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Integral World: Exploring Theories of Everything

An independent forum for a critical discussion of the integral philosophy of Ken Wilber

Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

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Ken Wilber's Creationism

The Invisible Supernatural Hand of Eros

Frank Visser

Who owns the argument from improbability? Statistical improbability is the old standby, the creaking warhorse of all creationists from naive Bible-jocks who don't know any better, to comparatively well-educated Intelligent Design "theorists", who should. There is no other creationist argument… —Richard Dawkins[1]

So the "deadlock" (Marshall) is not between Darwin and Design, but between Chance and Design. Darwin is not the problem.

Is Ken Wilber (some kind of) a creationist? Of course he is. This should have been clear from his very first book The Spectrum of Consciousness (1977), where Spirit/Mind is the beginning and end of all existence. Even in his post-metaphysical phase, which started around 2000, he sees Spirit as the Ground of all Being. Not only that, he sees evolution as "Spirit-in-Action". His view of Spirit is therefore not a passive one, as is the case in many Eastern traditions, but a very active one. Spirit really makes a difference in this world. In this spiritual worldview, evolution is driven by an "impulse" (Andrew Cohen) or "impetus" (Steve Taylor) or "Eros" (Ken Wilber)—the name itself doesn't matter. According to these authors, without this drive, not much could be accomplished in terms of evolution to higher complexity and consciousness, because chance would rule supreme.

In the Wilberian universe, it is not simply that this spiritual vision is merely in the mystical eye of the beholder (who alone can see this with his "Eye of Spirit", as Brad Reynolds recently mistakenly argued in three long essays [2] criticizing Integral World), for Wilber explicitly and on many occasions claims that his view of things offers a better explanation than science is able to provide. Here's a typical example:

Now, of course, you are perfectly free to believe in evolution and reject the notion of involution. I find that an incoherent position; nonetheless, you can still embrace everything in the following pages about the evolution of culture and consciousness, and reject or remain agnostic on involution. But the notion of a prior involutionary force does much to help with the otherwise impenetrable puzzles of Darwinian evolution, which has tried, ever so un-successfully, to explain why dirt would get up and eventually start writing poetry. But the notion of evolution as Eros, or Spirit-in-action, performing, as Whitehead put it, throughout the world by gently persuasion toward love, goes a long way to explaining the inexorable unfolding from matter to bodies to minds to souls to Spirit's own Self-recognition. Eros, or Spirit-in-action, is a rubber band around your neck and mine, pulling us all back home. (The Collected Works of Ken Wilber, 1999, p. 12)

Here is clearly a definite knowledge claim, of superior knowledge, when compared to what science has to offer, and not just a poetic vision. How does Wilber justify that claim? And does it really explain anything at all?

Creationism is the religious belief that the universe and life originated from specific acts of divine creation, as opposed to through natural processes, such as evolution. (en.oxforddictionaries.com)

Creationists are in the same predicament as Wilber. They downplay what science can accomplish, by claiming that organisms and their organs, or even molecules and their intricate connections, are too complex ("irreducibly complex" is the term introduced by Michael Behe in his Darwin's Black Box (1996), which was highly recommended by Wilber) to have been evolved along Darwinians lines. Wilber explicitly offers help to explain the "otherwise impenetrable puzzles of Darwinian evolution", which Darwinism "ever so un-successfully" has failed to solve. Ironically, the "explanations" offered by creationists like Behe and Wilber turn out to be empty of content. All they can do is point to areas where science has not yet found conclusive answers. Their approach is necessarily negative, not positive. Or we might say, it is inferential. One other creationist book, written by William Dembski, is aptly called The Design Inference (1998). Much more is not possible for authors with spiritual or fundamentalist agendas. For nobody knows how Spirit or God operates.

When natural theologian William Paley (1743–1805) famously found his watch on the heath he reasoned, that this object is so complex and fine-tuned for some purpose, it had to be the result of (human) intelligent design. By analogy, he claimed the human eye is likewise too complex to have been evolved by natural means, and must have been the result of (supernatural) intelligent design. But what knowledge does that bring us? Niall Shanks (God, the Devil and Darwin, p. 167) gives a nice illustration of the massive vacuity of the creationist explanation when it comes to details. He challenges Intelligent Design proponents to answer the following "intelligent design questions": (1) What is it? (2) Who made it?, (3) When was it made? (4) How was it made? (5) For what purpose?

Here's what we get when we compare human intelligent design with supernatural intelligent design: many unknowns and even unknowables.

Intelligent Design Questions	Human Intelligent Design	Supernatural Intelligent Design
WHAT	A pocket watch	The human eye
WHO	Abraham Louis Breguet	unknown
WHEN	1814	unknown
HOW	A quarter repeater with gongs	unknown
WHY	To be able to tell the time	To be able to see?

Table 1. Natural and supernatural Intelligent Design compared as to their capacity to answer relevant questions about how things came to be.

Michael Behe's favorite mouse trap example is discussed extensively by Shanks as well. Behe claimed that a mouse trap works only when all its components are present at the same time. If one or more components are taken away, the trap no longer works. Likewise, "irreducibly complex" human organs or molecular processes can only work when all components are present at the same time. Therefore, Behe reasons, they must have been "designed". But Shanks counters this by introducing the intruiging concept of "redundant complexity". Many biochemical pathways follow intricate trajectories which offer alternatives, when for some reason the proper enzymes are not available. So lacking a component might not be fatal after all, which opens to the doors to an evolutionary history.

Exploring mouse trap history

Ironically, even the mouse trap has an evolutionary history of its own. Earlier attempts at catching mice with a device were much simpler, and many options have been tried out, over many years, before the standard model was agreed upon. Admittedly, this process was guided by "human intelligent design". But perhaps this whole analogy with machines and human artifacts is misleading, when it comes to understanding evolved organic reality (another fine point made by Shanks). We have not been assembled from different parts (eyes, nose, ears, are not just put together to form a head), we have developed from more primitive life forms, starting with a single cell. So what is supposed to be "designed" here: the final form, the intermediate forms, the first human cell, or something that can evolve to all of that? Intelligent Design doesn't tell us.

There is therefore a deep dishonesty involved in these creationist attempts at discrediting science. Nothing is clarified, specified or explained because no insight is given into how the supposed spiritual Power or Force or Person could possibly have managed to produce the complexities of nature. Talking about "design" is fancy and sexy, until it comes down to the implementation of that design. Does Spirit tweak genes here and there, to produce favorable mutations? Does Eros manage to create different species, such as the black bear and the polar bear? Does Shakti monitor cell divisions, so everything runs smoothly at that level? How could that possibly work? Not only is that a task of immense proportions, it doesn't even have a shimmer of plausibility.

We might, just as well, therefore turn Wilber's argument on its head by saying that the collective efforts of science "go a long way" to explaining the emergence of complexity, which spiritual approaches have "ever so un-successfully" tried to clarify by introducing unknown and unknowable entities. Science did not reject the notions of elan vital or phlogiston or caloric theory or whatever ancient notion cherished for centuries because it held on to a materialistic and naturalistic ideology—this being the standard claim of spiritually minded authors—but because these concepts turned out to be unhelpful and inferior to scientific concepts which replaced them. A methodological naturalism turns out, again and again, to deliver the goods, when it comes to explaining the complexities of nature. Spiritual alternatives fail miserably.

BEATING THE ODDS OF CHANCE

Creationists often use statistical arguments to validate their view that we need "some" spiritual explanation for the complexity of nature, simply because these complexities are, well… too complex. Too complex to have been evolved, even given the billions of earthly existence. Wilber, like all creationists, is particularly fond of these "arguments":

Calculations done by scientists from Fred Hoyle to F.B. Salisbury consistently show that twelve billion years isn't enough to produce even a single enzyme by chance. (Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, 1996, p. 26)

And more recently, quoting "progressive creationist" Hugh Ross, there is:

less than 1 chance in 10¹⁴⁴ (trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion) exists that even one such planet [a planet that supports life] would occur anywhere in the universe. (The Religion of Tomorrow, 2017, p. 497-8)

Do we get a balanced and well-reasoned description of the problem here? No, just a stray quote from a creationist to settle the matter. Scientific positions as to the rarity of life in the universe range from "life is a fluke" to "life is everywhere". So Wilber seems to have forgotten his maxim "everyone is right" here. Why? Because it supports his spiritual agenda which is to offer "something other than chance".

When creationists oppose neo-Darwinism they often use this strawman: science explains everything by chance, and since life is very unlikely to have originated and evolved by chance, something else is needed to explain these phenomena (be it Jehova or Eros—the logic of the argument is the same). Fortunately, science does not only rely on chance, far from it. There is so much more sophistication to be had from elementary Talk Origins web pages on "Evolution and Chance" or "Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution", than anything you will ever find in Wilber's writings.

Intelligent Design. The theory that life, or the universe, cannot have arisen by chance and was designed and created by some intelligent entity.. (en.oxforddictionaries.com)

Wilber, of course, doesn't want to associate himself with fundamentalist creationists such as Behe and Ross, so he suggests a third way between neo-Darwinism on the one hand and fundamentalist creationism on the other (of which there are many varieties). But he strategically sides with Intelligent Design when it comes to pointing out the shortcomings of neo-Darwinism. In a rather flippant online quote he stated:

The problem is that creation scientists—who are almost entirely Christians—after having convincingly demonstrated that neo-Darwinian theory has loopholes large enough to drive several Hummers through—then try to prove that Jehovah is in one of the Hummers. (Vomitting confetti, Friday, May 27, 2005)

And on a slightly more serious note, in a footnote (!) in Integral Spirituality (2006) he clarified his position in this field as follows:

To say that the manifest universe is evolving is not necessarily to endorse all of the neo-Darwinian view of evolution.… [W]hat we don't understand about the mechanisms of evolution could fill the Library of Congress several times over. I'm no fan of Intelligent Design either, which is just Creation Science in drag. But you don't need an intelligent designer to realize that evolution seems to involve some "creative allure," or what Whitehead would call "the creative advance into novelty." That drive—Eros by any other name—seems a perfectly reasonable conclusion, given the facts of evolution as we [sic] understand them. Let's just say there is plenty of room for a Kosmos of Eros. (p. 236, foootnote)

For sure, we still don't understand everything about evolution, but what we do understand is not something Ken Wilber will inform you about. Wilber's explanation of evolution seems to boil down to some sort of unspecified creative impulse (we might call him a "creativist" instead of a "creationist"). But saying "there is creativity" is as uninformative as saying "intelligence exists". However, voicing objections to strict neo-Darwinism doesn't equal promoting a spiritual worldview. Within the biological community opinions vary as to the precise weight that should be given to natural selection to explain the diversity of nature. Some think other naturalistic processes are relevant as well. So we need to tease apart legitimate criticism from ideological criticism.

“THE THIRD WAY”: BIOLOGY OR POLITICS?

Tree of life showing vertical
and horizontal gene transfers

In Evolution 2.0 - Breaking the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design (2015), written by creationist and Internet guru Perry Marshall, which I reviewed on Integral World a while ago[3], such a third way is attempted. Not surprisingly, Darwinism (especially "Dawkinsism"—my phrase) is strongly criticized in this volume, but (surprisingly) not with the goal to introduce unseen spiritual factors. Instead, he covers many "alternative" biological schools of thought, such as: transposition, endosymbiosis, epigenetics, horizontal gene transfer, genome duplication and viral transduction. He could have added self-organization and self-assembly to the mix as well. This would all fit nicely into any "integral biology" textbook that tries to remain above sectarian differences.

At the same time, Marshall believes that God created the universe for us to explore. But he doesn't seem to use Him as an explanation (except perhaps as the Programmer of the, otherwise unexplainable DNA-code):

Let's try a new rhythm: Let's propose that God (or a supremely powerful being, if that makes you more comfortable) made a rabbit hole so deep, we don't know how far it goes. We only know there's always more to discover. And that's how we break the deadlock between Darwin and Design. (p. 260)

Another alternative to neo-Darwinism is the so-called "The Third Way" movement in biology. From its mission statement: "Neo-Darwinism ignores important rapid evolutionary processes such as symbiogenesis, horizontal DNA transfer, action of mobile DNA and epigenetic modifications." There is considerable overlap with the territory covered by Marshall. Some contributors to this website might harbor a spiritual worldview, but this is definitely not a dominant feature of this movement.

This whole landscape of the various schools of thought, both scientific and religious, is often demarcated along the following lines (and so does Ken Wilber):

But a much more workable division would be one that recognizes that neo-Darwinism is itself a "third way" between creationism, Intelligent Design and alternative spiritual approaches on the one hand, and a random-chance-only view of evolution on the other (which is a strawman of creationists nobody believes in). For in the scientific view, evolution is never a matter of random-chance-alone. There are always other naturalistic processes in play that counterbalance the workings of pure chance. For any creationist, it is either chance or God/Spirit. Science has exposed the error in that logic.

Both chance and design are theoretically empty notions. Therefore we don't need to mix Darwin and Design. We need to avoid both chance and design to make further progress at all along Darwinian lines.

So the "deadlock" (Marshall) is not between Darwin and Design, but between Chance and Design. Darwin is not the problem. That dichotomy leads nowhere. In fact, Darwin is still the base of all further evolutionary schools. The Tree of Life may be "tangled" these days (see David Quammen's The Tangled Tree), but it is still a tree. All later schools don't contradict Darwin, they only enrich the picture we have on nature and its complexities. So-called alternatives for neo-Darwinism are often hyped by the popular press as refutations or revolutions, but they don't change the general picture.

In general, what Charles Darwin did for the origin of species, Lynn Margulis did for kingdoms (animals, plants, fungi). She did not ask how animal species evolve from previous species, but how animals arose in the first place. She probed deeper (or higher) in the taxonomy of life. And Carl Woese did the same for domains (bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes). Yet again another deeper (or higher) level to be clarified. There is no competition. They address different layers in the spectrum of evolution.

So we need a slightly different arrangement:

This way, spiritual approaches to evolution—including that of Ken Wilber and Perry Marshall—are clearly seen for what they are: varieties of creationism. They only differ in the way Divinity is conceptualized. In the middle we find all naturalistic schools of biological thought (and this, as said, is covered in Marshall's book as well).

This leads us to the following historical overview of evolutionary biology:

Roughly speaking, in the second half of the 19th century, the Darwinian foundation was laid down. It remains the foundation for all naturalistic schools of biological thought to this very day. But in the first half of the 20th century the so-called "Modern Synthesis" was created, in which (among other things) Darwin was integrated with Mendel's insights about heredity. In the second half of the 20th century, however, a so-called "Extended Evolutionary Synthesis" or "Post-Modern Synthesis" was suggested by several authors. True to the postmodern spirit, its boundaries are fluid, and there is controversy about what to include or exclude. But all post-Darwinian offshoots can be seen as branches sprouting from the same Darwinian trunk.

Some of these later investigators addressed different taxonomic levels, as the following diagram and table show:

Fig. 4 The major taxonomic ranks applied to the red fox, Vulpes vulpes.

RESEARCHER	TAXONOMY	MAIN DISCOVERY
Carl Woese (1928-2012)	DOMAIN	Two bacterial domains exist next to the eukaryotes
Lynn Margulis (1938-2011)	KINGDOM	Plants and animals are the result of bacterial fusion
Sean B. Carroll (b. 1960)	CLASS	Evo-devo explains how birds an beasts got their wings and legs.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)	SPECIES	Species have evolved due to the splitting of populations.

Table 2. In 150 years, evolutionary biology has expanded its research from the origin of species to the origin of kingdoms and domains.

So what Darwin (left) did for species, Sean B. Carroll did for classes, Lynn Margulis (middle) did for kingdoms (animals, plants, fungi) and Carl Woese (right) did for domains (bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes) and Stuart Kauffman might do for the origin of life itself. They digged deeper into the mysteries of nature than Darwin was able to do at his time.

But at no point did they invalidate his deep and hard-won conviction that you can get to species without a Creator—or Spirit for that matter. All of them were naturalists, Darwinists and secularists. All were addressing different bands of the Spectrum of Life on earth. A true Integral Biology can be built on these foundations.

EXPANDING THE SCOPE OF DARWINISM

In the end, all creationists are set apart in that they believe in some form of "guided evolution"—if they believe in evolution at all, of course. Although there is a wide variety of members of this community, they all have in common that their Spirit/God is seen as being behind all phenomena. They also share the same vagueness about how exactly Divinity operates in nature. In stark contrast, naturalistic schools of evolution believe natural forces and mechanisms in itself are sufficient to explain the varieties of biological existence. The naturalistic position is much, much more economical when it comes to explanatory principles. Compare the work to be done by God in creating each and every species to the simplicity of one evolutionary algorithm: variation plus selection plus inheritance equals evolution.

Yes, there is every reason to widen the scope of neo-Darwinism, if the empirical facts require this, so other naturalistic processes are acknowledged as well. This still remains within the domain of science, and is in no way an argument in favor of a spiritual view of evolution, in which invisible factors are postulated, but never specified. One can recognize a creationist as one who sees healthy controversy within a scientific discipline as proof for a spiritual view of evolution. Ken Wilber is definitely one of these. His treatment of biological evolution has been terribly superficial and uninformed. Even creationists like Perry Marshall can teach him about that subject.

Shanks provides a nice economic metaphor for how a complex environment of interactions can be the result of unplanned and unintended forces, or self-organization: "The good effects result from self-organization—that is, the invisible hand of economic mechanisms operating in accord with the laws of supply and demand." (p. 45) In the famous words of Adam Smith, who introduced this notion of an invisible hand: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Could it be that evolution works the same way? It is not from the will of the animals that eyes and wings are evolved, but from their struggle to survive? Eros would then be such an Invisible Supernatural Hand of evolution. A metaphor, not for a spiritual reality but a naturalistic process. Invisible and non-existent—even though that is hard to believe at first sight for those who want to see Spirit-in-Action..

NOTES

[1] Foreword to: Niall Shanks, God, the Devil and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory, Oxford University Press, 2004. A superb introduction into this field, which also contains illuminating discussions of entropy, thermodynamics, self-organization, biological and cosmological fine-tuning, Wilber could learn from—but that is a different story...

[2] Brad Reynolds, "Real Integral vs. Fake Integral, Transcending-Yet-Including the Knowledge of Science", Part One, Part Two, Part Three, www.integralworld.net, February 2019.

[3] Frank Visser, "DNA as Proof for God's Existence? Review of Perry Marshall's "Evolution 2.0: Breaking the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design"", www.integralworld.net, January 2017.

Comments

Edward · Mar 19, 2019
One of Wilber's most remarkable ideas is that the Four Quadrants mutually interact and co-determine evolutionary changes. I've never seen this notion described by any other thinker.

Edward · Mar 9, 2019
Dear Brad Reynolds,
Hopefully you'll become a regular and ongoing commentator on this website. It definitely would raise the level of the back and forth discussion of Wilber's ideas..

David Christopher Lane · Mar 8, 2019
Hi Brad,

Actually, contrary to what you write Wilber does indeed argue that the Eye of Spirit is amenable to science. Indeed, that is why he first wrote his article (later book), Eye to Eye. As his close friend and associate, Dr. Roger Walsh (UC Irvine) wrote on Ken Wilber's own website: "His [Wilber's] hope is to provide the methodological basis for sciences of sensory experience, mental experience, AND SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE; sciences of the eyes of flesh, mind, AND SPIRIT; monological, dialogical, and translogical."

Furthermore, Eros (like Zeus) is also has a "very specific cultural-historical context"" Eros defined: Primordial god. According to Hesiod's Theogony (c. 700 BC), one of the most ancient of all Greek sources, Eros (the god of love) was the fourth god to come into existence, coming after Chaos, Gaia (the Earth), and Tartarus (the abyss)."

The mixture of apples and oranges is when Wilber mixes mythic gods of the past as place holders for rational scientific discourse. If Wilber wants to present us with an viable alternative Darwinian evolution, then he has to provide us with a step by step explanation of precisely how Deoxyribonucleic acid gets transformed over time to produce such a wide variety of creatures (from dolphins to humans to ants). In other words, he has to do the hard work necessary which provides us with a believable algorithm instead of his non-algorithmic leaps of "spirit in action" unfolding which neither explanatory or helpful, save making us feel the "goo" of his New Age cheerleading.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is great that Wilber advocates meditation, self-inquiry, mindfulness, etc., but opening the eye of spirit doesn't then mean that we then understand the secret behind evolution. Just as opening my empirical eye doesn't by itself reveal how my brain tricks me into seeing patterns that are not there, as Immanuel Kant pointed out many years ago in his famous Critique of Pure Reason.

I see that you like to invoke dogmatic and axiomatic statements when you write (without hesitation) such platitudes as "Divine Spirit is REAL and true."

Science doesn't have this type of hubris, since it is always open to being wrong, uncertain, and correction. And even when it does have a particular confidence in a theory or idea (such as Newton's understanding of gravity) it is open ended enough to be transformed when someone like Einstein comes up with his general theory of relativity.

So, if Wilber wants his eros theory of evolution taken seriously he is going to have up his game and start being accurate (very accurate) about the current state of the field and stop creating caricatures that are misleading.

Hence, Visser's critique is necessary, helpful, and progressive.

Brad Reynolds · Mar 8, 2019
Dear David,

You are tripping over your own feet, my brother, for neither I nor Wilber ever said that seeing with the Eye of Spirit IS science -- we are saying it TRANSCENDS-YET-INCLUDES science, not replaces science.

Besides, "Zeus" has a very specific cultural-historical context, so I'm not saying evolution is "Zeus-in-action" (unless, of course, you go to the root meaning of "Zeus" which is "Brightness," then yeah, maybe that would work for me, instead of your Homeric interpretation of Zeus). And not "Jesus-in-action" either, although maybe if you said "Christ Consciousness-in-action" I might agree with your metaphors. So you're mixing apples and oranges.

No one is suggesting "to get rid of science" (for we all want healthy teeth and good root canals ;-) -- science is very good on the relative level of existence, but maybe that is not all there IS. Thus, as I said (in my essays): Science is a good investigative method, just inadequate for a Life Philosophy or understanding Reality as a Whole because Divine Spirit is REAL and true... if that knowledge has been adequately acquired.

so yup, you are right: Spirit-in-action cannot be measured by math or algorithms -- thus essentially proving you know not what I (or Wilber) is talking about, which is there is more needed than just science to truthfully see (or understand) our Universe-Reality as it truly IS.

There is no scientific argument that will convince you, since it is only Spiritual Revelation, not religions metaphysics, that will ever convince the ego-I of what is really True -- hence, En-Light-enment or God-Realization. That proof resides in the pudding, not the recipe.

Besides, as I clearly explained in my previous essays, I agree Wilber failed in some ways (or was sloppy) in some of his scientific explanations -- yet he's also very good too -- but the pandit is presenting an INTEGRAL Vision of Reality, one including-yet (also)-transcending science.

Therefore, as I suggested, it might be better for real integralists to improve upon his errors -- yet still realizing what he means with terms like "Spirit-in-action" as being an expression of Divine Love (i.e., "Eros") manifesting our Kosmos -- instead of trying to tear down his whole project because it is "bad science," for there is a LOT more there than being just about science. That is what you and Frank seem to be missing, imho.

For if a person is so in love with science, which frankly you both are (as am I), therefore one either believes in scientism (i.e., science is the only valuable truth system) OR we try to improve our Life Philosophy by seeing Spirit (or Enlightened God-Realization), as well as science, as each offering valid methods of knowing about our beautiful Universe.

Seen?

Frank (mod) · Mar 8, 2019
@Brad Reynolds,

You must have read Wilber very selectively. In Wilber’s Kindergarten metaphysics Eros is the cohesive force that turns quarks into atoms, atoms into molecules, molecules into cells, etcetera, etcetera, until we reach human complexity.

This is one of his clearest statements (incl. his misrepresentation of neo-Darwinism as a chance-only affair):

[quote]

All of this, without exception, is driven by love.

The great philosophers throughout history have referred to it by many names. Eros is one of the most common.

Now, Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory holds that all these transformations upward were just the result of chance and randomness. But there is no way in hell that the universe went from atoms to Shakespeare out of random stabs. This is an extraordinarily driven process.”

Source: www.enlightennext.org
EnlightenNext, nr. 47, 2011.
"The Cosmic Dimensions of Love"

Frank (mod) · Mar 8, 2019
@Brad Reynolds,

I am not going to split theological hairs with you on the question: is Wilber a creationist or not. The following quote from The Fourth Turning speaks volumes to me about a positive answer to this question.
[quote]

One thing for sure about evolution is that, as the Intelligent Design folks have aptly pointed out, it cries out for a spiritual explanation (though not for one taken only from the Bible).

[unquote]

It doesn’t matter if Wilbers concept of the Divine is crude or sophisticated. The form of his logic (it is either Spirit or chance) makes him a creationist to me.

David Christopher Lane · Mar 7, 2019
Thanks Brad for your reply.

But to be frank (not Visser, jk, but in terms of being upfront), your defense that "'Eros" or Spirit-in-action' is an expression or metaphor for the natural unfolding of evolution as ultimately being a spiritual and divine process. This is because the entire Kosmos (including evolution) is nothing but God (or the Real Divine Condition)," is a theological canard and not a scientific one. Instead of saying "Eros" or "Spirit in action" I could if I were so inclined say "Zeus" or "Jesus in action." This doesn't progress the argument one iota, since as you yourself admit, "an understanding cannot be adequately gained by the logical or rational mind alone (or the measurements of science), but requires genuine self-transcendence -- or mind-transcendence -- in order to fully understand and know its import and validity." Which of course begs the question of what one means by "genuine" since what Wilber or yourself or Adi Da may argue is "genuine" will be disputed by others with a different religious bent. Thus your argument is purely a theological one and not applicable to the very nuts and bolts about the "how" of evolution which was Darwin's great advance since he and Wallace posited the mechanism (natural selection, sexual selection, and later genetic drift, etc.) by which complexity can emerge from simpler structures. If Wilber wishes to do real science (and not indulge in bad religious metaphors) then he has to show how evolution works, not by a set of wishes or beliefs or admonitions about opening up one's third eye. Yes, we can indeed invoke all sorts of "yes, but clauses" in order to champion our eye of spirit predilections but that only delays the inevitable epistemological questions about precisely how does a simple strand of DNA mutate and produce the variety of species we see on planet earth. Darwin, Wallace, and a host of other working biologists are interested in showing precisely how such things occur in nature, without aborting their efforts prematurely to invoke metaphysical causations that in themselves are so questionable as to be downright silly.

So, yea, we disagree here.

I will make this much simpler. If I go to my dentist and I have a root canal problem and I was in a philosophical mood, I might ask, "why do such things happen." He could if he so desired to tell me that it is because that is the way "spirit in action" or "eros" works. When I balk at such an explanation, he could then say, "dude, you need to know God or your 'Real Divine Condition' because your puny and logical mind cannot yet access those higher secrets."

Whereas, he could focus on the very mechanics, the very physicality, of my tooth and proceed to give me a step by step, algorithmic explanation of why nerve endings send chemical electrical signals to the brain and so on.

Your argument is essentially non-algorithmic. That is fine, but it isn't science. The same holds true for Wilber.

Again, if Wilber wants to make a persuasive scientific argument for Eros or spirit in action, then that would be refreshing.

He hasn't and thus Visser is right on the mark to critique his bad science.

Brad Reynolds · Mar 7, 2019
Hi David,

You and Frank continue to misunderstand that Eros is not a "guided view of evolution", as if it is some force acting on natural selection -- you both continually promote this fallacy (and blame Wilber). Rather, as I explained in my recent essays (and Wilber does in his books), so-called "Eros" or "Spirit-in-action" is an expression or metaphor for the natural unfolding of evolution as ultimately being a spiritual and divine process. This is because the entire Kosmos (including evolution) is nothing but God (or the Real Divine Condition), not a mythic Deity outside of it all, which it seems to me you two often confuse and thus direct your criticism.

You guys concretize Eros (and Spirit) into an object or process, which is a misunderstanding of Wilber's intent.

However, such an understanding cannot be adequately gained by the logical or rational mind alone (or the measurements of science), but requires genuine self-transcendence -- or mind-transcendence -- in order to fully understand and know its import and validity. This is why it takes an active Eye of Spirit, as well as the Eye of Mind, to fully comprehend Wilber's positions -- as I point out in my essays.

Unfortunately, you and Visser do not adequately demonstrate you truly understand this point about Spirit-in-action (or Eros) as Wilber has articulated it. Consequently, there is this roundabout round robin of critiquing a false presentation of Wilber's work.

There is another, and I suggest, better way to see what is happening here:

Evolution IS the Divine Reality manifesting the natural processes of Nature, not some force outside of Nature somehow magically interfering with what you guys consider to be the inviolate process of Nature. Yet Nature-Universe-Kosmos IS God-Brahman-Tao manifesting presently as our born reality or, in other words, as Spirit-in-action.

But a person either sees it or they don't, I guess. And if not, they will argue for the counter point of view (like with science) until another (more spiritual) vision of reality is seen and known. Hence, this is why we must all continue the human (and spiritual) developmental process involved in the EVOLUTION of Consciousness (as Wilber has also outlined, indeed, that is his main interest; not countering natural selection or Neo-Darwinian views). It really is a philosophical matter that goes beyond (or transcends-and-includes) science and the entire scientific project (as valuable as it is).

Therefore, sorry, but I will have to disagree with you (and instead agree with Wilber).

Thanks much & Bright blessings, Brad

David Christopher Lane · Mar 7, 2019
Hi Brad,

I have to say I disagree with you here since it is very clear from Wilber's writings (which I have read in their entirety given that I like much of what he writes at times) that he posits a teleological view of evolution which in essence is non-Darwinian and that is precisely why he could champion a book by Michael Behe who is, in fact, an advocate of Intelligent Design.

Yes, Wilber can definitely believe and argue for his own guided view of evolution (Eros driven, etc.), but in order for it to be persuasive, he must proffer evidence that is convincing. He has failed to do such.

Saying something about "genuine" spirituality doesn't detract from Visser's main argument against Wilber. But let me have someone else, namely Massimo Pigliucci explain why "conscious evolution" is a category error:

"I am not usually known for my orthodox thinking about evolution, and yet in this case I have to reject the premise of the current exercise: no, evolution is not a conscious process, and to think so is an example of what philosophers call a category mistake, predicated on a fallacy of equivocation, to boot. How 20th century of me......"

And he continues which goes right to the core why Wilber is being so heavily critiqued in this area:

But the rejection of the Aristotelian approach, which natural theologians during the Middle Ages and until the 19th century turned into the famous argument from design, is precisely one of the greatest accomplishments not just of Darwin, but of modern science. Before we attempt to reverse it, we better get both our logic and our facts very, very straight."

Brad Reynolds · Mar 7, 2019
Ken Wilber is NOT a Creationist! Nor is his Integral Philosophy.

Only if you misunderstand what Wilber is talking about, and reinterpret it based upon that misunderstanding (strawman), can a person come to such ill-informed conclusions as Visser has done here.

It also takes a good dose of NOT understanding what genuine spirituality is about too — not the “Intelligent Design” argument either, which is just mythic thinking cloaked in scientific terms.

Please go READ Wilber for yourself, in whole, and not in extracted sentences to discover who is mistaken here or not.

The “naturalistic process” IS Spirit-in-action, if you understand Spirit correctly (not as a “force” or separate reality but as the Condition of Reality Itself).

I find this presentation to be a genuine distortion of Wilber’s view.

f.visser3 (mod) · Mar 8, 2019
@Brad Reynolds,

If “the naturalistic process IS Spirit-in-Action” (your interpretation), than what is the added value of invoking Spirit here? Why not leave it at the naturalistic process itself? And why argue against random variation and natural selection - which Wilber constantly does - since that will be Spirit as well.

Is Wilber honestly attempting to expand or improve on neo-Darwinism? No way. He just wants to diss it in favor of his Spirit-theory. Perry Marshall’s Evolution 2.0 is more constructive and informative on one page than all of Wilber when it comes to the workings of evolution.

Anonymous · Mar 6, 2019
Love the graphs as it clarifies what the real alternatives are....

JNDillard · Mar 5, 2019
Hi Frank! Thanks for this. Very nicely done. I particularly appreciate the clarity with which you differentiate neo-Darwinism from chance, as that is the trope that creationists/Wilber generally use to dismiss it.