AQAL

Hooray!  I am in Canada! 

Last night I hung out with two young kids hitchin' from Montreal to British Columbia to pick cherries.  Today, I drove my way to a small town called Elliot's Lake and went for a wonderful hike through some of the woodlands and then made my way up to a cliff where you can see as far as lake Huron.  Next stop?  I've decided to stop at Chute's Provincial park just outside of Massey.  I would head up to the Mississagi Provincial...but they aren't opening for a few more days. 

There have been a lot of cool things happening to me already in Canada-Land...but I don't intend to write much about that.  I do, however, finally have pictures uploaded.  You can see them on my facebook page in a day or two.

Let's talk a little bit about this whole AQAL thing.  What is it anyway?  Let's talk about the basics.  I have not included everything, just the things that I think are most pertinent to our current discussions.

Ken Wilbers AQAL:

Quadrants
Levels
Lines
States


Quadrants:

There are four quadrants, each approaching a different type of knowledge.  This is an updated version of such ideas as "Good, True, Beautiful," or "Art, Morals, Science."

The Upper Left quadrant studies the interior of the individual, or I. 
The Lower Left quadrant studies the interiors of culture, or We.
The Upper Right quadrant studies the exterior of the individual, or It.
The Lower Right quadrant studies the exterior of culture/society, or Its.

An example:  When I am talking to you, certain emotions and thoughts are going on in your awareness.  This is the UL quadrant.  Each of these thoughts can be measured and studied empirically to see what physiological/neurological correlates there are.  This is the UR quadrant.  Interpretation of both arises not just within the subject alone, but with a background, or context, of shared cultural meanings.  This is the LL quadrant.  These cultural values end up rooting themselves somewhere in the physical world, these words are written and read through a laptop with physical letters all because of certain production lines in our society.


Levels:

Within each quadrant there are developmental structures.  These are very crude examples.  They are meant to help you "get the idea" so to speak.

Example:

UL - This one can be a little difficult to see, since quite often a person is unaware that their own thoughts have a developing pattern to them.  When looking at the mind, for example, in order to form groups of concepts you need to first develop the ability to form A concept in the first place.  Increasing complexity!

LL - Morality...you can be self-centric, ethno-centric, or world-centric.  You cannot be world-centric without including all of the previous levels.  There is a natural progression towards more inclusiveness.

UR - A human being...starts out as a sperm, develops into an embryo, becomes a fetus, then baby, then teenager, then adult.  Notice the natural progression, as you cannot become an adult without first being a sperm.

LR - Societies...Hunter-gatherer, agrarian, industrial, technological.  Again, progression...


From here, we turn our discussion to the UL quadrant, since this is the one that we will work with most of the time during this blog.


Lines:

Let's use the UL quadrant for this example.  Research in psychology shows that a person goes through several lines of development.  Moral, kinesthetic, spiritual, musical, etc.  These lines all develop through the basic stages noted earlier.


States:

Within each level of development you have something that is known as state training.  This is easiest to understand perhaps within the contemplative/spiritual/religious realm.  Most religions partake in contemplative practices that involve higher states training.  Ever hear the term "mystical experiences?"  These states play a crucial role for developing to higher stages.  Though they don't always necessarily do that.


I do not claim to be fully integral when it comes to my future writings.  I instead wish to use the framework to help elucidate what type of knowledge I am working with within my own work at this point in time.  Namely, this will be the UL quadrant.  This will be extremely useful when it comes to bridging different fields of knowledge together.



I think that many of you are getting this idea quite simply.  So let's dive into another area before I finish this blog. 

The UL quadrant...can it be broken down into more parts?  Yes.


The interior of an interior.  This would be all of your thoughts and emotions going on currently in your own awareness right now, experienced by you.

The exterior of an interior (this is not the same as the UR quadrant.)  This would be someone looking at you experiencing your thoughts and emotions and trying to find a psychological structure around how they operate.  An example of a field of research doing this would be developmental psychology.



The library is about to close...

Cheers!

Justin