Ken Wilber

Kenneth Earl Wilber II (born January 31,

1949) is an American theorist and writer
on transpersonal psychology and his own
integral theory,[1] a four-quadrant grid
which purports to encompass all human
knowledge and experience.[2]
 Ken Wilber

Wilber in 2006 with Bernard Glassman

(background)

Born January 31, 1949

Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma, United
States

Education Duke University

(no degree)
University of
Nebraska at Lincoln
(no degree)
Notable work The Spectrum of
Consciousness
(1977)
The Atman Project
(1980)
Grace and Grit (1991)
Sex, Ecology,
Spirituality 2001

Era New Age

Region Western esotericism

Main interests Integral theory

Life and career

Wilber was born in 1949 in Oklahoma
City. In 1967 he enrolled as a pre-med
student at Duke University.[3] He became
interested in psychology and Eastern
spirituality. He left Duke and enrolled at
the University of Nebraska at Lincoln
studying biochemistry, but after a few
years dropped out of university and
began studying his own curriculum and
writing.[4]

In 1973 Wilber completed his first book,

The Spectrum of Consciousness,[5] in
which he sought to integrate knowledge
from disparate fields. After rejections by
more than 20 publishers it was accepted
in 1977 by Quest Books, and he spent a
year giving lectures and workshops
before going back to writing, publishing
The Atman Project, in which he put his
idea of a spectrum of consciousness in a
developmental context. He also helped to
launch the journal ReVision in 1978.[6]

In 1982, New Science Library published

his anthology The Holographic Paradigm
and Other Paradoxes,[7] a collection of
essays and interviews, including one by
David Bohm. The essays, including one
of his own, looked at how holography and
the holographic paradigm relate to the
fields of consciousness, mysticism, and
science.

In 1983, Wilber married Terry "Treya"

Killam who was shortly thereafter
diagnosed with breast cancer. From 1984
until 1987, Wilber gave up most of his
writing to care for her. Killam died in
January 1989; their joint experience was
recorded in the 1991 book Grace and Grit.

In 1987, Wilber moved to Boulder,

Colorado, where he worked on his
Kosmos trilogy and supervised the work
and functioning of the Integral Institute.[8]

Wilber wrote Sex, Ecology, Spirituality

(1995), the first volume of his Kosmos
Trilogy, presenting his "theory of
everything," a four-quadrant grid in which
he summarized his reading in psychology
and Eastern and Western philosophy up
to that time. A Brief History of Everything
(1996) was the popularised summary of
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality in interview
format. The Eye of Spirit (1997) was a
compilation of articles he had written for
the journal ReVision on the relationship
between science and religion.
Throughout 1997, he had kept journals of
his personal experiences, which were
published in 1999 as One Taste, a term
for unitary consciousness. Over the next
two years his publisher, Shambhala
Publications, released eight re-edited
volumes of his Collected Works. In 1999,
he finished Integral Psychology and wrote
A Theory of Everything (2000). In A Theory
of Everything Wilber attempts to bridge
business, politics, science and spirituality
and show how they integrate with
theories of developmental psychology,
such as Spiral Dynamics. His novel,
Boomeritis (2002), attempts to expose
what he perceives as the egotism of the
baby boom generation. Frank Visser's
Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (2003), a
guide to Wilber's thought, was praised by
Edward J. Sullivan[9] and Daryl S.
Paulson, with the latter calling it "an
outstanding synthesis of Wilber's
published works through the evolution of
his thoughts over time. The book will be
of value to any transpersonal humanist
or integral philosophy student who does
not want to read all of Wilber's works to
understand his message."[10]
In 2012, Wilber joined the advisory board
of the International Simultaneous Policy
Organization which seeks to end the
usual deadlock in tackling global issues
through an international simultaneous
policy.[11][12]

Wilber stated in 2011 that he has long

suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome,
possibly caused by RNase enzyme
deficiency disease.[13][14]

Integral theory
Upper-Left (UL) Upper-Right (UR)

"I" "It"
Interior Individual Exterior Individual
Intentional Behavioral

e.g. Freud e.g. Skinner

Lower-Left (LL) Lower-Right (LR)

"We" "Its"
Interior Collective Exterior Collective
Cultural Social

e.g. Gadamer e.g. Marx

All Quadrants All Levels (AQAL, pron. "ah-

qwul") is the basic framework of integral
theory. It models human knowledge and
experience with a four-quadrant grid,
along the axes of "interior-exterior" and
"individual-collective". According to
Wilber, it is a comprehensive approach to
reality, a metatheory that attempts to
explain how academic disciplines and
every form of knowledge and experience
fit together coherently.[2]
AQAL is based on four fundamental
concepts and a rest-category: four
quadrants, several levels and lines of
development, several states of
consciousness, and "types", topics which
do not fit into these four concepts.[15]
"Levels" are the stages of development,
from pre-personal through personal to
transpersonal. "Lines" of development
are various domains which may progress
unevenly through different stages .[note 1]
"States" are states of consciousness;
according to Wilber persons may have a
temporal experience of a higher
developmental stage.[note 2] "Types" is a
rest-category, for phenomena which do
not fit in the other four concepts.[16] In
order for an account of the Kosmos to be
complete, Wilber believes that it must
include each of these five categories. For
Wilber, only such an account can be
accurately called "integral". In the essay,
"Excerpt C: The Ways We Are in This
Together", Wilber describes AQAL as
"one suggested architecture of the
Kosmos".[17]

The model's apex is formless awareness,

"the simple feeling of being", which is
equated with a range of "ultimates" from
a variety of eastern traditions. This
formless awareness transcends the
phenomenal world, which is ultimately
only an appearance of some
transcendental reality. According to
Wilber, the AQAL categories — quadrants,
lines, levels, states, and types – describe
the relative truth of the two truths
doctrine of Buddhism. According to
Wilber, none of them are true in an
absolute sense. Only formless
awareness, "the simple feeling of
being",[18] exists absolutely.[note 3]

Other ideas

Mysticism and the great chain of

being

One of Wilber's main interests is in

mapping what he calls the "neo-perennial
philosophy", an integration of some of
the views of mysticism typified by Aldous
Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy with an
account of cosmic evolution akin to that
of the Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo. He
rejects most of the tenets of
Perennialism and the associated anti-
evolutionary view of history as a
regression from past ages or yugas.[19]
Instead, he embraces a more traditionally
Western notion of the great chain of
being. As in the work of Jean Gebser, this
great chain (or "nest") is ever-present
while relatively unfolding throughout this
material manifestation, although to
Wilber "... the 'Great Nest' is actually just
a vast morphogenetic field of potentials
..." In agreement with Mahayana
Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta, he
believes that reality is ultimately a
nondual union of emptiness and form,
with form being innately subject to
development over time.

Theory of truth
Interior Exterior

Standard: Truthfulness Standard: Truth

(1st person) (3rd person)
Individual
(sincerity, integrity, (correspondence,
trustworthiness) representation, propositional)

Standard: Justness Standard: Functional fit

(2nd person) (3rd person)
Collective (cultural fit, rightness, (systems theory web,
mutual understanding) Structural functionalism,
social systems mesh)

Wilber believes that the mystical

traditions of the world provide access to,
and knowledge of, a transcendental
reality which is perennial, consistent
throughout all times and cultures. This
proposition underlies the whole of his
conceptual edifice, and is an
unquestioned assumption.[note 4] Wilber
juxtaposites this generalization to plain
materialism, presented as the main
paradigm of regular science.[21][quote 1]

In his later works, Wilber argues that

manifest reality is composed of four
domains, and that each domain, or
"quadrant", has its own truth-standard, or
test for validity:[22]

"Interior individual/1st person": the

subjective world, the individual
subjective sphere;[23]
 "Interior collective/2nd person": the
intersubjective space, the cultural
background;[23]
"Exterior individual/3rd person": the
objective state of affairs;[23]
"Exterior collective/3rd person": the
functional fit, "how entities fit together
in a system".[23]

Pre/trans fallacy

Wilber believes that many claims about

non-rational states make a mistake he
calls the pre/trans fallacy. According to
Wilber, the non-rational stages of
consciousness (what Wilber calls "pre-
rational" and "trans-rational" stages) can
be easily confused with one another. In
Wilber's view, one can reduce trans-
rational spiritual realization to pre-
rational regression, or one can elevate
pre-rational states to the trans-rational
domain.[24] For example, Wilber claims
that Freud and Jung commit this fallacy.
Freud considered mystical realization to
be a regression to infantile oceanic
states. Wilber alleges that Freud thus
commits a fallacy of reduction. Wilber
thinks that Jung commits the converse
form of the same mistake by considering
pre-rational myths to reflect divine
realizations. Likewise, pre-rational states
may be misidentified as post-rational
states.[25] Wilber characterizes himself
as having fallen victim to the pre/trans
fallacy in his early work.[26]

Wilber on science

Wilber describes the state of the "hard"

sciences as limited to "narrow science",
which only allows evidence from the
lowest realm of consciousness, the
sensorimotor (the five senses and their
extensions). Wilber sees science in the
broad sense as characterized by
involving three steps:[27][28]

specifying an experiment,
performing the experiment and
observing the results, and
 checking the results with others who
have competently performed the same
experiment.

He has presented these as "three strands

of valid knowledge" in Part III of his book
The Marriage of Sense and Soul.[29]

What Wilber calls "broad science" would

include evidence from logic,
mathematics, and from the symbolic,
hermeneutical, and other realms of
consciousness. Ultimately and ideally,
broad science would include the
testimony of meditators and spiritual
practitioners. Wilber's own conception of
science includes both narrow science
and broad science, e.g., using
electroencephalogram machines and
other technologies to test the
experiences of meditators and other
spiritual practitioners, creating what
Wilber calls "integral science".

According to Wilber's theory, narrow

science trumps narrow religion, but
broad science trumps narrow science.
That is, the natural sciences provide a
more inclusive, accurate account of
reality than any of the particular exoteric
religious traditions. But an integral
approach that uses intersubjectivity to
evaluate both religious claims and
scientific claims will give a more
complete account of reality than narrow
science.

Wilber has referred to Stuart Kauffman,

Ilya Prigogine, Alfred North Whitehead,
and others who also articulate his
vitalistic and teleological understanding
of reality, which is deeply at odds with
the modern evolutionary
synthesis.[30][quote 2]

Later work

In 2005, at the launch of the Integral

Spiritual Center, a branch of the Integral
Institute, Wilber presented a 118-page
rough draft summary of his two
forthcoming books.[31] The essay is
entitled "What is Integral Spirituality?",
and contains several new ideas, including
Integral post-metaphysics and the
Wilber-Combs lattice. In 2006, he
published "Integral Spirituality", in which
he elaborated on these ideas, as well as
others such as Integral Methodological
Pluralism and the developmental
conveyor belt of religion.

"Integral post-metaphysics" is the term

Wilber has given to his attempts to
reconstruct the world's spiritual-religious
traditions in a way that accounts for the
modern and post-modern criticisms of
those traditions.[32]
The Wilber-Combs Lattice is a
conceptual model of consciousness
developed by Wilber and Allan Combs. It
is a grid with sequential states of
consciousness on the x axis (from left to
right) and with developmental structures,
or levels, of consciousness on the y axis
(from bottom to top). This lattice
illustrates how each structure of
consciousness interprets experiences of
different states of consciousness,
including mystical states, in different
ways.[33]

Wilber attracted a lot of controversy from

2011 to the present day by supporting
Marc Gafni. Gafni was accused in the
media of sexually assaulting a minor.[34]
Wilber has in fact publicly supported
Gafni on his blog.[35][36] A petition begun
by a group of Rabbis has called for
Wilber to publicly dissociate from Gafni.

Wilber is on the advisory board of

Mariana Bozesan's AQAL Capital
GmbH,[37] a Munich-based company
specialising in integral Impact Investing
using a model based on Wilber's Integral
Theory.

Influences
Wilber's views have been influenced by
Madhyamaka Buddhism, particularly as
articulated in the philosophy of
Nagarjuna.[38] Wilber has practiced
various forms of Buddhist meditation,
studying (however briefly) with a number
of teachers, including Dainin Katagiri,
Taizan Maezumi, Chogyam Trungpa
Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, Alan Watts,
Penor Rinpoche and Chagdud Tulku
Rinpoche. Advaita Vedanta, Trika
(Kashmir) Shaivism, Tibetan Buddhism,
Zen Buddhism, Ramana Maharshi, and
Andrew Cohen can be mentioned as
further influences. Wilber has on several
occasions singled out Adi Da's work for
the highest praise while expressing
reservations about Adi Da as a
teacher.[39][40] In Sex, Ecology, Spirituality,
Wilber refers extensively to Plotinus'
philosophy, which he sees as nondual.
While Wilber has practised Buddhist
meditation methods, he does not identify
himself as a Buddhist.[41]

According to Frank Visser, Wilber's

conception of four quadrants, or
dimensions of existence is very similar to
E. F. Schumacher's conception of four
fields of knowledge.[42] Visser finds
Wilber's conception of levels, as well as
Wilber's critique of science as one-
dimensional, to be very similar to that in
Huston Smith's Forgotten Truth.[43] Visser
also writes that the esoteric aspects of
Wilber's theory are based on the
philosophy of Sri Aurobindo as well as
other theorists including Adi Da.[44]

Reception
Wilber has been categorized by Wouter J.
Hanegraaff as New Age due to his
emphasis on a transpersonal view.[45]
Publishers Weekly has called him "the
Hegel of Eastern spirituality".[46]

Wilber is credited with broadening the

appeal of a "perennial philosophy" to a
much wider audience. Cultural figures as
varied as Bill Clinton,[47] Al Gore, Deepak
Chopra, Richard Rohr,[48] and musician
Billy Corgan have mentioned his
influence.[49] Paul M. Helfrich credits him
with "precocious understanding that
transcendental experience is not solely
pathological, and properly developed
could greatly inform human
development".[50] However, Wilber's
approach has been criticized as
excessively categorizing and objectifying,
masculinist,[51][52] commercializing
spirituality,[53] and denigrating of
emotion.[54] Critics in multiple fields cite
problems with Wilber's interpretations
and inaccurate citations of his wide
ranging sources, as well as stylistic
issues with gratuitous repetition,
excessive book length, and hyperbole.[55]
Frank Visser writes that Wilber's 1977
book The Spectrum of Consciousness
was praised by transpersonal
psychologists, but also that support for
him "even in transpersonal circles" had
waned by the early 1990s.[9] Edward J.
Sullivan argued, in his review of Visser's
guide Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion,
that in the field of composition studies
"Wilber's melding of life’s journeys with
abstract theorizing could provide an
eclectic and challenging model of
'personal-academic' writing", but that
"teachers of writing may be critical of his
all-too-frequent totalizing
assumptions".[9] Sullivan also said that
Visser's book overall gave an impression
that Wilber "should think more and
publish less."[9]

Steve McIntosh praises Wilber's work but

also argues that Wilber fails to
distinguish "philosophy" from his own
Vedantic and Buddhist religion.[56]
Christopher Bache is complimentary of
some aspects of Wilber's work, but calls
Wilber's writing style glib.[57]

Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof has praised

Wilber's knowledge and work in the
highest terms;[note 5] however, Grof has
criticized the omission of the pre- and
peri-natal domains from Wilber's
spectrum of consciousness, and Wilber's
neglect of the psychological importance
of biological birth and death.[59] Grof has
described Wilber's writings as having an
"often aggressive polemical style that
includes strongly worded ad personam
attacks and is not conducive to personal
dialogue."[60] Wilber's response is that the
world religious traditions do not attest to
the importance that Grof assigns to the
perinatal.[61]

Works

Books

The Spectrum of Consciousness, 1977,

anniv. ed. 1993: ISBN 0-8356-0695-3
No Boundary: Eastern and Western
Approaches to Personal Growth, 1979,
reprint ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-743-6
The Atman Project: A Transpersonal
View of Human Development, 1980, 2nd
ed. ISBN 0-8356-0730-5
Up from Eden: A Transpersonal View of
Human Evolution, 1981, new ed. 1996:
ISBN 0-8356-0731-3
The Holographic Paradigm and Other
Paradoxes: Exploring the Leading Edge
of Science (editor), 1982, ISBN 0-394-
71237-4
A Sociable God: A Brief Introduction to a
Transcendental Sociology, 1983, new
ed. 2005 subtitled Toward a New
Understanding of Religion, ISBN 1-
59030-224-9
Eye to Eye: The Quest for the New
Paradigm, 1984, 3rd rev. ed. 2001:
ISBN 1-57062-741-X
Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings
of the World's Great Physicists (editor),
1984, rev. ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-768-
1
Transformations of Consciousness:
Conventional and Contemplative
Perspectives on Development (co-
authors: Jack Engler, Daniel Brown),
1986, ISBN 0-394-74202-8
Spiritual Choices: The Problem of
Recognizing Authentic Paths to Inner
Transformation (co-authors: Dick
Anthony, Bruce Ecker), 1987, ISBN 0-
913729-19-1
Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing
in the Life of Treya Killam Wilber, 1991,
2nd ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-742-8
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of
Evolution, 1st ed. 1995, 2nd rev. ed.
2001: ISBN 1-57062-744-4
A Brief History of Everything, 1st ed.
1996, 2nd ed. 2001: ISBN 1-57062-740-
1
The Eye of Spirit: An Integral Vision for a
World Gone Slightly Mad, 1997, 3rd ed.
2001: ISBN 1-57062-871-8
The Essential Ken Wilber: An
Introductory Reader, 1998, ISBN 1-
57062-379-1
The Marriage of Sense and Soul:
Integrating Science and Religion, 1998,
reprint ed. 1999: ISBN 0-7679-0343-9
One Taste: The Journals of Ken Wilber,
1999, rev. ed. 2000: ISBN 1-57062-547-
6
Integral Psychology: Consciousness,
Spirit, Psychology, Therapy, 2000,
ISBN 1-57062-554-9
A Theory of Everything: An Integral
Vision for Business, Politics, Science
and Spirituality, 2000, paperback ed.:
ISBN 1-57062-855-6
Speaking of Everything (2-hour audio
interview on CD), 2001
Boomeritis: A Novel That Will Set You
Free, 2002, paperback ed. 2003:
ISBN 1-59030-008-4
Kosmic Consciousness (12½ hour
audio interview on ten CDs), 2003,
ISBN 1-59179-124-3
With Cornel West, commentary on The
Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The
Matrix Revolutions and appearance in
Return To Source: Philosophy & The
Matrix on The Roots Of The Matrix, both
in The Ultimate Matrix Collection, 2004
The Simple Feeling of Being: Visionary,
Spiritual, and Poetic Writings, 2004,
ISBN 1-59030-151-X (selected from
earlier works)
The Integral Operating System (a 69-
page primer on AQAL with DVD and 2
audio CDs), 2005, ISBN 1-59179-347-5
Executive producer of the Stuart Davis
DVDs Between the Music: Volume 1
and Volume 2.
Integral Spirituality: A Startling New
Role for Religion in the Modern and
Postmodern World, 2006, ISBN 1-
59030-346-6
The One Two Three of God (3 CDs –
interview, 4th CD – guided meditation;
companion to Integral Spirituality),
2006, ISBN 1-59179-531-1
Integral Life Practice Starter Kit (five
DVDs, two CDs, three booklets), 2006,
ISBN 0-9772275-0-2
The Integral Vision: A Very Short
Introduction to the Revolutionary
Integral Approach to Life, God, the
Universe, and Everything, 2007, ISBN 1-
59030-475-6
The Integral Vision: A Very Short
Introduction, 2007,
ISBN 9781611806427
Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century
Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional
Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual
Awakening, 2008, ISBN 1-59030-467-5
The Pocket Ken Wilber, 2008, ISBN 1-
59030-637-6
The Integral Approach: A Short
Introduction by Ken Wilber, eBook,
2013, ISBN 9780834829060
The Fourth Turning: Imagining the
Evolution of an Integral Buddhism,
eBook, 2014, ISBN 9780834829572
Wicked & Wise: How to Solve the
World's Toughest Problems, with Alan
Watkins, 2015, ISBN 978-1-909273-64-
1
Integral Meditation: Mindfulness as a
Way to Grow Up, Wake Up, and Show Up
in Your Life, 2016,
ISBN 9781611802986
 The Religion of Tomorrow: A Vision For
The Future of the Great Traditions,
2017, ISBN 978-1-61180-300-6
Trump and a Post-Truth World, 2017,
ISBN 9781611805611
Integral Buddhism: And the Future of
Spirituality, 2018, ISBN 1611805600
Integral Politics: Its Essential
Ingredients , eBook, 2018
Grace and Grit, 2020, Shambala,
ISBN 9781611808490

Audiobooks

A Brief History of Everything.

Shambhala Audio, 2008. ISBN 978-1-
59030-550-8
 Kosmic Consciousness. Sounds True
Incorporated, 2003.
ISBN 9781591791249

Adaptations

Wilber's account of his wife Treya's

illness and death, Grace and Grit (1991),
was released as a feature film starring
Mena Suvari and Stuart Townsend in
2021.[62]

See also
Philosophy
portal

The Cultural Creatives

Edward Haskell
 Higher consciousness
Nicolai Hartmann
Noosphere
Shambhala Publications

Notes
1. This interpretation is at odds with
structural stage theory, which posits an
overall follow-up of stages, instead of
variations over several domains.
2. This too is at odds with structural stage
theory, but in line with Wilber's
philosophical idealism, which sees the
phenomenal world as a concretisation, or
immanation, of a "higher," transcendental
reality, which can be "realized" in "religious
experience."
3. The Madhyamaka two truths doctrine
discerns two epistemological truths,
namely conventional and ultimate.
Conventional truth is the truth of
phenomenal appearances and causal
relations, our daily common-sense world.
Ultimate truth is the recognition that no-
"thing" exists inherently; every-"thing" is
empty, sunyata of an unchanging
"essence". It also means that there is no
unchanging transcendental reality
underlying phenomenal existence.
"Formless awareness" belongs to another
strand of Indian thinking, namely Advaita
and Buddha-nature, which are ontological
approaches, and do posit such a
transcendental, unchanging reality,
namely "awareness" or "consciousness."
Wilber seems to be mixing, or confusing,
 these two different approaches freely, in
his attempt to integrate "everything" into
one conceptual scheme.
4. The perennial position is "largely
dismissed by scholars",[20] but "has lost
none of its popularity".[20] Mainstream
academia favor a constructivist approach,
which is rejected by Wilber as a
dangerous relativism. See also
Perennialism versus constructionism.
 5. ... Ken has produced an extraordinary
work of highly creative synthesis of data
drawn from a vast variety of areas and
disciplines ... His knowledge of the
literature is truly encyclopedic, his
analytical mind systematic and incisive,
and the clarity of his logic remarkable.
The impressive scope, comprehensive
nature, and intellectual rigor of Ken's work
have helped to make it a widely acclaimed
and highly influential theory of
transpersonal psychology.[58]

Quotes
1. Wilber: "Are the mystics and sages
insane? Because they all tell variations on
the same story, don't they? The story of
awakening one morning and discovering
you are one with the All, in a timeless and
eternal and infinite fashion. Yes, maybe
they are crazy, these divine fools. Maybe
they are mumbling idiots in the face of the
Abyss. Maybe they need a nice,
understanding therapist. Yes, I'm sure that
would help. But then, I wonder. Maybe the
evolutionary sequence really is from
matter to body to mind to soul to spirit,
each transcending and including, each
with a greater depth and greater
consciousness and wider embrace. And
in the highest reaches of evolution,
maybe, just maybe, an individual's
consciousness does indeed touch infinity
—a total embrace of the entire Kosmos—a
Kosmic consciousness that is Spirit
awakened to its own true nature. It's at
least plausible. And tell me: is that story,
sung by mystics and sages the world over,
any crazier than the scientific materialism
story, which is that the entire sequence is
a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and
fury, signifying absolutely nothing? Listen
very carefully: just which of those two
stories actually sounds totally insane?"[21]
2. Wilber: "I am not alone in seeing that
chance and natural selection by
themselves are not enough to account for
the emergence that we see in evolution.
Stuart Kaufman [sic] and many others
have criticized mere change and natural
selection as not adequate to account for
this emergence (he sees the necessity of
adding self-organization). Of course I
understand that natural selection is not
acting on mere randomness or chance—
because natural selection saves previous
selections, and this reduces dramatically
the probability that higher, adequate
forms will emerge. But even that is not
enough, in my opinion, to account for the
remarkable emergence of some of the
extraordinarily complex forms that nature
has produced. After all, from the big bang
and dirt to the poems of William
Shakespeare is quite a distance, and
many philosophers of science agree that
mere chance and selection are just not
adequate to account for these remarkable
emergences. The universe is slightly tilted
toward self-organizing processes, and
these processes—as Prigogine was the
first to elaborate—escape present-level
turmoil by jumping to higher levels of self-
organization, and I see that "pressure" as
operating throughout the physiosphere,
the biosphere, and the noosphere. And
that is what I metaphorically mean when I
use the example of a wing (or elsewhere,
the example of an eyeball) to indicate the
remarkableness of increasing emergence.
But I don't mean that as a specific model
or actual example of how biological
emergence works! Natural selection
carries forth previous individual
mutations—but again that just isn't
enough to account for creative
emergence (or what Whitehead called
"the creative advance into novelty," which,
according to Whitehead, is the
fundamental nature of this manifest
universe)."[30]
References
1. Mark Der Forman, A guide to integral
psychotherapy: complexity, integration,
and spirituality in practice, SUNY Press
2010, p. 9. ISBN 978-1-4384-3023-2
2. Rentschler, Matt. "AQAL Glossary," (http://i
niciativaintegral.es/Documentos%20P%C
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Sources
McMahan, David L. (2008), The Making of
Buddhist Modernism, Oxford: Oxford
 University Press, ISBN 9780195183276

Further reading
Allan Combs, The Radiance of Being:
Understanding the grand integral vision:
living the integral life, Paragon House,
2002
Geoffrey D Falk, Norman Einstein: the
dis-integration of Ken Wilber, Million
Monkeys Press, 2009
Lew Howard, Introducing Ken Wilber:
concepts for an evolving world,
Authorhouse, 2005, ISBN 1-4208-2986-
6
Peter McNab, Towards an Integral
Vision: using NLP and Ken Wilber's
AQAL model to enhance
communication, Trafford, 2005
Jeff Meyerhoff, Bald Ambition: a
critique of Ken Wilber's theory of
everything, Inside the Curtain Press,
2010
Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, Jonathan
Reams, Olen Gunnlaugson (ed.),
Integral education: new directions for
higher learning. SUNY Press, 2010.
ISBN 978-1-4384-3348-6
Raphael Meriden, Entfaltung des
Bewusstseins: Ken Wilbers Vision der
Evolution, 2002, ISBN 88-87198-05-5
Brad Reynolds, Embracing Reality: The
Integral Vision of Ken Wilber: A
Historical Survey and Chapter-By-
Chapter Review of Wilber's Major Works,
J. P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2004, ISBN 1-
58542-317-3
----- Where's Wilber At?: Ken Wilber's
Integral Vision in the New Millennium,
Paragone House, 2006, ISBN 1-55778-
846-4
Donald Jay Rothberg, Sean M Kelly,
Ken Wilber and the future of
transpersonal inquiry: a spectrum of
views 1996
----- Ken Wilber in Dialogue:
Conversations With Leading
Transpersonal Thinkers, 1998, ISBN 0-
8356-0766-6
 Frank Visser, Ken Wilber: Thought As
Passion, SUNY Press, 2003, ISBN 0-
7914-5816-4, (first published in Dutch
as Ken Wilber: Denken als passie,
Rotterdam, Netherlands, 2001)
Joseph Vrinte, Perennial Quest for a
Psychology with a Soul: An inquiry into
the relevance of Sri Aurobindo's
metaphysical yoga psychology in the
context of Ken Wilber's integral
psychology, Motilal Banarsidass, 2002,
ISBN 81-208-1932-2

External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to
Ken Wilber.
Wikimedia Commons has media
related to Ken Wilber.
 Ken Wilber

Official website (http://www.kenwilber.

com/)
Interview with Ken Wilber (https://ww
w.salon.com/2008/04/28/ken_wilbe
r/) , Salon.com
Ken Wilber books – Shambhala
Publications (http://www.shambhala.c
om/authors/u-z/ken-wilber.html)

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