How does Ken Wilber to assess the consciousness level of is interlocutor ? And how he adapts his sentences?

Academy
1

Hello there,

I’m trying to modelise Ken Wilber’s process of calibrating his interlocutor’s level of consciousness. And then, how he adapts his sentences in order to communicate better.

I tried to find debate videos, but I mostly found interviews. Does anyone know such a video? Or is aware of an interview of Ken speaking on his process?

Also, I’m trying to separate all the phases :

  • Does he synchronise first with his interlocutor?
  • How does he calibrate his interlocutor’s level? With questions?
    (if so, find some example
    depending on the topic)
  • Does he try each 4 quadrants with questions?
  • Is the non-verbal important?
  • What does he firstly look for?
  • What’s Ken’s internal voices dialogue during the process? What are his thoughts?
  • Does a visualize stuff
  • What about the development lines?
  • And then, when he finds the level, how he adapts his language

Here are the proto-steps that I imagine

  1. Synchronisation
  2. Active listening of the lexical field
  3. Checking the context
  4. Making some hypothesis
  5. Asking question to the interlocutor to precise the level
  6. Reformulation in order to validate the level
  7. Adaptation to the level (lexical field, values, tools…)
  8. Maybe when the rapport with the interlocutor his strong, slowly speaking about the contradiction of the conscious level.

He would deeply appreciate help on that.

Than you so much.
Have a lovely day,

Jean

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I think Ken is in a spiritual space first and foremost. I do not know him beyond my own explorations into his writings and watching him over the years. I will share my comments below, but know that I could be way off with them and welcome others to opine in kind.

Perhaps @corey-devos will provide better insights due to his personal relationship with Ken.

I don’t think Ken is as calculating and methodical in his interactions with others as perhaps you imagine or your post implies. I sense that Ken utilizes his spiritual acuity to feel his way with people more than thinking his way through his interactions. While Ken is brilliant and a top of the world intellect, I think he utilizes his intuition and leverages observation and his power of inquiry to move in harmonious intercourse with others.

The levels and quadrants you reference are not a static thing that you can map and solidify in real time. Ken moves between and around them all and leverages the different techniques from different positions, colors and quadrants at different times to achieve progress in understanding and in communicating.

I thinks it’s by means of his spiritual insights, his humility and rational discernments that he interacts with others; making him a unique spiritual giant in influencing a generation of deep thinkers. ~ Peace :slight_smile:

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Dear Jean,

Thank you for your answer.

We are on the same page about the spirituality of Ken.
However, he spent a life trying to modelise everything in a very analytical way.

Maybe now it’s automatic for him. He surely increased his intuition. But I think it’s a journey question, and I’m trying to understand the steps of this journey.

I’ll try to dig a bit more and maybe something will pop out ^^.

:pray:
Peace dear Jean

4

From my own experience with Ken, it is much as Excecutive says — I think it’s largely an intuitive process without much internal chatter at all. However, Jean, I think you did a nice job hypothesizing what a more operationalized model might look like. I think the one thing to be careful of, however, is a tendency in this community to try to label human beings as being “at” a particular stage.

While people do often consolidate around particular stages in our thinking, our sense-making, our relationships, our politics, etc., I think it’s critical to remember that human interiors are tremendously complex, and rarely can people be narrowly located on a particular map. Which is why I often say “don’t make an object out of other people’s subjects”, because I think that tends to corrupt the larger “spirit” of integral pluralism that we try to embody in the world.

Generally speaking, people don’t live at a particular stage of development, but rather inhabit an entire stack of views and values, and any of the layers of that stack can get “lit up” depending on the context. And even when people have consolidated around a particular stage — let’s say their center of gravity is green — then this can typically mean that 50% of their responses are coming from green, 25% from teal, and 25% from orange. (They could even still be holding on to unexamined assumptions from, say, Amber.)

We just don’t move through these stages in a clean or discrete way, and we certainly don’t want to fall into the trap of writing off someone’s perspective entirely, simply because we think we can place them in one category or another within our own mental maps.

Not to mention the fact that our own enactment of these maps can be shrouded by shadow, addiction, and allergy, which can greatly distort our perception of each other, and the kinds of categories we use to locate and relate to each other.

So my sense is, when it comes to Ken, he is usually not trying to suss out the kosmic address of the whole person he is talking to, but rather the kosmic address of whatever idea is being presented. That way, we aren’t making objects out of each other’s subjects, but instead making discernments from each other’s objects and artifacts (such as the presentation of a particular idea), so we know how to engage with those ideas, and possibly up-level them into a more integral understanding.

I hope that makes sense!

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Thank you so much @corey-devos,

Your answer expend my understanding of the model.
I’m deeply agree with the importance of avoiding labels on people. I explain it to my clients, who ask me for tests (MBTI…). It helps for the big picture, that’s it. Human beings are way to complex.

I think I was a little stuck on the idea of one current major consciousness level for each of us (even with the line).
What you said opens my mind : “Generally speaking, people don’t live at a particular stage of development, but rather inhabit an entire stack of views and values, and any of the layers of that stack can get “lit up” depending on the context. And even when people have consolidated around a particular stage — let’s say their center of gravity is green — then this can typically mean that 50% of their responses are coming from green, 25% from teal, and 25% from orange. (They could even still be holding on to unexamined assumptions from, say, Amber.)”.

I think I will follow my research but differentl, uUsing the levels in a way to help my understanding of people’s ideas.

Thank you again, you both.

Jean

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