Nice work Peter. I also have a small problem with Wilber's pre/trans

fallacy and his linear/evolutionary approach. The whole first book

of SES is a linear reformulation of Praditya Samutpada, which itself

was a cyclical reformulation of pure immanence (vedic sacrifice and

the linear desire for better rebirths) and pure trancendence

(yoga/jnana and the linear desire for ego-negation) operating in the

South Asian religious scene. Wilber's linear reformulation of

Gautama is, in my view, simply a restatement of the core of Praditya

Samutpada in more modern evolutionary terms that is easier for us

today to swallow (I know from experience that the hardest part of

explaining Gautama's assertions is trying to get moderns to

understand the common knowledge understandings of karma and

cyclicality operating in the subcontinent that frames Gautama's

discourse), but it does not advance it. Your model incorporates both

the cyclical and the linear (negates and preserves, we all know the

spiel). What concerns me about evolution/linearity is that Ken will

talk about infinite holons all the way up and all the way down, and

then talk about the big bang at the beginning and the non-dual

awareness at the end, but never both at the same time. Okay, I

understand that holons up/down does not have to do with time, and

the big bang happened in time, so that even though the big bang

occurred at some point, holons all the way down is reasonable

because we will always find lower levels of holons--smaller

whole/parts of larger whole/parts--disrepective of the temporal

dimension of pre-big bang/post-big bang. All fine and good here.

Holons are observable, and infinitely parsible due to our ability to

parse. Our own investigation is sufficent to create holons all the

way down. Fabulous. But I believe that because it works in that

direction, he supposes that it also works in the other direction,

and here lies the problem. Moving past the centaur, Ken presents a

linear progression from psychic to subtle to causal to non-dual. At

the point of non-dual, we come to the realization that there is no

differentation between manifest and unmanifest (what you call

"actual" and "potential"). This non-dual realization is effectively

the cessation of avidya per Gautama, and is essentially correct in

Wilberian or Buddhist terms (just a difference in developmental

signifiers). Non-dual awareness takes us out of the

evolutionary/linear progression because there is no sense of

anything differentiated which can further unfold into the emptiness

(there is nothing seperate to move upward, and nowhere seperate to

move up into, all is the same). At this point the arrows dissapear,

and evolution not so much ceases as it becomes obsolete--it no

longer serves as a paradigm for understanding once the non-dual is

"reached"). Ken says this himself, and it is an eloquent restatement

of sunyata, of which he is no doubt an expert (moreso than I). But

why then does he place the non-dual awareness on the scale of forms,

past the causal. The arrow then has an end, and there cannot be

holons all the way up. It seems more likely that non-dual awareness

should lay off the scale of forms, and that the expansion of

conciousness and the internalization of all holons should be able to

proceeed infinitely (infinite levels above the causal)into realms

that we cannot know even pretend to discuss. That is what the logic

of Ken's "holons all the way up" has to imply. This is also a

reading which I would prefer. Here we see the advantage of Gautama's

cyclical version of the same, there is a chain of phenomena which

mutually cause all other links of the chain. Dissolve one link of

the chain ("suffering" and "ignorance" were the two links which

Gautama suggested were the most vulnerable to disclosure--but you

could start anywhere) and the whole chain dissolves, [pop]

emptiness. The non-dual awareness which brings the [pop] lies

nowhere on the chain, and lays everywhere outside it. This move by

Gautama (and later, Nagarjuna) was brilliant. Ken's [pop] lies on

the scale of forms, and thus ends the arrow. If our mind can parse

infinitely, it can include infinetely also. And here is where the

semantics become confusing. Infinite inclusion does not equal

non-dual awareness. Non-dual awareness can be obtained, infinity

(the infinite expansion of the "Self" to include all thing

previously thought to be outside it) cannot be attained, because it

is in-finite--as simple as that. The Self can expand forever and

never come to a non-dual awareness, non-dual awareness is not on the

scale of forms. Ken's "pre/trans fallacy," as you pointed out, is

trapped in an evolutionary/linear mode. It does not engage directly

either immanence (again as you point out) or how moving past any

point--trans-ing as an abstract notion--could even lead directly to

transcendance. If there is a space to "trans" into, you obviously

have not attained the non-dual. "Pre/trans fallacy" has to do with

the evolutionary/linear scale of forms and can in no way bring us to

an awareness of the non-dual. It will only create Omega points and

chaotic attractors infinitely, bringing further and further

expansions of the self into yet uncharted an un-enfolded-into space.

The arrow reaches on forever, holons all the way up, and the

non-dual (which must lay off the scale of forms) shakes its head and

wonders if we will ever stop running up and toward--just stop and

there is the non-dual.