The ERE Wheaton Scale

[jacob]

@daylen - Brilliant!

[jacob]

@The Old Man/BookLoverL - If descriptions look vague and mysterious, it means the table is working Ideally, reading the table would reflect the Wheaton structure itself. E.g. stages that are far ahead would look like "woo" whereas stages that are far behind would look like "doesn't everybody know this?!?". You'll find the same issue in developmental models.

(This is also why I'm quite hesitant in providing examples. There's a real risk of misinterpretation when seeing such examples through the wrong lens. For example, seeing ERE/WL7 through the Scarcity/WL1 lens suggests a miserable existence without the fun of going out and denying yourself the hard-earned rewards of all your work.)

I suspect a better "rule" than the "no jumping rule" would be whether one can viably regress to a lower stage. (This often happens when one is stressed. As noted, stages are "work in progress".) This also resolves the outstanding question of "where does X" fit in, when X is a special case or an outlier. How would they behave/change their strategy insofar they lost "meh" (in daylen's terms). If a WL3 tech-bro with 1.5M in savings, and 50k in spending lost 50% of their savings in an extended TSM stagflation, they'd very likely be back to coding in order to reaccumulate their "stash" because "earning and buying" is what they know. There never was much optimization nor awareness of other resources. The large accumulation mainly came about due to historically high remuneration for a high-demand/low-supply job skill and not from any development of productive or consumptive behavior. Conversely, a WL6 etsy-gal with 1.5M in savings and 20k in spending in the same situation would shrug half of the decline off and focus on replacing a few more things they used to buy with "home production" and possibly get a part-time job.

[Scott 2]

The updated numbers are much clearer.

IMO the external references were unnecessary noise. If the audience is so familiar with Mr. Money Mustache to grok MMM, they can place him on the chart anyways.

Along those lines, have you considered most people don't know what a Wheaton level is? In any other systems thinking resource, this would be considered a maturity model. The implications are similar (I think?), but there is an already rich framework to tap.

I like the "regression under stress" test. It is easier to understand than insisting you cannot jump levels. Replacing the lawn service doesn't start with hand making a rake, but it is a tempting (and possibly paralyzing) cognitive leap.

As far as I can tell, in the past few years it's been taken over by WL3 fatFIRE bros and WL4 baristaFIRE types. These are not "my kind of people"---the communications gap is too large.

The online chart is a funnel for this group. It looks like something to win. The levels capture a necessary stripping of their class based conditioning. I'd even say the retirement goal reflects their financial bias.

Coming from a level 3/4 high earner - while the income is an overwhelmingly powerful tool, servicing it consumes most available energy. The associated environments foster low self esteem and insecurity. That feedback loop traps a person, making it difficult to process the message.

A large minority of this audience is operating under constant fear and uncertainty. I think they are reachable, during times of stress - job loss, market crash, health problem, pandemic, etc. On my way out the door, I was a surprised at the percentage of genuine geeks that appeared.


I wonder what percentage of post-consumers can be reached online, and how prepared they are to deal with abstract ERE principles. From what I've observed, while the chart explains how a high level player lives, it is not something they contextualize. It's a very circuitous route into their grounded existence.

IE, the businessman and the fisherman:

https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/ ... sinessman/

My brother in law from Montana? He grew up in a double wide. I guarantee he is not listening to Carse's lecture on infinite games. He'd dismiss the chart as intellectual naval gazing. A million dollars might seem impossible to him.

Yet, through necessity, he's spent most of life playing at a high level. He works on tractors for fun and cans his own food. Dealing in social capital is simply looking out for your neighbor. It's what good people do. If society collapsed, he'd survive the transition, maybe even thrive. I don't think he'd decline the privilege of generational wealth, but it's never been an option.

[jacob]

One issue with the table is that it's trying to do several things at once(*). It reflects its historical development and suffers the same technical debt as legacy code. However, it's a lot easier to just build on it than restart it from scratch.

(*) Also, it's being (ab)used for several different purposes.

Initially (2016ish) it was intended as a forum-eyes-only summary of "how to talk your spouse/friend/colleague without scaring them off" so people wouldn't run off talking excitedly about systems-theory to people who had just discovered the importance of credit scores.

In that regard, the external references including the "which book to read for a given level"-list on the ERE wiki was useful.

The Wheaton aspect also explained why higher levels (or stages) always seemed crazy or miserable from a mainstream perspective. A Danish headline I saw today was something to effect of "Increasing number of youngsters choose a life of sacrifice in order to retire early".

Then in 2018/19 the forum had a bunch of long/great threads about the WL5/6 level which turned the focus into more of a human development model. The table was used to catch a glimpse of the "next level". It was also used to clobber those apes who are ruining the world in the rest of the FIRE-sphere. That's the dark side of maturity models.

I think also around that time it was realized (H/T 7wb5) that it was more of a mapquest route from the salary quadrant to the renaissance quadrant than a general map.

And the Chop Wood level of version 1 was really bugging me. From the beginning a huge problem was the inability to see much beyond the level of the table-maker(s). This is a huge problem of any developmental model(er). Descriptions fade as one gets closer to the top-level. It's compounded if one is also nearing the tail end of humanity. A HS student can talk in great detail about HS courses because the know those. However, talking about college or worse grad school which they only know-about results in vaguer terms. This reflects the IS-A vs HAS-A generator. It's hard to talk about something until there's significant experience with HAS-A relations.

Speaking of generators, a great table should have the following features.

• Each stage, N, should be written in a way that people on that level would instantly identify with---that's me!---without triggering the Forer effect. If that means different verbiage, perfect!
• The next stage, N+1, should hint at the solution to issues experienced at the current stage if any. It should be inspiring but not revealing since growth is an internal journey, not an external life-hack.

In terms of human development and maturity(*) my perspective/presumption is that evolution doesn't happen until the present situation(stage) has become untenable (e.g. COVID) or unbearable (e.g. boredom) for whatever reason. One can certainly "sit" at a stage for a long long time knowing full well about the next stage w/o needing or wanting to change. That's really what most do anyway. I do too---might grok the meta-solution some day.

(*) It's actually an awful word since I hate to call a 70yo immature, but some really are. Some stop maturing very early on (arrested development) and others move rather fast.

Maybe WL5 should be rephrased to resolve the fear/esteem/insecurity of WL4? I'm not sure how to do that. The first table was created with those stages well in the rear-view mirror already. Will take suggestions for rephrasing or inserting additional stages ...

[jacob]

Should probably change the title of the table too ...

[black_son_of_gray]

NOTE: I sat down to write this thinking, "huh, I have a couple thoughts on this—maybe I'll jot them down to share with the group." Yeah, one thing led to another and it kinda turned into a dissertation.

If you'll indulge me…

In the parlance of Robert Kegan, let's look at the ERE Wheaton Scale not from within, through its own ERE lens (as subject), but more removed—as an object.*

What is the ERE Wheaton Scale if not a process of maturation? Again, indulge me—I'll get to some points. By this I mean that people begin at, well, the beginning (e.g. Level 0/1, or at least very close) and through time may mature to higher levels. In keeping with @jacob's observation, one cannot simply skip stages of maturation. No child can just skip puberty and become an adult.**

When viewed as a maturation process, we start to see parallels to many similar/analogous processes, such as:

• ecological succession, whereby a barren landscape transforms into a climax community
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs
• Finite games transitioning into infinite games (Carse)
• The changes that humanity is tasked with if it is going to ultimately survive on planet Earth for more than, say, the next few hundred years; that is, transitioning from consumerism/growth-ism to sustainability. (Arguably, this is the most convenient and relatable analogy to ERE, although they are all just different flavors of the same ice cream)
• And so on... I tried to list a few different ones because, while I think the Kegan and Carse frameworks are particularly powerful here, I realize most people haven't read that stuff.

Observation 1: When you read the current form of the ERE Wheaton Scale/Table, it mixes metaphors and borrow concepts from a lot of these different maturation processes. While this makes sense, as they are all conceptual cousins to each other, it isn't particularly reader friendly to anyone who isn't familiar with some of the more obscure references. As a result, rather than seeing the overarching course of the process (or processes, see Obs 3), a lot of readers are going to find obscure/unintelligible parts of the table as disjointed black holes of mystery—not because the concepts are too hard, but simply because the vocabulary is esoteric***. Several comments on this thread hint that this is a problem. Perhaps it is best to simplify or condense the analogies/frameworks to just the easiest or most well known, and develop and use consistent terminology. Even if the result isn't perfect, the "being able to clearly see the forest" is the more powerful lesson than the exact description of individual trees, no?

Observation 2: Look at those other processes and tell me how, once reaching maturity, they continue to "level up". I'd argue: they don't. Once a finite game transitions to an infinite game, there is only the continuation of the game. No levels, no point system, no "improvement". Can a mature old-growth forest ecosystem become more 'old growthy'? What would that even mean?**** The thing about maturation processes, like those mentioned above, is that they approach a steady-state or equilibrium. Now, that final state may drift or evolve over time, but that is a separate thing altogether. Adaptation does not equal maturation.

Observation 3: If we consider ERE as a maturation process, what are the dominant features that are maturing? This is non-exhaustive, and it's worth pointing out that all of these features need to mature together. They all rely on each other. This is kinda-sorta what some of the columns of the table seem to be getting at. (That is to say, if you are stuck, it is likely because lack of maturation in a specific feature may be all that is holding you back. This is why simply making a lot of money or being a Kegan Level X or working on a WWOOF farm won't get you there by itself.)

1. Complexity. The lower levels involve very simple interactions. Inputs and Outputs are isolated and transactional. The middle levels start to bend resources back into loops that interact with each other—more complexity of interaction! Maturity involves linking just about everything to multiple other things, i.e. a web. Indeed, at maturity, all you really have is just the whole ecosystem. This is complexity that is beyond human comprehension, because the human is just a part of it—not the center around which everything revolves.
2. Sustainability. Of course, increasing complexity just to do it...is kind of dumb. To what end is the complexity serving? Enter sustainability, the ruler by which to judge the complexity. The ERE Wheaton Scale as written is couched largely in financial/money terms, progressing from the completely unsustainable hand-to-mouth existence at early levels where any hiccup in a paycheck leads to ruin to the "mature" state of the scale where the amount of money needed is so abundant and ever-replenishing that it becomes trivial. But the focus on money is simplistic (and indeed not @jacob's original impetus), as the concept of sustainability is much broader. Money is just one of many resources, and ERE maturity involves the bending of resource usage in the broadest of all interpretations towards sustainability#.
3. Kegan Development. If you don't know about Kegan's developmental stages, it's worth reading one of his books. Suffice it to say, however, that it takes a certain amount of personal development (or for our purposes, what we might call "personal maturity") to be able to deal with more complex systems. Consider that an immature person may have relatively little trouble interacting with simple processes or environments (e.g. being a cashier) but wouldn't do well in more complex environments (e.g. working on a team with many layers of hierarchy that is tackling a difficult, multi-year project). They might simply lack the patience, inter-personal skills, self-knowledge, etc. in order to handle the demands arising from the complexity. Well, the mature state of ERE requires a complexity that is going to be personally challenging to most if not everyone who attempts it, so that is the linkage to complexity. The linkage to sustainability derives from the tendency of people with high "personal maturity"## to incorporate broader swaths of world into their consideration. The kind of personal maturity that can handle the increased levels of complexity tends to have a broadened worldview that sees sustainability (i.e. infinite games) as the goal.

Summarized, we might say that the complexity needed (1) requires a Kegan development (3) which values sustainability (2), and that these features interact in a way that doesn't lend itself to a one-size-fits-all "path" forward. Any given person, even at the same ERE Wheaton Level as another, may need to work on a very different set of things.

Hmm...what's that called again when a set of elements (I've mentioned 3, there are probably(?) more) interact to form a complex whole? Oh, that's right: a system! So in the framework of what I've just described above, ERE is a system of features, and the ERE Wheaton Scale (see Obs 4) is a guide to how far along the maturation process someone is.

Observation 4: I am happy with the structure of what I have laid above, but strictly speaking, it's pretty much completely divorced from the original Wheaton Eco Scale—the two major insights being that 1) to a first approximation, each level is occupied by ~10x less people (neat!...if not arbitrary), and 2) your perception of others as a function of distance on the scale. Which brings us to...what's the purpose of the ERE Wheaton Scale again? Because both 1 and 2 don't actually have anything to do with the underlying philosophy, just relative proportions and relative perceptions. Actually integrating the philosophy into the scale perhaps muddies the water more than clarifies things. Especially since, given 1, the vast majority of people that will ever see it are, by definition, very low on the scale. So really, as a communication tool, the level required to read and understand the scale should not be higher than the lowest levels on the scale. Otherwise, there is no way that it will be intelligible to the vast majority of people###. Let's just say I disagree with the idea that one shouldn't be able to comprehend higher levels until they are approaching it. That sounds harsh, but that's not my intention. That's like saying a Kegan 2 can't possible understand what it means to be a 4 or a 5, or that a hardcore consumerist can't understand what sustainability is, or that a childish adult can't understand that they lack personality trait X (e.g. patience, impulse control, etc.) relative to other adults...and I wouldn't necessarily assume that it's true. Understanding does not necessarily require maturity, even if implementation does. I don't have to be a sub 2:30 marathoner (or even a runner at all) to understand what it takes to get there. How is ERE any different?

*Perfect example of my first observation below. If you know Kegan's work, this makes a lot of sense. If you don't, and I assume most readers on this forum actually don't, it's just black-hole gobbledygook.

**As with Robert Kegan's stages of adult development, there isn't really a moral angle here, although the language can sometime make it sound that way. Less mature doesn't mean "worse/lesser" person, or vice versa.

***That could be interpreted as "people need to read more" (true), and also "the readability of the writing could be significantly improved" (also true). The ultimate goal is understanding, right?

****Which isn't to say it can't change in time. But the changes are just part of the infinite game, and serve to propagate the infinite game.

#Sustainability meaning, "can it be done in perpetuity on a finite planet?"

##Honestly, the best framework here is Kegan's framework of nested levels of Subject-Object orientation with regard to yourself, your affiliations, your society, your humanity, and your membership as a living being as you move up in development level. In the end, life itself is an infinite game, seeking only to continue the game as long as possible...sustainability!

###In which case, it's not a good communication tool, is it?

[AxelHeyst]

Amazing post @bsog. Question re: ### -- by "the ERE Wheaton Table is a communication tool", don't we mean "it is a tool that people at WL(X) can use to quickly assess how to engage/communicate with people at WL(Y), where Y<X" ? The table wasn't actually intended to be handed out in the "welcome to the forum!" welcome brochure, it wasn't meant for the consumption of Wl0/1's, in other words.

[black_son_of_gray]

don't we mean "it is a tool that people at WL(X) can use to quickly assess how to engage/communicate with people at WL(Y), where Y<X" ?

My opinion is that if the core ideas were communicated simply and effectively enough, the "level" of X or Y wouldn't really matter. That's just my opinion, and I'm willing to entertain push-back on that. I don't think the concepts are actually that hard to understand. The difficulty, which I believe is incumbent for the communicator (and not the receiver), comes in crafting the message. In other words, we might ask, self-critically: "is it that these concepts are just too hard for other people to wrap their heads around, OR am I communicating the message so poorly that other people can't understand what I'm saying?" I'm not saying it's the case here, but I have often seen [hundreds of professional science lectures attended... ] a tendency of communicators who aren't quite connecting with the audience because they aren't doing it well to just write it off that the audience just can't handle what they have to say. The vast majority of the audience obliges them by answering emails, making shopping lists, or snoring, and everyone wastes their time.

So whereas I understand that the information in the ERE Wheaton Table is intended to tailor messages to specific receivers...

The table wasn't actually intended to be handed out in the "welcome to the forum!" welcome brochure, it wasn't meant for the consumption of Wl0/1's, in other words.

I mean, why not?! Making a communication tool intended for Level 4+'s is ridiculous ("...but there are dozens of us!"). It would be like translating War and Peace into Klingon or Lojban. Ok, someone will get something out of the effort, but that someone is statistically not different from no one.

I don't see any reason why the message necessarily requires more sophistication or tailoring when talking about any particular stage of maturity. Again, implementation is a different story...but just talking about it? C'mon. Is this a cult? [Insert Fight Club Reference Here] A particular problem with "tailoring" is that, as I mentioned before, people at different ERE maturities will need to work on maturation in the specific areas that are limiting them, which more often than not have nothing to do with personal finance and may be completely different than someone else at roughly the same overall maturity. So a reference to Dave Ramsey, the finer points of withdrawal rates, or how you vacation ain't going to help if the problem is "personal maturity"/Kegan development.

Or, to flip these questions back at you (and because I honestly want to know if what I typed was clear and made sense), what part of my post had so much mind-bending sophistication that the average person on the street with a high-school education couldn't understand the concepts in about 15 minutes? And if it was comprehensible (great!), then what huge and important part of ERE philosophy have I left out?

And if I was confusing or incomplete, which I very well may have been (and which was my error, naturally), could you please respond so that a ERE Wheaton Level 1 like I could understand it? I hear there is a table you could use...

P.S. This post is snarkier than I typically make on the Internet, but I was having some fun. Nothing but good vibes intended. We're all on the same team*. Sorry if I hurt the feelings of any Lojban speakers.
P.P.S. That last joke about the table cuts a little deep as I recognize some of my own suggestions to the OP in a lot of the Focus column.

* Kegan Level 3-oriented appeal! See what I did there! God, this post is meta.

[Scott 2]

Maybe WL5 should be rephrased to resolve the fear/esteem/insecurity of WL4? I'm not sure how to do that. The first table was created with those stages well in the rear-view mirror already. Will take suggestions for rephrasing or inserting additional stages ...

I don't know when the fear stops. For me, it hasn't. The math says I never have to work again, but I am still scared. I quit anyway, because the alternative is worse. I am hoping a path to the level 7 retirement goal emerges. I think that, plus time away from corporate culture, might heal my insecurity.

I agree it's easy to misuse a maturity model. Assigning level based aspiration or derision is the most common problem I've observed.

So really, as a communication tool, the level required to read and understand the scale should not be higher than the lowest levels on the scale. Otherwise, there is no way that it will be intelligible to the vast majority of people###. Let's just say I disagree with the idea that one shouldn't be able to comprehend higher levels until they are approaching it.

It's not that the messenger has failed to deliver their communication, it's that the recipient knows they are wrong. No amount of rewording is going to cause the aha! moment. A lived experience needs to happen.

Jacob's been using comparative advantage vs. DIY as an example lately. I think that's a great one, because I personally fell prey to it. I know his material, to the point where I've read a large minority of the secondary sources. I could explain 95% of his content from the recent podcasts.

Until 2020, I thought the emphasis on DIY was an overly principled stand. Like if he's into wood working, that's cool, but let's not pretend it really matters. Anyone with a little money can just pick up the phone and solve their problem.

One year into a pandemic? The reasons are obvious. Convincing me is trivial.

[BookLoverL]

I wasn't intending it as any sort of criticism that levels 9 and 10 seem vague to me - I agree that that's how I know the table is working (and also that I've rated myself accurately on the table, since the "ridiculous" vs "incomprehensible" lines are in the right places compared to where I think I am).

Historically I've found the table most useful for coming to understand why not everyone was just ready to jump on board with FIRE and later ERE like I was, and thinking of appropriate ways to talk about money with my lower-level friends. In general the table and the discussion it's generated has been one of my favourite things on the forum.

I think seeing the new 8 and the new discussion that's being generated is going to help me understand better my hopefully future full advancement to level 6.

[nomadscientist]

At WL9, why does spending continue to drop as the key difference appears to be that increased "access" allows one to use "NW" to be a "live player" i.e. it seems like the NW is being brought out of its box as a backup income and used for some external purpose like foundation endowment or business?

Would you not consider using the NW for this purpose (even if it's being purely drawn down with no profit like in a foundation) as spending?

Even in such a case, next to zero own spending implies you live on a farm or whatever - isn't this a development essentially unconnected to deploying the NW for good? Why bundle them on one level?

These are real Qs, not criticisms. I find this new table very interesting as someone as far behind you as you are behind your new projected frontier.

[AxelHeyst]

Yep, we're on the same page I think (and I lol'd irl a couple times at your metasnark like whoa), and I enthusiastically support the project of creating material that is designed to be comprehensible as it stands for all WLs (i.e. something that is not a comms cheat sheet for 4+'s). My only point is that that is not the intent with this particular doc. Perhaps this WL table is a document that can enable/support/inform the project of developing those more generally consumable materials.

Edit: I don't really have an opinion on whether it's possible to communicate WL7 to a WL2 in a way they'll understand. I hear your arguments, and think they are important, I'm just not well read/smart enough in the appropriate fields to have an opinion worth anything. My interest in the framework at the moment is selfishly focused on my own journey, and devil take the hindmost.
---/---
The presence of 8 and 9 make 7 seem closer and more attainable than it felt before. I can kinda get 'an idea of' 8/9 now, and that informs my idea of 7 "from above", making it seem less esoterically unobtainable. When 7 only had hand-waving guesswork above it, it seemed like pure Yoda/Zen Koan stuff. Now, and with Daylen's story situating the 7 as the slow child in the conversation, I feel like a mental voice that was saying "you'll never make it there" has been shut up. Oh yeah, I'm totally abusing the table.

[jacob]

@nomadscientist - The spending column is for the household---not outside the household. If a WL9 decides to spend $1M/year to support a land trust or something else outside their household, I think that's fine. It's also says "typical" in the disclaimer. This is just meant to reflect how most people at that level live. It's not the key to the table.

I prefer to avoid leaving it too open to gamifying. In particular, I want to avoid creating a backdoor for "high-spending lifestyle coaches who sell pricey seminars inspiring people to become coaches". I also want to avoid writing off personal consumption as "business expenses" ala the RDPD books.

Put it another way, I have to somehow phrase it or pick a number so it doesn't break the rest of the table. In particular, it should allow for a "graceful regression under stress" to a previous level as described above. I've been going back and forth between $1000, <$2500, N/A, and ~.

[jacob]

@bsog - Nice write-up. I'll be changing the title of the table to reflect more strongly that the table really shows the journey out of Plato's Cave of industrialized consumerism that is the ERE project at its roots.

In my experience, the scientific community is the only community where "naive realism" is universally accepted. It's possible to end debates with "You're right and I'm wrong. Thanks for pointing out my errors." In terms of communication, I agree that dialing in the level of complications is key. Communicative success can be determined by how many questions there are after the seminar. If there are none, the presentation was either dead-trivial or completely incomprehensible to the audience.

However, practically everywhere else, naive realism is void and people operate more on the level of (sub)conscious postmodernism where everybody is entitled to their own opinion and even their own facts.

In that regard, I think Scott2 has a more realistic perspective. Upton Sinclair commented that it's impossible to convince someone of something if their salary depends on them not understanding it. If you want to see some cringe worthy examples, see the interviewees in https://www.netflix.com/title/81014008 trying to wiggle their way out of their easily checkmated positions.

In such cases (that is, most cases), people think the communication is great if it strokes their ego or otherwise confirms their existing beliefs. Unlike under naive realism, there's no such thing as objectively good communication. It depends on the projection of the subject (reader). Do they see themselves reflected in what the writer or speaker is saying? If so, the speaker who is putting words on vague ideas they audience is holding is perceived as brilliant.

If on the other hand the speaker repeats the same talk to a different and less compatible audience where identity, ego, salary, ... doesn't match, the mind's immune system kicks in. Since "there can't possibly be anything wrong with me, it must be the message", therefore the speaker is now seen as incomprehensible, rambling, ...

You can see this effect in the rather polarized reviews of the ERE book for example---it's rather astounding that the 1-2 star and 4-5 star reviews are talking about the same book. The objective contradictions are impossible to reconcile unless it's accepted that most [consumer] reviews are rather subjective in nature.

A better example would be to ask people how well-spoken they believe some politician is. 80% of the answer comes down to whether they support the particular team than any objective rhetorical measure.

On the question of whether the entire table should be comprehensible from the perspective of the lowest level, opinions and strategies are divided. I'm in the camp that prefers a bit of measured obscurity. Obscure references at later stages will be known by the time one gets close to those stages. I don't see the explicit need to make the entire table useful for all stages. This would be like rewriting calculus/analysis in a form so it could be operated by 1st graders counting on their fingers. It can!(*) But I don't think it's a good idea.

(*) The integral is obviously the area under the curve and in many cases, one can draw it on a piece of paper, cut it out, and weigh it; possibly getting a measured average from lots of cut-outs. It's also possible to demonstrate differentiation with a piece of chalk and a power drill. Good idea? Yes, because power drill! Actually, no, it's not a good idea

The issue is hinted at in the Kegan framework. The mass of systems connections one is considering at KeganN is not a*N, where a is some fixed number. It's more like a*N^b, where N>b>1.

The downside is that it creates the impression that the higher (beyond the fog) stages are a bunch of "woo".

Conversely, if the entire table was comprehensible to all-comers, it would attract the cafeteria/life-hacking crowd who figure they can just skip all the hard development work (building all the systems connections into their own minds). I'm not a fan of this. I believe overcoming the difficulty is the job of the receiver. Not surprising given that one of my favorite Confucius quotes is about lifting one corner and not going further until the student comes back with the other three. Learning is the job of the student, not the teacher who can only facilitate the process.

Another argument is that insofar the entire table should be comprehensible to stage 1, the length of the descriptions at higher stages would get longer and longer. For example, the ERE book describing WL7 strongly presumes that the reader already has a internalized (IS-A) WL3-5 and (HAS-A) working knowledge of WL6 and it still uses 200+ pages to introduce WL7. I'd like to meet the "supreme communicator" who can compress the ERE book much further down while still retaining most of the pertinent message.

PS: Fun fact. I've noticed that whenever I start a new writing/research project, my context-free Dreyfus1 understanding always leads me to want to write the 101version of the 401 course. For example, if I'm writing about climate change, I'm initially compelled to cover radiation transport in some clever way that even a HS could understand it. As a result, the chapter blows up in tremendous size. When I started this way for my MSc thesis, my supervisor took a look at the first 20 pages and asked me point blank what my intentions were and where I was going with this... did I want to rewrite the textbooks.. basically the message was never to write what one can cite away. Of course this is a rather academic take. Still, it's a good point. It should be possible to discuss multiplication and just assume that the person knows what addition and also numbers are. If this means that 4 year old can't understand such a discussion, so be it.

[jacob]

The presence of 8 and 9 make 7 seem closer and more attainable than it felt before. I can kinda get 'an idea of' 8/9 now, and that informs my idea of 7 "from above", making it seem less esoterically unobtainable. When 7 only had hand-waving guesswork above it, it seemed like pure Yoda/Zen Koan stuff.

Yes! This was also a big part of the motivation for expanding it upwards. I have the same issue with Kegan's and Loevinger work. The last-level often becomes a catch-all for everything/everyone that is clearly beyond the current descriptions.

Like in mathematical simulations (diff equations), a given level becomes a lot better defined when it's bracketed by other levels. It's more iffy when one of the brackets is an ill-posed boundary condition (the last-level).

Unfortunately, it's impossible to derive how out-of-sight levels are experienced. We do know the structural generator functions for both Kegan and Bateson. However, just because it's possible to draw Bateson9, Kegan7, or Kegan58 does not mean it is in any way possible to grok how it is experienced.

[7Wannabe5]

I agree that the added levels are cool.

Depends on where you draw your boundary of agency

I am currently kind of obsessed with this and also initial conditions. I might also consider “agency” vs “dominance” vs “access” vs “knowledge” as determinate of boundaries.

OTOH, I am also currently stress regressed to the extent that I have eaten 10 different varieties of fast food in the last month , although I remain aware of little sad faces clouds of ignorance and gummy friction popping up in dim diagram of my lifestyle system.

[jacob]

@7wb5 - I first heard about "access, control, optionality" from a Wall Street dude. It's a wealth abundance orientation/perspective. I'd be interested in expanding/entertaining other lenses like e.g. virtue, enlightenment, ...

As it is, I do think ACO fits with WL9 and virtuous enlightenment is more of a catch-all last-stage---that is as far as I can tell anyway.

[daylen]

I like to use the word "Agency" as a catch all for stuff like ACO, dominance, virtue, maturity, enlightenment, human understanding, and so forth. I have been developing this system where an agent can hypothesize about their agency by imitating/drawing/visualizing/communicating/intuiting an agent model = ( agent set, frame set, point set, interaction/communication rules ) of their environment/territory(*). For instance, an agent could attempt to associate or dissociate from parts of it, the outcome could then be measured in success/failure and/or in terms of duration/frequency of association/dissociation. Attention is a set of agent states mapped onto a countable time set: e.g. observation (no point or frame), pointing (attending to point), framing (attending to frame), and fitting (attending to framed point or pointed frame). That is the gist of the system, I am using it to re-map psychology, cognitive development, cognitive bias, and communication.

(*) I like to call it an association map when drawn. There are a few coordinate systems that can be used to represent distance in space, entropy of communication channels, duration/frequency of interaction/communication, etc.. polar/spherical are preferred to Cartesian.

[black_son_of_gray]

I don't really have an opinion on whether it's possible to communicate WL7 to a WL2 in a way they'll understand.

How would you talk to children? How would you talk to new hires at work who are still learning the ropes? How would you talk to a newbie who is just joining your [insert hobby] club that you've been in for a decade? There are ways that work better: simplifying, de-jargonizing, taking lots of pause breaks during long explanations to make sure they understand up until that point, adding humor (powerful!). There are ways that work worse: talking down, just plowing through, assuming a set of vocabulary. Or flip it around and ask how you would like to be communicated to if a novice?

I hear your arguments, and think they are important, I'm just not well read/smart enough in the appropriate fields to have an opinion worth anything.

I believe in you. I'm not particularly well-read or smart. It's ok not having an opinion. It's ok having one. Rigid thinking is the bigger issue.

[Stasher]

Just adding my appreciation here quickly rather than any substantive feedback. This discourse since Jacob's last chart update has been fascinating, enlightening and educational. Many concepts and academic references that will surely help me work to achieve N+1 in this journey of life. Kudos to all the forum members for providing so much time and energy to the discussion. Equally the seed that is planted and the nurturing that occurs by the fact that you are an active rather than passive member of your forums can not go without acknowledging either Jacob, Cheers.