What's Missing in the Intellectual Dark Web — 02 — What Is Integral Consciousness? (with Ken Wilber)

The Intellectual Dark Web — the term was coined by IDW member Eric Weinstein — refers to a loosely bound worldwide internet community of over a hundred major thinkers (and hundreds of millions of views) who do not find any present day intellectual trends to be that inviting. They don’t like the far Right, but they don’t like the far Left either — they’re looking for a much more unified and inclusive ways of thinking. In an article posted on the Rebel Wisdom website — a website that was created in part due to a very positive response to the work of Jordan Peterson — David Fuller makes the following observation: “It was while watching these two interviews in quick succession—Dave Rubin’s talk with Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson, and his discussion with Eric and Bret Weinstein—that I came to my conclusion of what the conversation actually represented! It mapped clearly onto a model I was familiar with—the philosopher Ken Wilber’s idea of ‘Integral’ consciousness as an essential evolutionary leap. I’m going to argue that the conversation is an early but spontaneous manifestation of a more advanced way of thinking that Wilber calls ‘Integral.’ I’m going to apply Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory to the Intellectual Dark Web….” Integral Theory — or technically, Integral Metatheory — seems to be applicable here because it is basically an attempt to draw together as many different approaches to truth as we possibly can and integrate them in a unified framework. Integral sometimes refers to all these different truths as ones that include Waking Up, Growing Up, Cleaning Up, Opening Up, and Showing Up.