Giorgio Piacenza

  Stages In the books "Integral Psychology" and "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality" by Ken Wilber (largely based on the work of several developmental psychologists), our basic values, sense of self-identity, ethics, and spirituality concerning our very subjective and intersubjective experiences unfold in stages. These stages may somewhat blend with each other as intersecting waves and not be rigidly separated, but we would still be unable to discount our predominant focus (or “center of gravity”) in any of them.  The findings of several developmental psychologists that are crucial ingredients of Wilber's Integral (or Meta Integral) Theory are depicted in a  vertical  manner of greater and lesser (more and less inclusive) levels of development and understanding that, despite appearing to be elitist, cannot be ignored. Too many researchers coincide in the fact that several psychological lines of development can be placed side by side and associated with the same levels o...

I think that the "Will-to-Power" referred to in this conversation between Harari and Bilyeu in combination with a dominant, premodern developmental (reality-interpretive) level is particularly dangerous, especially now that existentially-threatening technologies have been developed by individuals of a dominant modern (reality-interpretive) developmental level.  This is because in the pre-modern, mythic, ethnocentric level of development regarding how individuals interpret reality as per their identities, values, interpersonal affairs (and other important lines of development), the Will-to-Power is particularly justified with absolutist doctrinal ideas much more readily than at the modern-rational and subsequent levels and people seek absolutist doctrinal solutions based on ethnic belonging. It is not a world-centric stage of development in which all of humanity is "us". Only those that are like us culturally or ideologically and, often, racially... are "us....

  Some Developmental Challenges in the Social Recognition of an Extraterrestrial/Non-Human Presence By Giorgio Piacenza   We must understand first that mythic-oriented persons are primarily focused not on facts but on beliefs, structure, hierarchy, and group identity. They might use facts to reinforce those factors weighing on in them more heavily.   They really need to hold on to a clear set of simple beliefs, even if these are inadequate limited for living in harmony in today’s world. And today's multiplicity of cultures, confusion, and competing beliefs makes them uncomfortable.    Once they realize that they have implicitly agreed that manipulating facts is OK in order to accomplish their group's aims, their group cohesion is reinforced, they close ranks, and strengthen their "in group- out group" mentality. And they will create narratives that reinforce this even more. Moreover, if by manipulating facts (even lying) they succeed politi...