
Kegan's Theory of the Evolution of Consciousness - cryptozeus
https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1110
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padobson
_I was talking with the guy who ultimately edited this book, and his son had
just watched Star Wars, his 4-year-old-son, and was very affected by it. And I
kind of had this theory that when you 're a very young person, the character
in Star Wars you care about the most or like the most is Luke Skywalker, who's
this, you know, wholly good, heroic, almost naively pure kind of character._

 _And then you become, you know, 12 years old, a teenager, and you gravitate
toward Han Solo, who seems like a bad person, but ultimately he is good. And
when you 're kind of going through adolescence, you sort of like the idea of
being perceived as a dangerous individual, even though you still sort of
identify as being good._

 _" But when you really become adult, you're no longer looking at characters —
fictional or unfictional — as aspirational. You kind of are the person you
are. And now when you look at characters, you kind of want to see things in
them that help you understand yourself. So I feel, as an adult, the character
you care about the most is Darth Vader. The maturation process seems to move a
person toward relating to and understanding villainous personalities._

-Chuck Klosterman

[https://www.npr.org/2013/07/09/200141185/chuck-klosterman-
on...](https://www.npr.org/2013/07/09/200141185/chuck-klosterman-on-batman-
bad-guys-and-wearing-the-black-hat)

~~~
cryptozeus
As I think about this more, when I first watched the office series I related
more with Jim however as I got older and kept watching it again and again I
started relating more with dwight.

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scribu
> While most students approach learning from an order 3 perspective, teaching
> is generally approached through the lens of order 4, creating a
> developmental mismatch. For instance, instructors expect students to be
> self-reflective, engaged, independent, self-directed, critical thinkers-
> skills that become evident only in order 4.

Can confirm, based on my undergrad experience. Virtually none of the students
(myself included) were yet at the level of maturity expected of them.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Absolutely. My wife went back to school to finish her undergrad in her 40s. It
was amazing to observe the immaturity of the people around her. She ended up
graduating top of class in everything and getting multiple awards for best
social science, anthropology, best student in arts department, best part time
student, etc. for the year.

Yes, she's a smart cookie -- but more than that, the other smart people around
her? They just weren't mature and serious enough to excel.

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dpup
Kegan's work has been quite influential for me, both in helping me understand
myself and others.

His later work, collaborating with Lisa Lehey is more actionable, in a work
context, but builds on the foundations outlines here.

~~~
cryptozeus
Nice, I am just beginning to explore his work. Any recommendations on the
books or articles would be great.

~~~
gexla
David Chapman quotes Kegan a lot in his "Meaningness" blog. I included one
link, but you should find more of his writing linked from there. Check out the
rest of the site as well.

[https://meaningness.com/metablog/stem-fluidity-
bridge](https://meaningness.com/metablog/stem-fluidity-bridge)

ETA: From the (Stanford) article this thread is attached to...

> Kegan (Robert) introduced his theory of self-evolution in 1982 in his book,
> The Evolving Self. In his later book, In over Our Heads: The Mental Demands
> of Modern Life (1994), he presented a revised version of his theory and
> further discussion of the implications of his work for society.

Of those two books, The Evolving Self is the easier read. I would start with
that one.

~~~
cryptozeus
Ha that is where I found kegan. Meaningness blog is a reip down the rabbit
hole.

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roberdam
Great recent interview
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhRNMj6UNYY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhRNMj6UNYY)

~~~
alexpetralia
One more vote for this podcast. They produce extremely high-quality
interviews.

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gmaster1440
Order 6: Illusory Mind. In this order, consciousness reaches a level of self
reflection that leads to the realization that self-hood is an object in
subjective experience and merely an observer of thoughts, not an author. Free
will slowly begins to erode and the mind is finally set free.

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azhu
> Order 5: Self-Transforming Mind. In this order of consciousness, which is
> infrequently reached and never reached before the age of forty (Kegan,
> 1994), individuals see beyond themselves, others, and systems of which they
> are a part to form an understanding of how all people and systems
> interconnect (Kegan, 2000). They recognize their "commonalities and
> interdependence with others" (Kegan, 1982, p. 239).

This idea is awesome, and is common sense in eastern philosophy. First
generation Americans, or anyone who finds themselves the venn between multiple
diagrams of culture, can also arrive to this pretty quick. Everyone's ideas
are limited to the experiences that produced them, but it's embarrassing for
western science on the whole for it to shirk the east when it comes to the
realm of inner experience.

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serpix
At stage 0 it is immediately taken for granted that there is a sense of self,
an identity. This is a very bold leap and his entiry theory builds on this.

~~~
cryptozeus
I didn’t get that from him. In state 0 the baby has sense but not about the
self. Imo self is something taught by the society and nurturing so baby would
not have that concept.

~~~
red75prime
Parts of the world belonging to a system and other world parts are so
different in a system's ability to control them, that I suspect that any
system capable of planning, learning and building world-models will naturally
divide the world into self and not-self.

In state 0 such discovery just hasn't happened yet.

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Matticus_Rex
I've found Kegan's work to be an extremely useful lens on the world, and I've
found his research with Lisa Lahey to be extremely useful both for my personal
development and for my company. We currently have a pilot program implementing
insights from their books An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately
Developmental Organization (one of the best books I've read in years, and I
read a lot) and Immunity to Change, and I think it's made a significant
difference for those who are taking part in the pilot and for the company in
general.

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brogrammer5
I recently found out that my schizophrenic mom committed suicide. This was the
end of a childhood that was filled with abandonment, neglect, and abuse.

I recently started meditating and read "The Power of Now". I think without
those two things I would be completely lost. It's still hard but I can feel
myself getting stronger in the face of all this.

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Causality1
Before you waste your time, this regards the personal development of
consciousness over one's lifetime, not the biological evolution of sapience.

~~~
nefitty
Came for the homo sapiens evolution discussion, but individual psychology is
not below me, as presumed in your comment.

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personomas
To those interested, the Urantia book describes our individualized purpose as
to becoming increasingly conscious by evolving and becoming progressively more
spiritual until we can understand God the Father. It describes evolution not
just as a species, but within each of us; and that actually God created us
purposely to evolve and become like Him, for reasons still unclear to them.

Kegan's theories and philosophies seem similar, but the Human soul would not
just be limited to 5 potential stages, as Kegan described. Probably, Kegan
himself has been limited to acquiring just a 5th stage, but these stages are
possibly unlimited.

According to the Urantia book, by eventually becoming so spiritual, the body
can no longer contain the Spirit, so it will automatically proceed to a next
stage bypassing death, like what happened to Jesus Christ, Elijah the Prophet,
and Enoch in the Holy Bible.

~~~
mikelyons
The point of life is to increase our level of consciousness to the point that
we become infinitely, universally loving and utterly, absolutely selfless.
This state of consciousness is God.

