Reaching Kegan Level 4

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Stahlmann
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by Stahlmann »

hmm.
Last edited by Stahlmann on Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

daylen
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by daylen »

In relation to the SCD model discussed in my journal, it could be described as an imbalance between introverted and extroverted development. The fix is just to have more substantive external interactions without internalizing them. Also, over-thinking and not acting is a very common INTP habit (dominate Ti and blind Se). Try thinking about the extroverted functions (doing, ideating, interfacing, fixing) as error-correction mechanisms against false beliefs.

mathiverse
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by mathiverse »

suomalainen wrote:
Thu Dec 24, 2020 3:29 pm
The goal is to become aware of the two dissonant cognitions that are causing distress and find a way to resolve them constructively, or, when we can’t, learn to live with them. In 1985, Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres was thrown into dissonance by an action taken by his ally and friend Ronald Reagan. Peres was angry because Reagan had accepted an invitation to pay a state visit to the Komeshohe Cemetery at Bitburg, Germany, to symbolize the two nations’ post-war reconciliation. The announcement of the proposed visit enraged Holocaust survivors and many others, because forty-nine Nazi Waffen-SS officers were buried there. Reagan, however, did not back down from his decision to visit the cemetery. When reporters asked Peres what he thought of Reagan’s action, Peres neither condemned Reagan personally nor minimized the seriousness of the visit to Bitburg. Instead, Peres took a third course. ‘When a friend makes a mistake,’ he said, ‘the friend remains a friend, and the mistake remains a mistake.’” Pgs 226-227.
Peres seems to show Kegan level 4 thinking in this situation. He was able to separate his friendship with Reagan from his political relationship with Reagan and comment on a mistake made with respect to those relationships without indicating the relationships have failed due to the mistake.

mathiverse
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by mathiverse »

This is another video from the The Stoa which is a podcast that jacob appeared on recently. Evan McMullen proposes phenomenological inquiry as a faster path from Kegan 4 to Kegan 5.

Youtube - The Bridge: Rationality to "Woo" w/ Evan McMullen

Unfortunately, I couldn't really understand what he meant by phenomenological inquiry enough to explain what he meant and what he thought the path from 4 to 5 is. I thought I'd link it anyway since there isn't a lot of discussion about increasing your Kegan level elsewhere.

ertyu
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by ertyu »

Thank you for bumping this thread mathiverse, it's interesting to revisit this. Currently, it seems to me I am making a transition to level 4. I know what I want and what I value, but I have a hard time communicating this with others. I can share and be open and vulnerable, in the sense that I can say what is true for me and about me, but I can't communicate well when someone has hurt me or when someone is overstepping the bounds of their personal power and attempting to reshape me into who they think I should be. Also, in many areas of my life there is no outward progress because of conflicting values and lack of skill. Interesting. Thank you.

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Alphaville
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by Alphaville »

mathiverse wrote:
Tue Feb 23, 2021 10:17 pm
Unfortunately, I couldn't really understand what he meant by phenomenological inquiry
i have not seen the interview but in plain language this just translates as examining the structure of your own subjectivity--describing the objects of consciousness and how you experience them, rather than, say, making quick judgments/jumping to conclusions.
ertyu wrote:
Wed Feb 24, 2021 4:50 am
I can't communicate well when someone has hurt me or when someone is overstepping the bounds of their personal power and attempting to reshape me into who they think I should be.
imo that's keeping healthy boundaries, and a very good thing. i've seen the displays of vulnerability and it's a good and honest and brave stance. i've also seen people try to exploit that in abusive ways, and i remember.

and while good communication under hostile pressure might be desirable/optimal, i think it's much better than having no boundaries/bad boundaries/not protecting them.

the diplomatic skills to replace the military ones develop with intentional practice i suppose, but it 's the affirmation of the boundaries that enables them in the first place, so from here you appear in a good place and moving forward.

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Alphaville
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by Alphaville »

so now i watched a bit of interview and yes, that's what he means by phenomenology, the study of consciousness as a subjective experience (introspection, self-examination, meditation, etc) as opposed to "objective" scientism (which isn't actual science, it's just platonizing belief).

he refers also to "staying in your lane" between science and spirituality, i think that was coined by stephen jay gould? yes, see... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overl ... magisteria

ertyu
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by ertyu »

a way my college prof explained phenomenological investigation that made great intuitive sense to me: ask yourself, "what assumptions ("truths," "beliefs") must be in place for me to be having this experience? For instance, you look, and oh! A tree! --- Now ask yourself, what must have been in place for this experience to have been possible? First, you need to have had a concept of "tree-ness" in place: the idea that we group objects in similar categories and assign them a common "type" based on certain characteristics but not others. Second, we need to assume implicitly that there is a common, "real" reality out there and that my perception of it a) guarantees its "realness" and b) will be shared if another peer of mine were to observe the same scene.

This exercise is a bit academic, but you can certainly apply it to other experiences you might be having. For instance, you observe yourself and others like you setting the alarm clock, getting up at butt-crack o'clock in the morning, depositing offspring at school, then heading to an "office" -- then passing through the grocery store on the way back, etcetera. What kind of meaning-making must be in place for me to be having this experience? For this experience to make sense? Your Money or Your Life, the ERE book, etc. offer an examination of this. They then ask the question: well, what other assumptions could I be having? Could I be doing things differently, better?

I watched the interview with kegan linked upthread, and in it, he defines kegan 4 as individuation (discovering what is true about me as distinct from received notions of how "men" "fathers" "respectable people" etc should behave + setting boundaries around that: e.g., "mom, it is true about me that I am gay af and I would like a husband and a cat - and no, I don't think this makes me a lesser person, and no, I don't care about what life-script you had decided on for me: this is my life that I will be living. And while we're at it, I don't care what auntie Lisa and the neighbors would think about it either).

Kegan 4 is acquiring clarity about what is true and living this truth: self-authoring (as opposed to being authored by mom, tradition, etc.)

Kegan 5 is when you turn your reflexivity on yourself as ask, "is how i am being right now the best way to be?" Self-transformation: you critically assess what is true about yourself. You establish, let's say, that you hold unexamined notions about brown people with lots of make-up that wear hot pink and sound like a dude -- and with a reference to a higher value, let's say that all humans are valuable and have an intrinsic right to self-actualize and live their truth -- you decide that you no longer want to subscribe to this notion. You let the prejudice go. Maybe you even watch a couple of drag shows to learn to see such people as people. Congratulations, you have Kegan 5-ed.

When I look at myself, I observe that I am at different stages in different areas of my life. I think this is normal and that there is no clear dividing line between the levels. It's all a giant work in progress.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with Kegan levels, but what I've done lately is start thinking in terms of identity being about other people, not about you. That is, if you were born on a desert island with no socialization at all, would you have an "identity"? Thus our identities are nothing intrinsic about ourselves but rather about how we relate to other people. In other words, identity is a verb, not a noun. When you realize this, you realize that who you are is constantly in flux and you can adopt different identities for different situations. I am a different person at work, a different person at home, a different person with friends, and these are all constructed versions of a "me" that was never a static entity in the first place.

daylen
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by daylen »

@AE that is essentially Kegan3(*). Kegan4 turns this on its head and presumes that identity may appear to come from something external to the "self" but it is still constrained/determined by the "self". Kegan5 goes a step further where identity feels like it is both centralized and decentralized. A two-way mirror of sorts or an invertible function between one and many. That is what it seems like, sort of.

Kegan4 on a desert island without any other agents can still have an identity because the expression of that identity is not a necessary condition for being [identifiable]. In other words, you can identify with your "thoughts" even if these thoughts are not identifiable to other agents.

Kegan5 on a desert island would presume to both be and be in contact with several "agents". The origin of agency does not really matter in the sense that any apparent choices made by animals, weather patterns, or whatever are simultaneously constructed by "you" and exist independent of "you".

(*) Yet, the recognition of this state requires Kegan4. To see and act on this view is to choose to identify or not identify with it (i.e. not to be chosen by it).

---------

Consider how religions typically started in a decentralized form whereby spirits were everywhere and "they" narrated on how entities ranging from rocks to hurricanes worked [nearly] independently of each other. This could have originated from Kegan5 thoughts(+) targeted at teaching people($) how to balance agency with lack of control via the channeling of attention through certain spirits in [un]certain contexts. This view would then spread to the general populous leading to a stratified view of what these spirits actually represented. Kegan3 views such spirits as external forces controlling their lives (i.e. form their identity). The Kegan4 view is to equate a single God with self (i.e. you are responsible for your own heaven and hell) leading to monotheistic religions. As civilizations scaled up, monotheistic religions started out-competing more animistic ones because a single decider of identity/fate makes for better leaders [similar to why humans evolved a brain that can funnel information to singular "points" (i.e. in the prefrontal cortex or in the reptilian system) allowing for rapid, convergent decision-making ability in both the abstract and physical realms].

That is a Dunning-Kruger pinata on what religion is anyway so feel free to strike it until it punctures. Hard to really talk about this without overloading concepts/terms like "agency", "attention", "self", "thought", and/or "control". Any apparent contradictions are alleviated at a higher-level devoid of "language" (as far as I am aware of anyway).

(+) ..or just through some emergent K3/4 process.
($) ..through a simplified, ultimately false, but relatable view..

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

I've been thinking about this lately and how one might move around levels of consciousness due to stress.

For example, if one is normally Kegan4, could one regress to Kegan3 thinking when under stress?

Also, for considering Kegan1, would the subjective experience of Kegan1 be somewhat like dissociation? While my understanding of what dissociation feels like is not great, it seems to me like the essence of dissociation is being subject to perception and thought without an ability to classify them as objects, and dissociation can be caused by stress or trauma, which seems to push people down Kegan levels or make it harder to develop into higher ones.

daylen
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by daylen »

This might sound crazy, but I think that dissociation is a good word for that state and that this is synonymous with what many spiritual teachers call God or oneness.

Think of all that you are........ now who witnessed all that? ..or what integrated all that? ..did it discover or invent itself? ..what is the difference?

It was never born and it will never die because it looks at time and space and matter and whatever else. It may as well be nothing and everything because it is the source of all subject-object relations. Consider that everything you have ever hated or ignored or polarized against was this state fooling itself into a whole/part relationship.

Anxiety and insecurity detracts from the path of oneness or "true self". Once you are grounded in the placebo of reality you are free to fool yourself into whatever reality you desire. On the other hand, your human condition pulls you back out of reality when you get too carried away (universal self-correction). Letting go of the human condition must be done with care and compassion else you will loose grasp on everything/nothing and thus the path.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

daylen wrote:
Sat Jun 26, 2021 10:42 am
Letting go of the human condition must be done with care and compassion else you will loose grasp on everything/nothing or the path.
This is an interesting point. It reminds me of a recent experience I've had where I met someone who suffered from pretty extreme derealization/depersonalization. This individual I believe was actually stuck between Kegan1 and Kegan2 because they literally could not treat perception or thought as objects. They could not conceive of other people as existing and were utterly incapable of lying or understanding others could lie.

Related destructive dissociative experiences might be someone who suffers from PTSD flashbacks and can't function on a day-to-day level from it. Inducing ego death must be done with care.

I almost wonder if one has to fully be at level 5 in order to experience this state and not have it break them.

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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by jacob »

@AE - Yes, stress can drop functioning. Since each level transcends the previous, the previous levels are part of the new level. Stress collapses complexity and so there's a chance of reverting to the subsystems one is more experienced with. A condition like dissociation seems like it would collapse everything.

@daylen - I beg to differ. Kegan1 is the beginner's [child's] mind but in a way that is ignorant of ego rather than free of ego. As such it is spontaneous but has no concept of what is real (Santa Claus, ... ) and what is not. The ego (and eventually the awareness of other egos) stage is what makes sense of what is real with a widening and deepening sense of perspective going from me-first to everything-connected. Kegan5 is the first stage that becomes ego-aware and thus the beginning of becoming ego-free. Unitive seems to require more. Dunno of Kegan ever investigated omega point convergence as a way to close it up. Bateson has turtles all the way down.

IOW, I think there's a pre/trans-trap here. Like with artistic performance. The beginner (unconscious incompetence) is as liberated as the true artist (unconscious competence) but the artist makes art whereas the beginner's performance is ineffective. Without knowing art (competence vs incompetence) it's hard to tell since they both appear unconscious of their performance. For something like a martial art, the difference would be obvious though.

daylen
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by daylen »

@jacob, I can see that when using it language. For me personally it feels a lot like 5 is just a reflection of 1 driven by the dichotomy of choice and hence the conflation.

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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by jacob »

@daylen - Insofar Kegan is about relations, Kegan2 is formed around [spontaneous] I-it relations so that everyone and everything is an object. Kegan1 doesn't even see the I as a subject. Whereas for Kegan5, it's all I-thou relations so that everyone is now a subject on equal terms with the subject formerly known as I. So,
Kegan1: All its (pre I)
Kegan5: All thous (trans I)
If that doesn't make sense, maybe I don't understand what you're driving at. I'd speculate that you're describing more of a witnessing state of mind?

daylen
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by daylen »

Yes, the witnessing or non-dual state could be thought to weave constructions like the Kegan model or this sentence into existence.

AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

If more advanced levels are more encompassing of earlier levels, I wonder if this is why people talk about ego death experiencing being useful to personal or spiritual development. In the same vein of K4 INTJs forgetting what K3 was like, pretty much everyone has forgotten what K1 was like. Thus reexperincing it via altered conscious states like drugs/advanced meditation/dissociation is remembering what was once forgotten and can lead to further insights on the nature of what/who one is.

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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I am doing brief therapy and also binging on books and shows related to therapy. In one episode of therapy show, the therapist mentions that it is fairly common for women to disassociate during sex and therefore not enjoy it. Often the cause is severe anxiety/stress related to projected negative perception of physical appearance. So, the ego is transferred from the body in a dysfunctional manner that precludes “presence” or enjoyment in the moment. Kind of like going one step beyond the feeling of social embarrassment that is so intense that it is associated with thought “I wish I could have fallen through a hole in the floor” and actually falling through a hole in your own consciousness.

OTOH, transcendent sex is going one step beyond full presence in the moment. Kind of like the feeling of being present in many moments or many different bodies simultaneously.

I might be wrong, but in more general terms, I think some humans need to focus more on being present to move from 4 to 5, and other humans need to focus more on being open. Present in the moment. Open to the universe.

But, first you have to have ownership. Going back to my example, a woman who generally has level 4 ownership/self-authoring of her own sexuality would only be likely to disassociate during sex during profoundly stressful encounter such as rape. Since rapists are near perfect example of Level 2 functioning ( See “ A Clockwork Orange”), the return to self-authorship by victim might include self-talk along lines of “This is not about me and/or my chosen narrative.”

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Re: Reaching Kegan Level 4

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Okay, this is a bit of a stretch, but it occurred to me that the manner in which many/most humans around my age or older react/respond to the problem of climate change/resource depletion is roughly analogous to how women in our society used to be socialized to react/respond to sexuality.

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