30 seconds.  The end is sweetly inspiring!

At Lifehacker.

I'm stealing this from Dash, but it's worth pointing to - an excerpt from a book Twilight of the Gods:  This is one of the coolest and funniest takedowns of Ken Wilber I've seen, sly without being mean, recognizing Ken's work, without devaluing, yet freshly descriptive:

JE: In your book Coming Into Being you compare the work of Jean Gebser with Ken Wilber. Can you discuss the differences that you see in the approaches of both of these men to the evolution of consciousness?

WIT: Oh, it's almost classic cultured European versus Midwestern American hick. You know, I think people like Terence McKenna and Ken just grew up in Eastern Colorado and Nebraska in such culturally deprived areas that they get captured by a kind of abstract construction of what they imagine the big European thinker is, or the psychedelic hero in the case of McKenna. And Wilber, as I say in Coming Into Being, is just very abstract but Gebser is an artist. He has an incredible insight, for example, into the role of adjectives in Rilke, and what it means when you use language in a particular way to create an imaginative landscape that's more processive and less prospective of composed object nailed down into perspectival space. So there's an amazing senstivity to art and poetry and painting and the richness of European culture. But when I was teaching temporarily at the California Institute of Integral Studies, all the students didn't like Gebser because they can't remember a painting of Cezanne; they don't read Rilke. They're just into drugs and taking Extasy and going to Raves, and looking for some kind of psychotherapy technique. And so Wilber is their hero because he just gives them all these maps and charts, this Michelin guide. He's a control freak. There's no sense of humor, there's no sense of art, it's all just sterile and masculine in a very dry and abstract way.

I didn't want to be an egomaniac and say, well, my culture history is better than Wilber's. I didn't want to go into that. So I went out of my way to use Ken Wilber's Up From Eden as a textsbook, and had everybody read it in my Lindisfarne symposium at the cathedral. But when I did that, and went out of my way to give equal time and to really be open to Wilber, and read the book, and underlined it, I just thought, God, the difference between this and The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light--they cover exactly the same turf--is the difference between a textbook and a work of art!

Now, I think there is a lot of value in the Midwestern American hick philosopher - starting with William James, and onwards!  But it sure is interesting to get a different take on it - European arrogance rather than american!

Umguy reminds me of what I consider to be a great chart - from What Is Altitude?

The chart is useful to see the change from the "old" colors to the new color scheme from Integral Institute.

UPDATE:  One other point - from the article -

"States and stages, however, are deeply interrelated: research has shown that continued development through stages can help convert passing states into permanent traits, which is one of the more exciting findings of an Integral Approach....)"

Another attempt in this line - and I STILL haven't seen Wilber or II give credit, but maybe I've missed it - is Timothy Leary's 8 Circuit Model of Consciousness.

In regards to the Integral Institute quote above, I think the power of imprints - as permanent traits - hasn't been examined in depth, that I have seen.

Mainstream AP article here.

The must-read Jack Balkin article here:

The choice quote:

The bottom line is simple: The MCA preserves rights against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, but it severs these rights from any practical remedy.

This means, as a functional matter, there is no recourse for the innocently accused.  More:

There are many things that are deeply distressing about the Military Commissions Act of 2006. One of the most distressing is its deeply cynical attitude about law. The President has created a new regime in which he is a law unto himself on issues of prisoner interrogations. He decides whether he has violated the laws, and he decides whether to prosecute the people he in turn urges to break the law. And all the while he insists that everything he does is perfectly legal, because, the way the law is designed, there is no one with authority to disagree.

It is a travesty of law under the forms of law. It is the accumulation of executive, judicial, and legislative powers in a single branch and under a single individual.

It is the very essence of tyranny.

Also of note in the main article, is that a collection of religious groups were the protestors, in this case.

That shows one of the essential functions of a working religious or spiritual consciousness - the refusal to find acceptable degraded forms of treatment.

A cool feature for Google Search. Type in a "who is" question, and, if you are well known enough, a brief description of that person comes back:

Who is Albert Einstein? a German theoretical physicist who is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century.

Who is Elvis Presley?   Early in his career he was referred to as The Hillbilly Cat and was soon nicknamed Elvis the Pelvis.

Who is Ken Wilber?     is an American philosopher.

And there are the beginning of the metaphysical:

Who is Truth?   is part of philosophical logic, and within philosophy it is of special interest to metaphysics,

Who knows how good this will get, as search engines improve?  At some point, combine psychological assessments, with Google Search History (and personal Gmail, and personal GDocuments, and GSpreadsheets), and when you ask "What is my perfect job?" Google might respond!! 

Scary.

However, there are still some "bugs" in the ultimate question search engine.

When I ask the ultimate question:

Who am I?  

The top result is a mediocre Jackie Chan film...

Wisdom from Bill.

I just had a cool idea, when emailing a friend, (and I mean literally *Just*.  I emailed out to him a quick distillation of my thoughts, hit send, and then thought "I have to blog this!"), so I thought I would put it here. 

I have a history here of pontificating, ruminating, on Web 2.0, blogging, and spirituality.  And there have been all types of implementations.

Many times, I've thought to setup a SCOOP style site - for either Skillful Means posts, or for Integral posts.

However, at this point, Zaadz - which already has a bunch of other features that a SCOOP site wouldn't have - needs to do TWO things - and then there the NEED for a SCOOP style site, is made completely superfluous.

Ability to search blogs by tags (does Zaadz already have this?), and then ability to RATE a blogpost.

Most of my blogposts are mediocre.  I accept that. 

BUT

Some of my blogposts are excellent!! 

I know that is true as well. 

If people can RATE a blogpost, and you can lookup a blogpost based on recommendations, ratings, and taggings - well, then why do you need a SCOOP site?  You already have the functionality that, say, DailyKos is so useful for, right?

So - how is that coming!?



also posted at Zaadz

Another perspective.

A good overview of Habermas, and some post-critical philosophy.  (Philosophy after the "death of objectivity".)

This is especially important, as Haberman is addressing from his framework, what Wilber is attempting to address with Integral Spirituality.   By the way, here is a review.

Namely, as is said by the article, a “contextualist challenge to the realist intuition".

More than any other work, Integral Spirituality attempts to point out a way how RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS can "transcend and include" the lessons of post-modernism, without losing the essence of the traditions.  That is a big push for Wilber, in the sense of categorizing the types of knowledge domains (inner, outer, 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person.)

I saw from Integral Options, that scientists are reporting success in quantum teleportation.

That's pretty cool!

At any rate, the Wikipedia has a couple of good articles. 

One on quantum teleportation.

One on why it works, quantum entanglement.

From what I understand, in no way is this the normal understanding of teleportation, but have to do with the weirdness of quantum measurement, and exploiting the properties thereof. 

Two interacting pairs that have been entangled, if you measure one pair, you immediately know the state of the other pair.  From a wikipedia article:

Einstein coined the term "spooky action at a distance" or "SPAD" to describe these situations, which exhibit quantum entanglement. Relativistic quantum field theory requires interactions to propagate at less than the speed of light, so quantum entanglement cannot be used for faster-than-light-speed propagation of matter, energy, or information. However, it must be understood that a change to one entangled particle does indeed affect the other instantaneously, but this is only known after the experiment is performed and notes are compared, therefore there is no way to actually send information faster than the speed of light.

Hey there,

I've been debating over at Vomitting Confetti, this new act of Congress.  The debate - and it is important for me to have this debate remain civil - has mainly been with Matthew Dallman. 

At any rate, to further that end, I setup up poor Tuff Ghost in a thought experiment.  I reproduce below:

MD,

Thanks for providing the text, it is appreciated.

I think what you gloss over is the assumption of guilt, of someone who IS picked up as an unlawful enemy combatant. Mistakes happen, and there needs to be a way to challenge those mistakes.

Let's look at section two of unlawful enemy combatant:

"(ii) a person who, before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense."

Since I want this debate to remain amusing between us, I'm going to continue to, in imagination, subject poor TG to what happens when he is picked up in the U.S. by mistake:

Okay, so while flying to visit you in Chi-town, TG is mistakenly tagged as a dangerous enemy combatant, and taken into custody by the FBI.

He is then transferred to a facility where he can be interrogated.

Let's have some more fun, and we will say his interrogation consists of taking a page - with variation - out of The Clockwork Orange".

He is strapped to a chair, with eyelids forced open, and forced to watch The Star Wars Holiday Special for 72 hours straight at full volume.

Hey, you really can't consider that torture can you? Everyone loves Star Wars!! And people stay awake for 72 hours all the time.

At any rate, poor TG of course, doesn't know anything. Although, he might start making stuff up, if he thinks it will get him relief from seeing one more Wookie.

Then of course, his case eventually will be brought to a "Combatant Status Review Tribunal". That tribunal will get the transcripts of his interrogations, the reasons for the suspicions against TG (perhaps there is a person who hangs out on some of the al queda message boards who ALSO uses the moniker Tuff Ghost, or an approximation - that could have been the reason for the pickup, plus the fact that there are many posts about the War on Terror on this site!!)

Note - at no point does TG get access to a lawyer, or a chance to competently refute these charges. At no point does TG get the chance to see the evidence against him. Most likely, he doesn't go before this Tribunal personally. It is very possible that the evidence is provided to the tribunal, is very skewed, yes?

And if the tribunal says "we need more information", or agrees with the "evidence" produced, that's it for TG.

And that is a HUGE problem, don't you think.

By the way, TG - when are you coming to the States? You will enjoy US hospitality - why, at the beginning of the year, the United States decided to build a whole new group of accomodations!

Isn't that thoughtful?

I'm sure I'm missing a lot, but go over there to Vomiting Confetti's, and give your thoughts (be civil please).  Help me keep Tuff Ghost out of detention!  

Of course they aren't calling it that.

Here is a deeply pessimistic take.

For myself, one of the  more interesting social observations, is the slow creep of authoritarianism. 

Some of this bill will be rejected by the Supreme Court, when applied - at least I believe so - nevertheless, a bad result.

As bad as a result as this bill is of the U.S. authoritarian movement - and it is a REALLY bad one - the effects of that movement are not restricted to the Republican party. 

The same type of effect shows up in the various "good for you" rules that make one cough up a drivers license when going into a building, or set an extensive tangle of rules for every manner of activity.

There are a lot of economic strands here as well, tying in the corporate plutocracy, to the emerging authoritarian wave.  Technology - nominally - acts as a restrainer on that wave - but in time acts as an enabler as well.

I see from C4  that:

Zaadz Bookmarks is active.

It's very nice functionality.  Tagging is easy, drag and drop.  The cloud is implemented. So I've been finding great content. 

Plus, we should be able to recreate Kosmic Bloggers, with little effort!

While we have to see the end result, the rush to tyranny seems well on its way.

The Senate, siding with President Bush shortly after he personally lobbied lawmakers at the Capitol, rejected a move Thursday by a leading Republican to allow terrorism suspects to challenge their imprisonment in court.

Of course, being able to challenge one's detention is the hallmark of habeas corpus.  I already have given the story of Meher Arar - a Canadian siezed wrongly, and then taken to Syria and tortured.

There is also the story of a United States citizen, Cyrus Kar, who was also held illegally.  Funny enough, Cyrus Kar is a former Navy Seal. 

If you look at the Wikipedia page for Cyrus Kar, you will note that:

On July 6, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a petition for habeas corpus on his behalf. On July 10, he was released from military custody.

So - having the ability to file Habeas Corpus is - guess what? useful and effective when wrongly imprisoned.   And yet, Bush wants to gut the possibility of a Cyrus Kar, or a Meher Arar - innocent men - to be able to challenge their detentions. 


Some other, much more knowledgeable legal opinions:

Tyranny:  Our Generation's Version of the Alien and Sedition Acts.  This quotes the NY Times editorial, which accounts the flaws of the piece:

These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

Coerced Evidence: Coerced evidence would be permissible if a judge considered it reliable — already a contradiction in terms — and relevant. Coercion is defined in a way that exempts anything done before the passage of the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, and anything else Mr. Bush chooses.

Secret Evidence: American standards of justice prohibit evidence and testimony that is kept secret from the defendant, whether the accused is a corporate executive or a mass murderer. But the bill as redrafted by Mr. Cheney seems to weaken protections against such evidence.

Offenses: The definition of torture is unacceptably narrow, a virtual reprise of the deeply cynical memos the administration produced after 9/11. Rape and sexual assault are defined in a retrograde way that covers only forced or coerced activity, and not other forms of nonconsensual sex. The bill would effectively eliminate the idea of rape as torture.

Andrew Sullivan - no liberal he - also has a post titled, appropriately enough - Legalizing Tyranny.  Make sure to read the links from that story.


So there you have it. 

Of course, ANY version of integral would be against this.  Any version, and any ethical system - whether religious, or pragmatic, or stemming from any classical philosophies - would be against this.

And so should you be against this.

To shift the focus a bit - does anyone know how Wilber's philosophy locates the pursuit of power for power's sake?  I am assuming this is the old blue, now amber?  

One claim for Spiral Dyamics values, is that there is no "regression" in values.  That may be true individually - I'm still not positive - but at a society level, I'm not sure that holds. 

May your union grown beyond and through the two of you, and bring joy to the greater world around you.

You ever have one of those days, when you just are grouchy?

I've been a bit sick over the weekend, didn't get enough sleep last night - and I'm just...grouchy.

Normally, I would do a passive-agressive thing, and sublimate it, finding "good reasons" to be grouchy, at other people, etc.

But no - let's not do that! 

I take full conscious responsibility for my grouchiness - and with the help of the Insult Generator (thanks Bill), I can inflict my grouchiness on you!

So - ~C4?  What is it with your fake name being a type of explosive - what is wrong with you, you heavyweight bowl of freakish parrot droppings?!

And Vince?  Yeah you!   

You think I care about your little list of movies, You rotten bowelful of goofy expectorant?!

And you, Kate, with your absolutely incredible intimate writing ability - I don't care, you crooked drip of rustic cat hairs (say, with the cat hairs, that fits a bit - I promise, totally random...)

And you, Joe, I'm steamed up enough, you bizarre assortment of neurotic horse sweat!

And Per - you zoned too far, You vomitous barrel of sickening nose hair (editor: eww, gross...)

And Ryan - you can intensively engage the smell of my socks, You rat-faced gathering of abrupt pig droppings!

And Jean?  I'll GET you your chocolate, You moth-eaten earful of sun-ripened mule froth!

At any rate - thought I would get all that in the open.

Here endeth the experiment in letting my grouchiness, "all hang out"...

Check out this release by those "hippies greens" at Deutche Bank Research. (Warning - PDF file).

The note introduces these various measures of well-being:

GDP - Gross Domestic Product
Economic Well-Being
Living Conditions
Happiness

With a cool graphic to go with it all:



When I see stuff like this coming from one of the premier banks in the world, I know we are making progress with an integral world view.

Cross-posted at Zaadz.

Per has a good initial analysis here.

Here is the Amazon link.


cross-posted at Zaadz

Artic ice melts shocks scientists.

No idea if this is accurate or not. 

Take it for what it is worth.

Blogs a note about the Thailand political crisis.

Pongasthorn is one of our best integral theory bloggers.  I wish him and his all the best, and send out my prayers. 

Any integral, or any spiritual, person, can look at some of the world scenarios,  must shake their head.

After yesterday's discussion about habeas corpus, we now find that Maher Arar, one of the people that could have possibly disappeared into a criminal justice system - forever.

Luckily, he didn't.  Here is the Washington Post story.

Arar, now 36, was detained by U.S. authorities as he changed planes in New York on Sept. 26, 2002. He was held for questioning for 12 days, then flown by jet to Jordan and driven to Syria. He was beaten, forced to confess to having trained in Afghanistan -- where he never has been -- and then kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months before he was released, the Canadian inquiry commission found.

Remember, this is a mild, soft-spoken COMPUTER PROGRAMMER.  He could be me - about the right age - or you.   And this has already HAPPENED.

The legislation that I was referring to yesterday, would be used to prevent a person like Maher Arar, from even having the ability to question his detention. 

The thing is, governments WANT to cooperate with the United States.  Bad information from intelligence agents happen, and will get things wrong.  And people need to be held while the truth is figured out.  But then there needs to BE that period where humanitarian and rights of the accused take precedence, in a full legal system.  From the article:

After Arar was detained in New York, Canadian authorities apparently were unaware the Americans were preparing to send him to Syria, according to the commission finding.

The RCMP contact, Inspector Michel Cabana, "was under the impression that Mr. Arar would only be detained for a short time," O'Connor's report said. "In his view, Mr. Arar was being held in a country with many of the same values as Canada."

Arar filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court, but the case was dismissed by a judge citing "national security" issues. Arar is also seeking compensation from the Canadian government.

"National Security".  And national security is important, temporary seizures MUST happen - and should happen.  But they need to be temporary, and subject to review.

Again, for all we know, there may be people LIKE Arar, that have disappeared.  After all, many people seized have not had a court overhear WHY they were seized.

I don't hear Ken Wilber, or others, adding their voice to condemning these type of betrayals of integral values.

Why is that?  Is it so much more important to release another book about Integralism, than actually address fundamental betrayals of integral values, happening in one's own society?