Talk:Ken Wilber/Archive 5

Related discussion
See Talk:Integral_Movement for my proposed changes to the opening section of "Integral movement" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joeperez69 (talk • contribs) 01:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The Ken Wilber biography section
I have now skimmed all the archives for this article going back to the beginning, and I feel that I must be missing something. Could somebody clue me in? There has been extensive discussion on the biographical section of the article for YEARS with several editors stepping in to change different things and talking about it repeatedly. However, the section now is almost entirely UNCITED (only two cites and virtually every claim in the section is entirely unsupported). I thought that claims without citations are subject to deletion. Am I being naive in wondering why so many wiki editors have touched this material over so long a period of time and yet not produced material that meets the basic requirement of the wiki for verifiable sources?

Furthermore, the text there simply relates a bunch of uncited assertions with hardly any bearing on Wilber's intellectual development. The most important aspect of a Wilber bio, I would think, should be the evolution of his thought through five distinct phases, and yet this is not examined at all. Of the two citations that are there now, one is good (Schwartz) and the other is really quite irrelevant and lacks a page number. Honestly, I hope I don't ruffle the feathers or egos of anyone who has contributed to this section of the article in the past, but would I be wrong in suggesting that the biography section ought to be re-written from scratch so that each of its claims can be properly cited? Wilber is an author who has written 20+ books in a variety of different fields, and so even a cursory bio is going to have to be much longer and detail the shifts in influences from different periods of his writing all the way through the present. (The rest of the article also makes a huge amount of unsupported assertions, and IMO most of it also needs a full re-write, but that's a topic for another day or month or year.)

I do intend to do a short bio of Wilber as part of the re-write for the "Integral movement" page and am committed to that project, however I am altogether uncertain that I have the time to invest in the many hours of research it would take to do a properly cited, encyclopedic quality bio for the Ken Wilber page. I think the Steiner biography is an excellent model, IMO the Freud bio info is about the right length but the Jung bio info is too long. I'm not saying no and I'm not saying yes to drafting a full proposal. But do others at least agree that the section needs a full re-write with (a) proper citations, (b) neutral POV, and (c) an examination of his intellectual development and the progression of his major books? If there is agreement on at least that much, then I will consider blocking out several days for research in the coming weeks to devote to properly researching this topic and developing the content up to encyclopedic standards. However, before I consider taking on yet another mountain, is there agreement on that point?

I am asking because in reviewing the archives for this article's talk page, I have sympathy for both the editors who felt the biographical information should include more detail (because the material demands that depth of coverage for a figure as complex as Wilber) as well as the editors who wanted to cut (because the content that was there was both improperly cited and really not all that informative to the average reader wanting a helpful intellectual history). I would not want to spend days or weeks researching and writing a bio that would simply be axed by an editor with the POV that Wilber is not a significant enough figure to warrant more than a few paragraphs, so if that's a debate that's going to happen, let's have it now before I or anyone else wastes their time trying to improve what's there and bring it up to academic standards. Joeperez69 (talk) 22:32, 15 January 2010 (UTC) Joe Perez
 * Just added "citation needed" tags to the bio section. This newbie editor is getting a bit bolder. Joeperez69 (talk) 22:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC) Joe Perez
 * I removed those and replaced with the refimprove tag, looks better and gets same point across.TheRingess (talk) 23:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Just a quick update. I've been putting quite a few hours into researching and re-writing the intellectual biography section of this page. It may be a bit before I'm ready to contribute it, but in the meantime I just wanted to suggest that if anyone wants to contribute to this page please add to other sections or, if you want to work on the bio, contact me so that we may avoid duplicating efforts. Joeperez69 (talk) 21:18, 3 February 2010 (UTC) Joe Perez

Automate archiving?
Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 90 days and keep 3 threads. --Pevos (talk) 10:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. All is One  (talk) 14:25, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Fine. &mdash; goethean &#2384; 19:44, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Hope it works :) --Pevos (talk) 17:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

edit war
The current slow edit war on "critics" is getting silly. Is there any reason why that material, while not a separate section, should not be put in narrative form in the reception section?-- Snowded TALK  14:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This? It's just external links. I don't have a problem with incorporating it, if you want to write it up. &mdash; goethean &#2384;


 * I'm not sure critics are really something that is notable. Everybody has a critic. Controversy and critic sections invite people to find and insert criticisms. With that said, it doesn't mean I'm opposed to inserting notable criticism, but I've found that sections like this are generally to pacify and they really don't work. Basileias (talk) 04:34, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The fact of the matter is Mr Wilber has critics with legitimate criticism. This bio is unbalance, unless their points are added.GuyFawlks (talk) 05:19, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I can see Goethean has no objection to those criticisms been summarised, just to the list of external sites . Why not do that?  -- Snowded  TALK  05:29, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Now there is now no criticism in this article. Perhaps its appropriate in the realm of pseudoscience to refrain from critical thought, but to pose the sorts of interpretations of the world that are presented in this article, and not include any of the criticism that is floating around, at least *outside* of the pseudoscience community is to rob the wikipedia viewers of a thorough view of this man and his work. Most other similar articles and similar people who are leaders of alternative philosophies have some level of criticism in their article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.122.149.161 (talk) 15:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The whole article is a longstanding example of how to use selective attention to violate WP:FRINGE. 271828182 (talk) 17:02, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

User 149.168.27.243‎
"Pseudoscience" was insert into the "See also" and I'm questioning whether that should be there. If there's solid sources for this content labeled as such then I'm fine with the entry. User 149.168.27.243 reverted my removal calling it Vandalism and placed a POV tag. I don't like a POV tag being added without a specific problem identified. Basileias (talk) 18:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Amazing Lack of Objectivity
Its always amazes me to come back to this page and see how far reaching subjectivity is - it might well be called an Ode to Ken Wilber rather than actually sticking to the facts - and its funny this talk page use to be at least the length of 8 pages - where did it all go - as well as where did the criticism section go which is found in majority of other philosphers's pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.23.34.226 (talk) 20:43, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

biography: wilber says he has a master's degree but bio only mentions bachelor's degree
At present, the biography for Wilber says that he "completed a bachelor's degree in chemistry and biology." But Wilber says, "I have a Master’s degree in biochemistry, and a Ph.D. minus thesis in biochemistry and biophysics, with specialization in the mechanism of the visual process” (he says this in a comment he posted to an Integral Naked forum in 2005; the forum is no longer on the web but the content of Wilber's comment may be found here, as well as at a few other places on the web). If he has a Master's degree, his biography should say so instead of saying that he only has a bachelor's degree. Someone must be able to confirm this one way or the other. Daphnis9 (talk) 04:44, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Moving the Theory section to the Integral Theory page
There is a Integral Theory page that is currently of low quality. The content on this page about the theory would fit there. It would allow this page to focus on Wilber's biography and his personal contributions to the theory (however huge they are). I'm happy to help with it or do it, but I'm new at editing so I prefer to engage a discussion first. --Nomade0 (talk) 09:31, 1 March 2012 (UTC) What exactly do you want to move? I cannot see anything that is relevant to integral theory. Op47 (talk) 23:06, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Material about Wilber's theories are relevant to his biography and should remain at this article. &mdash; goethean &#2384; 11:13, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Thankyou, I suspected as much. I will remove the tags. Op47 (talk) 21:23, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Education
Sorry to say this article kinda lacks. I came here looking for an impartial view on Ken Wilber and also to read about his education and history. Sadly, Double strike! Clearly some people here will know this information. Please share his education, and cull the theory we can find elsewhere in great detail. 49.176.3.198 (talk) 08:16, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Why no critiques of Wilber's thought
This cannot be said to be an acceptable Wikipedia article as there is no critique of Ken Wilber's thought. John D. Croft (talk) 20:58, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Add it. Anyone may edit. See critical websites, for starters. GangofOne (talk) 05:41, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
 * When someone has followers, then that path is often the main focus of their lives. Someone who is critical is usually focusing their time on other things. So, one will find that the criticism ends up vanishing in some future revision. The exception to this trend is when a teacher is abusive, and so people make a vocation about warning about the person, and so they keep watching the Wiki page.


 * So, since Wilber is not abusive (no reports have emerged), then it is unlikely that crticisers would notice their criticisms vanishing.


 * But there are a couple:


 * - He writes thousands and thousands of pages. But while the physical world is complex, spirituality is simple. Ramana Maharshi gave the meaning of life, the universe and everything in a handful of pages. My reading of Wilber's works is that they are circular, meaningless gibberish, sprinkled with various well-known spiritual truths, in order that readers nod their heads in agreement from time to time. For someone to rigorously critique Wilber's writings, they would have to read the thousands of pages of dense, abstract reasoning using many loosely defined New Age terms.  So, there are not too many of those.


 * - He considers Adi Da ( a self-proclaimed guru who is clearly known to be abusive ) to be profound. Without exception, all the other people who proclaimed Adi Da to be profound were charlatans or gullible.


 * Here is one critique I found: http://kheper.net/topics/Wilber/AQAL_critique.html


 * and here from the same site: http://www.kheper.net/topics/Wilber/Wilbers_method.html


 * And a crtiique from a Buddhist point of view: http://mortentolboll.weebly.com/a-critique-of-ken-wilber-and-his-integral-method.html


 * 162.205.217.211 (talk) 21:12, 28 January 2016 (UTC)


 * See also Frank Visser's website.  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   06:17, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Education
"Vomiting-Confetti Blogspot" is not a credible source for a reference for his eduation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.50.134 (talk) 17:52, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You are right. There is nothing there. I believe he has actually attended school. GangofOne (talk) 03:20, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

While we're relying on Wilber's own statements, he does discuss his education in Grace and Grit, in which he says to have completed BS and MS degrees at UNL; he did coursework towards a doctorate but dropped out without completing his dissertation (in order to focus on writing The Spectrum of Consciousness). Cryptic Counselor (talk) 11:35, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

suggest merge "Books about.." and "Further reading"
Almost the same thing, and duplications between them. Suggest heading be "Books about KW and further reading" GangofOne (talk) 03:18, 26 January 2016 (UTC) Done. GangofOne (talk) 05:41, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

How about just "Further Reading" to encompass all of it? Rags (talk) 18:40, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090319023750/http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/cowokev1_intro.cfm/ to http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/books/cowokev1_intro.cfm
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 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.deepspirit.com/sys-tmpl/thepromiseofintegralism/
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