Next Step Integral Education Forum

[paradoxresearch]

 A Proposed Personal Socio-psychograph

[paradoxresearch]

A Better Image

[ndavis]

I find this fascinating. I don't really understand what you are trying to illustrate here. Could you talk me through the image a bit? Thanks.

[paradoxresearch]

Ok.

To start, the map itself represents that gamut of awareness that affects a person, even that which they may not explicitly know(!?) - hence the pink area.

Any person's attention or focus is given by the attention/focus vector which swings about wildly in response to the concerns it (we) are dealing with. It does so within the confines of our awareness, which I haven't put on this map, but would be approximately circular with a very ragged edge. I refer to this as a vector because it parallels the operation of a vectorscope in broadcasting.

Now perhaps I'll start at 12 noon and work my way counter-clockwise around the frame:

At 12:00, we have 'One Mind'. This is the transition line from physical gray matter to that which serves as all that directs us. To the left of this is the Pale Blue 'Soft physiology' domain. I have called it this because this domain is similar to the firmware within a computer; it is hard coded programming necessary for minimum (primitive) operation. Sensory inputs (kinesthetics, vision, hearing) and genetic predispositions that direct our behaviour would live here, like the sexual drive.

Midway between the One Mind axis and what I've called the Editor axis is the Operating System (on the Instruction axis): this line identifies the transition from innate (what I've called firmware) operating system to that which directs us on a day-to-day basis without (much) conscious intervention.

Before I continue, it may be helpful to explain the Editor/Operating System relationship. As horrified as psychologists and psychiatrists may be, I've assumed a relatively simple model of the mind. As I'd once suggested, we seem to come by much of our own awareness through abductive means, whereby I can use a model that approximates my observations until I need to evolve it.

In short, we have an operating system that governs our behaviour, but when we encounter a situation to which we don't have satisfactory programming, the editor, our cognitive half, steps in and either discusses the matter with others, or fabricates new programming (If you don't know, ask, or try to figure it out yourself.)

This arrangement comes to us because of language; those parts of our mind that are associated with language (speech, hearing) and symbol manipulation comprise the consciousness. The conscious part can speak to the sub or unconscious part, what I'm calling the operating system.

The reverse isn't true - the unconsciouness can't talk directly to the conscious part EXCEPT THROUGH FEELINGS/EMOTIONS. A person can chose to ignore what they feel, for example. Furthermore, it takes years of careful cultivation for the conscious editor to learn how to understand the unconscious feelings (the feedback).

If your eyes are rolling at this point, I'll have to beg your patience, but I would like to go on.

In the Yellow domain between the Operating system and the editor, I'm suggesting all those artistic communication abilities lie, the ones that allow us to express our (emotional) selves.

The Editor axis is the line that separates conscious matters that in the Yellow domain pertain to emotions (the Operating system), and purely cognitive activity, such as symbol manipulation. It is also from this Green region that our verbal communication abilities sit.

It would seem that it is in the very close, intimate communication to our primary partner that we approach the Love axis. I struggled with placing this label here, but on continual review it came across as the most logical. It is from this point that we begin to become social creatures, and first so with our closest, typically called our loved ones.

We now move into the sociological realm of a person. The Purple area is for the close relationships we have, including our religion, because everything on the left of the next axis, the 'Many minds' one, are personally relevant; on the other side lives the many indifferent; the businesses, government, etc.

I need to stop to point out that these are all relationships that live in our mind; some we know as second nature (operating system), others we're still learning about.

Another note; the colours I've chosen for the domains are entirely arbitrary (I picked them in PC Paint because they were easy to distinguish when printed on a colour printer) and have nothing to do with KWs or the Spiral Dynamic models.


I'm going to stop going around the map now for two reasons; first, you may want to give it a go on your own; and second, what's this all mean?

As I'd wrote earlier, our attention/focus swings about on whatever we're dealing with at the moment. As we learn by conscious fabrication and/or communication, or observation, then subsequent experimentation (practicing behaviour), that rough edged circle gets larger as we mature.

The reason why this circle has a rough edge (and probably isn't particularly circular) is because there are perhaps tens of thousands of small abilities we acquire throughout our lives that allows growth to take place.

... ok, that's gotta be enough for awhile...

[paradoxresearch]

Continued...

[Jean Trudel]

I read your post and appreciate your map making skill. I also love to make maps and do. I have been at this for about 5 years and notice that there are many like us that could benefit from communicating together and share meaning in this way. Throughout this time, I also notice that there aren’t that many integral practitioners that employ this form and style for knowledge creation, transfer and management. I have come to realize that there are many ways of making meaning and maps are just one of them.

All this being said, it is my favorite

And of course I would encourage you to continue this exploration. One of the best site I have come across so far and the most integrally advanced is Will Varey’ website (http://www.emrgnc.com.au/index.html ). I have been exploring this space for over 3 years and I still learn a great deal every time I visit. Check-it out and let me know what you think. I believe you might find some answers to some of your questions.
Kind regards,
Jean

[paradoxresearch]

Thank you very much, Jean.

The site you recommend is interesting: the concept of apithology - the wellness of a system is particularly relevant to anyone attempting to use the AQAL map to affect positive change.

I find that both at this site, and to a large degree everywhere, the use of 'All Quadrants' is done in a gross approximation, albeit an important one, to raise awareness of seemingly unrelated concerns in regards to any issue. We certainly need more of this.

However, what I'm trying to do with the map I've proposed is to quantify the maturity of a person. While this may be viewed as unnecessarily setting social strata, I'd argue that as Ken Wilber has pointed out, lower levels are not bad, but in fact need to be included (transcend and include) as part of the normal evolution that takes place.

What drives me specifically to seek this is a life-long goal; I've always wanted to write seminal entertainment. Furthermore, since my background is engineering and not the humanities, I've approached this whole project with the carefully analytical approach of an engineer.

If you're thinking to yourself 'Gosh, that certainly will be slow going!' I'll have to agree, but then it has kept me writing a journal for three decades, and it has profoundly affected my life, as you can imagine.

In my attempt to do something as simple as write a story, I've found that the 'stare at the blank page until beads of blood appear on your forehead' approach got me nowhere, so I chose to make as much sense of the process as possible.

One matter I've never had much luck with was characters, and after too many years of searching psychology books, etc, this map is the most workable in defining them. I don't need true-to-life accuracy, but I need enough to flesh out my characters. Even with this map, I'd need the maturity milestones, which to an important degree have been addressed by the Spiral Dynamics 'rings' as they overlay this map, but I'm finding I may need a bit more detail; for example, what understandings/programmings (personality traits) could I map around the quadrants, specifically within the domains I've proposed, to identify someone who is say, in the SD blue level?

If you're finding this whole approach too weird and fantastic, it may help to consider this as a hypothetical exercise: If you know of a specific person who you have identified as being of a certain SD level, could you place his/her personality traits on this frame? As I've mentioned before, we acquire tens of thousands of abilities as we mature. Is it possible to identify the significant milestones of these abilities and place them on this map?

Thank you.

[Jean Trudel]

[paradoxresearch]

I'd ask if you could reload your map; that link doesn't seem to work.

Perhaps you may need to upload it to a picture hosting site like PictureTrail or Flickr or KeepandShare.

Thank you very much again, Jean.

[paradoxresearch]

Revised Maturity Map

[paradoxresearch]

Ooops...

[paradoxresearch]

To review what I'm now assuming with my proposal:

I'll work my way around my Maturity Map.

From Love, counter-clockwise:
Associations, in increasing number, from closest (personal) to the gray point south at Society: Many minds
Lover
Family: Parents/Kids
Extended family: cousins, grandparents, pets, etc
Close friends
Church/acquaintances/work
Fom the gray point south at Society: Many minds into the impersonal
Neighbourhood
Community/town
City
County
Province/State
Nation
Continent
World
Universe Geosphere on the Big Bang axis.

From here, I hop from Geosphere, to Biosphere, to Noosphere without much detail, though I wish I had more. I should be able to identify the whole social interactions among celestial bodies, in a manner similar to the interaction among plants and animals in the Biosphere, and the economic interaction among ourselves and our societies in the Noosphere.

Once on the Noosphere/Economics (Many Consciousness) axis, further counterclockwise progression takes us to the progressively smaller world from the whole of a society, down to the individual, a body. In this 1/2 quadrant, we consider the the environment of the individual as an economic entity, complete with its psycho/social requirements, then after the Body/Love axis, the physical requirements.

From the Body/Love axis, the physiological demands are identified, probably starting with essentials (the necessary addictions) as breathing, sleeping, eating, exercise, sex, finally arriving at the One Mind (though it would be more accurate to call this One Brain). From here, we consider the innate programming that allowed us to evolve to humankind's niche within Nature (Biosphere). These hard wired programming directives still affect us, even if we've injected many conscious interrupts into this basic behaviour. Our physiological input/output takes place here.

As we continue to proceed further counter-clockwise, we reach the Big Bang axis again, only now we're looking at the smallest item we can understand, and we start with the most elementary components of the Universe. From here, we go to atoms, and the Periodic Table, then to compounds/molecules , eventually reaching simple proteins and other macromolecules, eventually to the many components of life. From here, it would seem that we now look at the separate organs within a lifeform (medicine) , eventually arriving at the vast neural net that the mind is.

Since we've already dealt with the mind as brain at the top of the map, we're now looking at the structures within the mind. At this point I'd need to come back to the Editor/Operating System duality that allows for consciousness. This can only take place with a well-evolved communication centre. Without this, we can regress to our previous Bicameral state (the Gods speak to us), or if our sensory input is too high, or otherwise compromised, the mind assumes an autistic state. Conversely, it may be that with too little sensory input to process, and possibly an aggressively pursued communication centre during childhood, more than one communication centre becomes established, resulting in schizophrenia. I'm extrapolating here, based on this model.

With an Editor that holds our communication abilities, and an Operating System that actually runs us most of the time, we have a conventionally conscious person. The Editor edits how we operate when it's apparent that our existing programming isn't giving us satisfactory results, and so we can consciously fabricate a new strategy, or we can ask someone to tell us one, then we experiment, after which such newly fabricated strategies become operating system directives once repeated successes warrant it. The Editor can also be called our Focus.

How does this get placed on the Maturity Map? First, we're primarily looking at the Editor/Focus, because while our Operating System actually runs us, it understands best through demonstration, not through communication. The Operating System is actually mute since it doesn't have communication means, though we do get a 'feeling' feedback that is complex, and only those people who learn to read their feelings know how to communicate them, though it can be through non-verbal means like music, dance, art, etc as well.

While the rest of the Maturity Map catalogues the many relationships we'll learn over our lifetimes, this last 1/2 quadrant doesn't contain fixed relationships; it contains the reflective ones. These reflective relationships mature as do all the fixed ones around the map. They range in types based on the the area outside of this 1/2 quadrant they address; for example, you can believe that the quadrant on the right side of the map, between Geosphere to Noosphere , is governed by God. Or you may have studied part of that same area intensively (Nature, for example) and concluded that even if God is still part of that picture, it may be in those areas that we still know little about, because you know the laws and relationships that govern much of Nature.

This collection of attitudes are what actually make up our personalities. They are the integrals, our self-assessments of what we know. Someone who questions little will have poor reflective abilities, and usually when they're asked what they think, or how they feel, they'll respond with 'I dunno.'

Now, let's consider this whole range of relationships within the evolving Spiral Dynamics spiral: I've taken the circular Maturity Map and laid it out as an axis against the Spiral Dynamics steps. You'll have to download it from Keepandshare because these diagrams are too big for this forum. You'll find this link under the previous Maturity Map diagram entitled Maturity map AQAL frame vs. SDi

I've scrawled hypothetical levels of achieved awareness on the graph showing how, for example, in the beige band we are mostly dealing with the physiological top quadrant (on the circular Maturity Map) since we don't yet possess language at this early stage. Also, we do possess an ability to love, so there's a bit of awareness there too.

As we move onto the next band that is Purple, we're gaining more communications skills which begins to encroach into the Concept structures. Also, we begin to notice simple relationships in Nature, though most everything else is attributed to God(s). The red line running through the six bands represent an approximate threshold above which a person should no longer need to call on God to understand, because they'd attained enough awareness to not require divine intervention.

Since this Graph of Development is a gross approximation, the gray squiggles aren't accurate. While the overall cumulative increase maps the social average, such a graph can also serve for an individual. Or if you don't care for this graph, you can go back to the round one and grade a person on it.

So there you have it, a means to map a person's or a society's maturity level, hopefully to a degree greater than what we've been able to do in the past. I'd like to think this is an improvement over the older 'memorize volumes of psychological observations' strategy. I do know however, that there's a ton more work to be done here. I've barely identified the larger structures.

If this hits a nerve with you at all, please feel free to dig for greater detail. The more detail we find on this map, the greater the accuracy when we want to assess a personality. This has profound repercussions; understanding this and knowing how to use it has the potential to diagnose psychological disorders (where are the holes in a patient's map) at best, or you'll be able to define your fictional characters at least. In any case, understanding this easily puts you into second tier SDi Yellow, if that should matter.

[paradoxresearch]

Newer Developments with the Maturity Map

[paradoxresearch]

Spiral Dynamics integral colour scheme for the Maturity map

[paradoxresearch]

I just cut-n-pasted this from my notes. As always, it's a work in progress. I've attempted to include the major points of maturity, though this is still very preliminary.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Beige: prehistoric level, animal in response, possessing minimal social interaction, operational directives are largely the pre-wired firmware of the soft physiology. This operationally bare minimum programming ensures rudimentary existence. The vast memory at this point is used to observe and remember the immediate environment. There is room in this mind for symbols and curiosity. There are some early prewired social predispositions. Most measures of self-discipline are near zero, perhaps with the exception of respectfulness the male/female couple may hold for each other. Love and mutual caring is based on the woman's innate need for feeling important, on her pre-empting rape by aggressively seeking out her man's head, and in return, he's prepared to let her lead, and value her for it (= make her feel important). Gods are nature based (eagle, jackal, falcon, etc.)

Purple: Tribal associations. Pecking orders. Early symbol manipulation allows mind to soar in imagination to 'explain' the environment in magical terms. Ruled by rituals. Poor sense of ego/self. Mind is bicameral (proto-schizophrenic): it is largely operating system, with huge areas allocated to recall details of the immediate environment, but language structures are beginning to form in areas related to triggering issues. There are probably more than one of these language areas (editors), and these are interpreted as 'the Gods'. Discipline is rudimentary in that pecking orders and rituals must be observed. It's unclear what the nature of the sexual relationship is at this point: it may be that language advanced enormously by the woman's efforts to continue to know her man, but her discussions with other women would have similarly advanced language.

Red: Emergence of the Self, the individual. Nothing else matters but the self; transitional sociopath freed from rituals and pecking order. Rapacious competition among individuals. Capable of extreme discipline under the social powers. The mind has coalesced into editor and operating system, such that the language structures have merged into a single 'me' area. It is here that the monotheist God emerges, eventually culminating in Christ, the embodiment of humanism. Love has new meaning with a concrete sense of identity, however the sexual relationship has lost as much as it had gained by this, because civilization, and with it policing, now attempt to ensure the woman's safety through social means instead of her pre-emptive action to control her man by her personal effort to know him. This in turn will have a raft of pathological behaviour problems in women, but particularly in men (bluebeards, serial rapists/murderers, pedophiles, gays, transvestites, etc).

Blue: Unbridled freedoms of Red are too stressful - social co-operation demands adherence to laws of the empires/rulers/authorities. Highly structured, with little concern for individual. The sexual difference becomes grossly polarized (chivalry, Muslim rules of propriety, etc). Policing is now completely established, and demand self-discipline. While reflection (self-analysis) has existed since Red (Greek Philosophers), it is here that it begins to flourish, largely prompted by religion, and by a whole growing class of 'Natural Philosophers' (Renaissance era of Descartes, Newton, etc).

Orange: Entrepreneurial freedom. Thrive within the confines of society. Economies emerge. Motivated by acquisition. Inventive and resourceful. Men are prepared to buy sex if necessary because of the compromised binding of the sexual relationship under civilization - women reserve their 'right' to be unnaturally passive because social mechanisms preclude needing to pre-empt rape. Average physiology begins to decline due to the increase in personal wealth - we no longer live exclusively under nature's rule. Similarly our environments are being fouled because of Orange opportunism.

Green: Greater social integration. Ugliness of Orange demands higher order co-operation, social conscience to rectify - new laws are attempting to reign in Orange opportunism. We're also trying to re-establish the physiological demands traditionally made of us by nature, only now without the harshness of nature. Eventually this should include the sexual relationship. All of these rectifying actions will require a high level of personal discipline. This can be mitigated by designing environments that incorporate natural demands. The reflection (self-analysis) process has now evolved beyond the individual to every matter including and beyond. This is the origin of the newer Visionary Philosopher.

Second tier begins (Yellow) by (re)viewing all of the first tier and using that knowledge to manipulate first tier individuals and civilizations to accept greater compliance with visionary direction (what you're experiencing right now) but with selfish elements. Since the target of Yellow is back at the ME (Green is We; Orange is Me; Blue is back to We; etc), the classic Yellow personality will by nature be manipulative of others. This is where the Maturity Map begins to see serious usage.

Turquiose will incorporate the Yellow ability to manipulate, but will do so to gain greater social cohesion (back at the We).

A word about the Me/We oscillation: If we consider the underdamped response of a system, in our case, our original energy impulse was the onset of language, we can see that this oscillation is largest at the beginning, then trails out to an equilibrium between the extremes. This is the same thing that happened to humanity through the SDi levels. The largest excursion took place from our animal origins at beige, to the height of our individuality at Red. The subsequent oscillations were smaller, culminating in the mild changes between Yellow to Turquoise, then to Coral where the Me/We difference is lost in the noise. Even today we can witness this in any child: while the infant is incoherent, by the time that child reaches the 'Terrible Twos' (and threes), they have a clear sense of identity, even if it is a very selfish one.