Quadrants vs Quadrivia

Hi, SD.

I'm no expert but I think I have some sense of this distinction. I think that for most people posting on this forum who are casually considering the quadrants, this distinction isn't highlighted. Most of us speak of quadrants in all situations so one doesn't see "quadrivium(a)" used so often.

The way I understand the difference is summed up succinctly by Sean-Esbjorn-Hargens in one sentence in his Resource Paper no. 1, for Integral Institute. The paper is called "An Overview of Integral Theory: An all inclusive framework for the 21st century". On page 7, he says, "Furthermore, the quadrants represent the native ways in which we experience reality in each moment and quadrivia represent the most common ways we can and often do look at reality to understand it."

You may have some statements like this already and you're kind of stuck at picturing what that means. Sean has an illustration of each. Let me see if I can get this right in words myself - please someone correct me if I'm off-base.

For quadrants, picture a person at the center of the 4X matrix looking out at the world through the four aspects that are dimensions of her experience.

For quadrivia picture an object, animal, or person in the center, and various people are studying that item from the four different perspectives from outside the matrix. For example, a psychologist giving attention to LU might have a lot of say about an art piece and attributing motives of the artist and impacts on viewers and such. A scientist might from the RU comment on the pigments and carbon dating techniques for discerning the age, and so on. Looking from a cultural anthropological perspective, through a LL lens, it might be tried to speculate that the vague and wispy lines and non-proportionate representation of events in the composition correlate in some way with the emphasis that the culture has on dream material being used to interpret and manage mundane affairs. The fact that this art piece has been saved from destruction may be something that a RL historian comments on - i.e. "In that era, there was a member of the community who was designated as 'curator' of sorts and it was decided by her and the council of elders that this sacred piece should be placed in well-cured bison skin at the back of the cave and covered in protective fashion by a mound of rocks." A quadrivial analysis can be done by looking through these four different perspectives at one phenomenon or object.

I hope it helps, and I hope I am correct. Cool that you are studying this stuff.