Table of Consciousness

Vaguely relates to tables or levels

I read half of David Hawkins’ book Power vs Force. I appreciated the mathematical analysis of consciousness. He proposed that the human brain is very complex dynamical system which can settle into several different patterns (attractor states) which are the levels of consciousness.

Imagine playing golf on a hilly course. At any given instant of time, the ball could be anywhere on the course or in the air above it. But it will eventually roll downhill and settle in a valley or bunker or hole. In chaos theory, these are “attractor states”. Hawkins proposes that the brain is like this with 17 different states it can settle in – such as shame, fear, courage, joy.

It’s a nice idea but with no evidence or support. He also assigns numbers to the different levels, such as 20 for shame and 600 for peace. He arrived at these numbers through kinesiology, which uses tension in muscles to bypass the brain and find out what the body “thinks”. He claims this technique taps into a universal consciousness which allows anybody to answer any yes/no question truthfully. So he asks things like “Do you feel over 200 about this?”

He says the scale is logarithmic which means that guilt (with value 30) is 10,000,000,000 times more advanced than shame (20) and courage (200) is a googol times fear (100).

Overall I got the feeling that he was trying to use scientific and mathematical labels without really understanding them. And his claim that anybody could answer any question was also unsupported. I gave up on the book halfway through, but I did like the mathematical approach.

Table of Consciousness
I compared his levels to Buddhism and Integral Theory. Integral Theory was started as an attempt to unify all other theories about psychology, consciousness and other fields. It has a methodical approach with lots of categorisation. I’ve only read a few articles but they seem well structured and supported. So bear in mind that Integral Theory’s approach to consciousness probably already includes the Buddhist approach. For some stages, Hawkins’ estimates how many people reach it (eg 15% reach courage). Integral’s stages use colours as well. Here is my own comparison:

Power vs Force	10 Worlds of Buddhism	Integral Theory Stages
20 shame	1 hell	survival, beige
30 guilt
50 apathy
75 grief
100 fear	3 animality	animistic/impulsive, magenta
125 desire	2 hunger	egocentric/self protective, red
150 anger	4 anger
175 pride
200 courage (15/100)
250 neutrality	5 tranquility	conformist, amber
310 willingness
350 acceptance		conscientious, orange
400 reason	7 learning 8 absorption	individualistic, green
500 love (1/250)
540 joy	6 rapture 9 Bodhisattva/ compassion	autonomous, teal
600 peace (1/10,000,000)		illumined mind, turquoise-indigo
700-1000 enlightenment	10 Buddhahood	transpersonal, voilet-clear

There are similarities between them. Each seems to also have 3 or 4 groupings – selfish stages, humane and tranquil stages, love and learning, and enlightenment:

Power vs Force	10 Worlds of Buddhism	Integral Theory
shame-pride, below 200	worlds 1-4 are the 4 evil paths	egocentric stages
courage-reason, 200-500	world 5, tranquility	ethnocentric stage
love-peace, 500-600	worlds 7-10 are the 4 noble paths, though 7&8 are closer to reason	worldcentric
enlightenment, 700-1000	Buddhahood	kosmocentric

All three theories say that people change levels all the time, but have a general stage which usually remains the same for one’s whole life. I find it difficult to tell which stage I am in, though I think I spend most of my time in the second group, with frequent forays into the first, and glimpses at the third.

The meaning of life
In any case, it is a useful analogy for my numeric mind, and reminds me of the aliveness scale that I’ve based this blog around. Perhaps a possible meaning of life is to raise oneself as high as possible through the levels, as Buddhism proposes.

Levels of Consciousness

A good friend of mine is studying Integral Theory, and we talked about levels of consciousness. This blog entry summarises these levels as described in David Hawkin’s book Power of Force, which I’ll soon read. The levels are: shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, pride, courage, neutrality, willingness, acceptance, reason, love, joy, peace, enlightenment.

I’m not sure if these are the same levels as used in Integral Theory. But they are similar to Buddhism’s 10 states of life: hell, hunger (greed), animality (instinctive behaviour), anger, tranquility, rapture, learning, absorption, bodhisattva (caring for others), buddahood (enlightenment). But more expanded and with more terminology from psychotherapy.

If the point of life could be viewed on a graph, this would provide a nice X-axis. I’ll write more when I’ve read the book.

 

Why bother? Why not?

Why not live?

A month ago I was talking with my sister about learning new skills. I’d like to learn another language, but a part of me wonders “why bother?” I enjoy learning, but would probably not use it very much, and that knowledge will stay in my head, slowly get overtaken by other things, and eventually die with me. From there it’s a slippery slope to “why learn anything?” and then “why do anything?” and finally “what’s the point?” – the question for which I started this blog.

She replied with “why not?” If there’s no great advantage to learning something new, there’s also no great disadvantage. I can make the effort, and enjoy the learning process, and  learn a bit about another culture; or not. I can die with a bit of Arabic (or sign language – not sure which yet) in my head; or not. So if it doesn’t matter either way, then why not do it?

And maybe the other questions can be answered the same way: Why learn anything? Why not? Why do anything? Why not?

What’s the point of life? What’s the point of death? => Why not live?

The Wrong Question

Fascinating book about genes

I’ve been reading a fascinating book called Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. It has caused me to revisit a possible purpose of life which I summarised and pretty much dismissed in my very first post: having kids. I dismissed it again after realising that after a few generations every one of my 100,000 genes would be diluted.

But that was a very human-centric point of view – assuming that “what is the point of life?” is a human question with a human answer. We have about 50 trillion cells in our bodies. Each one of those contains a complete copy of our genome. What if the point of life is supposed to be answered on their level instead?

Life can possibly be defined as the ability to replicate itself. Something which a string of molecules managed to do on Earth 4 billion years ago, and has continued ever since. They are embedded in our cells as genes. If that is life, then the point of life is to continue that replication. And humans just provide one form of packaging. Our bodies are just the genes’ survival machines – a term used by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene. And arguably bacteria are a more advanced form of life than us because they are more proliferate, streamlined and replicate more often than our own cells.

I’m not sure whether this is a liberating or depressing view. Liberating in that it indicates a concrete point, almost a direction, for life itself. It essentially answers the question of this blog. Depressing because humans and all organisms are just side effects, and so on a human level there is no point. Even having children serves life’s point of life, but not the human point of life.

I may have to rephrase the question now to “what is the point of life for humans?” But it seems likely that there is no deep fundamental answer to that question,  and that we are simply byproducts of a chemical quest.

Peace a Minute at a Time

I think that practicing Buddhists aim to be at peace with themselves all the time – to have a clear and fully engaged mind every waking moment. This sounds great, but is very very very ambitious for a person who is also fully engaged in modern society.

Even being calm during meditation classes is difficult. How can I have a long hectic, stressful day, rush to a meditation class, try to clear my mind from 7-9pm, rush home again to eat, watch or read something violent, and then go to bed?

So I’ve got a new idea now. I will try and have peace of mind for a minute or two, a couple times a week, something like that. I will wait until a really nice moment comes along, when I’m mostly peaceful anyway, and then notice it and appreciate it, and hold onto it for a few seconds.

I started this a couple weeks ago when I went to a cafe with my sister. The atmosphere, the view, the company, the music, the tea – everything was perfect, and I sat there feeling really good about it for a few seconds. It has also happened on train platforms, when the sun is shining warmly through the trees, a breeze is blowing, and people are chatting and milling about. And not in a hurry, because you can’t make the train come any quicker.

I’ve been writing these moments down. Hopefully after a while they’ll become more frequent.

Sunny Days

Late afternoon sun on a sandy beach

I’ve had this blog for over a year now, and I’ve read lots of psychology and philosophy and done lots of contemplation and thinking.

Then quite out of the blue at the beginning of October the UK had a heatwave. A week of glorious warm sunshine, tshirts, smiles, shimmering blue sea, open windows, gentle breeze, the works. And I felt really happy.

It made me think that maybe the point of life isn’t some grand philosophical answer, or years of meditation to achieve inner peace. Perhaps the point of life is to enjoy the sunshine. Maybe a big part of happiness is chemical: exercise, diet and light. And maybe one of my closely cherished notions – that it doesn’t matter where you live, it’s more about the people – is not completely true.

I don’t want to move, but I can make sure I come out when the sun does.

Inner Critic Critic

Many pop psychology books talk about the “inner critic” – the voice that goes on and on in your head, commenting on everything you do. Buddhism encourages you to quieten that voice, so that your mind is clear and placid and open to the here and now. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy encourages you to accept the voice, acknowledge that it is there, but not a core part of you.

Practically, it means I spend a lot of time trying to quieten or accept the voice, and feeling annoyed or guilty for failing, and making the situation worse not better. I end up with a critic of this Inner Critic, an Inner Critic Critic.

So I’m trying not to be so critical. ACT and Transactional Analysis have been very useful for handling the bile and negativity of the Inner Critic, but stopping it altogether seems unhealthy. To this end, I now have a subtle Inner Critic Critic Critic, which reminds the Inner Critic Critic to allow the Inner Critic to breath and dream.