"To the Best of Our Knowledge" Interviews Ken Wilber

Steve Paulson

As an interviewer on To the Best of Our Knowledge, Paulson has specialized in covering environmental issues and popular culture. He’s especially fascinated by the stories of field biologists. “I find these people both inspiring and admirable,” he says, “because they manage to combine science with difficult conservation work.”

Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber is the most widely translated academic writer in America, with 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, and is the first philosopher-psychologist to have his Collected Works published while still alive. Wilber is an internationally acknowledged leader and the preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development, which continues to gather momentum around the world. His many books, all of which are still in print, can be found at Amazon.com. Some of his more popular books include Integral Spirituality; No Boundary; Grace and Grit; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; and the "everything" books: A Brief History of Everything (one of his largest selling books) and A Theory of Everything (probably the shortest introduction to his work).  Ken Wilber is the founder of Integral Institute, Inc., the co-founder of Integral Life, Inc., and the Senior Fellow of Integral Life Spiritual Center.

 

Steve Paulson is the Executive Producer of, and an interviewer on, “To the Best of Our Knowledge,” a Peabody Award-winning radio show produced by Wisconsin Public Radio, and distributed nationally. As part of a 5-hour series on science and religion, Ken agreed to speak with Steve. This is the first time in over 20 years that Ken has agreed to appear on National Public Radio, and it is an exciting event indeed.

Steve is a true professional. He gears the conversation to a level of accessibility that will work for a broad audience, but rapidly covers an enormous amount of territory. Ken rises to the occasion, and likewise fires on all cylinders. This is definitely one of the best short introductions we’ve seen to the Integral Approach in general and Integral Spirituality in particular.

Topics include:

• The relationship of science and spirituality in today’s world.

• The crucial importance of defining what one means by “science” and “spirituality.”

• The difference between exoteric (mythic/dogmatic) and esoteric (meditative/contemplative) spirituality and religion.

• The difference between science based on the five senses (narrow empiricism), and science based on experience per se (broad empiricism).

• How meditative disciplines share the same basic methodology as traditional science.

• The three strands of valid knowledge acquisition (injunction, apprehension, verification).

• The role of stages of development in explaining mythic, scientific, and contemplative orientations.

• Why documenting the brain waves of advanced meditators both helps and hurts the cause of proving that meditative states are “really real.”

• How an understanding of the pre/trans fallacy can salvage the enduring trans-rational truths of the great wisdom traditions, while situating their pre-rational myths.

• Why a strictly materialist worldview is inherently self-contradictory, why Idealism is equally untenable, and why only an Integral Approach can unite the important truths of both.

If you’re new to the Integral Approach and AQAL Theory, this dialogue is a fantastic introduction. If you’re an AQAL veteran, this dialogue is an incredible lesson in how one can express the integral vision without relying on jargon.

Wherever you happen to find yourself, we think you’ll have a heck of a lot of fun joining these two audio jockeys on a turbo-charged tour of the territory of you... and me... and us, delighting in the radiance of now, dizzy before the brilliance of tomorrow....