to put into words as green is to a blind person. Seen
from this perspective then the spiritual sages are experiencing something that the rest
of us aren t and the holy texts are impotent attempts to make a blind person see green.
In this episode we are going to be taking at a different angle on the same problem and
we are going to look at Wilber s contention that higher spiritual states are post-
Piagetian (Pee-a-JET-ian) stages of development.
In preparation for this exploration we looked at what Piaget s theory of development
is and what the four stages are in the last episode so if you re curious about Piaget s
theory I ll put a link to it in the cards and in the description below.
But the basic idea is that Piaget s four levels chart the development of the individual
from birth up to adolescence. This work of Piaget has been built on by so-called Post-
Piagetian researchers who look for stages of development beyond the four levels of
Piaget. And this is where Ken Wilber slots in.
He takes the work of these theorists to a new level by exploring the idea that higher spiritual
states are in fact post formal Piagetian stages of development. And what we mean by
post-formal here is after the Piaget s fourth developmental stage which is called
formal operational. In this episode we are going to look at Wilber's argument for this
and what it means to say that spiritual experiences are post Piagetian stages of
development. Piagetian Dreams
In one of his legendary experiments, Piaget took a group of kids at the Preoperational
stage so they d all be between the ages of 3 and 7 and he sat each child down. He
had a jug of water and two glasses one tall and thin; the other short and fat.
And the experiment is simple. You fill up your short fat glass and you pour the water
from that glass into the tall thin glass. Then you ask the child which glass has more water?
The tall thin one? Or the short fat one?
The preop child will tell you that the tall glass has more water. You can pour the water
back and forth as many times as you want but the child will still think the tall glass has
more.
They are unable to see that the quantity hasn t been changed just because its form has.
This is a logical ability called conservation that doesn t develop until the child enters
the concrete operational phase. In another experiment you take a line of
checkers and form them into two lines and you ask the preop child which line has more
and they tell you they are the same. But now if you widen out the checkers in one
line and ask the child again they will say that there is more in the widened line. This is again
because they have not developed the cognitive faculty of conservation.
And because they are missing the ability to these simple logical understandings
these so called concrete operations like conservation, the child s entire map of the
world is warped. It s not a matter of the world being different it s quite literally that
they cannot comprehend the structure of reality. What we see then is that you can be swimming in a
world of truths that you are simply incapable of understanding but once
you have understood them, they become the most obvious thing in the world. [deathbed]
There s an interesting caveat to the water glass conservation task. If you video it and
show it to the child when they have moved onto the next stage Concrete Operational
they will think that you have doctored the video. They can t even imagine that anyone
could not understand that the amount of water in each glass is the same and since they
can t remember the most logical explanation is that the video has been doctored.
That is the level of change we are talking about with cognitive development. The thing
is that the child at preoperational understands language. They know the words and
they know the grammar and so you can explain to them that the water is the same in
both glasses you can tell them that there s a limitation in their understanding. They
might even nod along as if they have understood but you repeat the experiment and
they can t be convinced otherwise. Wilber s argument is that the same thing
is happening with spiritual experiences. When the mystic says that all is one or talks
to you about nirvana or about Tao or about emptiness or about the dark night
of the soul, you can understand the words and you can even think you understand their meaning
but, and this is Wilber s point, you are missing the cognitive development that
would allow you to make sense of that experience.
Like the conop child you are swimming in a world abounding in post-concrete
operational truths, but because of the limitations of your cognitive stage you can t
understand them. It is the most obvious thing in the world to the Buddha or to Lao Tzu
or Plotinus that reality is non-dual, that there is no division that everything is one; and
yet despite the obviousness of this truth to them we have no way of seeing it anymore
than the preop child can see that there is the same amount of water in each glass.
At best we can be shrewd and clever. If there was some candy involved in getting the
right answer then perhaps the child might tell you that the water is the same in both
glasses; when there s status up for grabs in the spiritual community then you have an
incentive to parrot the correct words but that doesn t mean that you ve understood
them. This is Wilber s point with the Piagetian stages.
It s a more refined example than the comparison with the blind man
because there is no physical sense that changes between the child at preop and the child at conop;
it is simply a matter of an increased cognitive complexity radically
altering the perspective on the world. The sensory experience of the conop child
and the preop child is the same; they are receiving the same data but the processing
power of one of them is simply qualitatively different to the other.
The same goes for the difference between the spiritual sages and us regular folk. Those
who are operating at higher spiritual stages are somehow leaning into a higher level of
cognitive development. They are not gaining new senses but there's a new layer of
complexity to their minds that enables them to see the world in a different way.
Criticising Wilber I find this argument fascinating because
what Wilber is doing is taking the findings of modern scientific developmental psychology
and he s combining it with spiritual developmental systems. These spiritual
developmental systems are maps of the higher potentials of development in the individual.
A few months back on the channel we did an exploration of Jung s reading of the chakra
system as being a map of the stages of higher development.
Wilber takes these religious/spiritual ladders of development and tapes them onto the
Piagetian stages to create a comprehensive map of human development here's
where we've come from and here's where we re going.
It s a fascinating conception and it seems to tell us not just where we ve evolved to so
far but also what the future of human evolution is. It promises a future for humanity
that is increasingly spiritual and conscious. But alas it seems to be built on sand.
Unlike Piaget, Wilber is a theorist and what is missing is any experiments that show that
this is the next level of development, that show that the trajectory of human development
tends into the spiritual direction that he sees.
The Piagetian route seems to be a dead end for this search. Because when you look at
the most advanced model of development that goes beyond Piaget's four levels
Michael Commons's Model of Hierarchical Complexity or MHC what you see are not
the higher spiritual levels that Wilber talks about.
When you go from sensorimotor to preop to conop to formop and then you move to
the postformal levels, there isn t a sudden turn to spirituality. It doesn't go from reason
to post-rationality as Wilber theorises. MHC and Complexity
The Model of Hierarchical Complexity simplifies the Piagetian system to some extent.
It is an attempt to create a mathematically grounded and measurable map of
complexity. And to do this it focuses in on the individual s performance on tasks. The
equivalent of the Formop stage is divided into two here: Abstract and Formal.
At Abstract we develop the ability to form abstract thoughts and ideas. As Daniel
Schmachtenberger has observed it is this level of complexity that led to the cultural
evolution of humanity because when you look at our primate cousins you can see that
many of them use tools. They can pick up a sharp stone and use it as a tool for a
specific purpose. But without the abstract
notion of sharpness, you can t compare the sharpness of one
object to another; you can t think about making a super sharp object because you
haven t isolated the abstract concept that makes the tool so useful.
That requires the ability to abstract to something that is separate to the physical world;
it s an idea that helps to understand the physical world but is itself separate. We see
this complexity develop in children coming into adolescence so in the 11-14 age range
in the stage of the MHC called Abstract. Then you come to formal at which point we
can identify relations between abstract variables and devise ways to test them.
We are able to solve problems in algebra with one unknown and we are now able to use deductive
logic and empiricism. This development takes place in
the latter half of adolescence. This is where the mapover with Piaget ends.
From there Commons s MHC proceeds further along this path of
development in cognitive complexity. And so the next stage is called Systematic
which is the ability to understand the abstract relations of the Formal stage as
part of a system. Following that you have meta-systematic that looks at the relations
between different systems and then you have paradigmatic and finally cross-paradigmatic.
And with each of these levels what you see is an ability to work with broader
and broader maps of complexity. This isn t to say that someone at
Cross-Paradigmatic like for example Darwin or Newton it s not that they are spiritual geniuses.
It s about the complexity of their thinking. But even this is limited to the
cognitive field. The person isn t some kind of universal genius; Newton after all died eating
mercury trying to alchemically turn lead into gold.
What the MHC stage tells you is the complexity of task this person can work with.
What it doesn t tell us is that cognitive complexity moves in the direction of spiritual
refinement. Conclusion
If we accept that Commons s more empirically grounded work is correct, then it seems
that Wilber s take on Piaget is at best another fine analogy. The argument that the
difference between spiritual masters and ordinary folk is a matter of cognitive
development is a fascinating hypothesis.
It seems a more accurate analogy to say that there is a cognitive development
separating the spiritual sage from your average man or woman but the evidence is less
than compelling. At the very least it seems more accurate than the blindness/sighted
analogy since it is not a matter of a hardware difference but of software.
In the next episode of the series we are going to look at how Wilber might find a way
around this by looking at his conception of a paradigm within which spiritual
experiences might be studied thus giving us more information. This will take us into
an exploration of the work of Thomas Kuhn and his work on the distinction between
normal science and revolutionary science and his development of the idea of an
exemplar or a paradigm a term that has seeped into mainstream culture.
That s everything that we are going to cover on this episode of the living philosophy. If
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thumbs up down below and if you have any thoughts insights or feedback I d love to
hear from you down in the comments otherwise I shall see you next time
thanks for watching.