No, I still just don’t see any hard evidence.  I mean yes, I get that you’ve provided biochemical research in support of your position.  There are two halves in a human brain and they are correlated with different mentalities.  Right.  But the future cannot belong to hippies “pursuing the transcendent” who think they are the ones “seeing the big picture” (330).  The foundation for the big picture they envision rests on incredible technical devotion and mechanistic dependence.  Where would we be without, say, chemists grinding long hours in the lab in search of the next penicillin?  Or without programmers doggedly writing HTML so that the rest of us can complacently “link… virtually anywhere” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE).  “Intentional evolution” (328) demands much more than the fuzzy grandeur of a day dream; it requires hard work, dedication, perseverance.  The roll of the sharp, logical thinker will never be sloughed off.  It’s time those New-Agers stop rejecting the scaffolding that supports them.  Without it, they would not be raised to this height from which their jeering can even be heard.

All you need is love.  Creativity and mutual caring are the essence of a contented society.  At last, as our culture begins to embrace the spirituality to which the wise East has long shown devotion, Americans can learn what it is to live purely. 

You say, The details form the picture.  I say, Of what use are any of the spider’s eight legs unless they are hinged to its central body?  What progress can the spider make except by casting solo silk strands? you ask.  The obvious response being How many flies has any spider snared with a single thread?  Without a vision it makes no sense to even speak of efficiency.  I’ll jump on your scaffolding all night if I please.  It is dead, hollow, and useless without the invigorating force of innovation.  Driving minds are necessary as “the forces of Asia, automaton, and abundance strengthen and accelerate,” (331) for otherwise we are speeding at midnight with our headlights burnt out.

And so goes the argument within a single mind.  Parts versus wholes, intellect versus emotions, empiricism versus faith, head down versus head in the clouds.  Then, one day, that mind is struck by something novel: it realizes that it knows nothing, nothing whatsoever.  And the shape of this knowing is different than the shape of most other knowings it has had.  The forms alighting in the mind expand.  They say, If I don’t know anything then you must not know anything either.  Inevitably the realization comes: “Nobody… know[s] what a single thing is” (167).  And that is the mystery.  It comforts me, warms my insecurity.  The campanile chimes a sublime call, and I have absolutely no idea what it means.  It makes no sense to me that I know nothing.  Yet, strangely, it feels as though this is indeed so. 

But because no one knows anything, it follows then that everyone must know everything.  And is that not equally as mysterious? – everyone knows everything?  How empowering.  But how dangerous this notion can be, kindling for a raging “hubris… the pride that comes before a fall” (166).  The mystery is the ground for both of these positions or, if you prefer, for both sides of this one position.  Both stances arise within this moment-to-moment mystery.  “Buddhas have never entered this state, and sentient beings have never left it” (Wilber 291 [1]).  My bifurcated brain will bicker, but both halves may say thanks to the mystery.  It pervades all, and when we rest in the sheer isness of existence, knowing and knowing nothing converge “Now…. and Now… and Now…” (168).

An image from my travels that is a metaphor for the meeting of oppositions:

We continue to create, to embellish what is embraced by the mystery (because everything is embraced by the mystery), not because we want to learn – we already know everything; neither do we create to prove that we already know everything – we have never known anything.  The sun’s beams will strike out, blinding us to what we thought we knew and bringing to light that which we have never conceived of.  Without light there is no shadow.  Without left there is no right.  Without red there is no green.  And without the mystery there would be no stage for the play of polarity to perform on.  So eventually we pause.  Looking beyond the forms to which the sun has given highlight and shadow, we see straight into the yellow ball of original light.  “Just watch” (149).

[1] Wilber, Ken.  The Eye of Spirit.  Boston: Shambala, 1997.