Understanding Levels of Thinking

So what the hell is this all about? This video is about levels of thinking. It is theoretical, which is fascinating, and it also has colorful jokes. I use this diagram a lot in my videos because it helps explain some of the wild things that people say and do. It's based on the work of several researchers. I'm trying to make it easier to read for a wider audience. This is my interpretation of a model of consciousness that I studied. It includes quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types. Today I'm talking about levels. I want to make a big long video explaining each level in detail, but for now I'm just going to do this short version to get it out of the way and get the ball rolling. But before we get started, here are some misspelled vegetables, because I'm told that it helps if I'm cute. Here's a cactus. So, these levels are stages of psychological development. They have been studied by numerous researchers. Some of the most famous models come from Jean Piaget. Here's a snapshot of his work. And Abraham Maslow, who had the hierarchy of needs. Everybody is born down here and nearly everybody gets up to at least this stage by adulthood. There are many factors that determine how you will develop and when, including your surroundings, your choices, your culture, and the brain you were born with. These are the quadrants. They are different ways of looking at reality. In this case, this would be your mind, your brain, your culture, and your society. They all happen at the same time because the mind is the brain and culture is a lot of minds and society is what those minds do. I should also say that people are never really in a level. You just slowly develop the ability to think at higher levels as you gain experience, but we all use the lower levels every day. When you have to use the bathroom, for example, that's a level one process. It's not a complex style of thought, it's just a feeling or an urge. So some people make it up to higher stages and some people never do. Most people on earth spend most of their time in these four stages, and this one is only very common in modernized places. And it's the first stage where you can adopt a world-centered level of understanding, which means understanding how people think the way they do based on where they're from. Before that level, there are right and wrong ways of thinking, so you would either be doing it right or you're not, and then they would say you're either doing it right or you're not. After that, it's more like, well, maybe I would think that way if I was from there, or maybe I would be more like you if I lived your life. That's where global thinking begins. Speaking of global thinking, this is my first sponsored video. It's brought to you by Atlas VPN, which allows you to access all the stuff you like from all over the globe. It feels illegal, but it's not. With Atlas VPN, you can just go, sorry, I'm totally in America right now. It's like a tiny little embassy. Atlas has the best VPN deal on the market. With a Black Friday price cut, it is $1.70 a month with six months extra for free, which also feels illegal and is not. Check the video description for the link. Atlas VPN makes you anonymous, which is a big deal for me. I do not need people knowing whose order this is. Give me the regular price, please. Atlas also stops ads and malware. It blocks malicious links, ads, and trackers, and it notifies you when someone tries to steal your data. You want to keep your data, right? I do. You want better deals on shopping and subscriptions? You want to cover unlimited devices? You want to hide from the Illuminati? Get the Black Friday price cut. $1.70 a month, six months extra for free. 30-day money-back guarantee. Protect your privacy. Other benefits. ridiculously low price, click the link in the video description below. Limited time offer. I hope it's also a limited time that we stay in these lower levels of thinking. Let's talk about what they are and how they work and how to move on. Before I get started, I should say that higher does not always mean better. Some people watch my videos where I talk about my mistakes and they say, oh you think you're at a high level? You sound like a jerk. But higher doesn't mean better person, it means more aware. So here's the lower level of awareness, seeing things, and then as you go higher in the levels of awareness, it becomes much more complex. You're seeing people, seeing people, seeing almost into infinity. And so when I make mistakes in here, I usually know exactly why they're happening. I usually can say things like, I choose women who probably will not stick around. Why? Because I don't think I can support them anyway. Well, why does that matter? Well, usually. most of them want a higher level of support that I can provide. And why does that matter? Well, it doesn't feel good when they leave because I can't support them. Okay, well, why do those feelings matter? Can you change it some other way? Can you get a better job or something? Well, I tried to do that. I'm doing the best that I can. Is there some way that you can change the way you try to get money from the world? Well, I've already done everything I can here. And this kind of gets fuzzy. So why am I spending time with the wrong woman comes back to me. this experience that I've had over and over and over again and I haven't been able to fix. It's the ability to see through what's going on in your mind and also to see through similar levels of complexity in what's going on in the world around you. So it's not about being good, it's about getting it. Moving up in the levels does not always make you more effective. In fact, this level is famous for making people into hippies. This is the point in development where you begin to understand that everyone has their own way of seeing things. And so So who's to say what we should and should not do? This is an illustration of an interaction from each level. This girl is getting validation from a guy that she's not interested in. So she knows how to get the validation, and then she stands back, and she can plan how to give less to get even more. And then she looks at that and asks, well, is that the right thing to do? Not really. But am I going to do it anyway in this circumstance because I think it would be better overall? So that's in order. Wanting something. knowing how to get it from someone, knowing how to control the interaction, knowing whether that's right or wrong according to the rules that you live by, and then becoming the author of your own sense of right and wrong. And then when you take another step back to this hippie level, it's like, well, who is anyone to judge my choices? My choices are right for me, and so there isn't really such a thing as right and wrong, it's just what works for me. That's why they call that level the individualist. Different people go through the levels differently. And when I went through this one, it really stressed me out. I felt like I couldn't get my feet on the ground. I saw so many different ways of seeing the world, so many different philosophies, so many different life choices, and I didn't know how to pick one. And if I can't pick one, then I can't get anywhere. So I would say, I don't know what to do. And people would say, just pick something. And I would say, how do I know what to pick? And they would go, pick something you like. And I would go, how do I know what I like? So I really like to plan things out. I like certainty. But at this level, you realize that you're never going to know what happens until you try it. So it goes what I see, what you see, what works for me, what works for us, and then hey look those people have a different thing that works for them. That's level five when you can say, okay, I'm like this because I'm from here and you're like that because you're from there. And then at level six, it's like, well, where I'm from is really just myself. Everybody is just from their self. And so how can one self have an idea that's better than any other self? Whereas at an earlier level, you might be able to say something like, well, my dad was an accountant and so I'm an accountant. That's just what we do. and you don't have to deal with any of this uncertainty. So higher is more complex, but complex is not always good. The way I explain it is that you can have a really good shoe or a really bad car, and I think what I have is a sinking cruise ship. So if higher is not always better, then why should we grow? Well, because higher is usually better. If everyone was at these lower levels, we would not be able to have grocery stores and electricity. We have a complex world, and it requires complex thinking. and some problems cannot be solved at the level they came from. Everybody watching this is going to have a different fingerprint of development. That means that your different lines or capacities, or the ways that you use your intelligence, are all going to be developed to different levels. It's possible to be very lopsided. For example, you could have your cognitive line all the way up at 9, but your moral line all the way down at 3. You could also be higher up than another person overall, but they're still way better than you at a particular thing. For example, this could be somebody who really understands history and politics to a high degree, but has low empathy, and this would be someone who kind of gets it but is great with people. So as I go through them one by one, try to remember where you went through them and what that felt like and where you think you are now. Okay, level one. I call this survive because it's just basic moment to moment, what do I need? Do I need food? Do I need sleep? It's just my own feelings and there's no such thing as someone else's mind. If we were living in this level, we would be in small survival bands, and we would not be thinking much about each other's thoughts. We would be doing what we must in order to survive. Level 2 I called Connect, because now you can think about what is in someone else's mind. What does this person want or need? Primitive people at this level will sometimes do rain dances or throw virgins in a volcano. I'm not sure if that's real, but it's the kind of thing you would expect to see. Because at level 2, you're realizing, okay, I have a mind and I need things. and other people have minds and they need things, so maybe it's not raining because we haven't pleased someone in the sky. Maybe the volcano is angry because it wants something, and what do I want? Virgins. So level two is all about what I do affects what other people think about me and what they do for me. Basically like this. If we were living at level two, we would be in small tribal groups. and we would be focused on safety and security and maintaining functional habits and dependable practices just day to day. Level three I called control. This level is still very popular in modern society. So at level one I have a mind with feelings and needs and at level two I know that other people have minds with feelings and needs and sometimes maybe I think a volcano does too and at level three now I know that other people are aware that other people are aware. that they have feelings and needs. So I know that these people have a relationship to each other the same way that I have a relationship to this, and to this, and to this, and to this. Now I know he has a relationship to her. So instead of just direct connections, This creates social situations. Here is a woman seeing man bad on her phone and then she sees the man in her life and goes, oh, wait a minute. If man bad, then maybe that man bad. And then at level three, you would step back and say, well, what do I do about this situation? Why is, why is he being bad? And what can I do about this relationship? If we were living at this level, we would be living in something like the Roman Empire, mythic, feudal, and exploitative empire. You see this level a lot in things like the mafia, and in sports teams, firemen, police, military. So even though these levels, two and three, involve thinking about thinking, it's mostly just for the purpose of getting what you want and having power over others. Level four I called Belong because the primary drive is to fit in. And that drive is motivated by what they call second-person perspective. So again, at level one, you have your own feelings, urges, and needs. At level two, you see those of others and you can react to them. But it's still all about what those feelings mean to you. And at level three, you understand that you're in a complex social web of relationships. And you can react to those relationships and exert control over your... situation. And at level four, that's when you realize everyone is in their own situation. That's where we get the classic folk wisdom of don't judge somebody until you've walked a mile in his shoes. You are in this situation over here, but imagine if you were him in this situation over here. Maybe you would have done what he did too. That doesn't come online until you get the second person perspective at level four. When level four was brand new, it was basically medieval empires. It says, mythic empires here, nation states, basically large groups of people that lived by a set of rules that they shared. As opposed to the do-what-you-want mentality of level three, level four focuses on good versus evil. The entry to that level is called the Diplomat because of the way that they focus on acceptable behavior and social norms. That's their way of getting over the problems from the previous stage. You can tell when second-person perspective is coming online in children because they start looking in the mirror more. they start to realize, oh, I have other people looking at me the way that I look at other people and I have feelings about them. They're looking at me and having feelings about me. So I better be up to their expectations. Level four is the beginning of what we traditionally refer to as morality. Here again is the woman seeing man bad on her phone. And then she feels like, well, maybe this man is bad because my phone said so. She's projecting that onto him, having a negative experience and then deciding what to do about it. I'm going to break up with this guy. He must be bad because I felt like it was true when I saw it on my phone. And then out here, she takes a step back and looks at herself as if she is a second person, which is why they call it second person perspective, and thinks, is that the right thing to do? This is the first point where it becomes obvious that consciousness is important because a lot of people see things on their phones or on TV and it gives them a feeling and then they see that feeling coming from others and then they do something about that relationship. So they might begin treating somebody poorly because they saw something on their phone that made them feel like well if that's happening here it must be happening here too. And it's not until you slow down enough to get to level four that you can take a step back and ask yourself, is this a valuable process? The way that level four typically functions is through conformity and agreement. I believe this is the wrong way to behave. I believe this is the wrong way to behave. Agreeing on what's right and wrong and creating a set of rules and following them can solve some of these earlier problems, but also there are an infinite number of ways to decide what is right and wrong. You can have this set of rules over here or this set of rules over here, and that's where level five comes in. Level five introduces objective observation as a value. Basically, okay, you guys think A, B, C is right, and you guys think X, Y, Z is right. Well, let's figure out which one is better. and in order to do that you have to take another step back into a third person perspective. So again the first three levels are all about me, and then level four is if I was another person in my culture how would I view my behavior, and then level five is another step back if I was an alien or a stranger how would I view my culture. This also enables you to view other cultures and sets of social norms. That's why it's global. It's the first time that you can go, oh I get why they're like that because they're from somewhere else. Level 5 has only really been around for a few hundred years, and it is basically where we get science and the assembly line and other forms of modern conveniences. Level 6 is where things get really fun. You might remember how it went for me. Level five is into objective observation, but level six recognizes the role of the perceiver. A different perceiver is going to equal a different perception. That brings in the fourth person perspective. So down at one, you have me and my needs, the way I relate to others, and the way I get my way in my social situation and then you take a step back. What does my behavior look to others around me and what rules do we make about that? And then another step back. What would our set of rules look like to a different group of people? And then level six, you step back again. And, well, the way that you are looking is going to determine what it looks like. So when you look here, you'll see one thing. And when you look here, you'll see another thing. And when you look here, you'll see a third thing. Because of who you are and where you came from. So there isn't really any way to objectively observe. Not being able to objectively observe can feel weird. Level 6 is very new. There were a few philosophers talking at that level in the 1800s. but it didn't really show up in mainstream society until 1960s America. So because the way that you're looking determines what you're going to see, that means there are multiple perspectives that are valid because we all have a unique personal subjective reality that's not observable to others. Basically, how do I know that the red that I see is the same as the red that you see? Maybe my red is your green. From the fourth person perspective, there's no way to know. Level 6 is a really good example of why higher development is not always necessarily better. It is a very high degree of moral development, recognizing the validity of everyone's perspective. But let's say, for example, that there's a problem going on down here. Let's say that this guy did something that is considered morally wrong in this culture. But wait a minute, he says, that's how we do it where I'm from. So when level 6 goes crazy, they start saying things like, We can't make this guy follow these rules just because he's here. He has these rules where he's from. And who are you to judge which set of rules is better? We should recognize everybody's unique perspective. And that can and often does give people the idea, I guess I can just do whatever I want because who are you to judge? That's why we have problems like this. And yeah, some of these people are unfortunate and that's sad. But some of them are just doing whatever they want, and we now have laws that don't distinguish between them because who are you to judge? So at this point, there is this white break in the chart, and that's because we are moving up to second-tier consciousness. And what that means is that level 7 is the first level that can understand and include all the previous ones. At level 6, they still insist that they're correct and no one else is. For example, at level 4, you might have a Christian... church and a Muslim mosque next door arguing over who has the true faith. But at level six, we can all get along, we just need more understanding when that's not what either of those groups wants. So even if level six says that they're about equality, they're saying we all need to be equal even if we don't want to. And it's not until level seven that we understand how to actually give each previous level what it wants to have so that they can live in harmony. At level seven, this fourth person perspective. gets expanded through time, which creates awareness of the self as a history of your own experience. At level 6, everyone has their own view, and so who's to say who's right and who's wrong? But at level 7, you take yet another step back, and you realize that that unique view didn't come from nowhere. It developed over time, and everybody else is developing over time. So at level 6, because we are all the same, Everybody belongs wherever, but at level 7, since we know we all change over time, people belong where they fit the best. So, for example, does this behavior fit here? If not, then it has to go where it belongs. And if it does, then we can all learn something new from it. That's why I called it Harmonize, because it's no longer about radical inclusiveness. It's about recognizing interrelated systems and how they are either synergistic or clashing. radical relativism and radical inclusiveness they sound nice but they do create a lot of clashing. People who are at level 7 tend to naturally recognize development without studying this chart or any other stuff it came from. And it's pretty fun to see. I asked one of my life coaching clients a question and he said, well a little while ago I would have answered it like this and before then I would have even answered it like that and maybe a few years ago I would have answered it like this but now And so he told me all about his development through the levels as his answer to the question. As far as I know, there is not yet any large collection of people at level 7. You can find a lot of these people in San Francisco, and you can find a lot of these people in New York, and you can find a lot of these people in Alabama, and so on. So let me know if you think that you're up at this level. I'm trying to build a time army so we can all get together and work on all this from up here. And I'm not really sure if these numbers are accurate. I get more confident the lower it goes, but I know I enjoy meeting them because their ability to naturally balance and synergize things and put everything where it belongs means that they're going to be instrumental in solving a lot of the problems caused by the previous levels. The levels get more difficult to explain the higher they go. You may have noticed there's a lot of words here, and level 8 is pretty rare. I don't meet a lot of people who are stably at it, and even when I do, I don't think they spend a lot of their time there. So level 8 appears when you take another step back from this, and we are now witnessing ourselves change over time in the moment. As you behave, as you think and feel, new parts of you emerge from the ether. That's what it means to be construct-aware. It means that you're watching your own mind construct itself as you go. So at level 8, you can see all these different parts of yourself kind of coming out to play. For example, you could look at an image of a donut or a donut sitting on a plate, and you can go, hmm, I'm feeling many things right now. I'm feeling hunger for the donut. donut because it's good, but I'm also feeling a sense of guilt from one time that I ate a whole box of donuts that were not meant for me, and then somebody gave me social punishment and shame for that, and I also got a stomachache because I ate too many. I'm recalling that memory as I look at this and it's influencing what I want to do. So now that I'm aware of all that going on in me, do I want to listen to it or not? Do I want to be the kind of person who just has a donut anyway because I'm an adult and I can do what I want? And it might sound silly when you're talking about donuts, but imagine that this is something like global politics or even an interpersonal relationship. Like, yeah, I saw this on my phone and it gave me a feeling. and I'm aware of where that feeling is in myself, and I'm aware that I'm projecting it onto this person, and I'm aware of my impulse for what I should do about it, and I'm aware of what my culture says I should do about it, and then all of that is wrapped up in objective observation, and the story of who I am, and how I got here over time, and how I'm viewing the event because of my personal history. Do you see how that gives you a lot more power to change your behavior in situations like this? Imagine if more people could see something and then see their own reaction to it instead of just reacting and then know where that reaction comes from in terms of their history and their culture. Think how much more power that would give us not to just react in the moment. That's why you should be thinking about thinking. Anyway, level 9 is very hard to describe. I do think that I spend some time up at this level, and the way that it feels to me is like all I'm doing ever is watching and wishing, and that's all I've ever been doing. At these first three levels, you are the main character. And at level four, you understand everyone is their own main character. And then you understand that everyone's watching a different show because everyone is a different show, and that show is constantly evolving and changing over time. And at level eight, you're just watching the show happen. You're not even identified with being the show anymore. You're just watching yourself be. So when my mind is up here, it's like, okay, I'm seeing myself, seeing my history and where I came from and what I'm like and what I do, which is made of all this stuff, all the memories and habits from the lower levels. watching myself observing my emergence over time, interacting with the present moment. I know where I'm from and what that has made me like, and I know what's happening now, and I'm watching them come together, and I'm looking at myself looking at that. And so how you do the looking is what's important at this level. It's like, what are you looking at? I think you need to be looking at this part right now. I think you need to be looking at this function in your life. Maybe you're looking from here when you should be looking from here. So it's like what I'm watching is watching itself. And again, here you would be watching your personal needs, and here you would be watching the reactions of others, and here you would be watching your situation that you're in, and here you would be watching what others expect from you, and here you would be watching observable reality. And here you'd be watching where you're from to know how you interpret things. And here you'd be watching what are all your habits and pieces of you put together and how are they interpreting your reality. And here you'd be watching those habits and pieces coming together in the moment and sometimes being surprised by what they do. And then here I feel a responsibility for knowing where to watch those things, if that makes any sense. So yeah, that's this chart and how it works. The level's part of it anyway. The rest of it I'll get into another time. And if you want to move up the levels, the best way to do that is just sit with your thoughts and think about them and figure out where they come from. Here's another example of what that looks like. So sometimes I worry that my little scribbly drawings are kind of embarrassing to show to 200,000 people. So why am I feeling the embarrassment? Well, I guess I'm worried that... it's going to have some kind of a negative impact on me. What kind of negative impact would it have? Well, I guess maybe people would not like my channel or might say some bad things about me because I don't have more sophisticated graphic processes. Well... Why would it be so bad if that happened? Well, then I might lose out on opportunities that I could otherwise have if I had better looking graphics. Well, how do you know you would lose out on those opportunities? Hmm, that's a good question because so far I've been doing pretty good with my scribbly whatever this is. So then if you don't have any evidence that you're gonna lose out on opportunities because you're doing this then what's wrong with it? Okay, I guess problem solved. I can do this for now. And that's why I called this level complete Alright, I hope you enjoyed this presentation on levels. I will do another one that's going to be really excruciatingly long at some point, but I'll make it fun. And the video's done. You can close. You can go away if you want. I'm just going to ramble for a minute. I'm going to do a longer thing on levels somewhere down the road. Very soon I'm going to do self-maximize. It's going to be about how to make yourself the best possible partner so people like you and then want to keep you. I'm going to be talking about itemized delusion. I'm going to break people up into groups and talk about the general delusions that they have about themselves and the dating market. I'm going to talk about the not people zone. Oh, I'm going to be arguing with Mac and Murphy soon.

So what the hell is this all about? This video is about levels of thinking. It is theoretical, which is fascinating, and it also has colorful jokes.

I use this diagram a lot in my videos because it helps explain some of the wild things that people say and do. It's based on the work of several researchers. I'm trying to make it easier to read for a wider audience.

This is my interpretation of a model of consciousness that I studied. It includes quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types. Today I'm talking about levels. I want to make a big long video explaining each level in detail, but for now I'm just going to do this short version to get it out of the way and get the ball rolling.

But before we get started, here are some misspelled vegetables, because I'm told that it helps if I'm cute. Here's a cactus. So, these levels are stages of psychological development.

They have been studied by numerous researchers. Some of the most famous models come from Jean Piaget. Here's a snapshot of his work. And Abraham Maslow, who had the hierarchy of needs.

Everybody is born down here and nearly everybody gets up to at least this stage by adulthood. There are many factors that determine how you will develop and when, including your surroundings, your choices, your culture, and the brain you were born with. These are the quadrants. They are different ways of looking at reality. In this case, this would be your mind, your brain, your culture, and your society.

They all happen at the same time because the mind is the brain and culture is a lot of minds and society is what those minds do. I should also say that people are never really in a level. You just slowly develop the ability to think at higher levels as you gain experience, but we all use the lower levels every day. When you have to use the bathroom, for example, that's a level one process. It's not a complex style of thought, it's just a feeling or an urge.

So some people make it up to higher stages and some people never do. Most people on earth spend most of their time in these four stages, and this one is only very common in modernized places. And it's the first stage where you can adopt a world-centered level of understanding, which means understanding how people think the way they do based on where they're from. Before that level, there are right and wrong ways of thinking, so you would either be doing it right or you're not, and then they would say you're either doing it right or you're not. After that, it's more like, well, maybe I would think that way if I was from there, or maybe I would be more like you if I lived your life.

That's where global thinking begins. Speaking of global thinking, this is my first sponsored video. It's brought to you by Atlas VPN, which allows you to access all the stuff you like from all over the globe.

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With a Black Friday price cut, it is $1.70 a month with six months extra for free, which also feels illegal and is not. Check the video description for the link. Atlas VPN makes you anonymous, which is a big deal for me. I do not need people knowing whose order this is.

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ridiculously low price, click the link in the video description below. Limited time offer. I hope it's also a limited time that we stay in these lower levels of thinking.

Let's talk about what they are and how they work and how to move on. Before I get started, I should say that higher does not always mean better. Some people watch my videos where I talk about my mistakes and they say, oh you think you're at a high level? You sound like a jerk. But higher doesn't mean better person, it means more aware.

So here's the lower level of awareness, seeing things, and then as you go higher in the levels of awareness, it becomes much more complex. You're seeing people, seeing people, seeing almost into infinity. And so when I make mistakes in here, I usually know exactly why they're happening.

I usually can say things like, I choose women who probably will not stick around. Why? Because I don't think I can support them anyway. Well, why does that matter? Well, usually.

most of them want a higher level of support that I can provide. And why does that matter? Well, it doesn't feel good when they leave because I can't support them.

Okay, well, why do those feelings matter? Can you change it some other way? Can you get a better job or something?

Well, I tried to do that. I'm doing the best that I can. Is there some way that you can change the way you try to get money from the world? Well, I've already done everything I can here.

And this kind of gets fuzzy. So why am I spending time with the wrong woman comes back to me. this experience that I've had over and over and over again and I haven't been able to fix. It's the ability to see through what's going on in your mind and also to see through similar levels of complexity in what's going on in the world around you. So it's not about being good, it's about getting it.

Moving up in the levels does not always make you more effective. In fact, this level is famous for making people into hippies. This is the point in development where you begin to understand that everyone has their own way of seeing things. And so So who's to say what we should and should not do?

This is an illustration of an interaction from each level. This girl is getting validation from a guy that she's not interested in. So she knows how to get the validation, and then she stands back, and she can plan how to give less to get even more.

And then she looks at that and asks, well, is that the right thing to do? Not really. But am I going to do it anyway in this circumstance because I think it would be better overall? So that's in order.

Wanting something. knowing how to get it from someone, knowing how to control the interaction, knowing whether that's right or wrong according to the rules that you live by, and then becoming the author of your own sense of right and wrong. And then when you take another step back to this hippie level, it's like, well, who is anyone to judge my choices? My choices are right for me, and so there isn't really such a thing as right and wrong, it's just what works for me.

That's why they call that level the individualist. Different people go through the levels differently. And when I went through this one, it really stressed me out. I felt like I couldn't get my feet on the ground.

I saw so many different ways of seeing the world, so many different philosophies, so many different life choices, and I didn't know how to pick one. And if I can't pick one, then I can't get anywhere. So I would say, I don't know what to do.

And people would say, just pick something. And I would say, how do I know what to pick? And they would go, pick something you like. And I would go, how do I know what I like?

So I really like to plan things out. I like certainty. But at this level, you realize that you're never going to know what happens until you try it.

So it goes what I see, what you see, what works for me, what works for us, and then hey look those people have a different thing that works for them. That's level five when you can say, okay, I'm like this because I'm from here and you're like that because you're from there. And then at level six, it's like, well, where I'm from is really just myself. Everybody is just from their self. And so how can one self have an idea that's better than any other self?

Whereas at an earlier level, you might be able to say something like, well, my dad was an accountant and so I'm an accountant. That's just what we do. and you don't have to deal with any of this uncertainty.

So higher is more complex, but complex is not always good. The way I explain it is that you can have a really good shoe or a really bad car, and I think what I have is a sinking cruise ship. So if higher is not always better, then why should we grow? Well, because higher is usually better. If everyone was at these lower levels, we would not be able to have grocery stores and electricity.

We have a complex world, and it requires complex thinking. and some problems cannot be solved at the level they came from. Everybody watching this is going to have a different fingerprint of development.

That means that your different lines or capacities, or the ways that you use your intelligence, are all going to be developed to different levels. It's possible to be very lopsided. For example, you could have your cognitive line all the way up at 9, but your moral line all the way down at 3. You could also be higher up than another person overall, but they're still way better than you at a particular thing. For example, this could be somebody who really understands history and politics to a high degree, but has low empathy, and this would be someone who kind of gets it but is great with people.

So as I go through them one by one, try to remember where you went through them and what that felt like and where you think you are now. Okay, level one. I call this survive because it's just basic moment to moment, what do I need?

Do I need food? Do I need sleep? It's just my own feelings and there's no such thing as someone else's mind. If we were living in this level, we would be in small survival bands, and we would not be thinking much about each other's thoughts.

We would be doing what we must in order to survive. Level 2 I called Connect, because now you can think about what is in someone else's mind. What does this person want or need?

Primitive people at this level will sometimes do rain dances or throw virgins in a volcano. I'm not sure if that's real, but it's the kind of thing you would expect to see. Because at level 2, you're realizing, okay, I have a mind and I need things. and other people have minds and they need things, so maybe it's not raining because we haven't pleased someone in the sky. Maybe the volcano is angry because it wants something, and what do I want?

Virgins. So level two is all about what I do affects what other people think about me and what they do for me. Basically like this.

If we were living at level two, we would be in small tribal groups. and we would be focused on safety and security and maintaining functional habits and dependable practices just day to day. Level three I called control. This level is still very popular in modern society. So at level one I have a mind with feelings and needs and at level two I know that other people have minds with feelings and needs and sometimes maybe I think a volcano does too and at level three now I know that other people are aware that other people are aware.

that they have feelings and needs. So I know that these people have a relationship to each other the same way that I have a relationship to this, and to this, and to this, and to this. Now I know he has a relationship to her. So instead of just direct connections, This creates social situations.

Here is a woman seeing man bad on her phone and then she sees the man in her life and goes, oh, wait a minute. If man bad, then maybe that man bad. And then at level three, you would step back and say, well, what do I do about this situation? Why is, why is he being bad? And what can I do about this relationship?

If we were living at this level, we would be living in something like the Roman Empire, mythic, feudal, and exploitative empire. You see this level a lot in things like the mafia, and in sports teams, firemen, police, military. So even though these levels, two and three, involve thinking about thinking, it's mostly just for the purpose of getting what you want and having power over others.

Level four I called Belong because the primary drive is to fit in. And that drive is motivated by what they call second-person perspective. So again, at level one, you have your own feelings, urges, and needs.

At level two, you see those of others and you can react to them. But it's still all about what those feelings mean to you. And at level three, you understand that you're in a complex social web of relationships. And you can react to those relationships and exert control over your... situation.

And at level four, that's when you realize everyone is in their own situation. That's where we get the classic folk wisdom of don't judge somebody until you've walked a mile in his shoes. You are in this situation over here, but imagine if you were him in this situation over here. Maybe you would have done what he did too. That doesn't come online until you get the second person perspective at level four.

When level four was brand new, it was basically medieval empires. It says, mythic empires here, nation states, basically large groups of people that lived by a set of rules that they shared. As opposed to the do-what-you-want mentality of level three, level four focuses on good versus evil.

The entry to that level is called the Diplomat because of the way that they focus on acceptable behavior and social norms. That's their way of getting over the problems from the previous stage. You can tell when second-person perspective is coming online in children because they start looking in the mirror more.

they start to realize, oh, I have other people looking at me the way that I look at other people and I have feelings about them. They're looking at me and having feelings about me. So I better be up to their expectations. Level four is the beginning of what we traditionally refer to as morality. Here again is the woman seeing man bad on her phone.

And then she feels like, well, maybe this man is bad because my phone said so. She's projecting that onto him, having a negative experience and then deciding what to do about it. I'm going to break up with this guy.

He must be bad because I felt like it was true when I saw it on my phone. And then out here, she takes a step back and looks at herself as if she is a second person, which is why they call it second person perspective, and thinks, is that the right thing to do? This is the first point where it becomes obvious that consciousness is important because a lot of people see things on their phones or on TV and it gives them a feeling and then they see that feeling coming from others and then they do something about that relationship.

So they might begin treating somebody poorly because they saw something on their phone that made them feel like well if that's happening here it must be happening here too. And it's not until you slow down enough to get to level four that you can take a step back and ask yourself, is this a valuable process? The way that level four typically functions is through conformity and agreement. I believe this is the wrong way to behave.

I believe this is the wrong way to behave. Agreeing on what's right and wrong and creating a set of rules and following them can solve some of these earlier problems, but also there are an infinite number of ways to decide what is right and wrong. You can have this set of rules over here or this set of rules over here, and that's where level five comes in.

Level five introduces objective observation as a value. Basically, okay, you guys think A, B, C is right, and you guys think X, Y, Z is right. Well, let's figure out which one is better.

and in order to do that you have to take another step back into a third person perspective. So again the first three levels are all about me, and then level four is if I was another person in my culture how would I view my behavior, and then level five is another step back if I was an alien or a stranger how would I view my culture. This also enables you to view other cultures and sets of social norms.

That's why it's global. It's the first time that you can go, oh I get why they're like that because they're from somewhere else. Level 5 has only really been around for a few hundred years, and it is basically where we get science and the assembly line and other forms of modern conveniences.

Level 6 is where things get really fun. You might remember how it went for me. Level five is into objective observation, but level six recognizes the role of the perceiver.

A different perceiver is going to equal a different perception. That brings in the fourth person perspective. So down at one, you have me and my needs, the way I relate to others, and the way I get my way in my social situation and then you take a step back. What does my behavior look to others around me and what rules do we make about that?

And then another step back. What would our set of rules look like to a different group of people? And then level six, you step back again.

And, well, the way that you are looking is going to determine what it looks like. So when you look here, you'll see one thing. And when you look here, you'll see another thing.

And when you look here, you'll see a third thing. Because of who you are and where you came from. So there isn't really any way to objectively observe. Not being able to objectively observe can feel weird. Level 6 is very new.

There were a few philosophers talking at that level in the 1800s. but it didn't really show up in mainstream society until 1960s America. So because the way that you're looking determines what you're going to see, that means there are multiple perspectives that are valid because we all have a unique personal subjective reality that's not observable to others.

Basically, how do I know that the red that I see is the same as the red that you see? Maybe my red is your green. From the fourth person perspective, there's no way to know.

Level 6 is a really good example of why higher development is not always necessarily better. It is a very high degree of moral development, recognizing the validity of everyone's perspective. But let's say, for example, that there's a problem going on down here.

Let's say that this guy did something that is considered morally wrong in this culture. But wait a minute, he says, that's how we do it where I'm from. So when level 6 goes crazy, they start saying things like, We can't make this guy follow these rules just because he's here.

He has these rules where he's from. And who are you to judge which set of rules is better? We should recognize everybody's unique perspective.

And that can and often does give people the idea, I guess I can just do whatever I want because who are you to judge? That's why we have problems like this. And yeah, some of these people are unfortunate and that's sad.

But some of them are just doing whatever they want, and we now have laws that don't distinguish between them because who are you to judge? So at this point, there is this white break in the chart, and that's because we are moving up to second-tier consciousness. And what that means is that level 7 is the first level that can understand and include all the previous ones. At level 6, they still insist that they're correct and no one else is.

For example, at level 4, you might have a Christian... church and a Muslim mosque next door arguing over who has the true faith. But at level six, we can all get along, we just need more understanding when that's not what either of those groups wants.

So even if level six says that they're about equality, they're saying we all need to be equal even if we don't want to. And it's not until level seven that we understand how to actually give each previous level what it wants to have so that they can live in harmony. At level seven, this fourth person perspective.

gets expanded through time, which creates awareness of the self as a history of your own experience. At level 6, everyone has their own view, and so who's to say who's right and who's wrong? But at level 7, you take yet another step back, and you realize that that unique view didn't come from nowhere. It developed over time, and everybody else is developing over time.

So at level 6, because we are all the same, Everybody belongs wherever, but at level 7, since we know we all change over time, people belong where they fit the best. So, for example, does this behavior fit here? If not, then it has to go where it belongs. And if it does, then we can all learn something new from it. That's why I called it Harmonize, because it's no longer about radical inclusiveness.

It's about recognizing interrelated systems and how they are either synergistic or clashing. radical relativism and radical inclusiveness they sound nice but they do create a lot of clashing. People who are at level 7 tend to naturally recognize development without studying this chart or any other stuff it came from.

And it's pretty fun to see. I asked one of my life coaching clients a question and he said, well a little while ago I would have answered it like this and before then I would have even answered it like that and maybe a few years ago I would have answered it like this but now And so he told me all about his development through the levels as his answer to the question. As far as I know, there is not yet any large collection of people at level 7. You can find a lot of these people in San Francisco, and you can find a lot of these people in New York, and you can find a lot of these people in Alabama, and so on. So let me know if you think that you're up at this level.

I'm trying to build a time army so we can all get together and work on all this from up here. And I'm not really sure if these numbers are accurate. I get more confident the lower it goes, but I know I enjoy meeting them because their ability to naturally balance and synergize things and put everything where it belongs means that they're going to be instrumental in solving a lot of the problems caused by the previous levels. The levels get more difficult to explain the higher they go.

You may have noticed there's a lot of words here, and level 8 is pretty rare. I don't meet a lot of people who are stably at it, and even when I do, I don't think they spend a lot of their time there. So level 8 appears when you take another step back from this, and we are now witnessing ourselves change over time in the moment.

As you behave, as you think and feel, new parts of you emerge from the ether. That's what it means to be construct-aware. It means that you're watching your own mind construct itself as you go.

So at level 8, you can see all these different parts of yourself kind of coming out to play. For example, you could look at an image of a donut or a donut sitting on a plate, and you can go, hmm, I'm feeling many things right now. I'm feeling hunger for the donut. donut because it's good, but I'm also feeling a sense of guilt from one time that I ate a whole box of donuts that were not meant for me, and then somebody gave me social punishment and shame for that, and I also got a stomachache because I ate too many. I'm recalling that memory as I look at this and it's influencing what I want to do.

So now that I'm aware of all that going on in me, do I want to listen to it or not? Do I want to be the kind of person who just has a donut anyway because I'm an adult and I can do what I want? And it might sound silly when you're talking about donuts, but imagine that this is something like global politics or even an interpersonal relationship. Like, yeah, I saw this on my phone and it gave me a feeling.

and I'm aware of where that feeling is in myself, and I'm aware that I'm projecting it onto this person, and I'm aware of my impulse for what I should do about it, and I'm aware of what my culture says I should do about it, and then all of that is wrapped up in objective observation, and the story of who I am, and how I got here over time, and how I'm viewing the event because of my personal history. Do you see how that gives you a lot more power to change your behavior in situations like this? Imagine if more people could see something and then see their own reaction to it instead of just reacting and then know where that reaction comes from in terms of their history and their culture. Think how much more power that would give us not to just react in the moment. That's why you should be thinking about thinking.

Anyway, level 9 is very hard to describe. I do think that I spend some time up at this level, and the way that it feels to me is like all I'm doing ever is watching and wishing, and that's all I've ever been doing. At these first three levels, you are the main character.

And at level four, you understand everyone is their own main character. And then you understand that everyone's watching a different show because everyone is a different show, and that show is constantly evolving and changing over time. And at level eight, you're just watching the show happen.

You're not even identified with being the show anymore. You're just watching yourself be. So when my mind is up here, it's like, okay, I'm seeing myself, seeing my history and where I came from and what I'm like and what I do, which is made of all this stuff, all the memories and habits from the lower levels. watching myself observing my emergence over time, interacting with the present moment. I know where I'm from and what that has made me like, and I know what's happening now, and I'm watching them come together, and I'm looking at myself looking at that.

And so how you do the looking is what's important at this level. It's like, what are you looking at? I think you need to be looking at this part right now.

I think you need to be looking at this function in your life. Maybe you're looking from here when you should be looking from here. So it's like what I'm watching is watching itself. And again, here you would be watching your personal needs, and here you would be watching the reactions of others, and here you would be watching your situation that you're in, and here you would be watching what others expect from you, and here you would be watching observable reality. And here you'd be watching where you're from to know how you interpret things.

And here you'd be watching what are all your habits and pieces of you put together and how are they interpreting your reality. And here you'd be watching those habits and pieces coming together in the moment and sometimes being surprised by what they do. And then here I feel a responsibility for knowing where to watch those things, if that makes any sense. So yeah, that's this chart and how it works.

The level's part of it anyway. The rest of it I'll get into another time. And if you want to move up the levels, the best way to do that is just sit with your thoughts and think about them and figure out where they come from. Here's another example of what that looks like.

So sometimes I worry that my little scribbly drawings are kind of embarrassing to show to 200,000 people. So why am I feeling the embarrassment? Well, I guess I'm worried that... it's going to have some kind of a negative impact on me. What kind of negative impact would it have?

Well, I guess maybe people would not like my channel or might say some bad things about me because I don't have more sophisticated graphic processes. Well... Why would it be so bad if that happened?

Well, then I might lose out on opportunities that I could otherwise have if I had better looking graphics. Well, how do you know you would lose out on those opportunities? Hmm, that's a good question because so far I've been doing pretty good with my scribbly whatever this is. So then if you don't have any evidence that you're gonna lose out on opportunities because you're doing this then what's wrong with it? Okay, I guess problem solved.

I can do this for now. And that's why I called this level complete Alright, I hope you enjoyed this presentation on levels. I will do another one that's going to be really excruciatingly long at some point, but I'll make it fun. And the video's done.

You can close. You can go away if you want. I'm just going to ramble for a minute. I'm going to do a longer thing on levels somewhere down the road. Very soon I'm going to do self-maximize.

It's going to be about how to make yourself the best possible partner so people like you and then want to keep you. I'm going to be talking about itemized delusion. I'm going to break people up into groups and talk about the general delusions that they have about themselves and the dating market. I'm going to talk about the not people zone. Oh, I'm going to be arguing with Mac and Murphy soon.

Transcript for:Understanding Levels of Thinking

Transcript for:
Understanding Levels of Thinking