Note: This is an excerpt from volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy, tentatively entitled Sex, Karma, Creativity—the first volume of which was Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. I have finally finished volume 2, and am doing all the horrid little details required to get a book ready for publication.
Be sure to stay tuned next week for the second part of this essay, which will cover The Giga Glossary and the 1-2-3 of Spirit!
The following deals with a topic I find essential: the nature of linguistic meaning—or semiotics—and how a truly Integral approach fundamentally changes how we understand this. One of the basic moves is to understand that the referent, or “real object,” being represented by any linguistic sign doesn’t exist “out there” in a single, pregiven, unchanging reality, but rather exists in a particular and specific worldspace—a particular quadrant, or level, or line, or state, or type—and can only be “seen” or “experienced” by yourself finding
that particular worldspace and moving your consciousness to it.
that particular worldspace and moving your consciousness to it.
Thus, a word like “dog” can be seen by virtually any sentient being with a brain and eyes, and it exists in the sensorimotor world. But what about “God” or “Buddha-nature” or “Spirit”? Those are simple signifiers like “dog”—that is, a material mark claiming to represent a reality. But that reality is not just lying around “out there” in a single, pregiven, sensorimotor world—and thus those referents have often been taken to be meaningless.
But my point is that they all, in fact, exist in a specific worldspace that can itself be discovered and experienced—such as the causal or formless state of consciousness, particular stages of meditation, specific peak experiences or altered states. When one is in those worldspaces—and not simply staring at the sensorimotor worldspace—then the actual referents (the “real phenomena” of each referent)—can be clearly seen or experienced. And this changes the nature and meaning of semiotics altogether, by asserting that any given referent of a particular signifier exists in a specific worldspace, and in order to experience that referent appropriately (if it exists at all), the subject must get itself into that particular worldspace, and only then look around for the referent.
Integral Semiotics offers a comprehensive map or framework of most of the known worldspaces available to humans, and thus offers a Map that allows us to understand the Kosmic Address of a particular referent, and hence know where to look for any referent indicated by a signifier. Since most of these worldspaces do not possess simple location or material form, they are likely to be denied reality by most realist, empirical, or behavioral schools—where in fact they are home of the vast majority of those things most humans hold valuable. Integral Semiotics is thus a matter, not just of linguistics, but of emancipation.
—Ken Wilber
INTEGRAL SEMIOTICS
Ever since the “linguistic turn” in philosophy, about a century and a half ago, a general fact about language has become more and more obvious: language does not just represent the world, it co-creates it, or at least certain important aspects and ranges of it. Even those worlds that it does not directly co-create (much of the pre-human worlds, such as the atomic and molecular) nonetheless arise in a world that is known and interpreted through the linguistic structures present therein, and thus if not directly created by language, are irrevocably touched and tinged by it.
Which brings us to an integral theory of semiotics in general. As I have previously suggested in outline form, some of the pieces of the puzzle here include Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiology, which maintains that all signs indicating referents are composed of a material (or exterior) signifier and a mental (or interior) signified; Charles Peirce’s semiotics, which maintains that signs are not just dyadic (signifier and signified) but rather triadic (as he put it, “an action, or influence, which is, or involves, an operation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this trirelative influence not being in any way resolvable into an action between pairs”); speech-act theory of J. L. Austin and John Searle; communicative action theory of Habermas; developmental structuralism (e.g., Piaget); and traditional hermeneutics—to mention a prominent few. Although “semiotics” in the narrow sense refers to Peirce's approach to the topic (he invented the word), it is now common to use that term to refer to the entire field of linguistic signs and symbols.
Given the failure of the empiricist, positivist, behaviorist, realist, phenomenological, and representational paradigms to account for the generation of the many varieties of linguistic meaning, the central issue of semiotics (and knowledge in general) has become where exactly to locate the referents of utterances (and how does one deal with that?). This turns out to be incredibly important, because hidden within this topic is really how we determine ontology in general—what is real, and what is merely imagined, mistaken, or idiosyncratic. It even connects to whether we can prove the existence of God in any fashion.
To give a simple example, when I say, “I see the dog,” we can all look and point to the real dog, assuming it’s there. The real dog has simple location in empirical (or sensorimotor) space, and thus locating that referent is fairly easy—we simply point to the real dog and say, “There it is.” But when I say, “George is green with envy because John has already shown that he has more courage,” then where exactly are we to locate “envy” and “courage”? They don’t have simple location in physical space, and thus we can’t point to them empirically. We can’t “put our finger” on them.
Just so, we can’t put our finger on most of the referents of mathematics (where is the square root of a negative one?), nor poetry, nor logic, nor any of the virtues—we can’t point to honor or valor or compassion or spiritual knowledge.
Now we are not talking about the notion that all referents, when perceived or even imagined, have some sort of correlative activity in the brain, so that when I read the words “dog,” “square root of negative one,” or “God,” they each light up the brain in a particular way. Those brain activities are not the referents of those words. Because every activity of the human being has some sort of registrant in the human brain, to use brain activity as indicating the location of a referent is actually a massive tautology—all things equally register in the brain, even imaginary and fantasy images. Trying to prove, for example, that meditation is real by hooking meditators up to EEGs or fMRIs and noting the resulting brain pattern proves absolutely nothing, except that yet another phenomena has crossed the brain and lit it up, as all registered items do. Chasing down brainwave patterns when people meditate is one of the great red herrings of modern research.
Of course we need to do it, simply so the exact nature of the correlation between Upper-Left consciousness phenomena and Upper-Right brain phenomena can be mapped out. But we don’t want then to erroneously conclude, as all too often happens, that the brain is therefore the source, origin, and cause of consciousness. This is just another scientific materialistic colonialization of the lifeworld (the disaster of modernity), and furthers our actual knowledge not at all. What we are talking about when we speak of the location of referents is, in addition to brain activity, where in the overall world does the real referent or actual object exist? For most empirically-oriented philosophies (behaviorism to realism), this means “Where in the sensorimotor world does the object exist?”; or even, “Does it exist in the sensorimotor world?” (because if not, then it is usually held to be an unreal or simply imagined phenomena).
When we perceive an apple, and say “I see the apple,” and the brain lights up in a particular way, we do not conclude, “The apple only exists as a brainwave pattern; it otherwise has no reality.” No, we conclude that the apple is a real object in the real world, and as the brain perceives it, it lights up in various specific ways. But what happens when we say the same type of sentence but a different referent, such as, when engaged in contemplation, “I see God,” and the brain again lights up in a specific way. Do we give to God the same reality we gave to the apple, and conclude that God is a real phenomenon in the real world, and the brain is lighting up as it sees this real item? No, in fact we don’t. In fact, we do just the opposite. We take whatever brainwave pattern we can find at the time—perhaps an increase in gamma waves—and we say, “When the brain produces excess gamma waves, then the subject will imagine that he or she is seeing God.” In other words, where with the apple the brainwaves are taken as extra proof that apples are real, with God, the brainwaves are taken as extra proof that God is just an imaginary object; it’s not real in the real world, but simply an imaginary product of certain brainwave patterns. What’s going on here? And I am suggesting the answer lies in the whole issue of semiotics.
Start with the fact that most of the important issues in our lives do not have simple location, but that does not mean they aren’t real or do not exist. It only means that they cannot be found in physical space with simple location: they cannot be found in the sensorimotor worldspace.
But in addition to the sensorimotor worldspace, there are the emotional, the magical, the mythical, the rational, the planetary, the holistic, the integral, the global, the transglobal, the visionary, the transcendental, and the transcendental-immanent worldspaces, to name a prominent handful. And all of those worldspaces have their own phenomenologically real objects or referents. A dog exists in the sensorimotor worldspace, and can be seen by any holon with physical eyes. The square root of a negative one exists in the rational worldspace, and can be seen by anyone who develops to the dimension of formal operations. And Buddha-nature exists in the causal worldspace, and can be easily seen by anybody who develops to that very real dimension of their own state possibilities.
But neither the square root of a negative one nor Buddha-nature can be seen in the sensorimotor world—and all the philosophies that take the material realm or the sensorimotor realm as the prime reality (or that take consciousness-free ontology as the basic given), will not be able to locate either of those, and will hence conclude they both lack a fundamental reality (unless they go out of their way to make an exception, as, for example, positivism does when it says that all that is real are things and numbers—but too bad for Buddha-nature or Spirit: just can’t be found in the realm of dirt or numbers and thus is unceremoniously erased from the face of the Kosmos.)
In other words, the real referent of a valid utterance exists in a specific worldspace. The empiricist theories have failed in general because they ultimately recognize only the sensorimotor worldspace (and thus cannot even account for the existence of their own theories, which do not exist in the sensorimotor worldspace but in the rational worldspace).
Ferdinand de Saussure, in his pioneering work on linguistics and semantics, divided a “sign” into two parts: first, there is the material mark (written or spoken), which is the “signifier.” All the words on this page are signifiers. Second, there is what comes to mind when you see or hear a signifier, which is called “the signified.” Thus, my dog Fido is the actual object or referent. The word “F-i-d-o” is a signifier, and what comes to your mind when you read “Fido” is the signified (neither of which is the actual object or referent being referred to—which is Fido himself).
The signifier (e.g., the material word “Fido,” “negative one,” or “Buddha-nature” as they are written on this page or spoken by a person) is the Upper‑Right, the actual material mark. The signified (that which comes to mind when you read the word “Fido” or “negative one” or “Buddha-nature”) is the Upper‑Left, the interior apprehension in consciousness. This is what Saussure meant by the material mark (signifier) and the concept it elicits (signified), both of which are different from the actual referent. And, Integral semiotics adds, the actual referent of a valid utterance, to the extent it is valid, exists in a given worldspace—it exists in some dimension of the AQAL matrix which is composed of actual phenomena in any number of quadrants, quadrivium, levels, lines, states, and/or types.
Because all signifiers are by definition material, they can be seen by any animal with physical eyes (my dog can see the physical marks on this page). But the signified can only be seen if the appropriate level of interior development has been attained. Thus, my dog can see the signifier “dog,” but that word has no meaning for him, no signified for him, and thus he cannot know what the referent of that word actually is. Likewise, a six-year old can read the words “the square root of a negative one,” but those signifiers don't have any meaning (nothing is signified), and thus the six-year old cannot grasp the actual referent (the mathematical entity that exists only in the rational worldspace).
Thus, because referents exist only in particular worldspaces, if you have not developed to that worldspace—if you do not possess the developmental signified—then you cannot see the actual referent. Thus, anybody can read the words (the signifiers) that say “Buddha-nature,” but if the person has not developed to the causal dimension, then that word will basically be meaningless (it will not elicit the correct signified, the developmental signified, the interior apprehension or understanding), and thus that person will not be able to perceive Buddha-nature, just as the six-year old cannot perceive the square root of a negative one.
Thus, other people, who have developed to the state-stage of the causal dimension, might forcefully maintain that Buddha-nature exists, Spirit exists, and that everybody possesses it, yet for those who have not developed to the stage of the causal dimension, the notion of “Buddha-nature” or “Spirit” will be “all Greek” to these people, it will be “over their head.”
Hence, all referents exist in specific worldspaces (i.e., in some location in the overall AQAL matrix); all signifiers exist in the material and empirical domain (Upper Right); and all signifieds are actually developmental signifieds, and exist in the Upper Left at some specific altitude (red, amber, orange, green, indigo, etc.).
But signifiers (Upper Right) and signifieds (Upper Left) do not exist in a vacuum. They each have their collective forms and correlates. The sum total of the collective signifiers—the total form or structure that governs the rules and the codes of the overall system of material signifiers (which, as a collective material system of signifiers, is the Lower Right)—is simply syntax (or grammar), which determines the correct or acceptable fashion in which signifiers are placed in reference to each other. And the sum total of collective signifieds—the overall actual meaning generated by cultural intersubjectivity (which, as a collective interior system of signifieds, is the Lower Left)—is simplysemantics. It was Saussure’s brilliance to spot that the meaning of a sign is not determined by the sign alone, but by the total overall system of signs and the relation of a given sign to all the other signs, not merely its relation to its referent, which is largely arbitrary.
(Take the phrases “the bark of a dog” and “the bark of a tree”—the word “bark” possesses no inherent meaning, but rather gains meaning from the context of other signs in which it finds itself—it means something different in each context—whether it’s referring to the bark of a dog or the bark of a tree. Nor is there anything special about the word “bark”—virtually any word can serve in its place, and in different languages, they do. A few words actually sound—“onomatopoeia”—like the referent they are representing—“growl,” for instance, sounds roughly like the grrrrl sound made by an actual animal, and in these relatively rare cases, there is something of a mild internal connection between the signifier and the referent, but even then an entire system of other signs is required to convey that meaning.)
This gives us a chance to bring together the various semiotic schools I mentioned at the beginning of this summary. For example, by seeing that the signified (Upper Left) arises only in the space of the collective worldview or cultural semantic (Lower Left)—which will serve as the necessary background context for the individual interpretation—Peirce’s triadic and Saussure’s dyadic structure of the sign can be brought into close accord: Peirce’s sign is Saussure’s signifier (both nestled in a system of social syntax); Peirce’s object is Saussure’s referent (both existing in a particular worldspace); and Peirce’s interpretant is Saussure’s signified (both resting in a system of cultural semantics).
We can likewise find room in this integral approach for the important discoveries of postmodernism on the nature of the materialities of communication and the chains of sliding signifiers (Lacan, Derrida), and on the importance of transformative codes in selecting which signifiers will be deemed serious and which marginal (Foucault). Even more important, I believe, we can honor Paul Ricoeur’s “structuralist hermeneutics,” a bold (and partially successful) attempt to integrate formalist explication (structural system or syntax of Lower Right) with meaningful interpretation (cultural hermeneutics and semantics of Lower Left). Ricoeur: “If, then, the intention is the intention of the text, and if this intention is the direction that it opens for thought, it is necessary to understand the deep semantics in a fundamentally dynamic sense; I will hence say this: to explicate is to free [or expose] the structure, that is to say, the internal relations of dependence which constitute the static of the text [the formalist syntax]; to interpret is to set out on the path of thought opened by the text, to start out on the way to the orient of the text [deep semantics].”
In short, individual signifiers are Upper Right (material marks); signifieds are Upper Left (interior apprehensions); syntax or grammar is Lower Right (collective systems and structural rules of language accessed in an objective fashion); semantics is Lower Left (the actual referents of linguistic signs, referents which exist only as disclosed in particular worldviews or worldspaces). If we add ten or so levels of development in each of those quadrants, I believe we will have the beginnings of a truly comprehensive or integral theory of semiotics.
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