The Daily Evolver

In this episode, I analyze Elon Musk through the lens of developmental theory, which maps the “spiral of worldview evolution” within people and cultures.

There are three major worldviews currently in contention in our culture:

They all have goodness, truth and beauty to offer, and they all hate each other. Most people live in one worldview, can function adequately in another, and polarize against the third. If you can embrace the polarization and inhabit all three, then you are entering the next emerging worldview: Integral (evolutionary synthesis).

If you can integrate all that (adequately, not perfectly) and add the lagging-edge worldview, the pre-traditional Warrior/Empire worldview, then you may be Elon Musk. In this episode, I explain. Enjoy!

– Jeff Salzman

PS: I’m posting more on Twitter theses days. You can “follow” my feed @dailyevolver.

In this episode, Dr. Keith and I take on two hot-button issues in the culture wars, each of us coming up on different sides of key issues. Hopefully our disagreements will be as illuminating to you as they were to us.

In this episode, Dr. Keith and I notice a growing attempt in the culture to bring meaning and purpose into the realms of science.

We focus on English scientist Rupert Sheldrake, who argues that “science should be set free” from the boundaries of mechanistic materialism. Sheldrake is well known for his theory of the morphic field, an evolving collective mind that all living beings are both accessing and creating.

A spiritual practitioner, Sheldrake seeks to include subtle and spiritual dimensions to create a more integral view of reality. He also offers the best explanation yet of how the heck dogs know when their owners are coming home!

There are at least three distinct sources of human suffering, all related, and none reducible to the others. They are:

Dr. Keith and I dive into these three sources of suffering, explaining how each contributes to the challenges of human existence. We show ways to use this knowledge to grow towards living a happy ending at the beginning of something wonderful.

Dr. Keith and I marvel at an exciting new (to us) typology system developed by Kibeom Lee and Michael Ashton: the HEXACO system. Lee and Ashton researched the popular 5-factor system and identified a new human trait, honesty/humility, which determines the adaptiveness and social worth of the other five. Briefly, the HEXACO factors are:

This system raises important questions about human development, and what influences success/failure, intimacy/alienation, and happiness/misery.

In this episode, Keith introduces me to his theory of human sociability. As he sees it, human relationships can be seen on a spectrum of playing and fighting.

Both playing and fighting are human superpowers that can be used for better or worse. Dr Keith and I explore the play/fight current through all of humanity, delivering surprising insights into intimate relationships, politics, and evolution.

In this short episode, I am joined by Jose and Lynn Fuentes, who are producing an exciting conference for the integral community this November in Sedona, Arizona.

The event is called Integral: What’s the Future and What Can We Do About It? It is designed in the spirit of a lineage of powerful gatherings that I (and perhaps you) participated in many moons ago. Jose and Lynn bring up golden memories for many of us when they write on their website:

Somewhere between an Integral Living Room, an Integral Incubator, and a What Next Conference, there is a field – meet us there!

Especially touching for me is that Lynn and Jose are invoking the spirit of our dear, departed Brother Terry Patten, who was integral to those historical events, and they are explicitly carrying on Terry’s transmission of joyful activism. As they write about the upcoming conference:

We are gathering to consider how we can make a positive difference in the world. Come prepared with an open heart and mind, some great ideas for strategically inserting an integral consciousness into the world, and a desire to have fun doing it.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Lynn and Jose Fuentes and are inspired to check out the conference!

Integral: What’s the Future and What Can We Do About It?

November 3-6, 2022

Poco Diablo Resort, Sedona, Arizona

$499 early bird ends August 15th

Who’s Inside Your Circle of Compassion? – A key marker of consciousness development is an ever-expanding circle of people (and other living beings) who you consider to be worthy of moral consideration. Full episode: Psychopaths are People Too.

The Left’s Split, Embracing More  – The political Left is differentiating into “woke” and “non-woke” contingents – and fitfully integrating into a larger emergent identity. Full episode is here.