The Developing Human Mind: A Duality System of Meaning Making 3031286464, 9783031286469

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The Developing Human Mind A Duality System of Meaning Making Tom Hagström

The Developing Human Mind

Tom Hagström

The Developing Human Mind A Duality System of Meaning Making

Tom Hagström Department of Education Stockholm University Stockholm, Sweden

ISBN 978-3-031-28646-9 ISBN 978-3-031-28647-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28647-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

Generally, I would like to thank close relatives, friend, colleagues, and others for encouragement and inspiration during the hard and meaningful work with this book. None mentioned, none forgotten. The deep and everyday subject of the book, the human mind, raises much curiosity and many questions. More explicitly, I would like to thank Johanna Skagerberg and Kurt Lundgren for thoroughly having contributed with feedback on the manuscript. This is even more the case regarding Kristian Stålne, Birgitta Qvarsell, and Arvid Löfberg, and last but not least, Lennart Hallsten, who has provided important advice, deep insights, and critical reflections. Moreover, Brita Hagström has considered my English and David Hagström has contributed with excellent figures. They have continuously encouraged my work as well, which also highly is the case regarding Pia Skagerberg. I am very grateful! Tom Hagström

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Contents

1

Introduction

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A Developing Phenomenon in Modern Societies The DIID or Duality System Approach: Basic Characteristics Social and Cognitive Interactions: Piagetian, Vygotskian, and Action Theory A Stage and Life Span Process The Duality System Identity: A Social-Causal and Ego-Agent Holism References

9 9 16 22

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The Generality of Stage Transformations The Hard Stage Psycho-Logic of Piaget’s Theory The Meaning Making of Hard Stages The Hierarchical Complexity of Hard Stages Hard Stage Features as a Duality System References

35 35 41 47 53 59

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The Evolution Towards Self-Consciousness Evolution Towards Cognition and Sociality Evolution Towards Homeostasis and Self-Consciousness Evolution Towards Two Brain Hemispheres and the Thought-Feeling Interplay A Contemporary Bio-Psychological-Interactional Approach References

61 61 65

26 31

70 75 79 vii

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CONTENTS

81 81 85 88 93 96

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Basic Abstract Duality Distinctions Basic System Features Basic Dialectical Features Basic Person-Context Features Comparing Conclusions References

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The Transforming Duality Forms The Societal Interacting Human Mind Transformations Towards Deeper and Broader Awareness Human Mind Between Past and Future Stages Stages as Fractal Complexity References

99 99 104 110 115 118

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The Meta System Character A Meta Position and an Abductive Approach Meta Methodological Approaches The Notion of Qualia Lenses of Perception and Quantum Physics Mathematics and the Coordinate System References

121 121 127 131 136 140 144

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The Duality System as Cognition, Socialization, and Organization The Duality System and Cognitive Science Societal Strata, Life Course Passages, and Social Class Socialization as Identity Formation Organizational Forms and Development Hampering-Promoting Conditions References

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General Conclusions, Intelligence, and Challenges: Limits and Potentials Human Mind as a DIID Approach: Conclusive Considerations The Duality System and Intelligence: Cognition, Sociality, and Development The Art and Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) The Duality System—Possible Applications References

References

147 147 151 155 159 165 167 167 172 176 180 185 189

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 5.1

Fig. 6.1

The social-causal and ego-agent moving positions in the human mind duality system across its four (A, B, C, D) domains driven by belonging-comprehending motives and interactions-reflections The duality system as belongingness-social-ego and comprehensibility-causal-agent axes crossing each other in the three outer-interactional, middle-epistemological, and inner-ontological levels of the duality system moving across the four (a, b, c, d) development domains in its goal-directed man-environment movements of irreversible interactions and reversible reflections The self-other (ego-belongingness driven) and cause-effect (agent-comprehensibility driven) duality involvement in a dialectical thesis-antithesis and a constructivist differentiation-integration duality transformation process The duality system is illustrated as spiral feedback loops moving in eight different directions according to the mutually crossing axes of sociality-causality, reversibility-irreversibility, and reflection-interaction. Human mind (HM) is involved in each of these moving spiral loops as a navigating center and as ego and agent identity positions motivated by belongingness and comprehensibility drives

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 6.2

Fig. 7.1

Fig. 7.2

Fig. 9.1

Fig. 9.2

Six subfigures which illustrate transformation passages of a socially related horizontal axis and a causally related vertical axis of the duality system towards deeper and broader levels of human mind abstract self-awareness The spiral movements of the duality system are illustrated as crossing its four domains (A, B, C, D) in overall movement constituted by the horizontal inward-outward spatial axis crossing a vertical backward-forward temporal axis in a common movement in opposing interlinked directions designated in plus and minus terms The duality system movements across its four domains (A, B, C, D) comprising the duality system axes of sociality-inward-reversibility and causality-outward- irreversibility movements as well as past-backward-reversibility and future-forward-irreversibility axes involved in a common movement of opposing directions designated in plus and minus terms The dynamically balancing movements of the duality system horizontally and vertically across and within the three system levels (interactional, epistemological, and ontological) driving the system as a whole clockwise passing the four A, B, C, and D domains by eight position shifts The duality system movements across the four A, B, C, and D system domains which don’t directly cross the axes of the system and explicitly concern the driving of the system in a common clock wise direction illustrated by the arrows of the piles. The common movement of the system as a whole is related to the goal-plan sequences of human mind which are reflected in the eight temporal-spatial position movements illustrated

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

As its main title clearly indicates, this book suggests the human mind as a developing phenomenon. Its subtitle further indicates that this phenomenon concerns the meaning making of this mind progressing as a duality system. How can such a phenomenon be understood? The duality can be understood as polarities in the sense of entities which involves two distinct and opposite poles which either attract or repel each other (as e.g., in magnetism and electricity). However, as meaning making they are driven by human mind motivationally, by searching for belongingness and comprehensibility and being involved in an interactive process. The developing character of this process, in turn, concerns the transformations of meaning making in a dialectical way. Taken together these indications point at the aspects of human mind which are assumed to develop, how these aspects develop as well as in what direction this process is aimed at. The basic issues are what is developing (belongingness, comprehensibility), how this is developing (interactively, dialectically, transformatively), and why this might be the case (aiming towards meaning). The book is elaborating between and around these issues from different angles and perspectives to discern common features and basic mental elements of human mind as a developing phenomenon. The common features and basic elements are entitled as dualities and the book suggests a theory of such dualities as interlinked in a mental meaning system.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Hagström, The Developing Human Mind, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28647-6_1

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The duality conception has a key role in this theory and will be approached through the chapters of the book. Suffice to conclude in this introduction, dualities are understood as two basic parts that constitute each other as well as their wholeness. Taken together dualities thus build “triad units” of two basic parts that combined constitute a third unit as a wholeness which has a quality or meaning beyond its parts. Causality is for example regarded as a duality whole of the cause-effect duality parts and sociality is regarded as a duality whole of the self-other duality parts. Causality is, in turn, understood as a part of the duality system that concerns comprehensibility motivational aspects and sociality is understood as a part of the duality system that concerns belongingness motivational aspects. The duality parts within each duality are conceived as involved in a dynamic balancing movement which reflects the human interaction with its outside world. Such interactions and balancing movements might, in turn, trigger dialectical transformations of the system parts as well as of the system. This highly abstract and concentrated description will be more clarified as elaborated in the book. However, some basic lines of reasoning about the suggested theory will, before that, be briefly considered. The notion of meaning refers to a typical human mind combination of socially related belongingness and causally related comprehensibility motivational strivings. These mental parts of the duality system are assumed to be interlinked but also contrasting parts of the human mind. They constitute together the common meaning of humans in their predicament of orienting and understanding oneself in the external reality in an existential and an ontological sense. This, in turn, is due to the abstract and self-aware qualities that typically characterize human consciousness. These qualities are guiding human interactions in their embeddedness in physical, biological, and social systems. The human mind is conceived as necessarily integrated in such systems, its natural laws, and lawful interactions. The capacity of abstract and self-aware thinking enables formal and hypothetical thinking of goal-directed interactions. The self-aware human mind is assumed to play a partly autonomous and self-generating role as compared to its non-human surrounding systems. This role implies a development towards a self-awareness of a self-organizing character,

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resulting potentially in hierarchical stages of “self-awareness of selfawareness”. Such a reoccurring hierarchically ordering principle is understood as an emerging human mind potential, as a meta theory characteristic in this sense. This hierarchical development is, in turn, understood in stage terms but focuses the underlying process of the stages. Further, the human mind is suggested as both a system and an identity, both as a process and as a structure. It is a continuously ongoing interaction with the external world, and it is basically an open system. However, as an existential phenomenon with ontological-philosophical roots, it involves a dualism dilemma. This dilemma refers to the contrast between the described intangible, immaterial feature of human mind on the one hand and the tangible, material feature of the human body on the other hand. It confused the philosopher Descartes as two basically different qualities which still appear to be connected. He suggested a solution by identifying his existence in reality. Reflections in terms of thinking demand a thinker such as himself and that he thereby must exist led to the classical conclusion “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am) and to the conclusion that body and soul are essentially differing phenomena, as a dualism in that sense. This dualism idea has since then been challenged from different angles and in diverse ways which have moved the knowledge frontiers much further. The understanding of the human mind as well as of reality took a big scientific step in the Enlightenment towards increasing abstractions such as rational logic thinking and scientific study. Mathematics and axiomatically based reasons as well as scientific methods and empirical evidence advanced which tended to liberate human thinking from traditional authorities of those days and to be less embedded in its external context. The outside world became thereby more discernable as an object of reflections promoting “man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity”, a sentence that has been attributed to the philosopher Kant. Human knowledge has thereafter passed well-known landmarks and milestones, such as the Newtonian physical laws, the Darwinian evolution theory, and the relativity- and quantum theories towards a search for a “unified theory of everything”; the latter being unsolved so far. This is also the case regarding the human mind. Its essence is still an issue of deep interest, spiritually, philosophically, scientifically, and more or less, in everybody’s mind. Can the human mind for example be fully explained in a universal “theory of everything” or in solely biological terms? Descartes seems,

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despite his rationalistic philosophical thinking, to have considered the value of biological and empirical evidence. He did not exclude the emanation of human mind from the pineal gland of the human brain. This small brain organ between the brain hemispheres has been approached philosophically as a “third human eye”, a link between the soul and the body as a kind interaction center. The idea of an inner navigator of the human mind being situated in the human brain has been a not uncommon thought figure. This brain navigating idea has been further related to the body as an entire system, as an embodied mind. It implies human consciousness as a body, brain, and mind integrated system, an undividable holism. At the same time such a mind has increasingly separated us from other living organisms including our close relatives among the primates in our evolutionary and historical development. Community building has widened this gap by for example cultural, technological, scientific, and institutional advancements. This societal world seems to function as natural laws. A life world has been created that seems to increasingly separate the human mind from other consciousness manifestations, i.e., its abstract thinking and self-awareness forms. This raises several questions. What is basically characterizing this seemingly typical human form of consciousness, how and why has it developed, and how and why is it engaged in a further developing process? What is the role of the duality system principles in relation to basic body functions and societal conditions? Let’s start with abstract thinking and self-awareness and return to Descartes. His distinction between “I think” and “I am” appear to reflect a dualistic distinction “within the soul”. This distinction concerns thinking experienced as a light, free flying character contrasting the thinker as its heavy, firmly rooted existential base. The lightness of thinking generates the consciousness of the depth of existence, in both cases as abstractions. The human mind development can be associated with both these kinds of abstractions. One of these refers to common principles that unite concrete phenomena in general, the other refers to the application of such principles on oneself as an abstract wholeness. The latter refers to the human mind identity as self-objectification, the capacity of perceiving oneself from outside-in and from inside-out as an object of selfreflections, spatially, temporally, and socially, internally and externally. The human mind function is assumed to operate as a navigating internal center interacting both with social-societal and physical-biological systems.

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Framed as an epiphenomenon, human mind is conceived as a byproduct of material processes, being unable to influence material causal mechanisms. Framed as an emergent product of living system development in the evolution, it tends to be more organically linked to biological processes. However, it is still not fully explained regarding its seemingly nonmaterial, typical human features. The embodied mind idea does not necessarily explain the art and degree of autonomy played by the processes of the mind, how these are interrelated, and how and why such a system develops. This process is in the duality system assumed to be discernable as a partly autonomous, abstract self-aware process, which enables an existential and ontologically based identity which, in turn, is basically related to goal-directed interactions. Such philosophical perspectives, regarding not at least epistemological and ontological issues, are addressed in this book. Interaction processes add empirical data from the “outside reality” which in its scientific systematic forms involve different scientific domains and reductivism levels. The book is spanning social sciences but considers also other levels and domains within for example cognitive science and the natural sciences. Common features are considered with respect to their relevance for the three main concepts of the book, namely developing, human and mind. It is thus the basic developing features of the basic human consciousness as basic elements of this mind that is the focal interest. This thereby separates the human mind from other types of minds and other types of development. The ambition here is to discern and clarify such basic features, tracing these in a broad disciplinary outlook and in an ontogeny perspective. It is of vital interest to approach such a vast knowledge mass by clearly defined searching tools. A central methodological tool might be addressed as an abductive approach. Inductive and deductive angles are here mixed to capture overriding similarities among different theoretical and methodological domains of interest. This way of thinking is related to pragmatism philosophy. The departure of the duality system theory is however taken in theory and research that capture the most general features of human mind life course stage development in modern and postmodern societies. Similar features between those theories are claimed to concern their hierarchical stage organization, interactive movements, and dialectically developing character. The open and dynamically changing character of this system might be regarded as keys to open the so-called black box, the idea

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that what is going on in the human mind is not a possible or legitimate aim of scientific studies. It is an idea that has been made explicit in radical behaviorism and is debated in contrasting directions in different science disciplines. These are spanning positivistic scientific objectivistic preferences and quantitative “hard” data among natural sciences as well as postmodernistic preferences and qualitative “soft” data among social sciences and humanities. The black box tends to be approached (if at all) from outside-in among natural sciences and from inside-out in the social sciences. Interaction, philosophical and scientific perspectives appear to be positioned somewhere in between. The human mind is suggested as a holistic concept as outlined above. Returning to Descartes again, it can be concluded that the dual contribution to this holism, its duality parts, is something essentially different as compared to the dualism of Descartes. The duality framing is not only connecting the mind with the body, but it also suggests a system of developing principles for the progressing of abstract selfaware thinking in stage levels. The abstract “free flying” thinking in this duality framing is identity anchored as well as bodily rooted but, at the same time, still assumed to be flying free and developing potentially to broader insights and outsights. Moreover, this progression involves an emerging ongoing potentiality. The notion of meta refers to a feature (quality, meaning, capacity) beyond two duality parts. More generally, the human mind may be regarded as a meta position beyond belongingness and comprehensibility as a latent potentiality of forthcoming stages. This emerging hypothetical potential is manifested by dialectical stage transformations involving dialectical thesis-antithesis shifting between the belongingness and comprehensibility meaning positions when these are challenged by externally generated meaning inconsistencies. To conclude, the developing human mind will thus focus the following characteristics: – Its stage-like progression in life span development in modernpostmodern societies and evolutionary development in this direction. – Its basic duality and system character. – Its ontological, epistemological, and interaction system levels of identity character. – Its spiral feedback loop progressing character. – Its dialectical, meta, and emergent developing character.

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– Its interlinked stage-level and system-level progression and fractal reoccurrence character. – Its tentatively physical and mathematical character. – Its intelligence, social and cognitive character, and relation to artificial versions. The duality system theory presented thus concerns general and basic development principles of the typical mental character of the human mind from a departure of its modern-postmodern societal versions. The human mind does indeed involve both unique-individual and general-collective characteristics. The duality system approach focuses on its nomothetic aspect as general regulation principles and is not more than marginally catching the different idiographic expressions of human mind in their rich variations of different life worlds and their emerging unique expressions. These might to some extent be elaborated as increasingly complex differentiated and integrated patterns in a fractal manner on the basis of the duality system thinking sketched above. Knowledge of the general kind of regulating principles presented in this book can hopefully serve as one fruitful entrance to also approach the unique differentiations among the minds of humans. This might be a possible purpose of another book.

CHAPTER 2

A Developing Phenomenon in Modern Societies

The DIID or Duality System Approach: Basic Characteristics In this section, the duality system is focused regarding some core features as a base for further general considerations in this direction in this chapter. As noticed in the introduction, the DIID approach takes its departure mainly in human mind development in modern and postmodern societal settings. The duality system is basically built on this contemporary position. The relevance and consistency of the construction is searched for in evolutionary terms, in basic system-conceptual terms, and in meta theoretical-methodological terms. Considerations are also made in mathematical, physical, and philosophical terms. It is described as a mental system of a self-organizing character with its basic regulating development principles. Thus, it is not surprising that the departure is taken in mental development theory and research. At the same time, this mental system is understood as basically built on the human body/brain system, having developed evolutionary. The duality system is, as the DIID initials suggest, both an identity system and an interaction system which means that the developing mind concerns an identity development in an interactive and open system manner. Identity refers to human self-awareness as a social creature and a causal creature which are assumed to be basically interlinked and mutually interacting. The holistic features concern an ego being related to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Hagström, The Developing Human Mind, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28647-6_2

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belongingness and an agent being related to comprehensibility. They are regarded as two basic sides of the same human mind, as an identity whole. Sociality refers to belongingness and causality refers to comprehensibility, which play basic motivational roles in human mind meaning making. Causality focuses cause-effect in general terms, as events preceded and determined by something else and thereby involving their causes. In case “causes” refer to purposes, it is sometimes referred to as “final causes”, where internal and social aspects are involved. The ego part is mainly related to such final-social characteristics, focusing the purposes of interactions. The agent part can rather be related to causal-cognitive characteristics, focusing the explanations of interactions. Causality is conceived as a special form of cognition. The ego-agent and social-causal positions in this system are illustrated in Fig. 2.1 as four A, B, C, and D domains. The moving of human mind within and between these positions is motivated by the search for meaning in terms of belongingness and comprehensibility. In Fig. 2.1, belongingness is illustrated as an inward movement to the left and comprehensibility as an outward movement to the right. Further, reflections are illustrated as a backward movement and interactions as a forward movement. The elements of this process are schematically illustrated in Fig. 2.1. The human mind moves as an ego-agent holism clockwise across the four domains illustrated in Fig. 2.1 The A, B, C, and D shifting positions of this movement follow goal-directed interactions and reflections. They pass in terms of a socially focused agent in the A-domain, a causally focused agent in the B domain, a causally focused ego in the C domain, and as a socially focused ego in the D domain. Belongingness and sociality are directed comparatively more towards emotional closeness, expressiveness, and cooperation, to understand internal motives and intentions behind interactions. Comprehensibility and causality are directed comparatively more towards intellectual distance, instrumentalism, and competition, to explain external outcomes of interactions. Both processes are to different extents involved in people’s external goaldirected interactions as a movement forward to the future and backward to the past. Thereby, the human mind maintains its identity as an ego-agent balancing holism by moving in social-causal interactions in outwardinward and backward-forward directions. These movements are assumed to progress as duality feedback spiral loops. Taken together they pass the

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Fig. 2.1 The social-causal and ego-agent moving positions in the human mind duality system across its four (A, B, C, D) domains driven by belongingcomprehending motives and interactions-reflections

A, B, C, and D domains. The social left side of the duality system and its belongingness orientation express a social identity of one’s own, initiated in early childhood and elaborated in attachment theory and research (see e.g., Bowlby, 1997). It is further developed in the duality interplay between self and others in increasingly larger collective systems during youth and adult life. The causal right side of the duality system and its comprehensibility orientation express logical reasoning, progressing from senso-motoric and concrete thinking towards increasing abstract thinking. It is further developed towards increasingly abstract, formal, and dialectical forms of system thinking. Taken together these conditions constitute the human mind as an embodied mind and captures several knowledge domains. It is a multifaceted area. Besides some natural scientific angles, notably biology, it spans different social and behavioral science fields and perspectives such as psychoanalytic-, behavioristic-, cognitive-, socio-cultural-, ecological-, and life span approaches (e.g., Berk, 2010; Robinson, 2013). The interpretations of development differ, for example, regarding what is developing

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(e.g., cognition, emotion, moral, meaning), how it is developing (e.g., continuous, or discontinuous), and why it is developing in terms of causal mechanism (e.g., nature or nurture). These different focuses bring to the fore issues regarding which domain that can be considered as the most general one (e.g., underlying other domains) and the relative autonomy of the domains (e.g., whether how and why the domains are interconnected or not). These approaches also reflect differing epistemological and ontological stances. Different ideas in these directions are for example traditionally associated with a predominantly objectivistic stance in the natural sciences and a predominantly subjectivistic stance in the social sciences and the humanities (Cohen et al., 2000). They differ for example regarding (a) focusing the study object from the inside or outside, (b) focusing formal or content development aspects, and (c) focusing quantitative or qualitative data and methodological approaches (see e.g., Bryman, 2004). The continuation and discontinuation issue raises questions regarding development and changes in general. All development involves change but the opposite is not necessarily the case. Development tends to be associated with some kind of systematic change (Hagström, 2003). Causal development mechanisms have been located varyingly on internal or external conditions as necessary or sufficient conditions for development to occur. This indicates the “context sensitivity” of the theories. Moreover, distinctions have been made between cognitive, developmental, and contextual models (Pintrich, 2002). Cognitive models focus on human internal regulations of actions and thinking from inside-out towards cognitive equilibration as elaborated in Piaget’s thinking (e.g., 1978). Development models focus on motivational incitements which are regarded as at least sufficient conditions for developmental change to occur. Contextual models underline the influence of external conditions which challenge a person’s thinking from outside/in. The nature and nurture issue regarding necessary and sufficient causes behind development brings to the fore the role of human mind as a central navigator of the development process. The influence of contemporary external contexts also concerns such conditions which are taken for granted as for example embedded in the external contexts as “affordances” (Gibson, 1979). Such common theoretical reasoning has in development and external context-oriented learning theory been referred to as transformative learning (Mezirow, 2003), educology or contextual didactics (Hagström, 2003). The historical development towards modern

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and postmodern societies has shaped external and institutional environments which tend to take the form of natural laws (Berger & Luckman, 1967). What is here the position of the duality system approach and what are the basic features of the duality system? The system is basically moving, interacting, and duality-regulated. It involves an emerging potential to progress dialectically and thereby transform to higher stage like levels of abstract self-awareness. The notion of duality takes a core role as characterizing the mental concepts that build the system. The duality concept has been applied in mathematics (Chapters 6 and 7) and physics (Chapter 7) as well as in cognitive theory (e.g., Sun, 2012), system theory (e.g., Cabrera, 2006), and organizational theory (e.g., Sánches-Runde & Pettigrew, 2003). The core features of the duality conception framed in the DIID approach, as noticed in Chapter 1, is its construction of two basic parts that constitute each other and their wholeness. This “triad unit” of two parts and their wholeness cannot be separated in more basic distinctions without losing its meaning. The two parts build the wholeness and the wholeness builds the two parts. Thus, each of the two duality elements requires the other, directly, or indirectly, as foreground or background, manifestly or latently, to be comprehended, in themselves and as wholes. The two duality parts are in this sense reversible, constituting their common wholeness from two necessarily complementing sides. Self is basically related to other, and cause is basically related to effect and, in both cases, the other way around, involved in a common irreversible time progression. The human mind is focused from the inside as well as from the outside but not dismissing either of these positions as legitimate scientific objects of study. The study positions might consider qualitative as well as quantitative data, the role of nature as well as nurture, or focusing formal as well as content aspects, continuation as well as discontinuation of the development process. Such scientific stances are in the DIID approach subordinated the basic duality regulating principles. A starting point of this approach is, as described, taken in life course development theory and research in contemporary societal settings. The human mind has been found to be increasingly capable of developing in basic respects. Human mind life course development in psychology theory and research seems for example to correspond with theory and research of human brain with respect to the latter being capable of much more plasticity than was known quite recently. Such findings appear, in turn, to

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correspond to increasing external demands of abstract, autonomous, and flexible thinking and interacting in postmodern societies and globalization. These societies promote more flexible allocations and orientations within external societal and organizational structures in time and space as well as prolonged life careers. Furthermore, these societies are related to information technology, global economy, and shifts from materialistic towards post-materialistic values. The development of such changing external structures, guiding human thinking and interactions from outside, can be related to the development of internal structures guiding human thinking and interactions from inside. Life course development as a function of this progression has been documented from different scientific angles. The DIID approach takes a departure in general and basic development principles in theories of life stages, mainly those entitled as hard stage theories. Hard stages refer to a transformative shift of thinking and feeling about oneself and one’s surrounding world. These shifts involve total reorganizations of a latent cognitive frame of reference. This means that development proceeds in universal, qualitative, different, irreversible, and fixed sequences. This type of general and basic progression leads, in turn, to hierarchically ordered stage structures where higher structures integrate lower structures (e.g., Kohlberg & Armon, 1984). The conception of stages in human development has been challenged and debated which will be more addressed further on. These development principles can be studied from different theoretical angles, by different methods and by diverse types of data, etc. The duality system can be traced to the human striving towards meaning of life. It has gained human survival in the evolution and further triggered this advancement towards increasing abstraction levels. This, in turn, is related to the evolutional and historical development. It appears to be a typical feature of the human mind development, bringing to the fore existential, philosophical, and religious issues, regarding the continuation of time and meaning of the reality. The DIID related self-other and cause-effect dualities outlined above express typical and basic human abstract ways of thinking. The self-other duality concerns human mind as an abstractly communicating creature (e.g., in terms of language symbolic thinking) of social external interactions and internal reflections. This enables thinking about self-other as “oneself in others and others in oneself” which generates reversible interpretations of social feedback movements of a spiral character, which will be addressed further. The cause-effect duality concerns human mind

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as an abstractly goal-oriented creature (e.g., in terms of mathematical symbolic thinking) of causal external interactions and internal reflections. This enables thinking about causes-effect as “effect leading to new causes leading to new effects” which generate irreversible explanation of causal feedback movements. The DIID approach involves both these kinds of abstract movements to be understood as basically interlinked. The human mind identity can in these movements be abstractly conceived as an object in the past which here and now direct oneself as a subject towards goals and plans in the future. Irreversible interactions take place in the “external reality” while reversible reflections about these interactions take place in the “internal reality”, progressing from inside-out and outside-in. These interactions and reflections move between these realities in goal-directed movements. The movements of human mind are in the DIID approach of a spiral loop character which roughly implies that they move and balance between the duality parts and between the dualities of the duality system in interaction with its external systems. The basic motivational drives which are assumed to be involved are, on the one hand, belongingness-oriented and, on the other hand, comprehensibility-oriented. Belongingness is a function of the evolutionary advantages of interactive and communicative social abilities. They are biologically developed by the long first childhood period of the brain outside the uterus, enabling the human brain growth towards larger neo cortex dimensions. Early childhood periods generate emotional close relations with caring adults. This, in turn, generates early attachment bounds, such as emotional security and gradual object permanence (e.g., Bowlby, 1997). It enables an increasing identification of oneself as a unique individual as well as a collective societal member sharing common thoughts and feelings with others and passing socialization periods in the entrance into adult and societal life. The social capacity refers to qualities such as understanding and identification in humanity and the causal capacity, to qualities such as explanation and identification, as two basic forms of meaning making. These two capacities are in the DIID framing assumed to be ontologically rooted and to build a basis for an identity of being a human existentially, a deep identity in this sense. A main point stated so far is that the dualities of the system are traced in hard stage theories and their regulation criteria. Chapter 3 focuses the general aspects of such life course stages which are searched for in terms of their common features. Chapter 4 addresses evolutionary roots of these

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common features, in social-cognitive, self-conception, and biologicalfunction terms. Chapter 5 elaborates on basic distinctions of conceptual systems, dialectical systems, and co-logic distinctions, as related to the duality conception. Chapter 6 relates contemporary changing societal structures to the duality system and the transformative stage progressions of this approach. Chapter 7 focuses the meta character of the duality system methodologically and its positions in the reductivism scientific hierarchy. Chapter 8 addresses social-socialization identity formation, social class, and organizational issues. Chapter 9 summarizes the book, reflects some contemporary and future-oriented intelligence issues (e.g., AI) and conclusions and elaborates on conditions which hamper and promote further development.

Social and Cognitive Interactions: Piagetian, Vygotskian, and Action Theory In this section, the progression of the duality system is considered regarding its social and cognitive manifestations as well as in socialization, interaction, and activity terms. The social and cognitive parts of human mind are, as described, basically interlinked in the development process according to the DIID approach but for decades they have been debated regarding their compatibility and influence on this process. In this section some main threads of these issues are addressed as a background to the DIID way of interlinking the sociality and cognition in interactive terms. Distinctions between human mind development as essentially a process or a structure are also considered. The notion of comprehensibility reaches beyond causal actions and the notion of belongingness reaches beyond social interactions in the DIID framing. Belongingness as well as comprehensibility involve cognitive distinctions such as those between reversibility-irreversibility, integrationdifferentiation, and logic-dialectic. Such abstract distinctions are, in turn, involved in human reflections on its interactions to obtain meaning in terms of both understanding and explanation which involve both emotions and thoughts. Such distinctions are addressed within a broader cognitive scientific domain. The distinctions and overlapping of these conceptions are not clear cut, but in the DIID framing they are subordinated the basic duality regulation principles outlined. This will be further elaborated in the chapters of the book. Below the social-cognitive distinction will be further addressed. Issues here concern how such distinctions

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are related to each other in the light of other human mind development theories. This also includes issues of relevance regarding the learning-development distinction. One central dividing line concerns the one related to the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky which has been debated in terms of cognition and sociality. The assimilation-accommodation dynamics formulated by Piaget appears to overlap the DIID approach in central aspects, as a cognitive part of the development process. Assimilation schemes accommodate to the external reality to conform to new information from outsidein in man and environment interaction, as an adaption process in this sense. This imply shifting balances between the subsystems of the schemes which is in accordance with the duality system. Another common feature between the dualities of the DIID system and the Piagetian schemes is that both processes involve balance shifts between integration and differentiation. In the DIID system, these take place within and between the dualities. Here differentiation concerns two of four duality system domains (entitled A, B) and integration concerns the two other system domains (entitled C and D) involving shifting human mind balances as those described. These domains are further elaborated in the book (and illustrated in Figs. 2.1, 3.1, 6.1, 6.2, 7.1, and 7.2). In the assimilation-accommodation process, a similar process appears to concern “the progressive equilibrium between the differentiation and the integration” (Piaget, 1978, pp. 9–10). However, one difference concerns dialectical processes. In Piaget’s cognitive process, … the proposition that nonbalance or contradictions are inherent in the very characteristics of thought seems difficult to support, at least in the present state of our knowledge. We have not succeeded in supplying a formal elaboration of a “logic dialectic;” “contradiction” consequently, appears as a notion whose significance is psychogenetic, sociogenetic, or historical, and not inherent in the operational structures which lead to a state of closure. (Piaget, 1978, p. 14)

A possible explanation of this lacking dialectics might be found in the lack of an explicit basic belongingness and socially related “scheme – part” in this assimilation/accommodation process. The social and cognitive distinction has more generally been object of elaborations regarding what aspects that might be the most central one. This is the case regarding the inside/out causal direction of Piaget’s cognitive stage developmental

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theory (1982) and the outside/in causal direction of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (1962) concerning the internalization and development of knowledge of the child and adolescent (Martí, 1996). Piaget’s theory of logical reasoning in four main stages during childhood and youth has been conceived as a basically cognitive approach. His focus has been associated with rational, endogenous constructions of human mind as causal explanations. Vygotsky’s theory of internalizations towards higher abstractions of societal-cultural-contextual conditions during childhood and youth has, in turn, been conceived as a basically social approach. His focus has been associated with exogenous semiotic and communicative interactions of human mind as intentional understanding. The compatibility of these scientific stances has been objects of discussions and disputes. Tryphon and Vonèche (1996) conclude for example that: – Piaget’s theory is of a Kantian nature contrasting Vygotsky’s theory as a cultural-historical approach. – Piaget’s theory focuses more on the development of universal processes for validation of knowledge while Vygotsky’s theory focuses more on interpretation of the psycho-socio-historical genesis. – Piaget’s theory focuses more on interpretations as discussion of a constructive character while Vygotsky’s theory focuses more on interpretations of constructions. However, the comparing discussions of these two theories have not merely concerned differences between them and their followers. They have elaborated on common features as well. Such as “psychological relationalism” as a middle position between sociological holism and psychological individualism. This position implies that: … every social concept can be reduced to the behavior and cognition of individuals, together with the relations between them. The crucial role of the relations between individuals—their social interactions involving cooperation, conflict, exchange of goods, communications and so forth— distinguishes this position from the other two. (Kitchener, 1996, p. 244)

Moreover, Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories can be conceived as complementary in several respects out of which overlapping “meta meanings” might be conceivable as emergent developmental potentials. Tryphon & Vonèche conclude for example that learning not concerns an individual

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performance for Piaget and that the development of knowledge not merely is an inside/out process for Piaget and an outside/in for Vygotsky. They further conclude that: “Both theories agree that actions are initiating the further development but conceiving it differently”. Piaget as: “…natural event taking place in a natural environment” and Vygotsky as: “… a rich and meaningful human act constructed by history and society” (1996, pp. 8–9). Tryphon and Vonèche conclude that the two theories are mutually complementing as they suggest meaning making in terms of “complementary turns of logic, on the one hand, and rhetoric, on the other”. Despite the different understanding of meaning both theories are here judged as sharing the same rationality of the Enlightenment philosophy: “…Both viewed progress of the human mind as the conquest of the universal over the particular, the general over the local, and the timeless over the timely” (Tryphon & Vonèche, 1996, p. 9). Moreover, both theories might also be attributed as dialectical in the sense of structures being understood as relational totalities. They participate in interactions of interdependent parts that are contrasting each other and are progressing towards systemic hierarchies of qualitative levels (Wozniak, 1996). The latter conclusion appears to correspond with basic features of dualities and their system characteristics. The Piagetian and Vygotskian approaches express basic features of the human mind interaction process but without elaborating explicitly about its holistic and identity side. The deep identity part of the interaction process is not explicitly elaborated in their perspectives but appears as latently discernable in their overlapping features. The duality and dialectical way of understanding the human development towards higher, more abstract stage-like levels seems to be underpinned by learning processes involving action sequences and feedback spirals. Such learning processes concern ongoing automatization of actions towards such different levels. Interactions here involve goals, action sequences, and evaluations of its outcome involving also social and communicative interaction forms like those described in the duality system. One main idea is that the conscious human mind regulations of actions occur in three levels. A senso-motoric level of automized actions, a perceptual-conceptual level of partly conscious actions enabling flexible situational adaptions, and an intellectual level of hypothetical tackling of new situations. Similar levels have been suggested where consciousness

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is accessible but not necessarily involved and a “heuristic” meta level is added above the intellectual level (Frese & Zapf, 1994). Learning processes in this approach capture shifting main goals and sub goals which are hierarchically ordered and coordinated. Lower levels take over when problems are solved at higher levels, enabling the latter levels to solve new problems. This sequential-hierarchical- regulation process constitutes a cognitively loaded feedback process, being evolutionarybased. However, it also implies a social feedback system of socialization characteristics. Volpert (1989) describes a person’s part of a societal interaction context as a general human-survival and need-fulfillment process. Individuals have to find their personal courses as mixtures of general goals and sub goals guided by basic motivational incitements. The cognitive and motivational parts of this process are conceived as an individual action generating system (Volpert, 1989). Interactions are here occurring when such personal interaction structures meet concrete action demands of the aggregated experiences embedded in each society. The individuals are however attributed with the capacity to transcend such societal structures and form a personal frame of understanding the external world. Such a personal frame of reference is associated with an expanded subjective scope of interaction possibilities. The external components of such possibilities have been made subjectively graspable from a personal and individual position. Such a subjectification of external societal conditions, taken as objects of awareness, can be conceived as an individual socialization into the society by an internalization process. The institutional and informal rules, norms, and values of the society have been approached and internalized as a personal subjective position. The action regulation theories in these social and cognitive directions raise issues not merely about their mutual influence on learning and development. The relative autonomy of the interaction process in itself as a societal and socialization process as well as the relative influence of external/internal conditions have been object of many considerations. One example concerns the external-societal influence on human mind of work in a basic and general feature of human activity. Work-activity and social-socialization takes a central position here. Work activity contextualizes human interaction in a societal and cultural perspective and its survival function in an ontogeny perspective. Issues may concern for example if basic human action motives and goals are embedded in the external context, whether they are triggered

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internally or externally, or whether they should be focused as an interaction wholeness of internal-external duality parts. Russian socio-cultural theory for example the one elaborated by Leontjev (1978) traced the conscious intellectual human brain psyche in early sensory and perceptive life and psyche forms. Work activity is related to the physical and social world by, for example, the expanding use of tools, cooperation, and communication. The higher specific intra-physic human processes evolved in interactive psychic processes are described as losing their original external form. Their external characteristics tend to be perceived as objects, understood as reflecting human needs, and providing action motives and goals. The motives to interact in that sense are assumed as mainly externally located but perceived as internal motives. Object in this sense might refer to the solution of problems as well as to the cultivation of material things. Activity is from this theoretical perspective regarded as the mediating link between man and the environment. The allocation of motives and goals in such external activity terms appear to put a higher “objectivistic emphasis” on human motives as compared to the duality system. The duality system is compatible with an understanding of work activity as developing towards increasingly abstract forms of temporal/cognitive and collaborative/social interactions. The theoretical thinking in this direction has not at least been associated with the thinking of Vygotsky (1962) which challenges the cognitive focus that has been attributed to the thinking of Piaget. This raises the issues whether development goes in the direction outside-in focusing the social part of the process or in the direction inside-out focusing the cognitive part of the process. Agricultural, reproductive, and productive integrated activities have separated temporally and spatially in industrial societal wage labour markets. Seasonal time-activity regulations have in that perspective proceeded towards more abstract forms of wage labour time-activity regulations (Hagström, 1988). Beside the increasing abstraction levels, this can be assumed to have separated the social and cognitive parts of human interactions. Action theories inspired by the socio-cultural reasoning of Leontjev elaborates on both the social and cognitive parts of human interactions and its sequential and hierarchical coordination (e.g., Volpert, 1989).

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A Stage and Life Span Process In this section, the DIID approach takes one of its basic departures in theory and research regarding stages across individual life spans taking place mainly in the contexts of modern and postmodern societies. In the duality system, the notion of stage is mainly approached as a progressing movement of human mind as both a structure and a process. The searching in this direction for general features of the human mind as a developing phenomenon has focused on common features in such different current stage theories. Contemporary life courses in terms of stages may by and large be categorized as soft stages, functional stages, and hard stages (Kohlberg & Armon, 1984). The notion of stage is not uncontroversial. Stages appear to be associated with normative and elitist connotations. Higher and lower hierarchical features, notably when associated with stable hereditary personality traits, might to some extent lie behind such a resistance. To this can be added postmodern objections against “Big narratives”. Such postmodern positions are not to higher extents compatible with stage conceptions. Soft stages focus on the development of, for example, different personality traits, education, social background, and “external context sensitivity”. The focus is relatively more on emotional and personality related aspects conceiving development as progressing in more loosely defined stage conceptions (e.g., Loevinger, 1976). Functional stages use to be associated with Erikson’s theory (1968, 1997) where stages are related to the purpose of conducting new life tasks and fulfilling basic life functions. They are “context-sensitive” in this sense but are combined with the human mind subjective and existential life choices in basic life transitions. Hard stages, in turn, refer to a total reorganization of a latent cognitive frame of reference. As noticed, development is here considered as proceeding in universal, qualitatively different, irreversible, and fixed sequences as well as being hierarchically ordered, with higher stages integrating lower ones (e.g., Kohlberg & Armon, 1984). These stage conceptions, as in Piaget’s theory, tend to be conceived as less context-sensitive and more endogenously developed in a general sequence, contrasting the soft stage conception in this respect (see also Hagström & Stålne, 2015). As compatible with the DIID approach, hard stages have been conceived as universally progressing towards higher consciousness levels of human mind. Each stage is accordingly regarded as qualitatively different, for example reflecting more abstract regulating principles (see

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also Baltes & Nesselroade, 1979). Neo-Piagetian stage theories spanning adult life recognized a need for exceeding a “social and cultural vacuum” being associated with Piaget’s cognitively loaded hard stage theory of logical reasoning. They broadened the types of stage development contents covering more separated life domains (Hagström, 1995, 2003). They focus on development aspects such as values (Armon & Dawson, 1997), moral (Kohlberg, 1969), social role taking (Selman, 2007), and meaning making (Kegan, 1982, 1994, 2003). Others elaborate on for example “postformal thought” related to general system theory (Sinnott, 2003), cognitive complexity (Commons, 2008), and spiritualreligious aspects (Day, 2011; Fowler, 1996). Such and similar hard-soft combinations covering different stage contents vary also regarding the understanding of the process and development structure aspects. This also generated looser and/or differing distinctions between stages and stage transitions. It raised more explicit questions of how stages can be explained in long and short terms and process-structure terms, addressing more of “why development” issues. In the DIID framing, it concerns for example why human mind, understood as a belongingness ego related and comprehensibility agent related holism, would develop in the abstract stage-like way described. It addresses more general issues about the progression of scientific knowledge. The adult stage theories outlined can be understood as a first classifying taxonomy step towards a second ontogeny step towards the maturation of scientific thought: Attention turns to the origins, development, underlying processes, and direction of the phenomenon. Mature theories of personality development need to provide us with both the taxonomy (e.g., stages of development) and ontogeny (e.g., the structures underlying the stages, and the processes of reconstruction) aspects. (Kegan et al., 1998, p. 40)

The search for development in terms of its origins and underlying processes and structures in these ways maybe understood as theoretical ways of tracing its regulating basic elements. This is the way the DIID has progressed and is described. The hard stage criteria outlined above reflect general hierarchical stage ordering principles. In Piaget’s theory such principles are discernable as logical reasoning being transformed towards increasing abstract levels building on each other. Lower stage principles constitute for example necessary conditions for higher stages to occur. This type of cognitive regulations is less explicitly elaborated in softer or

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functional stage approaches. The lack of such general regulating principles rather tends to generate suggestions of different and independent stage development lines. Stage progression might involve general broad stage-wise movements as well as more specific and differentiated movements. This brings to the fore issues regarding their possible dependences and independences. The prevalence of both a general developmental stage progression and relatively independent stage lines has been claimed by Wilber (2000) in a meta theoretical approach entitled AQUAL. Universal stage features are here labelled as “great waves of life” (Wilber, 2000). They are referred to as separated lines: “…which means that, for the most part, they can develop independent of each other, at different rates, with a different dynamic, and on a different time schedule” (Wilber, 2000, p. 28). Their common features concern their movements according to a sequential more general stage line or altitude (body/sensorimotor—to mind/conventional—to spirit/postconventional stages) and their hierarchical organization. The DIID framing, taking an ontogeny and process perspective, is here oriented towards the discerning of common features between different stage lines in order to elucidate and clarify their underlying and basic characteristics. This does not dismiss the prevalence and possibility of differentiated or different stage lines. Values can for example be regarded as guiding actions and provide measures to judge events in terms of desirability. Values can, as described, be conceived as emotionally loaded motivational aspects of the interactive thinking of human mind. Values can in the abstract thinking and feelings of human mind be considered to guide goals by the regulation of interaction sequences in feedback loop terms described. In this mediating sense, values might be claimed to constitute a link between the individual and the society (Reed et al., 1996, see also Hagström, 2003). Values can be considered as motivational drives and incitements in human and environment interactions. Focused per se, the value aspect may be discernable only as a relatively independent single stage development line. However, in a general, hard stage type of development and in a broader process perspective, values can be tied to other stage sequences such as moral stage development. Moral stages, in turn, can be tied to an epistemological and ontological deeper and broader stage progression, a “harder” progression in that sense. Ego and belongingness can be related to a social side of human reality which constitutes an identity in self-other regulation terms. Agent and

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comprehensibility can, in turn, be related to a cognitive side of human reality constituting an identity in cause-effect regulation terms. The coherences of these social and cognitive sides have been elaborated also in terms of gender differences within life span stage development theory. The most prominent example appears to concern stage progression of morality (Gilligan, 1982, 1993). Based on interview studies and applying different sample criteria, some main gender differences were found. Women tended to focus for example on care ethic aspects involving social responsibilities and relationships whereas men tended to focus for example on formal ethic aspects involving rights and formal rules. Their rationality differed in these directions which also reflect more abstract autonomous thinking among men and more contextual, narrative thinking among women. Following Kohlberg’s stage theory of moral stages (see below) regarding the progression order in three main levels in a preconventional, conventional, and postconventional sequence, Gilligan’s theory focuses on “social-moral-context-rationality” as a kind of progressing axis. Kohlberg’s theory, as more Piagetian oriented, focuses on the cognitivelogical rationality. Gilligan challenged assumptions that the women carerelational focus more seldom involves moral stage progressions towards the higher Kohlbergian postconventional levels. She claims that these gender differences not basically concern stage levels but rather the moral focus of those stages. She concludes that: The moral imperative that emerges repeatedly in interviews with women is an injunction to care, a responsibility to discern and alleviate the ‘real and recognizable trouble of this world’. For men, the moral imperative appears rather as an injunction to respect the rights of others and thus to protect from interference the rights life and self- fulfillment. (Gilligan, 1982, 1993, p. 100)

Gilligan states that the gender contrast found is not absolute. It rather: “…highlight a distinction between two modes of thought than generalizations about either sex” (Gilligan, 1982, 1993, p. 2). The interplay between these modes is suggested to drive towards convergence in times of crises. In the DIID approach, gender differences in these directions can be conceived to basically reflect the belongingness and comprehensibility coherences of human mind as more or less accentuated, divided, differentiated, and changing over time. This is not at least associated with different social and cultural contexts but to still involve basic common

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human mind features. It can be concluded that gender differences play a significant role in the perspectives of the broader societal-macro levels in the progress of modern and postmodern societies. Gender issues appear to be of high relevance regarding, for example, contrasting and conflicting positions of the reproduction-production societal spheres, role taking, power balances, socialization patterns, and equality, all of which raise not at least moral-ethical challenges.

The Duality System Identity: A Social-Causal and Ego-Agent Holism In this section the ego-agent parts of the DIID system are addressed. As being more or less manifested or latent in different stage theories, these two human mind identity parts build a base for the duality system understanding. The ego conception in psychology can be traced to Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. It has exerted its well-known influence on not at least psychotherapeutic practice, cultural thinking, and everyday psychology understanding and terminology but have had a harder journey in positivistic academic disciplines. However, its ego conception remains an interesting example of a human mind holism between and beyond two balancing parts, the superego, on the one hand, and the id, on the other hand. The superego involves internalized societal norms, ideals, and moral standards, and the id is constituted as unconscious basic instincts, needs, and desires which are manifested in for example aggressions and sexuality. The ego functions as a realistic mediating regulator between them. The hierarchical regulation character has been understood as metacognition referring roughly to “cognition of cognition”. It can be conceived in implicit ego-agent terms but differ from the DIID approach regarding developing mechanisms. The way of meeting modern-postmodern abstract challenges in development terms in the classical Freudian understanding concerns the psychosexual development from childhood to adulthood by passing oral, anal, and genital phases. When disturbed, this sexual progression, which is traced biologically by reproductive incitements and biological instincts, is related to rebalances of defense mechanisms. Such generality claims have been challenged from different theoretical and clinical angles. A further Freudian inspired psychodynamic theory progression has provided several ego theoretical frameworks regarding early identity and trust formation processes from childhood, not at least object relation and

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attachment theory. The latter concerns the consequences of early attachment disturbances during forthcoming life progressions (Bowlby, 1997). The application of the ego conception in adult development theory has to some extent influenced the stage theory domain of human development theories, however, not mainly in classical Freudian respects. Some common features concern the notion of meaning balance and Piaget’s idea of cognitive equilibrium. Piaget’s theory appears to, by his understanding of logical reasoning as expression of action operations, require a navigating ego/agent that balances these operations, as a subjective holism. Although he was interested in Freudian thinking that his theory did not explicitly elaborate in such ego-agent terms or trace his agentic thinking explicitly from this perspective. The “implicit agent” in Piaget’s thinking might rather be traced in his claims of the general character of the human mind stage-wise progress in terms of logical operations. Moreover, his ontogenetic stage progression from senso-motoric, concrete-operational towards formaloperational stages build bases for the abstract kind of thinking that appears to be a typical human mind feature. Thereby he explicitly related the development of abstract and hypothetical logical reasoning to bodily functions which might have been natural for him as initially being a biologist. This is maybe the case also regarding his underlining of equilibrium phases in the development process, which as a thought figure lies close to the homeostasis conception in biology. Piaget’s stage progression principles, which are based on a vast number of clinical experiments among children of different ages, although disputed (see below), constitute the hard stage hierarchical ordering principles outlined above. This stage progression in an irreversible hard stage direction, implies lower stages building the necessary basis for the higher to occur, as described above. The implicit navigating agent as an operating center of gravity might be discernable as the operator of formal logical regulation principles. The notion of ego has been associated with varying degrees of hard stage or soft stage regulation principles or the lack of such principles. At the same time, their ego understanding differs between these approaches as well as compared with the classical Freudian conceptions. Loevinger’s stage theory of ego development stands out as a prominent example. It was initially based on efforts to explore how individual personality differences are formed in the development progression of life.

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This led to the unexpected identification of seemingly basic stage-like features of the progression over time. It appeared to bridge a gap between personality psychology and developmental psychology; the former as mainly focusing individual polar differences and the latter as mainly focusing common qualitative features across their personality growth. The developing features in such terms were identified methodologically by converting qualitative data provided by a half projective sentence completion test where the development stages are judged psychometrically. The ego development stage progression decided this way has gained substantial empirical support but has also been challenged theoretically (see e.g., Westenberg et al., 1998). The stage progression is here in the lack of explicit formal regulation criteria built mainly on interpretations of “qualitative sophistication levels” of the test completions. Loevinger’s theory did not state formal regulations: “From her perspective, ego development is too encompassing and too fluctuating in its manifestations to pin down its abstract nature. Instead of providing a formal definition, Loevinger offers a pointing definition, providing empirically based descriptions of each developmental level” (Westenberg et al., 1998, p. 3). Ego is here mainly conceived as a process rather than “a thing” (Loevinger, 1976). The wholeness feature of ego is elaborated neither as formal agent regulations nor as formal ego regulations. Ego here rather appears as implicitly integrated in people’s life narratives. These are conceived as stages in terms of life stories, as integrated narratives of life meaning and identity. The ego conception of this theory appears to be conceivable as a subjective holism with an implicit center of gravity, as a narrative identity of life meaning in this sense. Thus, it appears to reflect an implicit subject identity wholeness of meaning. Further similar elaborations of the ego concepts have presented distinctions between ego as an “I” and a “me”, referring, for example, to Mead (1934/1967), who were engaged in the philosophical movement entitled as pragmatism. “I” and “me” are conceived as parts of the same identity wholes constituting each other: “Thus ego is the I part. The ego reflects upon the Me, the ego knows the Me, the ego synthesizes the Me out of experience. The ego makes the Me” (Mc Adams, 1998, pp. 29– 30). Such and further elucidations of the ego concept have reconstructed Freud’s basic idea of its function to balance between superego and id and involve the idea of development potential of meaning across the life span. Loevinger’s stages from the lowest impulsive level pass conscientious, individualistic, and autonomous stages, and concern increasingly

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autonomous levels of awareness of oneself and others. Taken together, they constitute nine stages. The correspondence between Loevinger’s stages and “harder” agent type of stage progressions, such as those of Piaget, tend to be tentative in the lack of formal stage regulations. However, these ego conceptions have been articulated further in terms of differentiation-integration regulation terms (Cook-Greuter, 1999) and as noticed, have been understood in I-me, self-other, or subject-object regulation terms. The life narrative approach has been found to overlap such stage progression characteristics, empirically and theoretically, although to differ regarding for instance distinctions between stages and stage transitions. Cook-Greuter (1999), as inspired by Loevinger’s theory and applying its methodological approach, developed this theory in a rational somewhat “harder” agent direction. Stages and its transitions are here understood and articulated as dialectical forms of knowing which integrate affect, intuition, and rational thoughts. Stages are conceived in terms of persons’ alternations between differentiated and integrated ego positions regarded as: “…organic wholes, as relatively stable balances within which adults stay settled for long periods of time, often for a lifetime” (Cook-Greuter, 1999, p . 53). Cook-Greuter proposes in total ten stages. These reflect stages of differentiation exchanged by stages of integration. The integrated stages are regarded as more balanced than the differentiated stages. The ego involves cognitive, affective, and action elements reflected in a kind of knowing, being, and doing dimension triad. Eight stages are suggested in this further developed ego approach, out of which two more adult stages beyond Loevinger’s autonomous last stage are proposed (entitled a construct aware and a unity stage). Cook-Greuter was also inspired by Kegan’s subject-object theory (here referred to as SOT) (e.g., 1982, 1994) which, in turn, elaborated a hard stage theory emanating to some extent from ego theory but more so from Piaget’s stages of logical reasoning. Kegan’s theory can be understood as a synthesis of ego and agent conceptions as both regulations and wholes and will in this capacity be regarded as a hard stage theory. The logical reasoning progression of Piaget’s stage progression is here taken as a necessary but not sufficient base for a further adult ego development towards a fifth stage. This fifth stage, entitled the self-transforming mind, thus exceeds Piaget’s highest formal logical stage. The SOT approach will be extensively further addressed below. So far it can be concluded that the

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regulation principles integrate ego-related regulation principles claimed by Cook-Greuter as well as the latent agent regulation principles by Piaget. The stage conception of SOT was, in turn, inspired by the stage theory of moral reasoning or judgment elaborated by Kohlberg and colleagues. This approach tends to mainly apply the hard stage regulative reasoning of Piaget as necessary conditions for moral stages to develop. In that sense, it is agent-related without explicitly elaborated on an agent or ego conception. However, the progression of the stages appears to involve an implicit agent, acting according to principles inspired by Kohlberg’s moral prescriptions. Philosophically, these prescriptions are found in the philosopher Kant’s categorical imperative, let the maxim of the conduct be the universal will. In this sense, principles can be made universal if they are found to be justifiable to and applied by all moral agents. The categorical imperative can in different versions be found in many religions, as well as in philosophical and ethical thoughts. In the Bible it may correspond to the Golden Rule: “Do to others what you want them to do to you”. It can be considered an ethic of reciprocity in some religions. 143 leaders of the world’s major faiths endorsed the Golden Rule as a part of the 1993 “Declaration Toward a Global Ethic” which did not require a belief in God (en.m.wikipedia.org.). In the moral stage theory of Kohlberg, this moral orientation is regarded as developed in stage three of in total six stages across the life span. The moral stages involve three main stages, each involving two sublevels: – a preconventional stage (involving a first heteronomous morality and a second individualism level), – a conventional stage (involving a third interpersonal-conformity and a fourth social system and conscience level) and – a postconventional or principled level (involving a fifth social contract individual-rights and the sixth universal-ethical principles level). The Golden Rule can serve as an example of reversibility regulating principles integrated in the stages of moral judgments which here are combined with logical reasoning regulating principles. The stages as levels of moral judgments can be considered to require life experiences of moral challenges to be internalized as moral standards, thereby being more context-sensible and less generally applicable. Such a reversibility capacity seems to presuppose experiences of moral conflicts and solutions

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(Armon & Dawson, 1997; Colby et al., 1987). Although Kohlberg’s moral stage theory (1969) can be associated with hard stage criteria, this development line was rather regarded by himself as an application of a more general structure (like the SOT approach) applied in different contexts (Colby et al., 1987). Thus, Kohlberg’s and Loevinger’s stage theories both concern stage progressions across the life span in a hierarchical direction that stipulate characteristic stage features which partly overlap each other.

References Armon, C., & Dawson, T. (1997). Developmental trajectories of moral reasoning across the life span. Journal of Moral Education, 26(4), 433–453. https:// doi.org/10.1080/0305724970260404 Baltes, P. B., & Nesselroade, J. R. (1979). History and rationale of longitudinal research. In J. R. Nesselroade & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), Longitudinal research in the study of behavior and development (pp. 10–39). Academic Press. Berger, P. L., & Luckman, T. (1967). The social construction of reality. Anchor Books. Berk, L. E. (2010). Development through the life span. Allyon & Bacon. Bowlby, J. (1969/1997). Attachment and loss (Vol. 1). Pimplico. Bryman, A. (2004). Social research methods. Oxford University Press. Cabrera, D. A. (2006). System thinking (Doctoral dissertation). Cornell University. Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2000). Research methods in education. Routledge/Falmer. Colby, A., Kohlberg, L., Speicher, B., Hewer, A., Candee, D., Gibbs, J., & Power, C. (1987). The measurement of moral judgment: Theoretical foundations and research validation (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press. Commons, M. L. (2008). Introduction to the model of hierarchical complexity and its relationship to postformal action. World Futures, 64, 305–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/026040208023301105 Cook-Greuter, S. R. (1999). Post autonomous ego development: A study of its nature and measurement (Doctoral dissertation). Harvard University. Day, J. M. (2011). Religious, spiritual, and moral development and learning in the adult years. Classical and contemporary questions, cognitive—Developmental and complementary paradigms, and prospects for future research. In C. Hoare (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of reciprocal adult development and learning. Oxford University Press. en.m.wikipedia.org. Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. W. W. Norton.

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Erikson, E. H. (1997). The life cycle completed (Extended version with new chapters by Joan M. Erikson). W. W. Norton. Fowler, J. W. (1996). Faithful change: The personal and public challenges of postmodern life. Abingdon Press. Frese, M., & Zapf, D. (1994). Action as the core of work psychology. In M. D. Dunette & M. H. Leaetta (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 271–340). Consulting Psychology Press Inc. Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Polity Press. Gilligan, C. (1982/1993). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Harvard University Press. Hagström, T. (1988). Arbetslösas beredskap inför arbetslivet. En kartläggning och analys av aktiva-passiva förhållningssätt och betydelsen av olika yttre livsförhållanden (Preparedness of the unemployed for working life. A survey and analysis of active-passive attitudes and the importance of various outward circumstances) (Doctoral thesis). Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Hagström, T. (1995). Utveckling, vuxenliv och arbete. Det postformella perspektivet utifrån neo-Piagetiansk teori (Development, adult life and work: The postformal perspective from neo-Piagetian theory). In A. Löfberg & J. Ohlsson (Eds.), Miljöpedagogik och kunskapsbildning. Teori, empiri och praktik (Contextual didactic and pedagogy: Theory, empirics, and applications) (pp. 34–53). Hagström, T. (2003). Educology, macro-societal changes and the self-regulation of the individual. In T. Hagström (Ed.), Adult development in post-industrial society and working life. Stockholm Lectures in Educology, Series No. 2. (pp. 1–20). Department of Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm. Hagström, T., & Stålne, K. (2015). The generality of adult development stages and transformations: Comparing meaning making and logical reasoning. Integral Review, 11(3), 30–71. Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Harvard University Press. Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Harvard University Press. Kegan, R. (2003). Hidden curriculum of adult life: An adult development perspective. In T. Hagström (Ed.), Adult development in post-industrial society and working life. Stockholm Lectures in Educology; Series No. 2. (pp. 21–48). Department of Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm. Kegan, R., Lahey, L., & Souvaine, E. S. (1998). From taxonomy to ontogeny: Thoughts on Loevinger’s theory in relation to subject-object psychology. In P. M. Westenberg, A. Blasi, & L. D. Cohn (Eds.), Personality development: Theoretical, empirical, and clinical investigations of Loevinger’s conception of ego development (pp. 39–58). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Kitchener, R. E. (1996). The nature of the social for Piaget and Vygotsky. Human Development, 39(5), 243–249. Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: The cognitive-development approach to socialization. In D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socialization theory and research (pp. 347–380). Rand McNally. Kohlberg, L., & Armon, C. (1984). Three types of stage models used in the study of adult development. In M. L. Commons, F. A. Richards, & C. Armon (Eds.), Beyond formal operations: Vol. 1. Late adolescent and adult cognitive development (pp. 20–140). Praeger. Leontjev, A. N. (1973/1978). Das problem der tätigkeit in der psychologie, Sowjetwissenschaft, gesellschaftliche beiträge. H.4. Loevinger, J. (1976). Ego development: Conceptions and theories. Jossey-Bass Inc. Martí, E. (1996). Mechanisms of internalization and externalization of knowledge in Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories. In A. Tryphon & J. Vonèche (Eds.), Piaget Vygotsky (pp. 57–85). Psychology Press. Mc Adams, D. P. (1998). Ego, trait, identity. In P. M. Westenberg, A. Blasi, & L. D. Cohn (Eds.), Personality development: Theoretical, empirical, and clinical investigations of Loevinger’s conception of ego development (pp. 27–38). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mead, G. H. (1934/1967). Mind, self, and society. From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. The University of Chicago Press. Mezirow, J. (2003). Changing perspective: Theory and practice of transformative learning. In T. Hagström (Ed.), Adult development in post-industrial society and working life. Stockholm Lectures in Educology; Series No. 2. (pp. 66– 77). Department of Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm. Piaget, J. (1978). The development of thought: Equilibration of cognitive structures. Basil Blackwell. Piaget, J. (1982). The child’s conception of the world. Granada. Pintrich, R. P. (2002). Future challenges and directions for theory and research on personal epistemology. In K. B. Hofer & P. R. Pintrich (Eds.), Personal epistemology, the psychology of beliefs about knowledge and knowing. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Reed, E. S., Turial, E., & Brown, T. (1996). Values and knowledge. Mahwah. Robinson, O. (2013). Development through adulthood: An integrative sourcebook. Palgrave Macmillan. Sánches-Runde, C. J., & Pettigrew, A. M. (2003). Managing dualities. In A. M. Pettigrew, R. Whitington, L. Melin, C. J. Sánches-Runde, F. A. J. van den Bosch, & T. Numagami (Eds.), Innovative forms of organizing (pp. 243–250). Sage. Selman, R. L. (2007). The promotion of social awareness. Russel Sage Foundation. Sinnott, J. D. (2003). Complex postformal thought and its relation to adult learning, lifespan development, and the new sciences. In T. Hagström (Ed.),

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Adult development in post-industrial society and working life. Stockholm Lectures in Educology; Series No. 2 (pp. 78–108). Department of Education, Stockholm University. Sun, R. (2012). Duality of the mind: A bottom-up approach towards cognition. Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410604378 Tryphon, A., & Vonèche, J. (1996). The social genesis of thought. Psychology Press. Westenberg, A., Blasi, A., & Cohn, L. D. (1998). Personality development: Theoretical, empirical, and clinical investigations of Loevinger’s conception of ego development. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wilber, K. (2000). Integral psychology: Consciousness, spirit, psychology, therapy. Shambals Publications, Inc. Wozniak, R. H. (1996). Qu‘est-ce que l‘ìntelligence? Piaget, Vygotsky, and the 1920 crisis in psychology. In A. Tryphon & J. Vonèche (Eds.), Piaget— Vygotsky. Psychology Press. Volpert, W. (1989). Work and personality development from the viewpoint of the action regulation theory. In H. Leymann & H. Aldershut (Eds.), Socialization and learning at work (pp. 215–232). Gower Publishing Company. Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language. Harvard University Press.

CHAPTER 3

The Generality of Stage Transformations

The Hard Stage Psycho-Logic of Piaget’s Theory In this section the hard stage criteria described, are elaborated in terms of Piaget’s stage theory of logical reasoning. Aspects of special interest concern overlapping features between this theory and the SOT and MHC approaches to identify common general features of these approaches as a base for the duality system. In the DIID framing, Piaget’s approach corresponds to the causal side of the duality system (illustrated in Fig. 2.1) as a manifest feature of this system, but how does it correspond with the social side of the duality system and SOT? Piaget’s theory has been judged to dismiss the social side of the development process, which would make common features with the SOT and the DIID approaches less discernable. Below it is argued that Piaget’s theory does not dismiss the social or emotional side of the process even if this part of the process is not focused. The social side rather is a latent feature of his theory. The emotional, motivational, and social parts of the logical operations of Piaget’s development progression appears to have been underestimated as argued for below. This insight is important in order to understand the basic connections between this approach and the DIID understanding of the basic and integrated social-causal interplay and duality character. The connections with the ego-agent identity positions of the DIID is another example of a development aspect which is not explicitly or comprehensively elaborated by Piaget. However, his four-stage theory © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Hagström, The Developing Human Mind, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28647-6_3

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progression came to its fully capacity in its formal, deductive, and hypothetical thinking. This takes place sometimes between the youth and young adult period of life (if at all). This reasoning builds, in the DIID framing, a base for the thinking of oneself in deep identity terms, such as a social ego and a causal agent, as well as thinking dialectically. Further, in the DIID approach of human mind, SOT can be interpreted as an explicit ego focus of an implicit agent, while the MHC can be interpreted as an explicit agent focus of an implicit ego. Although being highly influenced by the thoughts of Piaget, the MHC and SOT approaches differ from each other beside their differences as compared to Piaget’s theory, theoretically as well as methodologically. MHC takes a behavioristic position, approaching the human mind “from the outside” in terms of observable behaviors and empirical data claimed to be objectively traced and axiomatically and mathematically explained. SOT approaches the human mind “from the inside”, focusing the mental part in terms of meaning making, being methodologically traced by structured interviews. Common features of SOT and MHC concern hard stage related generality claims: both, for example, describe people’s frames of reference as sets of strategies to cope with basic challenges of life. Further, they appear to overlap regarding the hierarchical hard stage progression and organization outlined, but also by considering this as based on an interaction and a dialectic kind of stage progression. These common features have been obtained despite their different methodological and theoretical approaches. When compared to Piaget they both differ regarding his method of mixing experiments and clinical observations in studies of children’s way of solving problems of relevance for their stage progression towards abstract logical reasoning. Piaget’s methodological stance might be interpreted as located somewhere in between SOT and MHC regarding phenomenological and behavioral positions. However, the discerning of similar features despite these differences, theoretically as well as methodologically, seem to indicate more underlying general human mind development characteristics. When it comes to the differences compared to Piaget’s theory regarding or example the influence of external, emotional, and social influences on development, the differences seem however to have been exaggerated in parts of the scientific discourse. As noticed above, the hard stages according to Piaget’s theory have, for instance, been associated with critics of being insensitive with respect to external influences. This is another case of difficulties to identify common

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features with for example the DIID approach. However, Piaget did not seem to conceive the assimilation of the logical structures as responsible for all cognitive manifestations related to a given stage (Lourenco & Machado, 1996). The structures of logical stage reasoning were rather regarded as formal criteria to classify thinking not as: “… a sort of super functional totalities that regulate performance” (Lourenco & Machado, 1996, p. 152). Mental processes were rather understood in terms of their construction. Stages were understood as tentative tools to analyze such processes rather than being conceived as ends in themselves. His theory of logical thinking includes four main developmental stages: the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. Approximately between ages 6 and 10, the concrete operations take place as the thinking increasingly reaches beyond the sensory, intuitive, or magical level. Concrete operations enable the making of inferences (e.g., addition and multiplication) of classes being restricted to concrete objects. From approximately age 11 and onwards the last stage of formal operational stage takes place. This stage in its most developed forms enables logical thinking as for example the performing of deductive hypothesis testing and systematic variation of variables. Although not being an undisputed theory, its stipulated principal progression of the logical reasoning appears to be rather established at least considering some main progression characteristics. However, other central parts of the process seem to be less established. This concerns for example his conception of the interaction dynamics of human adaption related to the stage progression of logical reasoning. The adaption process was conceived as driven by people’s active construction and reconstruction of their thinking. It involves the assimilation to a given cognitive structure and the accommodation of that structure to adapt it to new experiences not fitting in the prevailing structure. The process is driven towards the internal equilibration of a person’s logical thinking. This kind of homeostasis can in a deeper and broader sense be traced evolutionary which is elaborated in further chapters. Epistemologically, Piaget’s thinking implies: “…a position that knowledge is neither innately preformed in the mind nor directly copied from the environment” which also implies that “…individuals are active agents in their own learning and development” (Amsel & Smetana, 2011, pp. 3 and 4). The generality claims of his theory, as a hard stage theory, is not restricted to the structure of logical thinking. It considers such structures to be involved

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in an interactive process between the person and the environment. His approach appears to embed logical reasoning in an environmental and societal context. He did not however seem to dismiss the possibility of other main development kinds of progressions in life and his thinking appears as multifaceted and developing through his life course. An earlier functionalist phase in his development taken into account more social and interactive aspects of logical thinking seems to have turned towards a structuralist phase focusing more on internal logical thinking structures. Eventually, both these phases were mutually related (Lourenco & Machado, 1996). The biology roots of Piaget’s thinking have been underlined as closely related to his epistemological thinking. Therefore, it has been argued that he, first and foremost, was an epistemologist (Piaget et al., 1991, p. 125). Moreover, substantial parts of the criticism might neither have considered the dialectical, constructivist, and developmental character of his approach, nor that he basically focused on an operational, not an axiomatic logic (Lourenco & Machado, 1996). Piaget’s model of formal operations: “…from the very beginning underlined the conception of knowledge as always involving organization, inference and meaning” (Lourenco & Machado, 1996, p. 157). Further, as noticed, development was conceived as an equilibrium/disequilibrium dynamically balancing process. It was understood as a way to eliminate sources of disequilibration by the internal construction of new balances at higher complexity levels. Equilibrium was thereby defined in terms of maintaining constancy or order in an external context characterized by continuous changes. Reorganization of one logical structure to a qualitatively new one, manifested in more complex stages, is understood as qualitative leaps (Piaget, 1978). Such big jumps are as outlined above a typical feature of hard stage theories and will be step-wise elaborated as transformations in the framing of the book theme. The cognitive focus on logical operations in his theory does not imply that it is essentially separated from affective development aspects. They were rather conceived as being closely related: “The two aspects, affective and cognitive, are at the same time inseparable and irreducible” (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969, p. 158), as being joined in a “functional parallelism without one of them determining the other” (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969, pp. 347–348). The importance of emotions was for example specified regarding their involvement in conflicts, crises, and reequilibrations. Emotions were related to the formation of personality characterized as: “…dominated by the search for coherence and an

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organization of values that will prevent internal conflicts…” (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969, p. 158). Such a striving towards coherence involving for example value conflicts was regarded as naturally linked to logical operations. The highest stage of full formal operational reasoning enables the thinking of one’s thoughts as well as about reverse relations between what is real and what is possible. This is conceived as a base for building ideals and the adaptation to society even if such a process does not follow strict isolated sequential orders: “Obviously, this does not mean that formal structures are first organized by themselves and later applied as adaptive instruments where they prove individually or socially useful… logic is not isolated from life; it is no more than the expression of operational coordinations essential to action” (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958, p. 342). The formal operational stage enables the cognitive capacity to analyze one’s own thinking and construct theories, which “…furnish the cognitive and evaluative bases for the assumption of adult roles, without mentioning a life program and projects for change. They are vital in the assimilation of the values which delineate societies or social classes as entities in contrast to simple interindividual relations” (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958, p. 340). Thus, logical reasoning is here interwoven with values that guides adolescents’ goals in their searching for coherence manifested in imagined forthcoming adult roles and their functions in society. Affective and personality development is here integrated with intellectual and moral development, in a part of Piaget’s thinking entitled as his social theory: “Just as affect is an indissociable motivational element in intellectual development, socio-affective bonds (or their lack) motivate social and moral development” (De Vries, 1997, p. 4). He further stated that: “Each progress in logic is equivalent, in a non-dissociable way, to a progress in the socialization of thought” (Piaget, 1950, 1995, p. 85) as well as “…individual functions and collective functions require each other in the explanation of the conditions necessary for logical equilibrium” (Piaget, 1950, 1995, p. 94). Emotions, values, and social processes are here conceived as closely interrelated sides of human development. Piaget’s logic can be understood as an interaction-oriented “psychologic”. This framework reaches across and beyond different domains of thinking and might have been hard to grasp for several colleagues from other knowledge domains. His framework might have: “…used too much logic for psychologists and too much psychology for logicians” (Lourenco & Machado, 1996, p. 156). Critics concerned his relating

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of different kinds of logic that did not seem to fit together and for violating norms of logic. This could be explained by the fact that he did not focus on pure logic: “…unlike logicians Piaget was not interested in purely formal issues, or issues internal to logic, such as axiomatic foundations. He rather wanted to develop an operational logic, a logic of action, a logic that in some sense would be a ‘tertium’ between psychology and axiomatic logic… a logic that would be a truly ‘psycho logic’” (Lourenco & Machado, 1996, p. 156). During the last years of his life, his model of logic was revised. He was less interested in Aristotelian truth value tables that failed to solve the “…well-known paradoxes of material implication, that is, statements logically or formally correct but without meaning” (Lourenco & Machado, 1996, p. 157). Instead, he developed an intentional logic where meaning implication was conceived as: “…an implication in which p implies q if and only if a meaning of q is incorporated in that of p and this meaning is transitive” (Lourenco & Machado, 1996, p. 157). Meaning implication and material implication were understood as two inference types, where only meaning implication was related to necessity: “In those cases in which there is a necessary rather than a contingent relation between the antecedent and the consequent, an entailment of meaning implication exists” (Lourenco & Machado, 1996, p. 157). The theory developed towards an operational logic, which could also be interpreted as an intentional logic. The intentional and meaning implication part of such interactions can be related to the ego and belongingness of human mind as a social type of interaction of a more “dialogical” mutual feedback loop character involving interpretation of other persons’ motives and intentions. The operational logic can, in turn, be related to the agent and comprehensibility of human mind as a cognitive type of interaction of a more “explanation” and mutual feedback loop character involving interpretation of goal fulfillment and causal effects. Self-other duality regulations and cause-effect duality regulations can (directly or indirectly) be conceived as interlinking the intentional/interpreting and the logical/explaining parts of human interactions. Piaget’s development of his thinking might imply such interlinked interactions, although not articulated as in the DIID approach. However, both an ego and an agent might, as noticed, be discernable in his thinking, as influenced for example by his background in the biology and evolution knowledge disciplines. One of his main contributions to the understanding

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of human mind developing thinking might concern the basic evolving character of abstract thinking towards higher abstractions based on a biological and a philosophical interpretation framework. Formal operations of his theory are associated with internal necessity that differs from pre-operational thinking. This necessity can be understood as not merely logical-mathematical thinking, but as a potential for testing and analysis of internal and external phenomena in terms of emotionally loaded value aspects as well. Piaget’s increasing interest in content and context development and of relating these aspects to logical reasoning can be associated with his increasing interest in meaning issues. These in turn, involve value and moral motivational preferences that guide action goals and the judging of events in terms of desirability. The universal feature of Piaget’s logical reasoning as developing in a hard stage manner might therefore be assumed as general characteristics of human action processes epistemologically. These characteristics can be assumed to reflect basic elements of the man-environment interactions in cognitive terms. The concept of cognition is widely used, which will be addressed further below. However, in the DIID framing cognition mainly refers to time and spatial duality regulation elements of human mind stage developing progress, notably the balance and dynamic between the internal-external duality and the cause-effect duality which will be further elaborated below. This will be elucidated in the light of the further contributions of the SOT and MHC approaches to the DIID approach in the two sections below.

The Meaning Making of Hard Stages In this section, the focus is directed towards the common features between the DIID approach and the hard stage subject-object theory (SOT) of Kegan. As described, the duality system is entitled as a meaning making system. Meaning making is also a basic focus in the SOT approach, but here as focusing more explicitly on the ego-social-belongingness side of the development process from Piagetian and Neo-Piagetian theoretical perspectives. Besides Piaget’s theory, Kegan is not at least inspired by Kohlberg’s moral stage theory (1969) and of Loevinger’s inductively based stage model of development (Loevinger, 1976). The latter as well as SOT was also influenced by the Freudian ego conception. In the SOT case, it concerns for example the ego of Neo-Freudian psychodynamic

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theory and its object relational directions. SOT appears also as somewhat influenced by Erikson’s socio-cultural life stages theory which, as addressed above, focused on identity passages related to the fulfilling of societal-cultural functions in the life course with existential connotations (1968). Further influences were taken from an existential and a phenomenological tradition (e.g., Maslow, 1954). Freud’s ego conception concerns, as noticed, a kind of reality-oriented balancer between the internalized societal-cultural norms and ideals of a superego and the primitive instincts of an id as well as the development in psychosexual stages. The process involved here is associated with for example defense mechanisms and resistance towards societal and cultural demands (“Civilization and its discontents”), which contrast the development dynamics of SOT. Kegan concluded (1982) that ego psychology also took other directions towards human positive adaptive potentials and that “a conception of growth tied to the ego’s very activity of meaning making was needed before growth and breakthrough could be seen as a possible consequence of the ego’s breakdown” (Kegan, 1982, p. 6). Such convictions were traced to later versions of ego psychology theories some of which were expressing existential ideas. A consequence of this understanding was further that: “…personality development occurs in the context of interaction between the organism and the environment, rather than through the internal processes alone” and that the subject in his frame of reference “…is the person understood to refer as much to an activity as a thing” (Kegan, 1982, p. 7). Moreover, he claims that English language is not “well-suited” more generally to approach a dialectical relation between entities and processes. The person taken as a holism appears as an interactive meaning maker. The sources of the meaning making, in turn, is related to pragmatic thinkers like Baldwin (1902) and Mead (1934), but most prominently to the thinking of Piaget. The ego psychology influences were thus combined with influences of existential thinking and combined with the logic-operational Piagetian thinking. The latter thoughts, indicating an implicit interacting agent, are integrated in a biological frame of reference as well. The SOT approach integrating a mixture of such influences, is presented as a metapsychology approach emanating from Piaget’s underlying frame of reference of “genetic epistemology” (Piaget, 1972) that relates biology to philosophy. This implies two extensive ideas; on the one hand that persons and systems constitute or construct the reality

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(a constructivism stance) and on the other hand that organic systems develop by regulating principles of stability and change. Thus, process and form appear thus to be tied together: “…In somewhat different ways, both ideas insist on a recognition that behind the form (or thing) there exists a process which creates it, or which leads to its coming into being” (Kegan, 1982, pp. 8–9). Meaning making refers to an epistemological balancing between self and others. Ego appears as a navigating center of such a balance. Ego is, here, understood as stage-wise being unable to conceive oneself from the outside as a subjective wholeness and as an object of awareness. The meaning making of such a subject is instead regarded as an underlying regulation of its relating to other humans (e.g., Kegan & Lahey, 2009). Experiences that challenge this balance initiate an awareness of conflicting self-other positions. Efforts to solve such internal conflicts to obtain internal balance might under certain conditions promote stage transformations. These solve the former stage conflict on a higher abstraction level with a broader understanding of what is identified and internalized as self and as others. New such stage orders of meaning or consciousness balances: “…further differentiate the self from its embeddedness in the world, in a qualitatively new way… and thereby creating a more integrated relationship to the world” (Kegan, 1982, p. 294). Development in this sense thus concerns new stages or orders of consciousness (concepts that will be used synonymous). Their progression towards higher abstraction levels refer to the epistemological limits of each stage that the ego is capable to grasp as its internalized scope of meaning. The SOT stages are described as both broadening and deepening a person’s perspectives on oneself and others. A person’s latent self-other regulation in a certain stage becomes integrated as a manifest subject in the next following stage. The latent self-other regulation of the former stage is in a next stage manifest as an object of awareness to reflect upon. The ego is in other words capable of reflecting of oneself in a former stage from “outside” in a new stage. From being initially underlying in each stage, the subject becomes consciously deconstructed and reconstructed when confronted with self-other meaning challenges. This differentiates a self-part and other-part towards polarized “either-or” positions that might transform to new both-and unifications stage-wise. SOT captures in total five stages of such increasingly abstract subjectobject balance shifts, integrating, as noticed, Piaget’s motoric development and concrete stages of logical reasoning. The subject is in the SOT

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approach, in the first Impulsive stage described as unrelatedly embedded in its perception and impulses. In a following Imperial stage, this former subject takes the position of an object of awareness. Concrete elements of the self-other relations are essentially in the foreground. Emotionally and motivationally enduring needs and preferences enable here for example thinking in terms of simple social reciprocity, referring to the capacity to take the perspectives of others. These stages occur in early childhood and involve the abstract thinking and logical reasoning of Piaget’s stages. In the SOT framing, the impulsive and imperial stages are followed by the socialized mind, the self-authoring mind, and the self-transforming mind. Together these stages cover major parts of adults of modern and postmodern societies (Kegan, 2003). These stages can briefly be summarized as follows (Kegan, 1994, 2003): – The third consciousness stage order of the socialized mind. Here, an interpersonal capacity has been generated that enables social role consciousness. It is based on a cognitive capacity of comprehending abstractions and ideality thinking (although as stereotypes) and an intrapersonal capacity of self-consciousness. Taken together the meaning making enables the crossing of abstract categories involved in a person’s interactions, and groups are perceived as stereotype small and close group contexts. – The fourth consciousness stage order of the self-authoring mind. Here, an interpersonal capacity has been generated that enables multiple role consciousness. It is based on a cognitive capacity of comprehending relations between abstractions as well as grasping ideology thinking and involves an intrapersonal capacity of self-regulations. The meaning making enables abstractions of simple logical operations involved in a person’s interactions. The subject has internalized societal institutions in social and cognitive system terms. – The fifth consciousness stage order of the self-transforming mind. Here, an interpersonal capacity has been generated that enables selfother interpretations. It is based on a cognitive capacity of comprehending relations between forms and trans ideological thinking as well as an intrapersonal capacity to interpret different selves. Taken together the meaning making enables multiple logical operations involved in a person’s interactions, the subject as an internalized ideological or ecological kind of transsystems, in “system in system” terms.

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The subject-object character of the three stages covers both internally directed intrapersonal parts and externally directed interpersonal parts of the social regulations. These regulations are tied to stage wise increasingly abstract social interactions. The feedback loop regulations in these transformations are hierarchically ordered and organized. This part of the process will be further outlined below. However, the hierarchical ordering of stages in the SOT framing mainly focuses on the transformative subject/object shifts between stages preceded by self/other shifts within stages. These deeper identity-related features of the shifts imply existentially rooted meaning dilemmas. It underlines the philosophic nature of the SOT approach as a deeper meaning of the ego subjectivity. At the same time, the deep dimension of ego is externally regulated as outwardly oriented directing the self-part of the subject to its other-part. Integrating ego in such a theoretical context appears, as noticed, to separate it from traditional psychoanalytical theoretical frameworks although both the cognition and the psychodynamic knowledge domains have expanded towards higher inclusiveness. However, the cognitive part of the interaction process is in the SOT approach, as noticed, operating in the background as a kind of necessary conditions to perform interactions and reflect upon their results in a time dimension. Therefore, the cause-effect duality regulations in the SOT framing appear as implicit regulations, not being elaborated extensively as meaning making in “their own respects” as dualities, as is the case in the DIID approach. There is, in that sense, not an explicit agent discernable in duality terms relating the self/other regulations to the cause/effect regulations. The logic-operational parts of the ego developing process can be related to Piaget’s stages as follows: The third socialized mind corresponds to Piaget’s stage of early formal logical operation and the fourth self-authoring mind corresponds to Piaget’s full formal logical operations. The fifth self-transforming mind exceeds the highest of Piaget’s stages. In the SOT framing, this stage order of consciousness is suggested as dialectical thinking (Kegan, 1994). Thus, the socialized mind enables the ego internalizations from smaller close group contexts, towards broader societal and institutional contexts and symbolic ideological contexts. The hard stage character of these stage internalizations and its associated meaning making processes thus reflect their hierarchical ordering as “wholes in wholes” focusing on the belongingness and ego part of the process and it’s self/other regulations. The subject/object transformations generating this hierarchical hard stage

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ordering involve certain transition phases. These phases between the second and fifth stage order of consciousness capture shifting meaning horizons and balances (Kegan et al., 1998). An interview procedure describing this process follows a Neo-Piagetian semi-clinical interview tradition being further developed by questions regarding the interviewed person’s real-life experiences. This concerns emotional, cognitive as well as intrapersonal and interpersonal experiences of relevance for their psychological organization. Such real-life situations are elicited from a series of ten uniform probes that are explored to discern their underlying epistemology. The transitions within the stages of consciousness towards transformations between stages are described as steps from one subject/object balance to another subject/object balance according to the following order: X − X(Y) − X/Y and Y/X − Y(X) − Y. The X and Y positions refers to a subject-object balances in complete equilibrium. The positions between these two balanced stage orders reflect their shifting internal self/other positions. The X/Y or Y/X positions refer to the balance part that is ruling (Y/X means Y is ruling and X/Y means X is ruling). The transition sequence in these four main steps can be conceived as a two-step (X(Y) and X/Y) differentiation from an initial embeddedness in a smaller social self-context towards a two-step (Y(X) and Y/X) integration in a larger social other-context from a disembedded position. This principal progression steps can be assumed to involve reversibility shifts between their positions back and forth generating experiences of their desirability and outcomes in different respects. The “jump” from the X-self position to the Y-other position as ruling reflects a dynamic balance “tipping over” shift towards the favoring of the desirability of the new larger Y-other context. The transformation of the Y-other context being internalized as a new X-position in a larger stage context can be associated with feedback loops between the self-other positions in dialectical thesis/antithesis shifts generating the new stage as synthesis (Hagström & Stålne, 2015). Further, the X-position might reflect an ego and belongingness identity maintaining tendency shifting to an agent and comprehensibility challenging tendency of this identity and gaining the Y-position as a new identity. The notion of identity in the SOT framing refers to its ego conception and its stage-wise epistemological meaning limits. The fulfilling of a stage transformation thereby involves existential dilemmas. So far it can be concluded that it results in the outlined subject-object

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shifts which generate hierarchical “hard stage” orders. However, the notion of agent as an epistemological identity position being characterized by cognitive logical interaction spiral loops is, as noticed above, not extensively elaborated in the SOT approach. Moreover, the use of the X and Y symbols is not referring to mathematical operations. The latter ways of approaching and understanding the development will be addressed in the MHC approach.

The Hierarchical Complexity of Hard Stages In this section, the MHC approach is focused as a mathematical elaboration of causal mechanisms in hard stage progression where no social side is explicitly taken place in the model. The DIID approach is elaborated in terms of causal dualities. The social side may instead be assumed to operate latently. The MHC approach takes a departure in Piaget’s stages of logical reasoning and has stepwise been elaborated an own mathematically based model entitled the Model of Hierarchical Complexity (MHC, Commons, 2007; Commons & Ross, 2008). The number of stages proposed has increased during the progress of the model. Its hard stage claims overlap Piaget’s understanding of logical reasoning by, for example, developing in a hierarchically ordered irreversible direction where higher stages build on and integrate lower stages. Complexity refers to such principles by axiomatic-mathematical criteria. This has resulted in more stages over the life course as compared with the Piaget’s and SOT approaches. These mathematical principles are regarded as general regulation ruling principles. As described, the SOT instead focuses on regulations of phenomenological motivational drives towards meaning. The terminology refers to mental “subjective” connotations as words and not numbers. Scientific approaches in these directions reflect well-known qualitative “soft data” and quantitative “hard data” positions, methodologically and theoretically. Statistical methods represent one kind of empirical tools to capture variations and differences of qualitative phenomenon in quantitative terms (regarding these issues see e.g., Bryman, 2004). In the stage development field, different approaches have been applied and will be further elucidated below. However, the mathematical principles are, as described, focused as basic elements in operational logic terms by Piaget and in the reasoning of these principles theoretically. As noticed, these logic operations also provide an implicit base of the SOT approach. This also implies

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that mathematical expressions are assumed to be potentially applied in the DIID approach, which will be addressed in the following chapters. Mathematical principles that do not merely interlink empirical data and patterns but “in themselves” are claimed as basic explanations, use to be related to natural sciences and physical laws. However, they are not frequently applied in social sciences and do not appear to claim such an explaining power even in Piaget’s theory. As described in the first section in this chapter, logical operations are not claimed to represent an overriding general life principle in its own right or as being isolated from life but on the contrary as embedded in for example emotions and socialization patterns. In the MHC framing, the axiomatic and mathematical principles (e.g., Commons et al., 2014) are however claimed as fulfilling basic criteria to be judged as scientific explanatory models in combination with at least one more criterion, notably empirical evidence. As taking a behavioristic stance, the explanation is not here derived in mental subjective terms but in mathematical terms. These mainly refer to hierarchical principles of equation systems with increasing numbers of unknown variables, constituting complexity levels. This approach thereby claims to provide an objective “mental free” behavioristic procedure to decide the basic features of human stage development. Methodologically, a manual was developed, claimed to enable the scoring of reasoning or any form of conceptualized information regardless of the domain involved (Commons et al., 2005). This reasoning concerns the solving of problems or fulfilling of tasks in logically sequenced orders that are sorted in different complexity levels taking the departure in the stage principles of Piaget’s theory. Tasks have been constructed and defined for every complexity level. The behavior carried out to complete the tasks is regarded as a performance that is either successful or not. The notion of stage is defined by such a completion of a task of an order. These stage orders overlap Piaget’s four stages of logical thinking and reach beyond these as progressing stage orders of adult life. The use of such a scaling method decreases the need for taking into account statistical variance in the analyses (the Rasch method et al., 2007, see also Commons et al., 2010). This scaling approach has enabled the stating of equal quantitative distance between stages. The “scaling value” of the MHC method reflects a person’s stage order. In the SOT and Piaget mental framing this appears to concern the human mind as a developing ego-agent holism, but in the MHC framing it concerns mathematical hierarchical ordering of logical

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principles. The generality of the mathematically hierarchical principles of the stage orders might express a “mental free” expression of the hard stage features. MHC is thus presented as a content-free and scale-free model for scoring stages of development, as a fractal progression of at least sixteen stage orders of hierarchical complexity being defined and measured the way outlined above. The number of such stage orders has increased as the theory has developed. An order n + 1 is defined by the successful and non-arbitrary coordination of two or more elements from order n, a principle based on the theory’s axiom. Piaget’s first sensorimotor stage corresponds to MHC orders 0–3, Piaget’s second preoperational stage corresponds to MHC orders 4– 5, and Piaget’s concrete operational stage corresponds to MHC orders 6–8. However, MHC’s orders 12–14 entitled the meta systematic, paradigmatic, and cross-paradigmatic stage orders exceed Piaget’s highest formal-operational stage. Thus, the number of MHC stage orders exceeds Piaget’s stages not only because of the former as lifetime spanning but also as due to more differentiated stage orders in childhood and youth. In principle, the overlapping features of Piaget’s stages and the MHC stages regarding the cognitive and logical part of the process also appear to be prevalent in the SOT stage progression although as embedded in the meaning making attributed to this theory. In the stages proceeding after the full formal logical operational thinking, the MHC and SOT (despite their differing hard stage approaches) seem to partly overlap in terms of system thinking. The full formal logic (Piaget 4th stage; MHC 10th stage) can for example be conceived as a necessary condition for the SOT 4th selfauthorized mind to occur. This enables the internalization of societal norms and regulations at an institutional level (Hagström & Stålne, 2015). The system thinking of MHC in the postformal stages in adult life is thus mathematically based. The transformation to the MHC 11th systematic order enables the coordination of at least two formal relationships. This appears as a mathematical further articulation of Piaget’s last stage of formal logical reasoning. It enables the constructions of multivariate systems, functions, and matrices as well as the solving of equations with more than one unknown variable. In interaction, operational terms such a logical progression of “if-then” or “cause-effect” chains enable the creating of a coherent system in terms of feedback loop spirals such as: “an increased level of carbon dioxide leads to global warming which leads to an even higher level of carbon dioxide…etc.”. Formal relationships

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are thereby claimed to be understood in different contexts for instance cultures, ideologies, legal systems, eco-systems, and discourses. Operational interaction feedback spirals are thus conceived as systems. In the further stage progressions, they are conceived in terms of “system in systems” as increasing hierarchical complexity stage orders. MHC transformation to the next 12th meta systematic stage order thus enables the creation of meta systems by coordinating more than one system of the 11th order type. As noticed, the comprehending of logical reasoning has reached beyond Piaget’s last fourth stage of full formal logical reasoning. MHC proposes further stage orders according to the basic hierarchical principle described and reflected in system terms. The 12th stage order and the following ones (e.g., paradigmatic, cross-paradigmatic) enable increasingly broader system thinking. The 12th order enables for example systems, cultures or ideologies, and values to be comprehended as systems which can be compared and combined as interacting. Thereby phenomena such as sustainability can be conceived by coordinating its different aspects, for example as economic, ecological, and social dimensions. The transitional steps towards stage transformations in the MHC approach follow in an order described as a progression of a fractal nature (Commons & Richards, 2002; Commons & Ross, 2008) according to the following process: – Thesis a, stage n. The thesis starts to deconstruct. It does not seem to solve the present task. – Antithesis b. Thesis a is rejected, and an antithesis b is formulated that appears to be the opposite of a. – Relativism a or b. A state of ambivalence in which it is either a or b that seems to be correct, but one cannot decide which. – Smash a and b in four subs steps. A synthesis begins to form in a chaotic, four-step process in which it is acknowledged that both a and b are needed. – Synthesis a with b. A new equilibrium has been reached, a new thesis has been created by the successful coordination of the previous thesis and antithesis b. The new synthesis defines the thesis at stage n + 1. The cycle is reoccurring from one stage order to the next. Beside its fractal and hard stage character, the process can be recognized as a dialectical progression. Moreover, the transformations to new stage orders

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appear to occur unconsciously at least in the four sub steps involved in the “smash” part of the process. The transformation features in these terms will be further addressed. As compared with its more integrated background position in SOT, the logical operations as interaction chains have been made explicitly formal as elaborated in MHC. The dialectical progression of the development process has been elaborated as dialectical thinking in the fifth SOT stage and is in Piaget’s thinking discernable as centering/decentering and accomodation/assimilation dialectical interplay towards cognitive equilibration. The common features of the Piaget, SOT, and MHC approaches have been elucidated in a comparing approach (Hagström & Stålne, 2015). The comparison was restricted to three of the SOT five stipulated stages or orders of consciousness: the third socialized mind, the 4t self-authoring mind, and the 5th self-transforming mind. They take, as described, place during youth and adult life. The last one of them takes a departure in, although exceeds Piaget’s fourth and last formal operational stage of logical reasoning (from about age 11 and onwards). Among the MHC stages, the comparison involved the 9th abstract-, the 10th formal-, the 11th systematic-, and the 12th meta systematic stage. The comparison took a departure in the comparatively broader meaning making stage conception of SOT. Stage development is here understood as a dynamic self/other and subject/object balancing process. The comparison can briefly be summarized as below. – 3rd SOT self-other regulations Subject regulations of a self/other balance between needs and interests of a smaller close self-group meaning context and those of a larger institutional and societal other-group meaning context. Self-other differentiation Selfishness and non-caring feelings of putting the self needs and interests before those in the small group context. Self-other integration Experiences of roles, tasks, and challenges in other group contexts that reflect the linear process of achieving goals related to adult roles, life projects, etc., in an institutional and societal meaning context.

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MHC-logical operations involved Abstract categories (enabled in MHC Abstract stage 9) being coordinated in single cause/effect (if/then) interaction sequences (enabled by MHC Formal stage 10). This enables the recognition and critical reflection of being embedded in the small group context and the recognition of other possible social contexts being integrated in (e.g., going to college, temporary jobs). MHC mathematical expressions Equations with one unknown variable expressing the hierarchical complexity order of such a single interaction feedback sequence inside-out and outside-in. Functions expressing such kinds of interaction of progress in formal cause-effect lines such as: “an increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to an increased global temperature”.

– 4th SOT self-other regulations Subject balancing values and goals of a smaller institutional and societal self-group meaning context with those of a larger ideological and collective other-group meaning context (taking the 3rd order subject as an internalized object of awareness). Self-other differentiation Doubt about the self-identification with the common institutional-societal values and goals. Insights of a gap between societal values and goals, self and ideal, self and society. Self-other integration Recognition of a broader social context, system, or ideology that involves the logical capacity of situating ideas in and considering effects of larger such contexts. MHC logical operations involved The categories of formal elements are being interlinked in cause/effect feedback spiral loops (enabled by MHC Systematic stage 11) and corresponding interaction coordinations. This enables institutional values being critically reflected upon by situating ideas and relations in larger abstract ideological alternative contexts and recognizing the possibility of integrating oneself in those. MHC mathematical expressions Equations with more than one unknown variable express the hierarchical order of such a feedback spiral loop. Exponential functions express such kinds of progression in formal

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cause/effect lines such as: “an increased amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to an increased global temperature which leads to even higher amounts of carbon dioxide, etc.” The feedback loop motivational elements are understood as stagewise proceeding in terms of needs/interests, values/goals, and visions/strategies of the self being related to those of others and potentially conflicting. One main conclusion is that logical reasoning and meaning making, although constituting distinct differing lines of hard stage development, still appeared to be structurally, processual, and functionally interrelated in the development process. Increasing abstract meaning making is provided by increasing abstract logical reasoning and the other way around. The hard stage progressing character sketched in Fig. 2.1 reflects a relative balance shift between the ego and belongingness as well as agent and comprehensibility parts of the development progression in the transitions within stages. This build, in turn, the bases of the dialectical transformations also outlined above. In the stage transitions, increasing roots in a smaller self-context is tipping over to more solid roots in a larger other-context. Irrespective of how this process starts and progresses, these shifts are, as addressed above, expressing the existential experience of a person not being firmly rooted in either a former self-meaning context or in a potential other-meaning context.

Hard Stage Features as a Duality System In this section, the belongingness driven ego-social side and comprehensibility driven agent-causal side of the DIID approach are elaborated further as a three-level “deep identity” system. Taken together, they involve 10 dualities as illustrated in Fig. 3.1. The construction of the dualities of the DIID approach is based on common features in Piaget’s theory, the SOT and the MHC approaches. They are assumed to be interlinked as basic dualities (Hagström & Backström, 2017; Hagström & Stålne, 2015). The duality thinking can be traced to three basic features of a Piagetian framework as formulated by Kegan (1982). The relating of self to others seems to concern a psychological aspect considered as the essence of ego, the relating of organism to environment concerns a biological aspect considered as the essence of adaption and the relating of subject to object concerns a philosophical aspect considered as the essence of truth. The

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Fig. 3.1 The duality system as belongingness-social-ego and comprehensibilitycausal-agent axes crossing each other in the three outer-interactional, middleepistemological, and inner-ontological levels of the duality system moving across the four (a, b, c, d) development domains in its goal-directed man-environment movements of irreversible interactions and reversible reflections

latter conclusion does not pretend to characterize truth in an absolute sense but rather as generating a “greater truth value”. This means that “Each new evolutionary truce further differentiates the self from its embeddedness in the world… and thereby creating a more integrated relationship to the world” (Kegan, 1982, p. 294). The notion of truth is thus a conviction what truth is about: “It is an activity of relation or balance” (Kegan, 1982, p. 294). This brings to the fore existential and ontological issues. The self-other regulation is not conceived as restricted to social interaction as only one of a person’s many functions. It is rather understood as underlying other forms of cognitive, physical, or social coherence structures. Such an underlying form: “…always consists

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of a relationship or temporary equilibrium between the subject and the object in one’s knowing” and “forms the cognate or core of an epistemology” (Kegan, 2000, p. 53). This epistemological form which involves: “…the balancing and rebalancing of subject and object or self and other” (Kegan, 1982, p. 12) is claimed to concern what we know about our way of knowing. Furthermore, the self-other regulation can be conceived as ontologically based: “…what is at stake in preserving any given balance is the ultimate question of whether the ‘self’ shall continue to be, a naturally ontological matter” (Kegan, 1982, p. 12). Thus, the self-other and subject-object dualities of the SOT approach (e.g., 1982) are in the DIID framing related to socially related belongingness motivational drives. The cause-effect and external-internal dualities also emanate from Piaget’s theory (e.g., 1978) and are further elaborated in the MHC approach mathematically axiomatically (e.g., 2008). These are in the DIID framing related to causally related comprehensibility motivational drives. As described, the social and causal dualities are in the DIID framing understood as basically interlinked as a transforming social and causal deep identity holism. The agent side of the duality system appears to be discernable as a latent potential in Piaget’s theory. In the SOT approach, the agent part is not explicitly and extensively elaborated and in the MHC approach, neither the ego and nor the agent parts are elaborated due to the behavioristic stance of this approach. What is going on in the “mental black box” is here not of primary interest. The approaches of Piaget, SOT, and MHC capture general holistic, and system features which are focused from different philosophical, theoretical, and methodological perspectives. The differences between these three stances are obvious in these and other respects. The mathematical and axiomatic aspects of logical reasoning elaborated in the MHC approach are, as described, action-oriented by the definition stage transformation as new ways of solving logical tasks (Commons et al., 2010) and applying Rasch scaling mathematics (see Bond & Fox, 2007). The epistemological and ontological stance taken in behaviorism defines the confirmation of hypotheses about psychological phenomena in terms of behavioral criteria (Skinner, 1971). This scientific stance clearly differs from the SOT position in these matters (Hagström & Stålne, 2015). The epistemological understanding of the DIID approach mainly follows the Piaget and the SOT constructivist position rather than the MHC behavioristic position. At the same time, Piaget did not elaborate on holistic egos or agents.

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In spite of these and other differences, these three approaches share basic overlapping features, which is a central meta methodological of building the duality system. As noticed, they share hard stage and dialectical characteristics and involve interconnections between logical reasoning and meaning making. These common features are in the DIID approach integrated to a constructivist and dialectical scientific position. Constructivism here refers to the solving of duality imbalances by deconstructing and reconstructing a stage structure, which could be conceived in dialectical thesis, antithesis, and synthesis terms. The interactions as feedback spiral loops in the man-environment interaction from inside-out and outside-in, is in the DIID approach framed as an internalexternal duality dynamic balance. The dualities of the belongingness and comprehensibility motivational drives are assumed to mutually constitute, contrast, and potentially conflict each other and, in this sense, be involved in potential dialectical progressions in thesis-antithesis-synthesis. The duality system is schematically illustrated in three levels in Fig. 3.1. The levels illustrated in Fig. 3.1 capture a first interactional system level where experiences that challenge the duality balance may trigger the meaning making limits of human mind of an actual hard DIID stage. This may trigger an epistemological system level by knowledge limit dilemmas which, in turn, may trigger an ontological system level by existential limit dilemmas. The interactional level involves individual-collective and wethem dualities as well as inside/out-outside/in and past-future dualities. The epistemological level, in turn, involves self-other and cause-effect as well as subject-object and internal-external dualities. The ontological level, finally, involves being-becoming and part-whole dualities. The interaction level concerns the most shifting duality balances in the direct system interactions with external systems (e.g., the social, biological, and physical ones). The epistemological level concerns slower balancing movements to keep the interaction level balance within their epistemological belongingness and comprehensibility limits. The ontological level concerns the most stable balance to keep the epistemological balances within their ontological belongingness and comprehensibility limits. The levels illustrated in Fig. 3.1 are divided in the four domains entitled A, B, C, and D. They express (as in Fig. 2.1) the passages of goaldirected interactions of human mind. The upper side of the system (A, B) refers to irreversible such interactive movement in the external reality and the lower side of the system (C, D) refers to reversible reflections of these movements in the internal reality. The left side of the system

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(A, D) concerns the belongingness-oriented social system side, and the right side of the system (B, C) concerns the comprehensibility-oriented causal system side. The duality system is assumed to progress by following the human mind movements across all the four (A, B, C, D) domains by increasingly abstract self-aware goal-plan sequences in terms of feedback spiral loops. Besides the balances within and between the dualities of the DIID system, there is a balancing dynamic taking place between this system and other systems located “externally and around” the human mind and body. This expresses its open system character. The interactive movements from inside-out and outside-in tend to be perceived and reflected upon by two time dimensions. One of those concerns an extended and irreversible time movement to the future and the other concerns and internal and reversible time movement to the past. These time perceptions are, in turn, coordinated correctly in the construction and evaluation of goal-directed actions. This movement influences in principle all levels of the duality system. In the DIID framing, these social and causal movements reflect the meaning horizons in a certain development stage, its stage-wise epistemological limits in this sense. The limits are assumed to deepen and widen by stage transformations. In adult life this enables, for example, to identify oneself as an internalized member of society and thereby objectify one’s identity outside a close family or other close group contexts in a subordinated stage in a former life period. Or later in life to identify oneself as an internalized member in a wider collective societal context beyond formal traditional societal-institutional contexts or even in global-universal contexts. Such stage-wise progressions are further elaborated in the book from different angles. As illustrated in both Figs. 2.1 and 3.1, the belongingness and socially related motivation is conceived as an inward direction and the comprehensibility and causal-related motivation is conceived as an outward direction. In the ego-part, the self-other duality exerts its dominating role by drawing one’s self towards others and others towards self as the inward movement. This is, as described, assumed to be a belongingness identity by “holding the ego together” by social interactions which both differentiate and integrate one’s identity with others. This implies the basic social side of human mind identity. Spiral feedback movements between selfother are thereby assumed to exert mainly an inward direction backward in time to the past. In the agent-part, the cause-effect duality exerts its dominating role by drawing cause towards effect and effect towards cause

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in the outward movement. This is assumed as a comprehensibility identity “holding the agent together” by causal interactions which both differentiate and integrate one’s identity over time passages. This implies a basic causal side of human identity. Spiral movements between cause and effect are thereby assumed to exert mainly an outward direction forward in time to the future. Thus, the duality system (illustrated in Figs. 2.1 and 3.1) is, not at least, based on overlapping features of the theories of Piaget, SOT, and MHC. This method approach expresses an abductive or meta way to search for increasing abstract awareness of human mind development in terms of “thinking of one’s thinking” which is applied in metacognition approaches. The abductive approach of DIID might be briefly understood as a combination of inductive and deductive theoretical thinking to identify increasingly deductive-general features among relevant theories with generality claims in different knowledge domains. These issues are further elaborated in the book. However, the DIID approach has evolved this way as a more inductively focused work in progress. This book reflects basic passages in this “scientific journey”. However, since the DIID approach also strives to identify basic and general regulations in system-model terms, it has evolved more deductively in this direction. Taken together, this “journey” appears mainly as an abductive one. The notion of stages differs in terms of number and content in stage development theories. This appears to be due to the generality level of these theories as well as on the focuses on either their contentstructure or their ontogeny-process. The DIID approach focuses on the latter aspect as underlying the former aspect. This means that the movements of the duality system are basically understood as several dialectical-transformation shifts on different levels. In the DIID framing these shifts involve, as described, transformations of both the social and causal sides of the duality system, and as basically interlinked. Stages in this understanding concern transformations towards temporary relatively balanced movements between the social and the causal sides which are interchanging with relatively more unbalanced movements. The durations of these wave-like interchanging movements differ due to external conditions which challenge these balances which, in turn, challenge the deep identity of the human mind. These issues are further addressed in the book from different angles, and regarding stage transformations in Fig. 6.2.

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Kegan, R. (2000). What form transforms? A constructive-developmental approach to transformative learning. In J. Mezirow & Associates (Eds.), Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 35–70). Jossey Bass. Kegan, R. (2003). Hidden curriculum of adult life: An adult development perspective. In T. Hagström (Ed.), Adult development in post-industrial society and working life. Stockholm Lectures in Educology; Series No. 2. (pp. 21–48). Department of Education, Stockholm University. Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. (2009). Immunity to change: How to overcome it and unlock the potential in yourself and your organization. Harvard Business Press. Kegan, R., Lahey, L., & Souvaine, E. S. (1998). From taxonomy to ontogeny: Thoughts on Loevinger’s theory in relation to subject-object psychology. In P. M. Westenberg, A. Blasi, & L. D. Cohn (Eds.), Personality development: Theoretical, empirical and clinical investigations of Loevinger’s conception of ego development (pp. 39–58). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: The cognitive-development approach to socialization. In D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socialization theory and research (pp. 347–380). Rand McNally. Loevinger, J. (1976). Ego development: Conceptions and theories. Jossey-Bass Inc. Lourenco, O., & Machado, A. (1996). In defense of Piaget’s theory: A reply to 10 common criticisms. Psychological Review, 103(1), 143–164. Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. Harper & Brothers Publishers. Mead, G. H. (1934/1967). Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. The University of Chicago Press. Piaget, J. (1950/1995). Explanation in sociology. In J. Piaget (Ed.), Sociological studies (pp. 30–96). Routledge. Piaget, J. (1972). The principles of genetic epistemology: Jean Piaget—Selected works (Vol. 7). Routledge. Piaget, J. (1978). The development of though: Equilibration of cognitive structures. Basil Blackwell. Piaget, J., Garcia, R., Davidson, R., & Easly, J. (1991). Towards a logic of meaning. Psychology Press. Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1969). The psychology of the child. Granada. Skinner, B. F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. Hacket Publishing Company.

CHAPTER 4

The Evolution Towards Self-Consciousness

Evolution Towards Cognition and Sociality In this section basic connections between social-causal sides of the duality system are addressed in an evolutionary perspective. The common characteristics of the three hard stage theories described in Chapter 3 focus on an increasing adaptation to historically fast-changing external conditions during the life course of modern human minds. The evolutionary background to this adaptive mind provides a deeper understanding of some main elements and assumptions of the DIID approach. One of these concerns the adaptive functions and interplay between sociality and cognition which shed light on the interplay between the social-causal sides of the duality system. It is elucidated from the perspective of 20 years of comparative studies performed by Tomasello and colleagues on young children and great apes, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutangs (Tomasello, 2014, 2016). On that empirical base, Tomasello presents a theoretical framework to explain the human evolution as an interaction process with, for example, collaborative (2009), communicative (2010), cognitive (2014), and moral (2016) aspects. A basic departure concerns the emerging socio-cognitive roots of human mind which are indicated by these comparative studies. Tomasello concludes that: “There are a number of different theories of evolution of human sociality, but they all agree on one thing: the general direction is one of ever more cooperation (at least until the rise of agriculture, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Hagström, The Developing Human Mind, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28647-6_4

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cities, and stratified societies, some 10,000 years ago)” (Tomasello, 2014, p. 133). The progression of sociality is described in terms of three basic necessary abilities: representation, simulation, and self-monitoring. Representation refers to the ability to represent experience to oneself cognitively by simulating potential perceptual experiences in order to solve a problem to reach a goal. Simulation refers to the ability to make inferences to transform such representations in a causal, intentional, and/or logical way. Self-monitoring, in turn, is related to the ability to evaluate how these steps might lead to the desired results as well as making thoughtful decisions. Such interaction sequences among both the great apes and young children enabled the individual capacity of learning by experience. The social ability of the great apes was found to mainly concern within-group competition and only to a small extent to involve collaborations. Taken together, this is understood as a first evolutionary step of cognition being summarized as individual intentionality. This has: “…enabled great apes, and perhaps, other nonhuman primates, to actually think about problems in specific situations, and to do so without any of humans’ unique forms of sociality and communication” (Tomasello, 2014, p. 136). Humans are described as having stayed in this mainly ape-like way of thinking for more than 5 million of the 6 million years of their evolutionary pathway. The main elements concern representations of schematic imagistic situations, simulations of a causal/intentional kind and selfmonitoring of a cognitive character. In the DIID approach, this ability appears as a premature form of human cause-effect duality regulations, where the causal/intentional regulations appear as a not yet deeply rooted self-awareness in combined social and cognitive terms. Changes in ecological conditions were however assumed to trigger new ways of collaborating to survive: “The basic solution was to form with others joint goals to do things together, to which both participants were jointly committed” (Tomasello, 2014, p. 137). This is understood as a second evolutionary step that requires an ability to take each other’s perspectives in collaborative interactions in a recursive manner which is summarized as joint intentionality of second personal thinking. Here, the intentional part of the cognitive process seems to have advanced towards more of an intentional mutuality and of a social reversibility capacity. This radical break regarding the connection between sociality and thinking is described as universal among humans but as notdeveloped among great apes. It is assumed to have evolved in Africa before the split between Neanderthals and modern humans. It involves

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humans’ coordination of interactions and internal states with those of other humans. This “cooperativized” the three main development abilities described above in the direction towards representations in terms of perspectival and symbolic propositional contents, simulations of a recursive kind and self-monitoring of a second personal character. In the DIID approach, this ability could be understood as a first underlying step of the specific human kind of self-other duality regulations as a premature form in the lack of more advanced culture and language. A third evolutionary step is summarized as an emergence towards collective intentionality which is traced to modern humans even before they migrated from Africa to other parts of the world. The further cumulative cultural evolution after that migration involved a progression of conventionalized culture and language related to increasing group sizes and competition. This required within-group coordinations between humans with no personal common relations. Instead, it was regulated by, for example, norms, cultural conventions, and institutions. Such an agent neutral way of thinking and interacting is described as enabling a kind of objective transpersonal propositional communication in the regulation of thinking and acting. The three main abilities thereby developed towards representations of objective-conventional propositions, simulations of a reflective and reasoned kind and self-monitoring in terms of normative governance. In the DIID approach, this ability might be understood as related to the historical and the specific self-other duality regulations of human mind. The reversibility between these duality positions involves abstract social contexts and norms of others which are related to those of one’s own. The formal character of those thereby also requires more abstract forms of logical operational thinking which is cause-effect-related. This brings to the fore the ontogenetic hard stages of modern and postmodern societies which will be further elaborated in duality terms below. The breaking evolutionary steps in human thinking and acting are in Tomasello’s theoretical understanding related to a cumulative evolution of many differentiated types of culturally specific skills and thinking. They are related to cultural learning generating a “history” where: “…Individuals mediate their interactions with the world through the culture’s artifacts and symbols from early in the ontogeny” (Tomasello, 2014, p. 142) as elaborated in Vygotskian thinking. It is argued that the most abstract and complex forms of thinking in the contemporary world would not have been possible without these advances. In the DIID approach,

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these advances are basically related to increasingly advanced and abstract self-other and cause-effect duality regulations. These are manifested, as described, as hierarchically progressing hard stages as a contemporary much further developed manifestation of the collective intentionality step of human evolution. The cause-effect regulation might be regarded as an evolutionary necessary basis for the development of the human way of thinking and interacting. However, a sufficient further progression in a specific human direction appears to have been triggered by the further developed self-other regulations of the intentional and social reversibility type outlined above. These regulations and its outstanding advances in human phylogenetics are not understood as a specific skill related to some specific content domain: “Skills and motivations for shared intentionality thus changed not just the way that human think about others but also what they conceptualize and think about the entire world, and their own place in it, in collaboration with others” (Tomasello, 2014, p. 144). Furthermore, the theoretical framing of human thinking has been elaborated in communicative morality terms (Tomasello, 2009, 2016). The evolutionary progression of moral is described in three steps (corresponding to those outlined above concerning the cognitive-social development): a first step of cooperation (including great apes), a second step of second-personal morality and a third step of objective morality covering life in a culture. This outlines an evolutionary explanation of the transformation of human species from the strategic cooperation of the great apes towards genuine human morality. In self-regulation terms the three steps are entitled behavioral self-regulation, joint commitment and moral self-governance reflecting for instance the evolving of individual rationality towards cooperative and cultural rationality (Tomasello, 2016, p. 148). One main correspondence with the DIID approach concerns the connection between moral development and the self-other regulation. The phylogenetic background is traced to the evolution of joint intentionality activities where, as collaborating, the individual can imagine oneself as being in: “…the partner’s role and perspective, on the one hand, and also imagines how the partner is imagining her role and perspective, on the other. She can imagine either person in either role (aka role reversal)” (Tomasello, 2016, p. 55). Such a reversibility or exchangeability capacity in terms of self-other equivalence reflects the inward tendency of his duality as expressing human belongingness coherence. This enables a self-objectification by other-objectifications and vice versa.

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Such reversible self-other objectifications can be related to both increased social differentiation and social integration in the DIID framing of the stage progressing movements. The reversibility is not by itself connected with the individual moral motivation of fairness or justice. However, it might be considered as a necessary condition for such considerations to occur in terms of comprehension of a “we”: “…created from the mutual recognition of partner interdependence (based on strategic trust)”. Such a comprehension could act as a joint agent constituting “…its own novel form of instrumental rationality that motivated each partner to help and share with the other” (Tomasello, 2016, p. 57). The ambition here is not to judge the time progression of these vast evolutionary periods. The purpose is rather to discern deep structural and processual tendencies of human social and cognitive thinking. The relation between the evolutionary perspective and ontogenetic stage development in terms of self-other regulations focusing perspective-taking has, besides the SOT approach (Kegan, 1982), also been elaborated in stage terms by Selman (2007). In the DIID approach, the role taking concerns such abstract roles which develop stage-wise from small groups towards larger and more abstract collective manifestations. The selfother regulations reach beyond role taking in a narrow sense, and as described, constitute an epistemological evolving consciousness of selfawareness. Moreover, overlapping evolutionary and ontogenetic features in terms of stage progressions are not straightforwardly discernable since contemporary children of modern and postmodern societies are already embedded in a socio-cultural context, scaffolding perspective-taking and complex reasoning. Collective intentionality encompasses such a vast range. Ontogenetic stage-like development mainly appears as late extensions of collective intentionality on increasing abstraction levels of human mind.

Evolution Towards Homeostasis and Self-Consciousness In this section two more central issues of the DIID approach are elucidated from an evolutionary perspective. They concern the mechanism and construction of the self and the origin and nature of feelings. The origins of a human mind self-awareness relate to the brain construction and how the brain makes the mind conscious. This provides an evolutionary background for the understanding of the contemporary human mind as an

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ego-agent “deep identity”. The origins and nature of feelings concern the notion of homeostasis as an emotional-motivational-balancing function. It is of relevance for the understanding of the belongingness-social and comprehensibility-causal motivational drives of the duality system. The biology perspectives on these issues approach consciousness as a: “phenomenal ability that consists of having a mind equipped with an owner, a protagonist for one’s existence… self-inspecting the world inside and around, an agent seemingly ready for action” (Damasio, 2012, p. 3). Such a self-awareness appears to include both ego and agent parts of a human mind, thus as a protagonist of a conscious navigator of a life of one’s own. The self-conscious navigation might naturally be connected with the evolutionary evolved and interrelated social and cognitive human mind elements described by Tomasello and colleagues, elaborating on the development of such a protagonist of one’s own existence, Damasio stresses the importance of adding the expanding knowledge in general biology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience, providing evidence from brain events. The evolutionary framing starts with taking the: “… early living organisms first, then gradually move across evolutionary history towards current organisms. It requires us to note in incremental modifications of nervous systems and link them to the incremental emergence of respectively, behavior, mind, and self. It also requires an internal working hypothesis: that mental events are equivalent to certain kinds of brain events” (Damasio, 2012, p. 16). The brain processes are by Damasio conceived as necessary conditions for mental images to occur and being maintained. When further images become complex enough to constitute an internal conception of a self, such images are enabled inside as well as outside oneself. Damasio concludes that subjectivity is not required for the existence of mental states but is required for them to be “privately known” (Damasio, 2012, p. 18). The notion of homeostasis plays a significant role in this framing for the understanding of such an evolving human mind. Homeostatic refers to rules and devices defining absolute ranges of interior organism and bodily functions while homeostasis concerns: “…the process of achieving a balanced state between these ranges” that vary according to external demands (Damasio, 2012, p. 42). The evolutionary roots of homeostasis are traced to preconscious adaptive behavior mechanisms such as in bacteria cells and simple amoebas. Progressively larger networks or systems of neurons enabled increasingly complex brain operations. These

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are claimed to be the origins of feelings and as building basic mechanisms behind the construction of the self. Homeostasis is thus elaborated from a neurological base and: “… focused how the human brain needs to operate in order to emerge” (Damasio, 2012, p. 6). Feelings being conceived as homeostatic states are expressed in positive signs such as well-being, pleasure, and happiness as well as negative signs such as pain, fears, and sadness. Feelings are conceived as providing the reading out and modifying of essential body states and, in this capacity, serving as a basis for life management or life regulations in a broad sense manifested in human interactions. The self is conceived in such process terms but also in holistic ways in the protagonist terms outlined above. However, both these sides of human mind are constituting a self-awareness that is separating self-consciousness from other forms of consciousness: “… Countless creatures for millions of years have had active minds, but only in those who developed a self-capable of operating as a witness to the mind was its existence acknowledged” (Damasio, 2012, p. 12). The self-evolutionary development is described in three major steps being hierarchically ordered and interdepended, as follows: 1. The protoself as a relatively stable neural description resulting in primordial feelings, spontaneous feelings of the living body and of the elementary existence 2. The core self as related to action and modification of the protoself and resulting in a narrative sequence of images such as feelings momentarily linked in a coherent pattern 3. The autobiographical self as biographical knowledge lining to past and anticipated future momentarily linked in a large-scale coherent pattern. These emerging evolutionary steps appear to have built the base for the modern human mind as a self-conscious wholeness. The protocell appears to reflect an embryonal self-awareness as a “time-tying” flow of feelings, whereas the core self seems to enable the tying together of these flowing feelings in patterns of embryonal narratives. The autobiographical self, in turn, enables the narratives to be interlinked in abstract time sequences being logically coordinated. Taken together, the human self in the transition in these three main evolutionary steps, integrates the body and brain

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functions from non-conscious basic homeostasis into the reflective sociocultural homeostasis. These steps seem to overlap the three evolutionary steps elaborated on by Tomasello and colleagues. The third of the latter steps of collective intentionality seems, in turn, to overlap the autobiographical self. This self is capable of biographical knowledge lining to the past and to the anticipated future as momentarily linked in a large-scale coherent pattern. Such a capacity is associated with human “history” where people interact with the world through the culture’s artifacts and symbols bringing increasingly to the fore the societal and ontogenetic development influences. The increasing demands of collaborations in larger groups due to the increasing human ability to understand the intentions of others can be related to increasing collaborative goal-directed action chains and spirals and the development of human language. Moreover, the social character of human mind in the evolutionary perspective has been related to the emergence of mirror neurons involved in brain processes with, for example, the capability of empathy. Empirical evidence from this research domain has claimed that such neurons build a necessary base for human capability of interpreting other human’s intentional actions and feelings (Ferrari & Rizzolatti, 2015). Such claims have however been challenged as not enough having considered the complex conceptual cognitive understanding of the human mind such as language (Hickok, 2014). The neurological reasoning of Damasio might suggest that mirror neurons capture biological and emotional basis for the inward function of the social ego and belongingness duality described. This function can be interlinked to the outward function of the agent and comprehensibility duality. The interconnection of the balancing dynamic of these two dualities in combination with the general progression of time suggests, as noticed, an overall ongoing mental dynamic of feelings and thoughts in the man-environment interactions. Here, Damasio makes the distinction that human subjectivity is not only in this subjective capacity fully explaining the special quality of human mind. The decisive evolving step that is required concerns the making of human images ours in the sense of: “… making them belong to their rightful owners, the singular, perfectly bounded organisms in which they emerge” (Damasio, 2012, p. 11). The autobiographical self incorporates social and spiritual

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dimensions. As a dynamic process, the self-levels are described as fluctuating between the simple and complex selves, flexibly being adjusted to changing external conditions. The human mind is described as a “knower” or: “… by whatever name one may want to call it—self, experiencer, protagonist—needs to be generated in the brain if the mind is to be conscious. When the brain manages to introduce a knower in the mind, subjectivity follows” (Damasio, 2012, p. 11). Such a subjectivity, which has been taken both for granted and as a deep mystery, might be approached by the fact that its prevalence in itself explains the need for explaining its prevalence. This in the sense of two sides of the same coin, promoting both deep philosophical and spiritual considerations and circle types of definitions. Damasio concludes that: Without consciousness—that is, a mind endowed with subjectivity—you would have no way of knowing that you exist, let alone know who you are and what you think. Had subjectivity not began, the evolutionary road for language and the elaborate human version of consciousness we now possess would not have been paved. (Damasio, 2012, p. 4)

This way of approaching the subjectivity of the human mind enables an ontogeny contribution to understand its self-conscious holistic character as necessarily being evolutionary emerged in process interactive terms. From its contemporary advanced forms, human self-consciousness might appear as a phenomenon discontinuously separated from its earlier development forms. Focused from either an inside or an outside direction, Damasio argues that the seemingly nonphysical nature of human subjectivity phenomena is not surprising. By conceiving it as discontinuous with the biological roots, he states, it is responsible for locating it outside the laws of physics. Nevertheless, he dismisses efforts to fully explain consciousness as a quantum physic phenomenon. According to the DIID approach, the development towards human mind consciousness, involves the role of natural laws. It does not exclude the involvement of quantum physical processes which will be more addressed below. However, as described, the mental system of the DIID approach underlines the feedback spiral loop character of its dualities as the essential driving mechanism of the developing process of human mind. The DIID thinking in these terms focus the human mind as a holistic kind of “knower” or “protagonist” (in the Damasio terms) but elaborates these concepts in ego and agent terms.

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Evolution Towards Two Brain Hemispheres and the Thought-Feeling Interplay In this section, the evolutionary root of the human brain is further addressed in terms of the two brain hemispheres and the functions of human feelings in terms of their interplay with human thinking. The interactions of brain hemispheres are of relevance for not at least the understanding of the biological roots of the duality system interplay between the ego-social and agent-causal system sides. The social side seems to be mainly related to the right hemisphere and the causal side to the left hemisphere, although basically overlapping as is the case regarding the ego-agent duality system parts. The thought-feeling interplay is considered to serve as the function of constructing predictions. It involves an integrated and increasingly differentiated thought-feeling interaction. It serves the role of creating a social reality and “affective realism” to gain communication between humans. Thus, the Tomasello experiments and the homeostasis and self-awareness reasoning of Damasio can be further elaborated in the light of theory and research on the human brain hemispheres and the interplay between feelings and thoughts. The issues of this section suggest interpretations of feelings and thoughts as basically integrated in the holistic human mind. The story of the evolutionary roots towards the contemporary human mind is long. When it comes to the human brain hemispheres, a symmetric development pattern has for example been dated in the nervous systems of vertebrate since over 300 million years (Siegel, 2012, p. 235). Moreover, certain brain asymmetries have been found to be present before the first hominids about million years ago (Hellige, 2001). Hellige further concludes that asymmetry in no way is a less natural phenomenon than is a symmetric phenomenon and states that: “… the molecules and physical particles of which living things are constructed are themselves asymmetrical” (Hellige, 2001, p. 305). Small initial hemisphere differences might have increased in a snowball progression manner. Moreover, this author argues that dramatic adaptions to environmental demands the last few hundred thousand years appear to have promoted the emergence of several developmental milestones that have differentiated humans apart from other species.

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Some of these milestones are thereby related to big consequences for an ongoing evolution of hemispheric asymmetry (Hellige, 2001). These milestones concern the enabling of walking upright, tool manufacture and use, language and the prolonged immaturity associated with these changes. The upright walking freed the hands from their locomotion function, enabling for example that one hand holds an object and the other manipulates it for instance in tool making. The upright walking has been related to the fetal movements of the asymmetric position in the fetus during pregnancy (Hellige, 2001, p. 323). Furthermore, this author assumes that the left hemisphere has, at least to some extent, become dominant regarding the capacity of vocalization before the emergence of the first hominids (Hellige, 2001, p. 328). That could have made the left hemisphere better suited to engage in environmental manipulative activities as it is more capable of communicating these. Increasing tool manufacturing and use is in this framing regarded as increasing the sophistication of language and vice versa from about 10.000 to 30.000 years ago. Taken together, these capabilities might have shared certain processing requirements such as the need for sequential, timed movement regulations. The connections between gestures, vocalizations, and language are however objects of different explanations. Debated issues concern for example the order of linear sequences applied in the progression, such as whether the sequence lines occurred in the direction of upright walking, tools, gestures, language or whether they occur in sequence orders. Regardless how, the emergence of spoken language appeared as a clear communication advantage over gestures (Hellige, 2001, p. 326). Prolonged immaturity, finally, can be related to the increasing size of human brain as a consequence of the cognitive advances of the other milestones outlined. The thereby increased human skull of the fetus could not pass the birth canal and therefore it had to be born before the brain was fully developed. This prolonged an early close attachment period between the human child and its care providers (Hellige, 2001, p. 342). These milestones have promoted brain hemisphere differences which although they have a common evolutionary base have accentuated typical human features. The right hemisphere has been associated for example with rapid acting, parallel, holistic processes and with sensations, images, and nonverbal forms that might be labeled as analogic thinking such as visuospatial perception as global aspects of the visual world (Siegel, 2012, p. 237). The right hemisphere can thereby be associated with for example

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context rather than text, intuition rather than rationality, and interpreting rather than explaining as well as with narrative thinking and attachment patterns. Thus, the right hemisphere has been described to function as a pattern recognitions center related to synthetic types of processes. The left hemisphere has, in turn, been associated more with digital thinking as for example: “…slower acting, linear, sequential, temporal (time dependent) processes. Verbal meanings of words, often called ‘digital’ representations, are a primary mode of processing for the left side” (Siegel, 2012, p. 237). Therefore the left hemisphere is more influenced by high-quality information such as language sounds, high spatial vision frequencies, precise sensorimotor feedback, and “the processing of local aspects of the visual world” (Hellige, 2001, p. 348). These aspects are to a higher extent related to rationality rather than intuition, explaining rather than interpreting and distinctions between words in sentences rather than narratives. Consequently, the left hemisphere has been described to function as a center of generating pattern details related to analytical types of processes. These differences can be regarded as one essential feature of the human brain function. As concluded by Siegel: “… ongoing findings suggests that it is true that certain overall processes are dominant on one side or the other—and so we can use the notion of a right or a left ‘mode’ of information processing” (Siegel, 2012, pp. 236–237). This author notices the basic roles of the differences as forming the wholeness of human brain in, for example, corporation or conflict interactions. Taken together, the hemispheres are described as the lenses through which humans perceive the world by creating the internal sense of being and of being aware (Siegel, 2012). This conclusion underlines the holistic mental function of the human brain as hemisphere interactions. Hellige approaches this issue by stating that hemispheric differences tend to be smaller and more subtle than popularized ideas might indicate (Hellige, 2001, p. 336). Both hemispheres are for example regarded as being capable to handle language, not just the left side which usually is considered to be the linguistically dominating hemisphere. Likewise, the left hemisphere can process some forms of nonverbal pantomime—an analogic form of information processing that previously may have been associated merely with the right hemisphere (Siegel, 2012, p. 236). Thus, Siegel underlines the overlapping features of the brain hemisphere functioning. This is regarded to be of essential importance to experience the wholeness character of being in the world.

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The human brain appears in basic respects to function correspondingly with the ego/agent duality dynamics of the DIID approach regarding at least two main aspects. One of these concerns the basic regulative and holistic features of the two hemispheres as corresponding to the ego-agent of the DIID approach. The right hemisphere seems to reflect central aspects of the belongingness and self-other dualities, and the left hemisphere seems to reflect central aspects of the comprehensibility and cause-effect dualities of the human mind. The inward tendency of the ego and belongingness related self-other duality and its interpreting social characteristics appear as closely related to the attachment orientation and analogic and synthetic thinking of the right hemisphere. The outward tendency of the agent-comprehensibility related cause-effect duality, in turn, seems to be closely related to the explaining, cognitive features and digital and analytical thinking of the left hemisphere. While the interplay between the hemispheres constitutes a wholeness of a brain function for survival purposes in human mind evolution, the DIID ego-belongingness and agent-comprehensibility serve this function as a wholeness of self-awareness. The continuously ongoing process in these duality terms is, as described, related to their feedback spiral loops characteristics, conceived as the basic mental motivational drives of the system. Understood in such mental terms, the system is basically rooted in corresponding brain functions as those described, but not being fully and deeply understood in merely the brain functions of their biological process characteristics. The mental system is according to the DIID approach playing a necessary guiding role for human mind thinking but doing so as necessarily building on its biological processes, forming together an embodied mind. This issue is further elaborated in the book and for example compared with artificial intelligence. The holistic and interactive framing of the human mind has also addressed the role of emotions in the process, not at least as being related to cognition. The interactive character of the hemisphere functioning raises issues of the role played by emotions and how they reflect the essential human experience of being in the world. Emotion has been described as existing in both hemispheres, differing in focus but collaborating by “crosstalk” between each other provided by the corpus callosum brain function. This has been related to the mutual activation and inhibition of corresponding cerebral centers on either side of the brain. Emotions in such a process have been claimed to be constructed by the human mind to obtain predictions of vital survival value. Research conducted by Feldman

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Barrett and colleagues led to the following conclusion: “After conducting hundreds of experiments in my lab, and reviewing thousands more by other researchers, I’ve come to a profoundly unintuitive conclusion that we don’t recognize emotions or identify emotions. We construct our own emotional experiences, and our perceptions of other’s emotions, through a complex interplay of systems” (Feldman Barret, 2018, p. 40). This author argues that pleasant and unpleasant feelings emanate from an ongoing internal process entitled interoception. It refers to the representation in the brain of: “…all sensations from your internal organs and tissues, the hormones in your blood, and your immune system” (Feldman Barrett, 2018, pp. 56–57). As involving 86 billion neurons, the brain is here described as connected to massive networks of internal brain activity continuing from birth until death. It is described as an ongoing activity that involves dreams, daydreams, imaginations, mind wandering, and reveries as an ongoing flow that has to be structured and interpreted by the brain to obtain meaning. This is performed by constructing predictions. Feelings such as joy, sadness, surprise, fear are conceived as integrated in causally oriented brain functions. In this sense, emotions are regarded as cognitively constructed and not essentially as in-born separated kinds of “feeling elements”. The in-born feature of emotions is instead related to the humans’ use of concepts to create social reality that takes place in the neural wires of the brain. Emotions are thereby conceived as playing the role of the human mind creation of social reality, which enables communication with other humans. The predictions are associated with the human cognitive capability of creating concepts, which is traced culturally, and functions to promote the negotiating dilemmas of the human predicament of living in a group— getting along and getting ahead. The basic concepts are summarized as just concepts in combination with social reality and affective realism. Affective realism refers to: “…the phenomenon that you experience what you believe” (p. 285). This generates the affect relatec parts of predictions rather than the logical and reason based parts of predictions. Concepts are regarded as basic elements of the human mind due to its brain being wired to construct a conceptual system. Concepts are framed as not merely being in one’s head. Neurons are regarded as not only influencing one another by direct connections but also indirectly by the outside environment in the man-environment social interactions in a broad sense. One main conclusion of this research and theoretical reasoning is that it overlaps the DIID approach in the holistic understanding of human mind.

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This mind appears here as both a continuously moving self-conscious wholeness and as integrating emotional and cognitive elements in increasingly differentiated patterns. These serve basic predictive purposes in the man-environment interaction.

A Contemporary Bio-Psychological-Interactional Approach In this section, an example of how a biological and psychological holism can be theoretically understood in modern and postmodern human minds and provides further insights of the duality system. The example refers to a holistic and interactive approach, presented by Magnusson and colleagues which focuses the human individual as a personality wholeness (e.g., Magnusson, 1985; Magnusson & Törestad, 1993). This theory as well as the DIID approach, underlines the holistic and interactional aspects of human mind. Both approaches are also efforts to integrate elements of the fragmented and different fields which have developed to understand the human mind, such as perception, cognition, emotion, behavior, genetics, and physiology. The integration of these resulted in six principles entitled as lawful interactions, which appear to also be valid regarding the DIID approach. This overlap may deepen the understanding of the DIID approach, but it also clarifies some main differences, such as the meaning content of the mental conceptions, which appear to take a more central role in the DIID approach. The human mind character concerns the capacity of abstract thinking applied in system thinking in general. However, the duality system uses a terminology which is more related to human self-awareness and experiences in terms of its belongingness and comprehensibility meaning. Such a subjective experience of self-other identity and internal-external reality concerns basic subjective meaning predicaments and possibilities. The DIID duality system suggests, as outlined above, duality feedback spiral loop movements between the mental dualities. Their biological roots and functions can be conceived as necessary but not sufficient conditions for a more complete understanding of their mental system features. This issue, in turn, concerns the common biological and mental system features. Instead of focusing merely on whether the biological or mental system is basically ruling one another, they are in the DIID approach regarded as necessary and sufficient causal conditions of the same embodied mind, as a holism in this sense.

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The holistic approach addresses problems concerning different concepts, methods, and research strategies with lacking mutual exchange of ideas and thereby also, for example lacking integrative and deepening progressions (Magnusson & Törestad, 1993, p. 431). A holistic meta-approach is understood as capturing mentalistic, biological, and environmentalist paradigms. The mentalistic part involves explanations relating individuals’ thinking, feeling, acting, and reacting to the human mind as a wholeness in terms of intrapsychic mental processes. The biological part is assumed to provide main influences of human behavior focusing on environmental external causes behind individual functioning. A further progress in understanding the human as a holistic personality is pronounced as requiring an integration of individual and environmental phenomena operating simultaneously in the influencing of psychological functioning (Magnusson & Törestad, 1993, p. 342). The individual is thus conceived as a total active and purposeful integrated wholeness being framed by two complementary theories out of which one takes a current perspective, and the other takes a developmental perspective. The development focus concerns an individual’s developmental history and ontogeny being related to the timing and reflection of important past and present environmental conditions in the interaction with the environment. Development is here related to changing time structures where time is necessarily involved but not in itself implying development. Taken together, this approach combines an ontogeny biological time perspective with current biological and psychological dispositions. It constitutes the human individual as an intentional and active being, a biological being and a social being, i.e., a holistic understanding in these respects. It captures a cognitive and perceptual mental system which intends to involve emotion, needs, motives, values, and goals, together producing an integrated mental system. This system is described as an interaction mental system from outside-in and inside-out interpreting information generated in the interaction process. Increasing information flow in modern and postmodern societies is here associated with accelerating demands of abstract conceptual thinking. Such thinking is underlined as needed to grasp contemporary phenomena in terms of abstractions like plans, strategies, programs, networks, and schemata. It shares, as a system, features with the DIID approach in these respects as well as in conceiving such a system in biological, social, and cognitive terms as an interactive purposeful agent. Moreover, the holistic human mind is considered in process terms rather than as a

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“thing”. The social role in interactions and holistic identity in process terms are acknowledged as a basic human capability of communication and language. It constitutes a basis for the development and world views, moral systems, and intentional thinking, etc. The system holistic features in combination are understood as different levels of individual functioning, from individual cells towards the autobiographical self. Taken together they are elaborated as goal-directed mental open systems, which function according to lawful interactions. The lawful interactions are described as based on six principles: “(1) multi-determination; (2) interdependence; (3) reciprocity; (4) nonlinearity; (5) temporality; and (6) integration” (Magnusson & Törestad, 1993, p. 438). Multi-determination concerns the system as law-like principles which don’t predict the exact outcomes of specific events but outline their principal progression logic. Interdependence concerns the six principles as mutually connected and reciprocity refers to operating elements which contribute to development of the total system. Nonlinearities take place already at the cellular level as information transfer between nerve cells can be illustrated on the mental level as characterizing especially social communication. Temporality refers to a process of human mind awareness as a continuous flow of interrelated and interdependent events, finally as a dynamic and holistic process of the operating parts, being coordinated to serve the goal of their system. Integration is the principle of generating and constituting more than the sum of its parts. The authors conclude that the processes of psychological functioning at all levels are continuously ongoing and are integrated within an organized system while guided by these lawful principles. This is claimed to be the case regarding the functioning and development of the subsystems as well as the functioning of their totality as a superordinated system. The lawful interaction principles might as an open system be claimed to express a mental system of general features in three interlinked ways: mutually integrating elements (interdependence, reciprocity), movement and progressing elements (nonlinearity, temporality), and open system elements (integration, multi-determinism). These general system features can be attributed the DIID approach as well. The two systems appear to overlap in the basic system and regulation principal terms. However, a main difference between the lawful interaction systems and the duality system seems to concern the meaning content of the mental conceptions. The terminology of the holistic system of lawful interactions reflects the regulation principles that could be applied also in

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systems outside and beyond the mental subjective spheres. They refer to principles that might be applied in physical and biological systems. The human mind character concerns the capacity of abstract thinking applied in system thinking in general. However, the duality system uses a terminology which is more related to human self-awareness and experiences in terms of its belongingness and comprehensibility meaning. Such a subjective experience of self-other identity and internal-external reality concerns basic subjective meaning predicaments and possibilities. The overlapping of the DIID approach and the lawful interaction principles concerns the searching for basic holistic features and can both be understood as “objectivistic” basic system mental regulations as involved in “subjectivistic” basic system regulations. This common feature thereby indicates conceptual system bridges between the objectivistic and subjectivistic sides of human mind. This should not be surprising due to that both are evolutionary and biologically traced. More obvious objectivistic common features of the DIID approach and philosophical, mathematical, and physical system approaches are to different extents addressed in chapters that follows. The interaction sphere will be elaborated in terms of the external world reality of human mind but also as its internal movements in terms of feedback spiral loops. Moreover, ontological roots of the system will be addressed. The lawful interaction system thinking, and the duality feedback loops spiral system thinking thus both share common features in mental terms and regarding their biological roots. However, it does not imply that they take a pure reductivist theoretical explanation position. They don’t draw direct causal conclusions from physics, chemistry, or biology disciplines to fully explain psychological processes. It concerns, for example, general physical laws such as special or general relativity theory, electrodynamics, or Newton mechanics. Biology might contribute with physiological processes and mechanisms involving chemical components in the cell energy transitions and neural information transition networks. The Ockham razor principle referring to the aim of clarifying the basic elements of theory explanations is thereby not regarded as a theoretical goal in such a strict reductivist sense. However, the Ockham principle understood as striving towards the simplest explanations is an ambition behind the DIID approach in conceptual terms which will be addressed in the next chapter. In neither this approach nor the lawfulness interaction approach, the behavior of a person is conceived as simply predictable. The lawfulness might for example involve nonlinear man-environment

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interactions that operate probabilistically in unpredictable ways which can involve for example human interactive communications making high predictability unrealistic. Higher predictability is associated with the same repeated initial conditions and the absence of randomly occurring significant events. It might result in different development progression types and growth curves, out of which some curves however seem to reflect the Piagetian equilibration balancing dynamics and its turning points. A significant event influencing an individual in a state of disequilibrium might, by the restoring of the balance, direct the total system with a new life course direction. This is characterizing a type of process that is recognized as bifurcations in physical environment according to complexity theory. The methodological approach in the lawful interactive framing recognizes a need for a person approach (e.g., statistically by using cluster analyses) as complementing variable approaches (e.g., analyses of variance, linear regression analyses). Predictions are for example associated with “mechanistic model of man”: “… Associated with this view are the concepts of cause/effect relations and independent-dependent variables. Studied as a uni-directional relationship” (Magnusson, 1985, p. 130). Generally, this approach underline the imporatance of taken into account its lawful interaction principles in longitudinal designs.

References Damasio, A. (2012). Self comes to mind: Constructing the conscious brain. Vintage Books. Feldman Barrett, L. (2018). How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain. Pan Books. Ferrari, P. F., & Rizzolatti, G. (Eds.). (2015). New frontiers in mirror neuron research. Oxford University Press. Hellige, J. B. (2001). Hemispheric asymmetry: What’s right and what’s left. Harvard University Press. Hickok, G. (2014). The myth of mirror neurons: The real neuroscience of communication and cognition. W. W. Norton. Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Harvard University Press. Magnusson, D. (1985). Implications of an interaction paradigm for research on human development. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 8(2), 115–137. Magnusson, D., & Törestad, B. (1993). A holistic view of personality: A model revisited. Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 427–452.

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Selman, R. L. (2007). The promotion of social awareness. Russel Sage Foundation. Siegel, D. J. (2012). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are. The Guildford Press. Tomasello, M. (2009). Why we cooperate. MIT Press. Tomasello, M. (2010). Origins of human communication. MIT Press, Paperback edition. Tomasello, M. (2014). A natural history of human thinking. Harvard University Press. Tomasello, M. (2016). A natural history of human morality. Harvard University Press.

CHAPTER 5

Basic Abstract Duality Distinctions

Basic System Features In this section, the basic conceptual character of the dualities of the duality system is considered in basic conceptual system terms. As described, the dualities of the DIID approach are assumed to be basic abstract-mental elements that essentially involve two contrasting parts that constitute each other as well as their wholeness. They are assumed to be the building blocks of the duality system, as the basic element that is not in principle divisible in more basic parts. In that sense, they can be understood as basic systems in themselves. In the DIID framing, these systems are basically involved in a balancing movement between the contrasting meaning making positions, namely those between socially and causally related motivational drives towards potential transformations. Their indivisible feature is considered as dualities of two basic parts which constitute each other and its basic wholeness. This is a main issue in all the sections of this chapter, which in this section concerns a “minimal concept theory of systems thinking” (MCT/ST) elaborated by Cabrera (2006, p. 169, see also Cabrera & Colosi, 2011). A “middle way” approach is described which unifies conflicts and perceived paradoxes that constitute basic features of systems thinking. This is done by taking a middle way between for example realism and

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constructivism, positive and negative, form and function as well as structure and dynamics. It results in a conceptual system of a complex adaptive system character, being a derivate of simple rules. Moreover: …the processes that occur at one level of thinking (say inside the mind) between one thought and another, are essentially the same set of processes that occur between groups, or between organizations or between countries. That is, that the most complex systems of thought imaginable are structurally the same as a single simple concept. (Cabrera, 2006, p. 173)

This self-similarity is regarded as a fractal structure, meaning that: “…the same conceptual structures are occurring across conceptual scale—that a single concept and a complex of concepts share the same basic structure and repeating patterns” (Cabrera, 2006, p. 173). Further, this theory approach intends to identify: “…the structure and dynamics of a single concept that are absolute necessary” in order to discern: “…the basic components of a conceptual system and the underlying role structure of systems thinking” (Cabrera, 2006, p. 175). This refers to the “Ockham’s razor principle” that no things should be presumed to exist than the absolutely necessary which resulted in basic rules of such a system. These rules are described below and are related to the DIID approach as follows: – Distinction making, refers to the difference between the identity of a concept, “what it is” in contrast to the other, “what it is not” which also concerns what is internal and external to the concepts or system of concepts’ boundaries. Corresponding DIID duality system features appear to concern the relations between the duality parts as presupposing as well as contrasting each other which also constitute their dialectical thesis-antithesis character. – Interrelating, refers to the interlinking of one concept to another by the identification of reciprocal causes and effects. Corresponding DIID duality system features appear to concern the reciprocal effects of one duality part on the other duality part, as typically is the case regarding the cause-effect duality. – Organizing systems, referring to the gathering or splitting of concepts into larger wholes or smaller parts. Corresponding DIID duality system features seem to concern that each duality involves two smaller parts and a larger whole as well as the hierarchically stage order of dualities as “wholes in wholes”.

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– Perspective taking, referring to the reorienting of a system of concepts by the determination of a focal point of observation as subject and by relating this point to a point in the system as object. Corresponding DIID duality system feature appears to concern internally based parts of the dualities as the “focal point” (subject, self, cause, internal scope, thesis) as related to the externally based parts of the dualities (object, other, effect, external scope, antithesis). The Minimal Concept Theory of Systems Thinking (MCT/ST, see Cabrera, 2006, p. 178) thus involve the four basic dualities of: – Distinction making, involving the two duality parts of identity and other – System organizing, involving the two duality parts of part and whole – Interrelating, involving the two duality parts of cause and effect – Perspective taking, involving the two duality parts of subject and object. This model structure and its correspondence with the duality structure can be summarized as follows: – Each component of MCT/ST is regarded as structured in terms of two balanced elements that have the same fractal self-similar dynamics in common. The dualities of the DIID approach and their parts are likewise conceived as dynamically balanced elements sharing the same fractal self-similar features, in the sense that the same basic duality structure recur stage-wise as hierarchically ordered (wholes in wholes). – Each component of MCT/ST is regarded as a system of interrelated distinctions which provide a perspective of its own to the larger wholeness. The dualities of the DIID approach and their parts are likewise conceived as systems of interrelated distinctions, each of which provides perspectives of their own on their larger duality wholeness as a system. – Each component of MCT/ST is regarded as a wholeness consisting of its two elements and each two elements of these wholes are uniquely interrelated. The dualities of the DIID approach are likewise in themselves conceived as wholes of two elements which are

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uniquely interrelated regarding their combinations and character of their duality parts. – Each component and its two parts of MCT/ST are regarded as three interrelated distinctions interacting to define each other as well as to provide a unique perspective of the entire system. The dualities of the DIID approach are likewise regarded as three interrelated distinctions (as triads) conceived as mutually interacting and defining each other and as providing their unique and necessary contributions to the duality wholeness as a larger system. Both the MCT/ST model and the DIID approach thus stipulate that no component or their element parts can exist without the other components or elements parts. In this sense, no additional components seem to be required. The comparison outlined above seems to support the prevalence of meta theoretical characteristics of the DIID approach in the formal open system terms stated by MCT/ST. As already pointed out, the purpose of this comparison is to discern and clarify basic system and structural characteristics of the DIID approach which refers to the Ockham’s razor principle. The comparison seems to indicate such features of the dualities of the DIID approach. This is another angle of claiming the basic feature of these dualities than for example the dialectical angle described in the section below. The latter angle takes a departure in the basic features of the moving progression of the dualities. For example, subject-object explicitly concerns transformations between hard stages and its self-other regulations of the progression within stages which will be addressed more below. However, as have been outlined above, the subject/object of the Minimal Concept Theory refers to a basic character of perspective taking in general. This general and basic system character of the MCT/ST dualities is not, as is the case regarding the DIID approach, traced directly from hard stage development criteria and its duality regulating expressions of such a development. The two duality approaches differ essentially in this sense. However, despite that both approaches appear to be essentially overlapping regarding the basic systemic character of their dualities. All the dualities of the DIID approach seem, as described, to involve basic system duality features. The system organizing whole/part duality of MCT/ST reflects for example a basic feature of each of the DIID dualities. At the same time, this feature also characterizes the hierarchical structure of hard stages (wholes in wholes). The duality approach, as

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described, is situated in an interactive evolving evolutionary, cultural, and societal context as an inside/out and outside/in interactive dynamic.

Basic Dialectical Features It this section, the basic duality conceptual character is considered in terms of a basic dialectical system approach. The basic elements of this dialectical system are conceived as the three indivisible elements of change, wholeness, and internal relations, conceived as the most basic elements of reality. This system can be understood as a wholeness of three basic indivisible elements. This system is described and compared with the duality system, where the similarities are found to concern basic processual features of an ontological character. The notion of dialectics, as a multifaceted conception, has also been understood in terms of a thesisantithesis-synthesis type of progression, which is also attributed to the duality system, as involved in its system transformations. The dialectical features are also, as described, discernible to varying extents in the three hard stage theories, namely the theory Piaget, the subject-object theory (SOT), and the model of hierarchical complexity (MHC). However, basic features of dialectical thinking have been more extensively elaborated within other Neo-Piagetian stage development theories such as those by Basseches (1984) and Laske (2008). Besides Piaget, their ideas are inspired by earlier dialectical thinkers such as Hegel. Basseches recognizes three core dialectical characteristics of change, wholeness, and internal relations which are claimed to constitute core reality features, being ontologically traced in that sense. They are regarded as tied together in the following definition: “Dialectic is developmental transformations (i.e., developmental movement thought forms) which occur via constitutive and interactive relationships ” (Basseches, 1984, p. 22). The dialectical character of hard stage development concerns the general dynamics of transformative stage development, as well as the thinking of a certain stage, such as the fifth SOT stage entitled the selftransforming mind. Basseches claims that the basic features of dialectical thinking concern three main schemata: motion-oriented, form-oriented, and relationship-oriented ones. They are regarded as interrelated by a superordinated Meta class. Laske, inspired by Basseches, recognizes similar categories (Laske, 2015). These dialectical characteristics can be related to the basic duality characteristics as follows:

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Wholeness. The dialectical understanding of wholeness refers to its conception as the ontological basic form of reality (rather than as separated elements). Temporary changing forms of coherence organizes its parts in processes of differentiation and integration. The wholeness is at the same time given ontological priority in itself as something greater than its parts. The dualities of the DIID approach can likewise be understood as wholes of temporary changing forms of coherence which concern stage-wise transformations and the organizing of their two duality parts in for example terms of differentiation and integration. They define each other as well as constitute their wholes, the latter understood as constituting something “greater” than its parts—an autonomous meaning of its own. Change. The dialectical understanding of change emanates from the ontological assumption that reality is an ongoing change process where old forms are replaced by emerging new forms. Thus, changes or processes also concern the ontological conception of reality (what exists). The dualities of the DIID approach can likewise be understood as ontologically constituting an ongoing change which involves two dynamically balancing contrasting parts. Conflicting experiences that threaten this balance may trigger differentiation and integration phases of deconstructions and reconstructions. This generates transformative shifts where former stages are replaced by emerging new stages. Internal relations. The dialectical understanding of internal relations emphasizes them as constitutive which means that they have a role of their own in making its parts to what they are: “The relations among parts within a whole help make the parts what they are, and thus the relations are ‘internal’ to the nature of the parts. At the same time, the relations form the internal structure of the whole” (Basseches, 1984, p. 22). This constitutes an interactive and non-static character. The dualities of the DIID approach are likewise defined as being constitutively interrelated and regarded as interactively related (within and between themselves) by their dynamically balancing interrelation. This, in turn, is related to the permanent interaction of the human mind with its environment from inside-out and outside-in. The meta formal or transformational system implies that the three basic dialectical aspects are mutually interrelated and constitute an integrated

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open system. The focus, for instance, on change concerns the internal relations which generate new forms of organization. At the same time, these new forms change the nature of the organized parts. Change, wholeness, and internal relations are conceived as being ontologically interrelated. The dualities of the DIID approach can likewise be conceived as an integrated open system in terms of being mutually interlinked as evolving in spiral feedback loop processes from outside-in and inside-out. Its meta and transformative characteristics concern the basic character of the dualities of the wholeness (which has been stepwise elaborated above). However, in the DIID framing the system is conceived as fundamentally driven by ego-agent-related belongingness and comprehensibility motivational incitements. Further, the duality understanding of stage development can be understood in dialectical thesis, antithesis, and synthesis terms: The act of asserting something, reflecting on something, or otherwise making something into a thesis always is a process of differentiating it from that which is other than it—because this assertion—(or creating a thesis) is a differentiating process, it always may be seen as creating an anti-thesis—which is that which remains (or is different) when the thesis is carved out of the larger whole” (Basseches, 1984, p. 90, referring to Kosok, 1972). Thus, the making of a thesis can be understood as bringing an idea to consciousness and at the same time making its opposite (what it is not) discernable.

It can be claimed to be the case when the two parts of a duality are made conscious as opposing each other. That, in turn, reflects their correlative or constitutive character: “To say that x and y are correlatives is to say that x is relative to y and that y is relative to x. This is to say that the nature of y is in some sense dependent on its relation to x, and vice versa, or that the relationship between them is a constituting one” (Basseches, 1984, p. 89). In the frame of the DIID approach, thesis and antithesis might be considered as opposing duality parts in stage transitions as either-or positions when the duality balance is challenged by conflicting experiences. The transformation to a synthesis integrates the opposing duality parts to both-and solutions enabled by the higher stage’s abstraction level. The synthesis reflects the human mind duality structure on a next higher stage and is thereby constituting the new thesis of a new stage. The

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new thesis is regarded as initially latent, and consciously articulated when confronted with conflicting experiences and thereby making an antithesis discernable. The thesis-antithesis regulations can be conceived as a differentiation-integration process as illustrated in Table 1.5. It refers to the differentiation of a thesis understood as a “self-meaning scope” position out of the embedded subject. This enables an antithesis understood as an integration within an opposed alternative “other meaning scope” position. This process appears as a constructivist reflection of the dialectical process outlined above. In the framework of SOT, Kegan as elaborating on postmodernism claims that this is: “…forever repeated in the evolution of our structures of knowing” which: “…can be described like this: differentiation always precedes integration. How could it be otherwise? Before we can reconnect to, internalize, or integrate something with which we were originally fused, we must first distinguish ourselves from it” (Kegan, 1994, p. 326). This is regarded as an epistemological conclusion and the process can be explicitly formulated in constructivist terms. The regulations in the terms outlined are illustrated in Fig. 5.1. Differentiation appears to concern the deconstruction of the subject into a manifest self-position which precedes the integrated reconstruction of a potential other-position. These positions being polarized as thesis/antithesis provide the conditions necessary for dialectic transformative construction of a new subject on a next higher stage to occur. The constructivist and dialectical dualities appear to be basic necessary processual conditions for hard stage transformations of the DIID system to occur generating increasing abstract stages as “wholes in wholes” in a hierarchical order. This transformative regulation principle is considered to reoccur stage-wise in the same principal way. It reflects a person’s interactions and thinking when tackling self-other related ego-belongingnesssocial and cause-effect related agent-comprehensibility-causal dilemmas and inconsistencies. They process passes both the stage progression and the deep identity levels of the duality system as interlinked which is further addressed in Chapter 6.

Basic Person-Context Features In this section, person-context and co-logic conceptual characteristics are elaborated and compared with the duality system. The similarities are found to concern the conceptual creation of “triad units”. One main

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Fig. 5.1 The self-other (ego-belongingness driven) and cause-effect (agentcomprehensibility driven) duality involvement in a dialectical thesis-antithesis and a constructivist differentiation-integration duality transformation process

issue regarding the triad feature has been discussed in terms of what part of the change process that can be understood to take a superordinated development “causal role” in an interaction. Is it the inside-out part, the outside-in part, or the interaction part in-between? Or should they be understood as an indivisible wholeness? Such questions also address issues of whether there is an “identity center” navigating the process, which in the DIID approach refers to a meaning making ego-agent as both a deep identity and an open interactive system. This duality character can be more clearly understood and theoretically substantiated in the light of theoretical and meta theoretical perspectives of person-context relation and co-genetic logic reasoning. They concern formalizations of internal relations, characterizing them within developing systems and between the systems and their environment. Such issues were discussed in the 1980s and early 90s in efforts to comprehend the interactive process in terms of ecological systems, person

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and environment relationships, or co-constructive processes in human development (Kindermann & Valsinger, 1995). The common feature of these approaches: “…is the insights that it is neither individuals, nor contexts by themselves who determine the pathways of the human life course, but the complex interactions and relationships that exist between individuals and their contexts” (Kinderman & Valsinger, 1995, p. 2). The latter authors conclude that this perspective takes into serious account the individual persons as psychological active elements and systemic aspects of contexts. Development here is related to relationship by assuming that most development contexts are constructed: “… jointly by people and other people who act as their environment” (Kinderman & Valsinger, 1995, p. 2). Social environment is characterized as having psychological features of its own that develop in its own right. This theoretical thinking has been formalized in terms that appear to add clarifications of system characteristics of the interlinked dualities, which complement the system approaches described in the two previous sections. One approach, genetic logic, build on the thinking of Baldwin (1902), who took a non-reducibility stance of science and formulated seven postulates or canons (Valsinger, 1995). They underlined for example the preservation of development as processes, the continuity of events, and the irreversibility and transformative character of development processes. It seems to share obvious features with for example the hard stage progression and the dialectical character described as a system of change, internal relations and wholes. He approaches the issue of free will as an ontogenetic emergent phenomenon, thereby focusing the present and future part of this process rather than the present and past part and criticized the strict behavioristic approaches. His genetic logic reasoning was not elaborated further in formal logical system terms. A further effort in that direction was performed by Herbst in terms of triadic units which were understood to emerge as a consequence of making distinctions as a basic analytical unit. This provides new tools to approach human development as an interactive phenomenon. Process networks manifested as triadic dynamic units are claimed to allow for holistic as well as exact descriptions of dynamic mechanisms maintaining and developing the system (Valsinger, 1995). Herb’s co-genetic logic provides formalizations of internal relations, characterizing them within developing systems and between them and their environment. This is assumed to be the case also regarding the DIID duality system. Herb’s approach takes a departure in: “… the world before

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there was any subject or objects. Or more correctly, the time before there were any time” (Herbst, 1995, p. 67) as the most general form that can be generated here is claimed to be a unit that consists of three elements (not less). A basic distinction here is the one between an inside and an outside as two parts of an empty space which constitute one of many basic distinctions. The triad unit is characterized by the following four properties (Herbst, 1995, pp. 67–68). – Co-genetic, which means that its three triad components come into being together. – Nonseparable, which means that the three components of the triad unit cannot be taken apart, as they have no modular or mechanical structure and that it does not correspond with Boolean algebra, classical logic, or set theory. – Nonreducible, which means that it cannot involve less than three components: “If any one component, the boundary, the inside or the outside is taken away, then all three components disappear together” (Herbst, 1995, p. 68). This disappearance refers to something that cannot be described or denoted but still is not “nothingness”, since this cannot be comprehended in other ways than contrasting or relating to a form. The non-reducible character of the triad unit is the converse of its co-genetic property that implies that all its three components come into being together. – Contextual, which means none of its three components have intrinsic features of their own. This is due to the non-separable character of them as definable only in terms of the other two components. Herbst illustrates implications of these properties by stating that they constitute a function unit of an interacting and changing character in a formal sense. He concludes that at least one of the components function as operation and as “dual possible states”. Defined as above these components are assigned as m, n, and p, taken together in a pair with a single element. This constitutes the definitional triads as such a form [single element, pair, pair defines element]. The m and an element are here conceived as both states and operations. Operations function as: “identity maintaining operators” and states as “inversion operators” (Herbst, 1995, p. 70). A principle regarding type of interaction and progression, concerns these elements interrelated as follows: “Every symmetrical pattern nn and

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mm maintains the existing state. Every asymmetrical pattern nm and mn leads to a transition. Or, we can say that in this case an operation applied to itself is an identity-maintain operator, whereas operator applied to the dual state is an inversion operator” (Herbst, 1995, p. 71). If one of the dual elements, for example n, is attributed to the operation function of stay (identity maintaining) and the other, m, is attributed to the operation function of transit (inversion), they will come to m. When applying the n stay position here and remaining in the m position, the (inverse) condition nm = mn is satisfied. The latter outcome can progress like a pendulum going back and forth stopping momentarily and moving in the reverse direction, or like a Hamilton circuit, where the movement proceeds clockwise and counterclockwise, between left and right. After having considered the application of elementary + and – and multiplication assigned to identity maintain operations and inversion operations, he concludes that this is not applicable regarding the triads. He instead takes a departure in Spencer-Brown’s logic involving two axioms. These imply that if a dual boundary is crossed and then recross (that is possible in only the reverse direction), this eliminates the boundary and results in a distinction less position. However, as a dual triad the primary distinction is not required to create a co-genetical two dual states. This leads to the conclusion that: …The act of creation is an act of negation. It is a negation of the original state, and it is through the act of negation that a finite, bounded, and segmented world is produced. Hence, it is only by the negation of the negation that we are able to return to the original state, which is the same as the state that we LEFT and also not. For if it said that the man who has done the outward journey and later returned is no longer the same as he was before he made his journey. (Herbst, 1995, p. 74)

On the basis of such a logic, 16 possible process networks are described as corresponding with the 16 Boolean binary connectives. From this base, nine structurally different binary processes that had interpretable properties are stated which in one case refers to a possible subject-object switching of perspectives. Herbst finally concludes that: “the implication of the primary distinction … have no end. So, in closing, I would like to consider some fundamental implications to the validity of alternative theories of the world” (Herbst, 1995, p. 75). He further concludes that:

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“… each element is constituted as an identity maintain process. No matter which operation is applied, the elements maintain itself in existence. This, however, implies also that under certain conditions the structure will break down and become metamorphosed into potentially any one of the other process networks” (Herbst, 1995, p. 75).

Comparing Conclusions In this section, the system elaborations in the three sections above are objects of comparing conclusions. The conceptual approach of Cabrera, the dialectical approach of Basseches, and the co-genetic logic of Herbst all share the aim of tracing basic system characteristics of human thinking. These basic common characteristics concern basic wholes being defined by two elements, which constitute each other well as their wholeness. The three approaches can all be considered as applying the Ockham razor principle. Cabrera’s approach can be regarded as an internal basic positioning from different angles towards the external world. The whole-part, identity-other, and subject-object regulations represent the focal points taken by the human mind as necessary conditions for the directing of thinking and interactions internally towards the external world. In the DIID framing, these focal points reflect, for example, spatial allocations of oneself in internal-external duality terms. However, the temporal and social allocations in the DIID approach refers to subjective motivational drives towards meaning in inward-social-ego and outward-causal-agent directions. Both the Cabrera and DIID system appear to generate a hierarchical kind of organization and progression of a self-similarity and scale-free fractal character. Cabrera’s theory does, however, not explicitly elaborate of change processes in nor the belongingness and ego, neither the comprehensibility agent terms which concerns human mind’s basic motivational drives according to the DIID approach besides pure survival. However, Cabrera’s theory does not elaborate on chance processes in belongongness-ego and comprehensibility-agent terms as is the case in the DIID approach. However, if Cabrera focus a spatial dimension, Basseches rather focus a temporal dimension of the human mind’s basic conception of the world. In the dialectical approach of Basseches where the system concerns a dynamical triad of wholeness, change, and internal relations, the change process is of essential importance. Change is claimed to constitute a basic character of reality rather than being understood as separated

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stable elements. Moreover, even if not explicitly elaborated by Basseches, this dialectic is in the DIID approach interpreted as involving a thesis and antithesis process in the transformations towards higher stages. Changes and dialectical progressions of human mind require, for example, an inside-outside positioning from one position to another position and include interrelated elements. The dialectical system of Basseches can be interpreted as an assumption of the essence of reality as an ontological stance. Herbst’s model essentially overlaps the DIID duality system regarding the “duality criteria” that the three components of a co-logic triad come into being together, and thereby being non-separable, nonreducible, and contextual. The similarities concern generally the dynamics between the duality parts which enable systematic operations and coordination between the parts of the triads or dualities. Moreover, the two dual parts of the triads are, as described, either operating or “identity maintaining”. This distinction can in the DIID approach be allocated to the belongingness (self-other, subject-object) and comprehensibility (causeeffect, internal-external) dualities. As shown in Fig. 2.1, the former is located on the left side of the duality system circle and the latter on the right of the same system circle. The interaction movement in this circle is progressing clockwise from the left towards the right. The left “belongingness side” can be regarded as the coordinative part of the process of the human mind duality system, while “comprehensibility side”, can be regarded as its operating part of the same system. However, as is claimed regarding the co-genetic triads, the human mind newer meet exactly the same identity position in this clockwise moving. The approaches of Cabrera, Basseches, and Herbst thus have several aspects in common. This appears to amplify their claims of clarifying basic formal aspects of human mind thinking. The DIID system approach, in turn, has basic features in common with the other three approaches. At the same time, the DIID approach differ as compared with the other three approaches in at least two main respects. One of these aspects concerns the explicit developing character of its interaction with the external surrounding and living systems. Its conceptual base appears to be more directly traced in such interactive and developmental processes. The other of these aspects concern the explicit deep identity developing character of this process towards increasing self-awareness. Taken together, they constitute the meaning making as a duality system. It concerns the preserving of the duality balancing of meaning making as a question of the

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continuing of being as an ontological issue (Kegan, 1982, p. 12). In the DIID framing, this ontological issue is understood as balancing dynamic between to be and to become. It is conceived as a being-becoming duality regulation. The being-becoming temporal position is related to a likewise ontologically based part-whole spatial position. It reflects a basic deep identity ontological position in the meaning making duality system. The notion of meaning in these terms refers to basic life purposes and existential motivational incitements. Similar features of the notion of meaning are discernable in positive psychology terms. One of these concerns having a deep purpose in life which can be associated with motivation and action seem to concern the ontological duality as a sense of becoming. It appears as agent and comprehensibility focused. The other of them rather addresses the role of the self in the world, which may be conceived as the ontological duality as a sense of being (see e.g., Ivtzan et al., 2016). It appears as ego and belongingness focused. Being concerns the stability of human mind’s ontological identity position, while becoming concerns changes of this identity position. The being and the becoming elements can be considered as mutually constituted as well as an ontological basis of the developing human mind. Becoming requires being to be consciously discernable and the other way around, being requires becoming to be consciously discernable. The being-becoming distinction can be related to an internal-subjective and external-objective distinction, reflecting the outside-in and inside-out character of human-environment interaction. The being-becoming and the part-whole ontological dynamic is schematically illustrated in Fig. 3.1. They are assumed to be basically interlinked as a foreground or a background of human mind as its deepest ontological basis. They are also basically interlinked with the belongingness and, comprehensibility motivational drives of human mind. Meaning making in the DIID duality approach necessarily involves both. Belongingness in the development psychology which focus on childhood takes one of its staring points in the symbiotic wholeness of the child as increasingly differentiating itself from other significant persons. The belongingness part of this differentiation is the child’s absolute dependence of a significant person to be safe and able to discover the world, as underlined in attachment theory and research (e.g., Bowlby, 1997). In this knowledge domain, the development towards an autonomous adult human being seems to stress not at least a gradual differentiation

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from others (Wennerberg, 2013). In the DIID approach, the integration part of the process is equally important. The comprehensibility part of the differentiation between the internal and external world is reflected in the child’s effort to affect external conditions to reach desirable effects. This aspect is of equal importance for the development towards logical and abstract thinking as the agent-related comprehensibility part of the development process. The DIID approach focuses on the necessary integration of belongingness and comprehensibility in the creation of an abstract self-awareness. Both coherences are considered as necessarily required to tackle challenges and survive in the evolutionary process. This requires both the identifying of oneself with increasingly larger and more abstract collective contexts and coordinate one’s interactions with those to obtain common goals. In this process, affective and cognitive aspects are assumed being increasingly stage-wise interlinked and hierarchically ordered in terms of needs-interests, values-goals, and visions-strategies. Comprehensibility has in contemporary societies been refined in terms of scientific rationality and mathematics as important advances of both human mind (e.g., Björkman, 2019).

References Baldwin, J. M. (1902). Development and evolution. The Macmillan Company. Basseches, M. (1984). Dialectical thinking and adult development. Ablex Publishing Corporation. Björkman, T. (2019). The world we created: From god to market. Fri Tanke. Bowlby, J. (1969/1997). Attachment and loss (Vol. 1). Pimplico. Cabrera, D. A. (2006). System thinking (Doctoral dissertation). Cornell University. Cabrera, D. A., & Colosi, L. (2011). Thinking at every desk: Four simple skills to transform your classroom. W. W. Norton. Herbst, D. P. (1995). What happens when we make a distinction: An elementary introduction to co-genetic logic. In T. A. Kindermann & J. Valsinger (Eds.), Development of person—Context relations (pp. 67–79). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Ivtzan, I., Lomas, T., Hefferson, K., & Worth, P. (2016). Second wave positive psychology: Embracing dark side of life. Routledge. Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Harvard University Press. Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Harvard University Press.

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Kindermann, T. A., & Valsinger, J. (1995). Individual development, changing contexts, and the co-construction of person-context relations in human development. In T. A. Kindermann & J. Valsinger (Eds.), Development of person—Context relations (pp. 1–13). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Laske, O. (2008). Measuring hidden dimensions of human systems: Foundation of requisite organization. Interdevelopmental Institute Press. Laske, O. (2015). Dialectical thinking for integral leaders: A primer. Integral Publisher. Valsinger, J. (1995). Processes of development, and search for their logic: An introduction to Herbst’s co-genetic logic. In T. A. Kindermann & J. Valsinger (Eds.), Development of person—Context relations (pp. 55–65). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wennerberg, M. (2013). Själv och tillsammans. Om anknytning och identitet i relationer (Self and together. About attachment and identity in relations). Natur och Kultur.

CHAPTER 6

The Transforming Duality Forms

The Societal Interacting Human Mind In this section the human mind changes are focused from the perspective of external changes. This concerns how changes of societal and organizational structures are related to changes of human mind, cognitively, socially, and existentially and how this influences the duality system in different respects. External changes in modern-postmodern societies of interest are, for example, related to temporal-spatial dissolving of organizational and work life structures. As described, the human mind according to the DIID approach generates interacting dualities towards abstract and self-aware thinking among grown up persons in contemporary societies. The internal and external manifestations of the progressing movement concern for example human artifacts, cultural norms and values, institutions, and organizations which constitute nations and societies. Societal progressions are manifested in reproduction and production spheres, associated with belongingness and comprehensibility incentives. The human self has been described as a reflexive project manifested in the separation of time and space in terms of “disembedding mechanisms” (Giddens, 1991). They are abstract systems separating human interaction from particularities of the local context, which create new dynamic balances between self and society. From industrial to post-industrial societies, contemporary macro societal changes can briefly be understood as transitions from external © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Hagström, The Developing Human Mind, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28647-6_6

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regulations towards internal regulations of norms and values. Technologically and economically externally driven globalization (Castells, 1996) can be associated with internally driven value shifts from materialistic and external values to post materialistic and internal values (Inglehart, 1997, 2007). Preferences of security and materialistic values have, by generational shifts, been replaced by “softer” values, given priority to for example altruism, quality of life, and self-realization. As noticed above, the external context in the framing of the Russian psychology tradition of Vygotsky and Leontiev has been related to human motives understood as being embedded in the external contexts and its artifacts. Human goals, tasks, and values have in further progressions of this thinking been considered for example as affordances, perceived as embedded in the external environment (Gibson, 1979; Reed et al., 1996). Traditional affordances might be taken for granted as embedded in societal institutions, as objectively existing. The individual biography thereby tends to be conceived as “an episode located within the objective history of the society” (Berger & Luckman, 1967, p. 60) and as taken for granted almost as natural laws. The dissolving of external structures which guide people’s thinking and interacting could therefore be assumed to challenge deep human mind identity roots. Such challenges can be associated with both regressive and progressive outcomes, some of which can lead to existential dilemmas. Giddens (1991) pointed at ontological and epistemological issues such as the existence of the finitude of life and the continuation of self-identity. Such self-reflections bring to the fore the meaning and coherence of a person’s self-biography and self-perspective capturing not merely cognitive aspects in a narrow sense but involving also deep motivational value and moral aspects. The significance of work as a socialization domain and work roles appears to have changed due to the such dissolving structures. This has been associated with a gap between “I and me” in the philosopher Mead terms (1934/1967) as elaborated by Allvin (1997). The navigation under such changing structures does in the DIID framing seem to require increasingly abstract and self-aware objectifications of oneself. In studies of unemployment (Hagström, 1988; Jahoda, 1981), schoolwork transitions (Hagström & Gamberale, 1995; Hagström & Kjellberg, 2007), and labor market structural changes (Allvin et al., 2011; Hagström & Hansson, 2003), a dynamic balance of four basic interactive regulations was summarized as follows:

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Cognitive regulations, referring to causal interactions Social regulations, referring to communicative interactions Collective regulations, referring to social interactions Existential regulations, referring to meaning interactions.

The cognitive and social aspects are associated with comprehensibility and belongingness coherences. The collective and existential aspects indicate the developing potentials of these interactive capabilities, collectively in terms of identifying oneself in broader social contexts and existentially as reflections of the being, becoming, and continuity of one’s identity. The cognitive and existential parts of the process can schematically be related to Piagetian approaches and the social and societal parts of the process can be related to Vygotskyan approaches (for a discussion, see Tudge & Winterhoff, 1993). However, the differences between the two approaches might have been overestimated (Tryphon & Vonèche, 1996). They share common essential features such as human interaction and the inside-outside frontiers as mobile which is in accordance with the DIID approach. The inside-out movement of the interaction process captures a transition from the belongingness ego side to the comprehensibility and agent side of the process. The outside-in movement of the interaction, in turn, captures a transition from the agent and comprehensibility side to the belongingness and ego side of the process. The progression of the human mind has been elaborated in interactive terms which varies in their Piagetian and Vygotskian suggestions of progression and interaction regulations but still presents stage-like solutions. Such a more neo-Piagetian-inspired solution has been elaborated in terms of proposals for “action-logic” human mind regulations. They are assumed to pass interlinked interior and exterior spheres of the process and action “territories” of intentionality/aims, planning/strategies, action/behavior, and outcomes/results (Fischer et al., 2003). The territories correspond by and large to the directions of the four A, B, C, and D domains of the duality system. The interaction navigation between these territories is done in the human experience of a gap between what a person wishes to do and can do. The gap starts when an action inquiry generates interaction chains or spirals across the territories. Cognitive and social parts are here described as interaction transformations towards three abstraction levels of feedback spiral processes, entitled single-, double-, and triple feedback loops. The

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first of them might be conceived as behavioral or operational changes, the second as goal and strategy changes, and the third as more overriding vision type of changes. These regulations reflect a hierarchically ordered development progression of a stage character towards higher system levels, like those of the duality system. At the same time, these levels are described as transforming identity positions: “…most of us treat our current structure, strategy, or action-logic as our very identity. To accept double-loop feedback can feel equivalent to losing our very identity” (Torbert & Associates, 2004, p. 18). Such an existential experience involves stage-like feedback loops, transitions across four territories, and existential dilemmas involved in the process, all of them also being the case regarding the DIID approach. The interaction regulations reflect essential characteristics of Kegan’s SOT approach regarding the subject-object stage transformations across youth and adult life as well as the ego reasoning of Loevinger. The actionlogic theory and method are overlapping frameworks of SOT and of Loevinger. The third-order feedback loops are conceived as an identity integrity which can be essentially linked to a person’s deep life purposes and intentions. It is also the case regarding the third and last stage of the experiential learning theory of Kolb (2015). This stage is here underpinned by a first stage-entitled acquisition, spanning birth to adolescence, and a second stage of specialization, spanning early youth to adulthood. A stage-wise progression is proposed although of a clearly “softer” and Vygotskian character, than is the case regarding the Piagetian-inspired hard stage theories. The learning process is conceived as dialectically progressing towards increasing differentiation and hierarchical integration. This psychological development is related to human biological development, especially the evolution of the nervous system (Kolb, 2015, pp. 199–200). Another interactionist development version takes a dynamic structuralism approach (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Fischer & Silvern, 1985). The starting point is taken in “the middle of things” implying that a person’s activities are contextualized in their ecology and embodied and socially situated: …People act and understand through their bodies acting in the world, not through a disembodied mind or brain. The brain and the nervous system always function through the person’s body and through specific contexts composed of particular people, objects, and events…People act jointly with

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other people within culturally defined social situations, in which activities are given meaning. (Fischer & Bidell, 2006, p. 316)

In this sense the interacting person is described as a contextualized and contextualizing human mind and the specialized function of the human mind is: “…to guide and interpret human activity in relation to the world and other people” (Fischer & Bidell, 2006, p. 318) as well as to adapt in a self-regulating way due to goal-oriented activities. The conception of skill plays an important role in the Fischer-Bidell approach understood as the capacity to act in an organized manner in specific contexts. This way of approaching the intersection between learning and development resulted in a hierarchically ordered developmental cycle approach referred to as levels and tiers of skills. It is methodologically related to the scaling procedure elaborated by Commons and colleagues in their model of hierarchical complexity (MHC) outlined above and roughly following Piaget’s stage order. In the Fischer and Bidell framing, 10 levels of skills are grouped into three tiers from early childhood to adulthood (see also Fischer & Silvern, 1985). The tiers refer to larger growth cycles progressing towards increasing abstraction levels in terms of system and system of systems that seem to reflect the feedback spiral loop regulations in the DIID approach. The hierarchical skill growth of Fischer-Bidell has, for example, been outlined as characteristic growth curves of spurts and plateaus. Moreover, this research and theorizing seem to gain support in brain development research: “…Brain growth shows the same series of discontinuities, fitting the hierarchical growth curve for psychological development” (Fischer & Bidell, 2006, p. 387). EEG measurements of electrical activity in the cortex in terms of the amount of energy in electrical waves being entitled as power have found the pattern of waves to oscillate up and down demonstrating growth cycles that move through cortical regions in a regular way. The growth cycles involve systematic patterns around the cortex at each hierarchical level. The cycles are led by its frontal part starting with long-distance connections between this part and occipital parts of both hemispheres moving around the cortex through the right and then the left hemispheres: “…Growth moves systematically through cortical areas until it encompasses networks everywhere in the cortex. The cycle thus explains how independent networks manifest growth spurts in a general age period” (Fischer & Bidell, 2006, p. 288). Kolb, Fischer, and Bidell approach the

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human mind from interactions and external context conditions which result in a stage-wise hierarchical ordering of the generated human competence, although differing in their stage definitions. The externalcontextual focus, not at least inspired by Vygotsky, does not imply explicitly elaborated human mind in “deep identity terms” as abstract self-awareness as in the DIID approach. However, the embodied holistic conception of human mind elaborated by Fischer and Bidell might imply such an implicit mind which also seems to be the case regarding the MHC mathematically elaborated and behavioristic theory which was used by Fischer and Bidell. Moreover, the brain hemisphere movement research by these two scholars appears to open interesting comparisons with the suggested spiral feedback loops of the DIID duality system. The three feedback loops formulated by Torbert and Associates (2004) are discernable in both the Kolb (2015) and the Fischer and Bidell (2006) approaches. The stagewise feedback loops in the transition and transformative parts of their stage progressions are in the DIID system framing schematically illustrated in Fig. 6.1 and in the abstract stages in Fig. 6.2. Formal features concern the social and belongingness part, and abstract features concern the cognitive and comprehensibility parts of these processes. Feedback that challenges the duality balances of these two system parts can generate transformative system shifts in six steps, as illustrated in Fig. 6.2. This process is related to typical vertical transformations in feedback spiral terms.

Transformations Towards Deeper and Broader Awareness In this section, the development progression of the duality system is elaborated further in terms of spiral feedback loops. This type of progression is not explicitly illustrated in for example Fig. 3.1 Therefore, the combination of a spiral and a loop in the system movements call for further clarifications. The movements progress in different levels of horizontal and vertical transformations towards deeper and broader abstract awareness of human mind. A general point of departure when elucidating the duality system development is taken in its abstract social and causal awareness forms. The movements of the system are schematically described in terms of its two vertical-causal-temporal and horizontal-social-spatial system axes. They are elaborated as driving the movements of the duality

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Fig. 6.1 The duality system is illustrated as spiral feedback loops moving in eight different directions according to the mutually crossing axes of sociality-causality, reversibility-irreversibility, and reflection-interaction. Human mind (HM) is involved in each of these moving spiral loops as a navigating center and as ego and agent identity positions motivated by belongingness and comprehensibility drives

system through at least six dialectical transformations towards increasing levels of abstract awareness which are hierarchically organized. Although the DIID approach is elaborated from basic common features of hard stage theories, it differs regarding its understanding of the stage conception and the number of stages proposed. Stages, levels, and transformations are used synonymously as shifting duality balances in a common system progression. Among the hard stage theories described, the development of abstract thinking is considered as initiated for the first time in the life course during the youth period and forward among persons in modern and postmodern societies. The abstract thinking occurs approximately in the third and fourth stages of Piaget’s theory, in the third stage level of the SOT theory, and in the ninth stage level of the MHC theory (or number 10 in later versions of this theory). As described, Piaget’s stage levels reach an end at the fourth stage of formal logical reasoning. The SOT

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Fig. 6.2 Six subfigures which illustrate transformation passages of a socially related horizontal axis and a causally related vertical axis of the duality system towards deeper and broader levels of human mind abstract self-awareness

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approach captures a further fifth stage level of dialectical thinking. This is taking place in adult life (if ever) and is based on Piaget’s fourth stage level as a necessary condition for dialectical thinking of the fifth SOT stage level to occur. The MHC approach builds, as described, on Piaget’s stages of logical reasoning but as a further mathematical elaboration and as a behavioristic approach. The notion of stage or levels varies between these hard stage theories regarding both their content and numbers, but they still share common features as described in previous chapters. In the DIID approach, the dialectically transforming forms progress towards both deeper and broader awareness as a social and humanity-oriented part and a causal and reality-oriented part of the duality system. In Fig. 3.1 the internal deep identity character of the system is focused in the three interactional, epistemological, and ontological levels, from the entrance of the abstract thinking of human mind. These levels are illustrated as interconnected, but the character of their mutual movements is not made explicit. They express a spiral loop character in terms of, for example, back and forth movements within the duality parts and between the dualities of the system. It may be worthwhile to consider the spiral conception a bit further. The duality system is essentially moving as a curvilinear progression of a spiral character. The notion of spiral is associated with many forms in diverse disciplines. The understanding in the DIID framing can roughly be described graphically as a spiral loop. In this understanding, loop is a shape that is produced by a curve which bends around and crosses itself. In the DIID approach, a loop is a curvilinear movement across the two duality parts which are essentially interlinked. The spiral feature can be expressed as a curve which rotates around a point and at the same time increases the distance from this point. This expresses the time progression of the dualities as a combination of lines and circles. Thus, the duality movements appear to proceed as “loops of spirals and spirals of loops”. Such movements can be conceived as a selfsustaining process in two directions such as a decreasing-increasing progression. Such two-fold progressions can psychologically be reflected in self-sustaining movements towards increasingly downward-defensiverigid and upward-open-flexible directions. The axes of the duality system are related, on the one hand, to a socially oriented and, on the other hand, to a causally oriented subsystem. They are not contrasting in defensiverigid-open flexible terms, but they are potentially polarizing. They express contrasting belongingness and comprehensibility motivational drives and

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involve reversible-irreversible movements. The latter movements reflect interactions of human mind with its external world and reflections on these interactions in its internal world. The spiral loops of the duality system are schematically illustrated as one horizontal social-causal axis and one vertical reversibility-irreversibility axis. The movements within the duality system concern interactions in the upper system part and reflections in the lower system part, as illustrated in Fig. 6.1. Irreversibility refers to time sequences in a forward direction involved in agent oriented interactions with the external reality, and reversibility refers to the internal backward reflections on these time sequences as ego oriented reflections in the internal reality. How can the general spiral movements which are illustrated in Fig. 6.1 be understood as a duality system progression towards deeper internal and broader external awareness levels ? In order to answer this, the understanding of the duality-dialectical connections in this process may be gained by a further elucidation. The spiral loop movements illustrated in Fig. 6.1 reflect a basic movement feature of the duality system. Dualities, which are two basic elements constituting each other and their common wholeness, are considered as basic system forms. The meaning of the duality wholes captures meaning qualities beyond those of their two duality elements. At the same time, the duality parts are contrasting and opposing each other, which generate mutually balancing movements to keep them within the meaning limits of their duality wholes. This balancing movement is dynamic as involved in constant change. Such changes are of an adaptive character and move in the DIID framing in pendulum movements as loops back and forth between the two duality elements in contrasting directions. However, the dualities also involve the potential capacity to move dialectically. This can occur when the balance between the duality parts within the social-causal meaning limits of their duality wholeness is challenged by external influences which are highly inconsistent with such a meaning. Thereby the two contrasting duality elements tend to be involved in a polarization process, which progress as loop pendulum movements but progress increasingly faster as thesis-antithesis shifts toward synthesis. The syntheses involve new social and causal meaning limits and qualities. In the DIID framing, they refer to stage transformations on increasingly higher abstract human mind awareness levels. This is the unbalancing dialectical changes of the duality system in one stage towards new temporary balanced stability in a next stage.

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The progression in this direction can be illustrated by separating the interlinked horizontal and vertical axes of the duality system and consider their mutual interplay in its transformations. The horizontal axis is assumed to be basically connected with the social-spatial and reversible feedback loops, which drive the internal stability of the system. The vertical axis is assumed to be basically connected with causal-temporal and irreversible feedback loops, which drive the external change of the system. These two movements are balancing themselves as well as each other in pendulum movements. Since both these movements are assumed to be basically interlinked in their common human mind deep identity as ego-agent parts, the transformations of the system involve both parts and their movements. The movements are assumed to progress potentially in at least six transformative shifts where the horizontal and vertical axes cross each other in each one of the six shifts in increasingly abstract forms or “versions” of human mind awareness. This process is schematically illustrated in Fig. 6.2. The stage transformations between the six stages of Fig. 6.2 involve thesis-antithesis polarizations between the two loops of the vertical and horizontal axes of the duality system in each of the six stages. The transformations can be initiated from the horizontal axis or from the vertical axis, in both cases as thesis-antithesis “loop movements”. The syntheses of these are underpinned by several and increasingly fast movements across the two duality loops which results in the transformative jumps. The new stage levels imply such transformative shifts in both the horizontal and vertical axes since these are assumed to be basically interlinked as a duality system whole, and together constitute an integrated deep identity. The new identities in this sense are in Fig. 6.2 designated with new “content terms”, but they still reflect the social-spatial and causal-temporal basic and mutually contrasting character across the six stages. This expresses the hierarchical and fractal type of the progression. Taken together, the stages capture all the dualities of the duality system illustrated in their three levels in Fig. 3.1 As illustrated in Fig. 6.2, the development of the duality system progress horizontally towards larger social-spatial forms (stereotypical group, institutional-societal, global-universal) to the left and vertically towards more advanced causal-temporal regulations (abstract linear spiral, formal-spiral-system, dialectical-multisystem) to the right. The transforming forms follow hard stage hierarchical progression criteria. They do so in the capacity to transform irreversibly, building hierarchical levels,

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and involving qualitative leaps generated by dialectical transformations. The progression captures both the deep internally oriented and the broad externally oriented movements of the duality system. The hierarchical hard stage character is in Fig. 6.2 also reflected by the dashed line spirals which, in the DIID approach, are the latent and theoretically predicted system axes which follow the manifest axes illustrated by solid line spirals. The dialectical transformations are all a function of the human mind goal-directed interactions and reflections which pass the A, B, C, and D domains of the duality system. The reoccurring character of this process seems to be a kind of fractal progression. The vertical causal-temporal axis involves a forward-backward spiral loop movement, and the horizontal social-spatial axis involves an inward-outward spiral loop movement. The pendulum motions of these duality system movements are assumed to transform in the six steps illustrated. They pass the interactional and epistemological middle system levels reaching the ontological deep levels as increasingly forming an hierarchically organized deep identity of abstract awareness. However, having reached the last ontological level, a further such progression is assumed to concern ego-agent shifting transformations as “epistemological shifts towards deeper ontology”. Based on such stage levels, an unknown number of further transformations may take place beyond the global-universal and dialectical-multisystem levels of Fig. 6.2. This brings to the fore issues regarding the essence of stages and the potential numbers of such levels.

Human Mind Between Past and Future Stages In this section the duality regulations are further addressed as transformations between past and future stages as well as in terms of the hierarchical organization of these stages. According to the DIID approach, the human mind is not capable to objectify oneself as a deep identity whole to reflect upon when being in a certain stage. Such reflections are only possible when next higher stages are obtained, where the former stage positions take the internal form of “objects of awareness” from the position on higher stages. The here-and-now stage positions of human mind are understood as latent subject s. Thus, the subject “here-and-now” position of a certain stage imply reflections of oneself backward as an object of awareness in the past and reflections of oneself forward as a possible object of awareness in future. The duality balances of the subject position can be challenged due to inconsistent and undesirable feedback related to

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the social or the causal side of the duality system. In both cases, they can trigger transformations to obtain meaning balances of the duality system and its duality parts. These positions can be perceived as more or less meaningful. They can imply a potentially threatened future position which might lead to the search for a secure identity in object positions of the past time identity objects. Or they can imply a search for new meaning making possibilities in a potential deep identity imagined in future. The subject-object positions as hierarchically organized bring to the fore how forthcoming subject stage positions operate latently and thereby influence the actual subject stage position. The subject position of human mind is in the DIID approach assumed to operate in a middle or meta position between a former object in the past and a potential later subject in future. The overall function of these transformations is assumed to fulfill survival and deep meaning purposes by combining the social and causal goals described but also to fulfill “energy saving” in both biological and cognitive terms. The shifting duality balances of the DIID approach involve both social and cognitive duality regulations. Such steps and sequences are recognizable in another theory focusing on human capability stages (Jaques & Cason, 1994) and is further elaborated in goal-operational terms (Laske, 2008). This process also involves four steps. A first step concerns unlinked separated actions (disjunctive, or-or operations), and a second step concerns aggregated interlinked separate actions (conjunctive, and-and operations). The third step concerns sequentially coordinated action lines (conditional if-then operations), and a fourth step concerns such interlinked different parallel actions (biconditional, if and only-if operations). These four steps were described above in terms of shifts between the four domains of the duality system which, in turn, illustrate the fulfillment of goal-directed interactions of human mind. They reflect increasingly specified goal and causally directed interaction chains and feedback spiral loops. The progression in the reoccurring four steps outlined can be assumed to trigger the dialectical stage transformations in this direction to occur. The goal setting basic procedure in this direction thus involves progressing evaluations of the outcomes regarding their causal consistency and/or their social desirability. Such evaluations have, as described above, been suggested as passing four basic steps such as those entitled domains. In the framing of the theory of Jaques and Cason (1994), these four steps are inspired by Piaget’s stage theory. Piaget’s first six substages of

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the sensori-motor stage (preceding his pre-operational and concrete stage, and two formal stages) are interpreted by Jaques and Cason (1994) as reducible to their suggested four described steps. Piaget’s sensori-motor substage of secondary circular reactions repeating actions is for example suggested as a disjunctive “and-and” sub step. Further, Piaget´s substage in this stage of coordinating secondary circular reactions is suggested as a conditional “if-then” serial processing sub step (Jaques & Cason, 1994, p. 100). The if-then quality as one of these operation steps is here characterized as the earliest form of problem solving (referring to Piaget’s own word). The four steps described thus involve increasing cognitively specified interaction steps which are combined with socially conflicting positions. The cognitive and social rationality taken together appear to be interlinked. An interesting reflection of the character of these transition steps, as suggested by Jacques and Jason, concerns their seemingly connection with the four basic numbering types of quantitative scaling, entitled as nominal scale, reflecting the disjunctive or-or process, ordinal scale reflecting the conjunctive and-and process, interval scale reflecting the conditional if-then process, and ratio scale, reflecting the bi-conditional if-if and only-if process. If such theoretical connections gain further theoretical and empirical support, they might complement the logic angles involved in the comprehensibility coherence of the DIID approach. It indicates quantitative features in the interaction regulations of theoretical and empirical relevance. The human mind movements between these positions can oscillate back and forth. In interactional terms the dialectics of such a process might be regarded as: “…manifestations of our own actions as a network of mutual causality shaped by processes of positive and negative feedback, and as a dialectical process of unfolding contradiction” (Morgan, 1986, p. 268). Such processes can be related to feedback spiral loop features as those conceived as self-organizing outlined above and which are involved in the duality system. It captures two main steps: positive or reinforcing (amplifying ) and negative or balancing (stabilizing) feedback loops (Morgan, 1986). These loops can be understood as a dynamically balancing process between an internalized belongingness ego-focused thesis position and a not internalized comprehensibility agent-focused antithesis position. The belongingness ego-focused thesis illustrates the position from here and

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now into the past while the comprehensibility agent-focused antithesis illustrates the position from here and now to the future. In periods of relatively stable external conditions, human mind stages are assumed to be regulated mainly latently and in periods of major external instabilities stages are assumed to be regulated mainly manifestly. This generates problem-solving interactions. The stage-transformative potential from outside-in is thus associated with duality balancechallenging conditions. In the perspective elaborated in sequential and hierarchical action regulation theory (e.g., Frese & Zapf, 1994; Volpert, 1989), interactions are considered as regulated on diverse levels of awareness; an intellectual, a perceptive, a conceptual, and a sensory motoric level. The intellectual level concerns consciously articulated goal and plan action sequences involving judgements and feedback in order to solve new tasks. Repetition of such single actions are assumed to lead to more automated interactions on the lower levels mentioned. This functions as a relief of the intellectual regulation in order to make it free to tackle new tasks. The stage transformations might be understood partly by the same reasons. Taken together these levels can be regarded as dynamically interlinked as a wholeness in order to solve everyday tasks on an optimal level of awareness. It can be conceived as a “mental energy saving” way of handling everyday tasks in a flexible way. A parallel in this sense can be drawn to the conception of the human intellect as based on two systems, entitled system 1 and 2 (Kahneman, 2011). System 1 refers to automatic and fast thinking without conscious regulation, while system 2 is associated with more mental tasks which require focused awareness. Kahneman (2011) argues that the automatic mechanism of system 1 might involve surprising patterns of thought, while system 2 can build thoughts in ordered steps. These two systems are conceived as being mutually interlinked in an effective cooperation that minimizes the mental effort and optimizes the performance. Although these operations are not claimed to constitute systems in a traditional systematic sense, they point in the same general direction as action regulation theory regarding the “mental energy saving” aspect. Human interactions are here framed as a dynamic process spanning diverse levels of automatization. It seems to have been evolutionary gainful. The principal idea may be applicable regarding the hierarchical coordination of hard development stages. The coordination of increasingly complex development stages can be assumed to be gained by such

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a flexible and “mental energy saving” way of functioning. This would for example imply a routinization of the coordinations of less complex stages involved in a dynamic interplay with the highest complexity stage levels. These levels have, in turn, the function of guiding the development process as a whole. However, not to be applied if it is not necessary to make sense of inconsistent experiences which require the highest level of guiding capability. Otherwise, the human mind function as a “…central organizing tendency, or a meaning making whole organizing the parts” (Kegan et al., 1998, p. 55) and can be assumed to be processed mainly latently. Stages do thereby not necessarily involve a human mind’s awareness of them as separated and hierarchically ordered. This can be elucidated by considering the subjective experience of stage transformations. After being basically reorganized a newly transformed stage can be conceived as the natural and taken for granted framing of human mind’s interacting and thinking. The latter aspect can be illustrated by one of Piaget’s experiments: “Preoperational thinkers may be unable to see that the same amount of liquid has gotten no greater for being poured into a thinner, taller glass because they lack the structural ability to coordinate their two perceptions of the water in each glass” (Kegan et al., 1998, p. 42). Having overcome this inability enabled by the more complex logic of the new stage order of consciousness the child takes this framing for granted and can hardly understand how it was possible to understand this differently. Such a reaction may indicate that the pure transformation step in the process is progressing fast and subconsciously. The transition steps according to the MHC conception of the progress of logical reasoning seem to point in the same direction (Commons, 2008; Commons & Richards, 2002; Ross, 2008). These transitional steps constitute a dialectical transformative process towards a fractal progression. As described, they occur as repeated cycles from one order to the next, in a pattern of thesis, antithesis, relativism, smash, and finally a synthesis, which is the thesis of the next order. The smash step is described as a chaotic, fourstep process of increasingly faster iterations back and forward between thesis and antithesis. This process seems to involve nonconscious phases which results in synthesis as a basic transformative mental reorganization. However, it does not obviously rule out that this leap has been preceded by several conscious constructivist sub steps. It might rather suggest that these steps constitute a critical mass as a necessary condition for the transformative step to occur. Development according to the duality system

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approach is thus not necessarily regarded as progressing either in small slow steps or big fast leaps or jumps. Both these kinds of processes can be considered to be not only compatible but also interlinked as necessary conditions for transformative leaps to occur. Moreover, the human mind might move across different stage levels in situations where the highest level is not required or due to regressive reactions when confronted with identity threatening challenges. However, it does not mean that the function of such lower stages necessarily is ruling as a permanent stage regression. Here the SOT way of reasoning seems to be agreeable regarding the superordinated function of the highest actual stage. Kegan concludes that: “If regression refers to an actual process of ‘devolution’ of losing a more complex order for a simpler one, then these are not experiences of regression because the most complex structure is still present and at work, however confined it may at the moment be” (Kegan et al., 1998, p. 57). The most complex stage is thus regarded as an evaluating frame of reference when judging actions as more or less consistent with such a standard. However, questions remain to be answered regarding vertical stage regulations for example concerning the relative autonomy of the subordinated stages.

Stages as Fractal Complexity In this section the movements related to the duality system are addressed in complexity theory terms. The development process is more elaborated as stage progressions in fractal and mathematical terms. The movements of the duality system in the spiral loop terms described above indicate possible mathematical expressions of such processes. Spirals can for example be understood mathematically as functions which change the positions or directions of the coordinate system axes. The dialectical movements of the duality system are in the DIID framing reoccurring in a typical way. The ongoing progression of the duality system can be assumed to create increasing complexity in a fractal sense. When applied in the duality system, the notion of complexity refers not basically to a common everyday meaning of the word as something complicated. It rather refers to complexity in the sense of few basic elements progressing towards increasing differentiation. The progressing of the duality system expresses a fractal character. Such a scale-free self-similarity features are elaborated mathematically in the MHC approach which considers its nonlinear hierarchical complexity

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regulations in fractal terms (e.g., Ross, 2014). These regulations are related to the MHC hierarchical stage-ordering principles. Going deeper in the MHC framing of this issue requires some basic methodological and science philosophical considerations. The MHC approach relates the stage development to the logical reasoning built on for example the progression of the four arithmetical methods, and the further progression of this thinking as equation systems. The thinking in hard stage terms is reflected in increasing numbers of unknown variables. They are solved by reversible shifts between the left and right side of the equal signs of the equations. Increasing numbers of equations reflect the hierarchically hard stage orders mathematically. The solutions involve reversibility shifts from each of these equations. These shifts can be considered as thought operations to solve a problem and as a task, as briefly outlined above. The tasks require goal-directed reflections in that sense, which might be adequate also regarding the logical reasoning of Piaget’s stages. Such operations are in the MHC empirical method considered to lead to dichotomic solutions, being either right or wrong. The method involves such tasks entitled as vignettes, which reflect task solutions of different stage levels in the mathematical sense outlined. Investigated persons are asked to choose a preferred task solution among tasks which also are spread across different knowledge domains. The right choice of such task solutions is associated with the stage level of the choosing person. This stage number represents both a person and a data of this person’s characteristics in this sense at the same time when used in the scaling method building on Rasch mathematics. The application of this method enables to determine the distances between stages as equally big, by enabling the dismissing of statistical variance to a high extent of performance data among different persons. These results, in turn, are claimed to support the hierarchical and general underlying character of hard stage progression. The mental side appears in the MHC to be approached indirectly by the choices of task solutions the investigated person prefers. Mental and social sides of the development process are indirectly reflected in, for example, the goal-directed cognitive operations and socially related domains covered by the task construction and task solutions. Such aspects are in this MHC method “expressed” in a stage number. This number might in the DIID framing, for example, reflect the goal-directed thinking operations on different stage levels in the “mental-phenomenological” duality forms of, for example, self-other and cause-effect or subject-object

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human mind regulations. They are in the DIID approach understood as the duality spiral feedback loops described, which, as well as other mental terms, are not theoretically elaborated in MHC model regulations as partly due to its behavioristic scientific stance. However, the reoccurring hard stage progression regulation principle of the MHC and DIID approaches overlaps. In the MHC mathematical version, it involves reversible shifts of equation systems. These mathematical procedures are related to higher hierarchically organized levels interpreted in terms of, for example, system of systems as multisystem. Thus, the same reoccurring principle seems to apply in both the DIID and MHC approaches in terms of a reoccurring fractal kind of progressions. It might be interpreted as a mutual “validation” of both theories, despite their different scientific stances and methodological approaches. This is not surprising in a deep sense, since both theories take an essential point of departure in Piaget’s theory and its progression to the fourth stage of formal, deductive, and hypothetical logical operations. Thus, the further adult development stage progression of both the DIID and MHC theories involves reoccurring reversibility shifts but applied from the different theoretical and methodological approaches described. The general and common feature of the reoccurring principles in the DIID framing seems to be underpinned by inward-outward and backward-forward spiral loop movements of the duality system. These movements are, in turn, reflecting the social and causal duality axes of the duality system. These movements in time and space can be assumed as necessary underlying conditions for human mind to develop. They do not, however, in the MHC perspective explain the DIID meaning making of these regulations. Other efforts to elaborate on the phenomenological later adult ego development stages (e.g., Cook Greuter, 1999) suggest features which appear to overlap those of the DIID approach. The hierarchical and fractal regulation covers two kinds of interlinked stage transformations and can be assumed to reoccur under optimal external conditions over the life course. They can be assumed to progress in an increasingly flexible way, generating increasingly differentiated spiral loop movements, more like wavelike complex patterns than distinct stages. Further life course stages according to the DIID beyond its sixth level of transforming form (outlined in Fig. 6.2) thus proceeds as reoccurring duality systems of duality systems in a hierarchical manner.

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References Allvin, M. (1997). Det individualiserade arbetet: Om modernitetens skilda praktiker (Work: On the two practices of modernity). Symposium. Allvin, M., Aronsson, G., Hagström, T., Johansson, G., & Lundberg, U. (2011). Work without boundaries: Psychological perspectives on the new working life. Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119991236 Berger, P. L., & Luckman, T. (1967). The social construction of reality. Anchor Books. Castells, M. (1996). The information age: Economy, society, and culture: Volume1—The rise of the network society. Blackwell. Commons, M. L. (2008). Introduction to the model of hierarchical complexity and its relationship to postformal action. World Futures, 64, 305–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/026040208023301105 Commons, M. L., & Richards, F. A. (2002). Organizing components in combinations: How stage transition works. Journal of Adult Development, 9(3), 159–177. Cook-Greuter, S. R. (1999). Post autonomous ego development: A study of its nature and measurement (Doctoral dissertation). Harvard University. Fischer, K. W., & Silvern, L. (1985). Stages and individual differences in cognitive development. Annual Review of Psychology, 36(6), 613–648. Fischer, K., & Bidell, T. R. (2006). Dynamic development of action and thought and emotion. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Theoretical models of human development: Handbook of child psychology (pp. 313–390). Wiley. Fisher, D., Rooke, D., & Torbert, W. (2003). Personal and organizational transformations: Through action inquiry. Edge/Work Press. Frese, M., & Zapf, D. (1994). Action as the core of work psychology. In M. D. Dunette & M. H. Leaetta (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 271–340). Consulting Psychology Press. Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Polity Press. Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and the society in the late modern age. Polity Press. Hagström, T. (1988). Arbetslösas beredskap inför arbetslivet. En kartläggning och analys av aktiva-passiva förhållningssätt och betydelsen av olika yttre livsförhållanden (Preparedness of the unemployed for working life: A survey and analysis of active-passive attitudes and the importance of various outward circumstances) (Doctoral thesis). Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Hagström, T., & Gamberale, F. (1995). Young people’s work motivation and value orientation. Journal of Adolescence, 18, 475–490. Hagström, T., & Hansson, M. (2003). Flexible work contexts and human competence: An action-interaction frame of reference and empirical illustrations. In A. Bron & M. Schemmann (Eds.), Knowledge society, information

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society and adult education: Challenges, trends, issues (pp. 148–180). Lit Verlag Münster. Hagström, T., & Kjellberg, A. (2007). Stability and change in work values among male and female nurses and engineers. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 48, 143–151. Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and post modernization: Cultural, economic, and political change in 43 societies. Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R. (2007). Mapping global values. In Y. Ezmer & T. Petterson (Eds.), Measuring and mapping cultures: 25 years of comparative value surveys (pp. 11–32). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004158207.i-193.7 Jahoda, M. (1981). Work, employment and unemployment: Values, theories and approaches in social research. American Psychologist, 36(2), 184–191. Jaques, E., & Cason, K. (1994). Human capability: A study of individual potential and its application. Cason Hall & Co. Publishers Ltd. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar Straus Giroux. Kegan, R., Lahey, L., & Souvaine, E. S. (1998). From taxonomy to ontogeny: Thoughts on Loevinger’s theory in relation to subject-object psychology. In P. M. Westenberg, A. Blasi, & L. D. Cohn (Eds.), Personality development: Theoretical, empirical and clinical investigations of Loevinger’s conception of ego development (pp. 39–58). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kolb, D. A. (2015). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Pearson Education. Laske, O. (2008). Measuring hidden dimensions of human systems: Foundation of requisite organization. Interdevelopmental Institute Press. Mead, G. H. (1934/1967). Mind, self and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. The University of Chicago Press. Morgan, G. (1986). Images of organization. Sage. Reed, E. S., Turial, E., & Brown, T. (1996). Values and knowledge. Mahwah. Ross, S. N. (2008). Fractal transition steps to fractal stages: The dynamic of evolution. World Futures, 64, 361–374. https://doi.org/10.1080/026040 20802301196 Ross, S. N. (2014). Fractal model of nonlinear hierarchical complexity: Measuring transition dynamic as fractals of themselves. Behavioral Development Bulletin, 19(3), 28–32. Torbert and Associates. (2004). Action inquiry: The secret of timely and transforming leadership. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Inc. Tryphon, A., & Vonèche, J. (1996). The social genesis of thought. Psychology Press. Tudge, J. R. H., & Winterhoff, P. A. (1993). Vygotsky, Piaget and Bandura: Perspectives on the relations between the social world and the cognitive world. Human Development, 36, 61–81.

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CHAPTER 7

The Meta System Character

A Meta Position and an Abductive Approach In this section the duality system is elaborated as a meta position between and beyond different theory levels and scientific micro-macro levels and as an abductive approach between induction and deduction. The backward-forward and inward-outward dimensions of the duality system are understood as dualities which move and balance between their opposing positions as feedback spiral loops, navigated by the human mind as a meta position. The movements are expanding back and forth. In deep identity terms, the inward movement focuses the belongingness and the socially oriented duality system part, and the outward movement focuses the comprehensibility and the causally oriented duality system part. The horizontal social-spatial and vertical causal-temporal axes of the duality system constitute a three-dimensional consciousness space. It involves temporal and spatial movements being socially and causally regulated and passing the A, B, C, and D duality system domains as goal directed movements (see e.g., Figs. 6.1 and 6.2). Taken together these spiral loop movements have a transformative potential and capture at least 12 feedback spiral loops in different directions. They are navigated by the human mind in its meta position. The notion of meta, as addressed above, concerns an in-between position in different senses. According to Greek etymology, it refers to concepts like “behind”, “between”, “changed”, and “beyond”. These © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Hagström, The Developing Human Mind, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28647-6_7

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words and connotations point in different directions, directly or indirectly, to an underlying quality between at least two conceptions or phenomenon of an emergent character. It is a phenomenon which can develop under certain conditions. In the DIID approach, the interactive dual parts, combined as dualities, are assumed to involve an emergent quality between these two parts which, as a three-level system, constitutes mental development principles of the human mind. The meta conception does in this sense involve a meaning beyond the two duality parts, as an emerging potentiality towards something more than the sum of its parts. The three basic dimensions of the external reality which we directly observe are length, width, and height which can be conceived as moving universe towards infinity in all these directions. However, in the DIID approach these dimensions are understood to be interlinked as mutually influencing feedback spiral loops. The spiral duality feedback movements involve a time progression which in the DIID framing captures irreversible-reversible shifts within the duality system. The time dimension here involves a forward irreversible direction towards the future and a corresponding backward reversible direction towards the past. The human mind moves between these time positions in an ongoing interactive here and now position, striving towards goals in future by internal reflections and external interactions. These reversible-irreversible human movements are conceived as two interlinked axes of the duality system: a social horizontal axis and a vertical causal axis. These two axes are assumed to move in inward-outward horizontal directions and in backward-forward vertical directions which, in turn, are assumed to reflect temporal and spatial external dimensions. These movements are related to physical and biological scientific-level domains in terms of inward-outward and backward-forward directions which is further elaborated below. It is a development of completely different time scales. It has progressed in physical micro–macro interactions in the universe created by natural laws to the much shorter time scale of the organic-biologic evolution in planet earth towards the still much shorter time perspective of the societal human mind. In this understanding, the human mind is embedded in the regulations of the physical, biological, and social laws and rules. At the same time, human mind is abstractly aware of this position and its possibilities as a self-objectifying consciousness. This capacity provides a meta position in the sense of consciously influencing the direction of hypothetical and deductive thinking of alternative choices of goals

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and plans. This capacity of the duality system has a self-organizing quality which might be experienced as a free will of the meta position as latent potential imagined interaction possibilities. The meta understanding is built on several knowledge domains, scientific disciplines and theory building, as well as some lines of philosophical reasoning. The meta character of the DIID approach is hard to locate in certain traditional disciplinary knowledge fields or at certain micro-macro scale positions. Merton’s sociological theory perspective: “…refers to logically interconnected sets of propositions from which empirical uniformities can be derived” (Merton & Sztompka, 1996, p. 41). Such a middle position is based on minor but necessary working hypotheses which are brought to the fore in scientific research. The middle range theory level reflects in some respects a bridging position between a lower methodologically oriented level on the one hand and a higher theoretically oriented level on the other hand. In Merton’s approach the most inclusive grand theory level represents a general unified theoretical framework capable of explaining all the observed uniformities regarding social behavior, social organization as well as social change. This level appears to overlap the DIID approach in some respects. It concerns generality claims regarding possible knowledge and application domains covered by the Merton theory. His grand theory conceptions, however, seem to differ as compared with the DIID approach in other central respects. Such differences concern the fact that the duality approach focuses the most basic theory elements (according to the Ockham razor principle). It also concerns the fact that the duality system involves basic developing characteristics (according to for example fractal principles) as emerging features of the system. Further, it involves not merely social but also cognitive elements. These aspects delimit, for instance, the generality claims of the DIID approach as it does not claim to explain all observed uniformities in its application fields since these are considered as not predictable in their specific manifestations. This is due to the emergence character of the human mind progression. The uniformities are in best cases explainable in their general structural and processual moving principle but not as enabling exact predictions, as is the case also in different versions of complexity theory. Thus, to some extent and in certain ways the DIID approach overlaps the grand theory generality claims but differ from other such grand theory claims. However, the DIID duality system overlaps the middle range theory understanding regarding their rather close distance to the operational and

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methodological model level. At least potentially it enables empirical data gathering as derived from its theoretical basis. The DIID construction built on common features of empirically based and supported theories makes it for example possible to use the methods of these theories (such as those of SOT and MHC). For instance, the stage levels of the belongingness ego dualities could be indicated by SOT methods and the stage levels of the comprehensibility agent dualities by the MHC methods, however, keeping in mind the necessity to interpret the results obtained by these measurements from their functions and roles in the DIID approach. Other such efforts have been performed (see e.g., Hagström & Stålne, 2015). The generality claims of the DIID approach make it plausible to take an inclusive and open methodological approach. The phenomenon focused is multifaceted. It involves an ongoing movement of change and is capturing qualitatively opposing belonging and comprehending types of motivation. This, in turn, captures opposing differentiating and integrating directions and involves both the internal-subjective and external-objective parts of reality. The human-developing mind as a vast wide-ranging phenomenon might be highly gained by a multi-methodological openness due to the apparent difficulty to grasp at least some parts of its wholeness. The old Indian Buddhism example of three blind men trying to conceptualize the phenomenon of an elephant might provide an example of this. By touching it from different parts of its body and generalize its wholeness merely from few angles, they all miss at least a plausible idea of the elephant body as a whole. The elephant as the biggest terrestrial now living animal in the world seems nearly impossible to grasp spatially by blind and isolated human beings trying to judge the character of its whole form. Confronted with the challenge of understanding human mind as a big abstract whole we are all, if not totally blind, still more, or less visually impaired regarding our conceptual visibility. This is due to ontological limits of grasping the reality as a whole and its epistemological limits. The four (A, B, C, D) domains of this system might for example exemplify the problem of performing generalizations of human development as fundamentally and only being understood from only one of these domains, or on the basis of only one of the grand, middle, or model reductivist theory levels. This appears not at least to be the case regarding such a wide-ranging phenomenon as the human mind. The methods used to approach this might more or less capture both soft and hard data and consider them both quantitatively

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and qualitatively, by number-based calculations and word-based interpretations and the other way around. It may apply cross-sectional and longitudinal designs, person-based or variable-based statistical methods or experimental designs, observation methods and interpretation methods to consider different and interlinked aspects of the phenomenon studied. The notion of abduction has in this book so far been referred to as a link between induction and deduction without being much further elaborated. In the DIID approach, abduction can be conceived as a duality whole which interlinks induction and deduction as its two duality parts. In this sense abduction may be understood as a dynamically balancing and progressing process with dialectical developing potentials, generating new hypotheses. Such a duality understanding can be argued for, but such arguments should be underpinned more by other theoretical and philosophical interpretations of the abduction conceptions and its roots. As a departure it can be traced in the philosophical movement entitled as pragmatism, notably in the version articulated by the philosopher Pierce and interpreters of his thinking. Pierce formulated uniformity and causality principles as a base for scientific inferences and claimed that they are initially constituting the three irreducible forms of deduction, induction, and hypothesis (1982). Abduction was introduced later (Forster, 1997), and its definition changed over time (Wouters, 1998). Abduction came here to be understood as the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis, as the only logical operation that presents new ideas: “…induction does nothing but determine a value, and deduction merely the central source creativity evolves the necessary consequences of a pure hypothesis” (Wouters, 1998, p. 130). Abduction and not induction was thus conceived as the base of creativity in inquiry, which thereby is related to the creative capacities of the investigator. Further: “…In every abduction, the researcher must, for reasons of economy, pick up the hypothesis that seems to be the most ‘simple’ or as Pierce puts it, the one ‘composed’ of a few conceptions natural to our minds” (Wouters, 1998, p. 130). The phenomenology of Pierce, being inspired by for example the dialectical thesis, antithesis, and synthesis stages associated with Hegel, involves the triads of firstness, secondness, and thirdness. Firstness refers to existence independent of everything else, while secondness refers to existence as reaction on this firstness and thirdness refers the intermediation between firstness and secondness (Bertilsson & Christiansen, 2020). The triad definition thus implies that the thirdness involves the two other triad elements and that secondness implies firstness. These triad

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criteria appear to overlap the duality conception according to the DIID approach as two basic mental elements constituting each other and its wholeness and the other way around. The firstness category might be conceived as reflecting the regulations of a latent emerging duality system behind the regulations of a manifested duality system. In both cases firstness takes a middle and beyond position linking its secondness and thirdness positions backwards and forwards in time as its two duality parts. The firstness position is in such an interpretation essentially a necessary condition for the secondness and thirdness categories, the latter being necessary for the former to occur and vice versa. A triad logic in these directions seems to overlap the mathematical disciple of relational logic, created by Pierce. The prototype of a triad relation is here a relation of signs, where the primary sign is the vehicle of the sign, the object of the sign and the interpreter of the sign. These three categories are conceived as interwoven in everything that can be captured in consciousness. The relational logic implies relations as junctions or nodes in logical networks that can be extended in several dimensions, however involving at least three branches, to enable a logic beyond one-dimensional chains from premises to conclusions. The role of abduction in this reasoning is basic. It serves as a central nave around which the scientific process and thinking moves, by the creating of hypotheses. These, in turn, build the base for reasoning about its logical consequences in deduction theoretical and induction empirical terms. Similar system features are also characterizing the duality system, where these kinds of triads involve junctions within the dualities of the system as well as between the system as a whole and its surrounding triad systems. The role of abduction in these triad dynamic reasoning has a pragmatic direction both philosophically and empirically. Abduction is related to the experiences of strange or confusing facts, which might generate hypotheses that are considered more formally by inductive methods and deductive explanations. All these three components are necessarily more or less involved, but it is the abductive component of this triad that involves the material or qualitative content which is the link of the philosophical and logical reasoning towards the external world of the human mind. The pragmatic value might in this sense concern the interlinking of the perceived reality with a logic of action which is useful in deciding which hypotheses that are substantial enough to apply according to pragmatic meaningfulness. Such a pragmatic feature is not implied in itself in deductive and inductive considerations. This

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abductive connection with the ongoing man and environment interaction might be regarded as a pragmatic critical meaning tool, to decrease the gap between unconscious and conscious interactions. These aspects seem to correspond to the human mind pass ways between its irreversible and reversible duality domains.

Meta Methodological Approaches In this second section, the meta position of the DIID approach is related to a broad scientific-methodological outlook. Thus, the DIID duality system can be considered as a meta position methodologically as well as theoretically. The meta concept is elaborated methodologically regarding its consistency, method, and empirical basis, focusing the knowledge area of life span development. The common theoretical features of the stage development theories, forming a base for the duality system, can be found in theories using different methodological designs. They capture for example experimental or cross-sectional and longitudinal designs as well as several types of data such as qualitative-soft or quantitative-hard ones, and various kinds of quantitative analyses, such as mathematical scaling methods and growth curves. In the field of developmental psychology, a literature overview has resulted in distinctions in terms of developmental models and developmental metrics (Stein & Heikkinen, 2009, p. 8). The models are regarded as either explanatory or descriptive, both being qualitatively evaluated as their “disciplinary discourse”. Metrics is regarded as calibrated measures or soft measures which are qualitatively evaluated as psychometric in terms of validity and reliability. These distinctions are considered as discipline general and are spanning different theories. The duality system focuses as described, on common features of life span development theories and their methodological approaches. The terminology of the developmental models evaluated by Stein and Heikkinen is described as: “…of a reasonable nuanced philosophy of science” (2009, p. 8). Descriptive models are referred to as inductive reasoning with the application of sample-population generalizations. Explanatory models evaluated apply the thinking of Pierce (1982) which is described as inferences to the best explanation. Metrics used in this evaluation is judged to varyingly focus on soft and calibrated measures. Piaget is recognized as the one who first used clinical or qualitative interview methods to decide stages of cognitive development in his series of classical studies. This initiated several followers

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that: “…have offered a variety of hierarchical taxonomies and related indexes of development for use in the systematic differential classification of performances” (Stein & Heikkinen, 2009, p. 11). Metrics used in this evaluation are judged to varying degrees that focus on soft and calibrated measures. Categorizations of theories in such or similar terms raise different generality claims when they cover wider and/or deeper aspects of phenomena, such as the grand theories and middle range theory levels outlined above. Codification of metrics by Colby et al. (1987), Cook Greuter (1999), Jaques and Cason (1994), and Loevinger (1976) cover informal judgements of datasets in terms of their development properties as indices. They involve moral iterative intersubjective agreement procedures in the construction of indices towards hierarchical taxonomies. It resulted in for example content-based developmental metrics such as the codification of certain basic conceptions which are related to different stage-like levels. These capture certain conceptions of “the Golden Rule”, noticed above, appearing at stage three in Kohlberg’s moral stage theory. Datasets used to construct such metrics were, as a standard practice, taken from longitudinal data. Loevinger’s sentence completion test (Loevinger, 1976; Westenberg et al., 1998) also involves codifications of this kind but focuses on a half projective procedure where answers of not fulfilled sentences are interpreted as development-level indications. Quantitative procedures are used to judge the internal consistency and interval spacing of the categories of the responses. Other kinds of metrics use deep structures of linguistic performances traced in empirical research and model building and are thereby judged as indications of universal features. The scoring procedure of Model of Hierarchical Complexity developed by Commons and colleagues (The HCSS Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System) is described as enabling the building of several domain-specific hierarchical taxonomies by the application of general procedures to distinguish between development levels of a hard stage character (Commons et al., 1998; Dawson-Tunic et al., 2005). This methodological approach is addressed as a way of quantitatively determining deep levels of development using structural properties as index basis. Moreover, quantitative refinements of a qualitatively constructed index have been applied (Cook Greuter, 1999) as well as the other way around (Dawson-Tunic et al., 2005). The interview procedure based on Kegan’s subject-object theory, SOT (Lahey et al., 1988; Kegan, 1982), is in the Stein and Heikkinen (2009) framing considered as

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a structure-based metric. This theory is, as described, theoretically based on Piaget’s agent-oriented reasoning and elaborates on stage progression in ego and belongingness meaning terms as well as on other neo-Piagetian stage conceptions towards a meta synthesis. It’s psychometric quality is (beside the training manual referred to) published in three peer review journals regarding inter-rater reliability and construct validity (Pratt et al., 1991), test-retest reliability and predictive validity (Harris & Kuhnert, 2008; Lewis et al., 2005). The psychometric quality of the measurements related to the Hierarchical Complexity Model (MHC) has also, as described, theoretically taken a basic departure from Piaget’s theory. As elaborated above, both SOT and MHC are characterized as hard stage theories despite their different meta theoretical approaches, and both form a basis for the duality system theory and can also be applied in this DIID framing methodologically. The methodological stringency of MHC has been judged in peer review journals in terms of construct validity, internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, and evidence from a fine-graded interval scale (Dawson-Tunik et al., 2005) as well as in terms of congruent validity (Dawson, 2003, 2004) and construct validity (Xie & Dawson, 2006). These are examples of model and metric features in the stageoriented psychological development domain. Stein and Heikkinen argue that: “…there are many metrics currently in play and they are not equally valid and reliable” (2009, p. 29). However, they point out that it does not necessarily means a homogenization of metric types and marginalization of certain types. Instead, they underline a need for an integral and problem-focused metrological pluralism. Their way of linking for example metrics and models as constituting meta theoretical distinctions appears as an ambition to both understand and measure psychological phenomena. Such a meta way of thinking would be open for both quantitative “hard” data and qualitative “soft” data as well as possible combinations of these. Moreover, the quantitative and qualitative distinctions might be applied for both types of data due to their applications in different research designs for instance in more explanatory deductive and explorative inductive versions (for a plausible overview of these issues, see Bryman, 2004). The DIID approach builds, as described, on development theories which, taken together, constitute a not insignificant diversity both methodologically and theoretically. Such overlapping features have also, as described, been discerned among the hard stage versions with high generality claims,

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notably Piaget’s theory, the subject-object theory (SOT) and the Model of Hierarchical Complexity (MHC). Nevertheless, they differ not only regarding research designs and data types. They also differ regarding their assumptions regarding human mind holistically as well as their interest or legitimacy to focus human mind scientifically in mental terms. The subject-object theory takes the mental subjectivity of human mind as focus, whereas MHC rejects this as scientifically incorrect. Piaget’s position overlaps these two approaches. An example is the application of logical reasoning and mathematics in relation to MHC and by focusing on mental comprehensibility meaning aspects in clinical experiments in relation to SOT. Thus, the most obvious difference in these respects concerns those between SOT and MHC. The latter approach states for example criteria to reach minimum conditions necessary to constitute a scientific theory. They are analytical criteria (such as mathematics and logics), phenomenological criteria (such as internal events) and empirical criteria. Combinations of analytical and empirical criteria define most sciences and are considered to represent more legitimate approaches, while combinations of phenomenological criteria with analytical or empirical criteria are judged as problematic. Efforts to discern sequential stage like development patterns have been performed by comparing different measurements in different knowledge domains. Skill learning has, as described, been found to be discernable in terms of MHC hierarchical complexity levels (Fisher & Bidell, 2006), as well as learning measured according to the SOLO taxonomy referring to the structure of observed learning outcomes among students (Stålne et al., 2016). The MHC approach has also been used to measure development progression of religiosity according to Day (2011). Other interesting examples are value system development in a sequential order of ego development terms using pattern cognition statistics and probability (Kjellström et al., 2017; Sjölander et al., 2014). They are examples of efforts to discern stage-like development progressions by combining different measurements to discern overlapping results. They may support a common sequential structure measured by a certain measurement approach. At the same time, they may suggest common general features of the development process measured. The DIID approach is based on common features of empirically based theories, Empirical measurements to address for example belongingnessoriented stage progressions can, as noticed, be performed by the subject-object interview of SOT, and empirical measurements to judge

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comprehensibility-oriented stage progression can be performed by the MHC scoring system of HCSS. Other stage measurements in the neoPiagetian research field, like those mentioned above, can be used as indicators of stage processual and structural characteristics as well, However, empirical findings generated by such methodological procedures have to be interpreted in the framework of the DIID system, and the meta theoretical assumptions of this approach. The “methods” of this approach thus require a “meta methodological” interpretation procedure. The inclusiveness and integrating ambition of the DIID approach focus on common features in metrics, model, theoretical, and meta theoretical terms, with the purpose to discern and clarify basic structural, processual, and functional characteristics of the human mind.

The Notion of Qualia In this section the meta conception is elaborated between micro and macro positions in the physics and biology disciplines and the consciousness of human mind is considered in terms of different interpretations of the qualia conception. According to the DIID approach, the human mind is conceived as a holistic and embodied system in between these disciplinary levels and knowledge domains. The human mind has, beside its biological and social meta positions and embeddedness, also been associated with phenomena in the physics domain, not at least its quantum physical manifestations. Such approaches are intertwined with quantum physics and relativity theory and efforts to unify these in string theory to discern the building blocks of universe. How does the human mind take place in these hierarchies? Tegmark approaches the human consciousness issue as a physicist defining consciousness broadly as “subjective experience” such as “if it feels like something to be you right now, then you are conscious” (Tegmark, 2017, p. 283). The starting point is taken in some distinctions made by the philosopher Chalmers (1996) as different difficult levels of the problem of understanding the mysteries of the mind. Less difficult levels concern the brain processing of information which appears as not an easy problem to solve but not a mysterious one. The most difficult “really hard” problem is formulated as why you have a subjective experience or why anything is conscious. Basic elements of consciousness are associated with the notion of qualia being defined as: “…individual instances of subjective experience – that is, to mean the subjective experience itself, not any purported

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substance causing the experience” (Tegmark, 2017, p. 286). The relation between human mind and reality is more generally associated with three interrelated perspectives, an external reality referring to a bird perspective of mathematical descriptions, a consensus reality of classical physical descriptions and an internal reality of subjective descriptions associated with cognitive science (Tegmark, 2014, p. 238). Basic challenges are here described as, on the one hand, for physics to clarify the relation between external reality and consensus reality and, on the other hand, for the cognitive science to clarify the relation between the consensus reality and the internal reality (e.g., qualia). Tegmark’s inclusive definition of consciousness as subjective experience does not elaborate further in terms of the developing self-awareness character of human mind. However, his suggestion that it is a partly autonomous system seems to overlap. Consciousness here: “…appears to require not a particular kind of particle or field, but a particular kind of information processing that’s fairly autonomous and integrated, so the whole system is rather autonomous but it’s parts aren’t” (Tegmark, 2017, p. 315). The notion of qualia has also been applied from biological considerations. It has been further elaborated for example by Damasio in his biological life science framing although he considers this concept as “somewhat slippery” (Damasio, 2012, p. 253). Emotions and feelings are conceived as “biological values” as they are tied to needs, and needs are tied to life. Emotions and feelings have a biological survival value as they serve survival and being purposes, which can be related to homeostatic processes. This “Qualia 1 problem” is not regarded as a hard problem. The hard problem rather concerns the “Qualia 2 problem” as formulated in the question: “why should perceptually maps, which are neural and physical events, feel like anything at all?” (Damasio, 2012, p. 256) His way of approaching this problem is related to the body and mind functioning as a wholeness: “Feeling states first arise from the operation of a few brain-stem nuclei that are highly interconnected among themselves and that are the recipients of highly complex, integrated signals, transmitted from the organism’s interior” (Damasio, 2012, p. 257). The signals are not separated from the organism states they come from but are instead regarded as constituting a dynamic holistic unit. Therefore, body states and perception states cannot be divided as separates lines.

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Damasio claims that neurons which enable the conveying of signals to the brain about the body’s interior would have such an intimate association with internal structures that these signals would not only be about the state of the flesh but literally extensions of the flesh. Neurons are thus not conceived as microchips which receive body signals. Neurons are concluded to have effects due to their inherent “sensitivity” or “irritability” and like muscle cells to have the ability of being excitable. Thereby, they repeatedly open the cell membranes that protect the interior of the cells as violations occur which can create feelings. More generally, Damasio argues that neurons: “… functioning ‘ought to feel like something’ otherwise they should not have that survival function” (p. 259). Another quality function seems to concern “a functional linkage that bridges the gulf between the brain and the starting point of the sensory chains in the body’s end-organ periphery:” … Such a feedback loop might enable a direct subjective experience of an internal body-mind holism “…where the signals originated, thus contributing to the integration of inner and outer world” (Damasio, 2012, p. 261). The meta position of human mind can be discernable from different perspectives. The scientific disciplinary micro-macro hierarchy may be conceived as for example levels of spatial visibility. From such a perspective, the human mind “meta” level appears to concern a meta position in at least two main ways. One of these is a micro direction of physical and biological science levels towards the human mind and its further macro direction of social science levels. The spatial visibility is here increasingly manifested in, for instance, material manifestations such as artifacts, infra structures, and buildings as external objects of awareness. In the form of institutions, they, as described, can even be perceived as kind of natural laws. The meta position of human mind takes its departure in the human body as a visible and self-conscious object among other human minds and visible human objects as well as other visible objects of the external world. However, the distinctions between micro-macro levels of this world are increasingly less visible towards the micro level. The spatial visibility is radically reduced in the quantum physics level, and here not even being assumed to involve the spatial-temporal dimensions that are attributed to the external reality experienced by the human mind. The classical Physic Newtonian perception of the external reality and its radical further development in the Einstein relativity thinking has come to conceptualize the macro physics levels of reality as for instance its macro forms in universe. The connections between these micro–macro levels are still

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hard to comprehend by the human mind. The relativity theory remains to be fully integrated with quantum physics theory as one of the most challenging scientific efforts of today to create a “Theory of everything”. Efforts in this direction express more or less reductivist ideas to explain both reality as a whole and the notion of consciousness. The difficulties to comprehend the odd character of quantum physics have generated philosophical and meta theoretical efforts to discern connections between quantum physics and consciousness in general as well as its human mind versions. The intangible visibility and “free flying” character of human thinking remind of quantum physics processes. in terms of similarities between this physics. Efforts to connect quantum physics and human mind consciousness were at hand in the 1970s and eastern religions and philosophy such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Zen (Capra, 1975, 2010). This seems to have influenced for example new age thinking waves which followed and maybe also postmodern thinking which opposed positivistic scientific thinking. Other scientifically based efforts concern panpsychism which elaborates on the possibility that basic physical entities involve conscious experiences. These efforts have approached different problems. The combined higher abstraction and awareness levels which characterize human stage development according to the DIID approach are a function of the human insights of not at least the reversibilityirreversibility duality distinction. This implies the abstract understanding of for example the backward-forward, past-future, internal-external, and the inside/out-outside/ in duality distinctions. They are distinctions that, for instance, bring to the fore existential and ontological issues of the continuation of time and the meaning of reality. These issues, in turn, have developed in self-organizing terms in the capacity of the human mind to use and combine words and numbers, qualities, and quantities. The duality system way of explaining such typically human mind capabilities is in the book described as a superordinated guiding function, to survive and find meaning of life. In this sense the duality system is suggested to guide its physical, biological, psychological, and social systems, directly or indirectly, as necessary conditions for the duality system to occur and develop. The sufficient conditions behind the typical human mind stage progression are, as described, attributed basically to its capacity of its “abstract awareness of oneself in the world and the world in oneself”.

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How can the quantum physics be assumed to function in human mind? As described, Tegmark (2017) proposes that quantum level movements do not in themselves directly define the movements of the human mind. The movements of the quantum level are instead proposed to be guided and directed by the mental system. It applies under the condition that such an information processing system is: “fairly autonomous and integrated” and when: “the whole system is rather autonomous but it’s parts aren’t” (Tegmark, 2017, p. 315). How can such a system be conceived in elementary, or generality terms when compared to quantum physics? An idea is here formulated by the philosopher Chalmers (1996) in terms of psychophysical laws. These are: …specifying how phenomenal. properties depend on physical properties. These laws will not interfere with physical laws; physical laws already form a closed system. Instead, they will be supervenience laws, telling us how experience arises from physical processes. We have seen that the dependence of experience on the physical cannot be derived from physical laws, so any final theory must include laws of this variety. (Chalmers, 1996, p. 127)

As an example of how psychic and physical parts of such a consciousness theory are interrelated, Chalmers refers to electromagnetism. Efforts to explain this phenomenon in terms of physical laws, he claims, have been unsuccessful. However, by considering features such as electromagnetic charge and forces as basically involved, new basic electromagnetic laws were discernable, as the only way to explain this phenomenon. This, he argues, is also assumed to be the way consciousness necessarily is to be explained as basically adding the “psycho law part” to the “physical law part”, to generate new fundamental mental features and laws. Consciousness cannot be explained, he claims, without both types of explanations being involved. Chalmers concludes that we have very little idea of what such a psychophysical theory looks like or what its already known psychophysical laws are, but that there are still reasons to believe that it is possible to attain. He states that: …There is good reason to believe that there is a lawful relationship between physical processes and conscious experience, and any lawful relationship must be supported by fundamental laws. The case of physics tells us that fundamental laws are typically simple and elegant; we would expect the same of the fundamental laws in a theory of consciousness. Once we

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have a fundamental theory of consciousness to accompany a fundamental theory of physics, we may truly have a theory of everything. (Chalmers, 1996, p. 127)

If, why, how and to what extent the DIID approach might contribute to such a fundamental theoretical progression is an open question as well as to what extent this approach fulfills the simpleness and elegance criteria of such a theory. However, as hopefully is clarified in this book, one basic purpose is to identify the basic mental conceptions and the basic regulation principles of these in terms of the duality system presented. It may at the same time provide ideas regarding the free-flying feature of the human mind thinking as contrasting the fast earth-bound feature of the human body behind the dualism assumption of Descartes outlined in the introduction of the book.

Lenses of Perception and Quantum Physics In this section, the meta positions focus on the interplay between quantum and gravity physics in human consciousness. Main issues concern why and how these processes could be related to the DIID approach. The processes are outlined below and are understood in terms of lenses of perception. Suggested movements of the duality system in such terms are illustrated in Fig. 7.1. Scientific challenges concern, for example, how micro subjects such as quarks and photons combine to produce macro subjects such as cells and living organisms, and, even more, the complex human brain. A theoretical approach suggests human mind processes and quantum processes as integrated in panpsychism terms. This approach is referred to as “the lenses of perception interpretation of quantum mechanics” or LoP (Marman, 2016, 2018). It describes and analyses a lenses of perception interpretation of quantum mechanics. These lenses reflect an evolutionary pass way from embryonic perceptions and emerging emotions. The progression seems to roughly correspond with Damasio’s ideas of emerging homeostasis processes. The latter takes a departure in the primitive forms which follow phylogenetical and ontogenetical roads towards more complex consciousness forms. The lenses are, in turn, related to three levels of perceptions. Basic similarities between the human mind processes and the micro physical processes are linked together in these levels. A top level is defined in terms of observable phenomena from a third-person perception. It

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Fig. 7.1 The spiral movements of the duality system are illustrated as crossing its four domains (A, B, C, D) in overall movement constituted by the horizontal inward-outward spatial axis crossing a vertical backward-forward temporal axis in a common movement in opposing interlinked directions designated in plus and minus terms

concerns the manifested world as material objects and interactions from outside-external positions. They provide distinct objects forming basis for analyses and thoughts. A closer observation, however, is claimed to reduce this clearness since this top level can’t explain the quantum processes. A middle level is defined in terms of a first-person perception. This is claimed to build the base of all tangible activity enabling intangible quantum and unconscious processes being actualized as tangible ones and thereby being visible in the top third-person level. Quanta and living organisms interact individually in this sense and exchange energy. A bottom level is, finally, defined in terms of a second-person perception. It concerns the influence of different possibilities of interactions taking place both on the quanta and living creature level as “sentient agents”. Those possibilities are uncertain, evolving gradually. They emerge gradually by attraction and repulsion in agent relationships as wave functions on the quantum level. The human mind can be conceived as a meta position in between these internal and external realities of the physics knowledge discipline. The top level seems to concern the spatial-visible perceptions of the external reality which in the DIID framing might involve the agent-comprehensibility

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and causal part of the system, for example the cause-effect dualities. The bottom level seems to concern the non-spatial invisible perceptions of the internal reality which in the DIID framing might involve the egobelongingness and social part of the system, for example, the self-other dualities. The middle level, in turn, seems to concern the transitions and interactions between the ego dualities and the agent dualities. In the human mind, the agent and ego parts of the interaction processes are, as described, basically interlinked in the foreground or background in the progression of the duality system. The transitions between these positions in the quantum level are in the LoP framing described in terms of quantum wave collapses of internal potentialities which are realized in external realities. In the human mind, these processes appear to correspond with alternative internal potential hypothetical possibilities as intentions taking the step over to real external goal directed interactions. One main idea of the LoP is that quantum behavior in principle is involved in human relationships with each other and their environment. To this statement is further added the conclusion that, if this theory lasts, it has far-reaching consequences regarding biology, psychology, and the social sciences. Quantum effects are assumed to essentially play roles in all these disciplines. Another main idea of the LoP approach concerns the “measurement problem” in quantum mechanics. It concerns the impact of the observer in quantum experiments when trying to measure or observe basic particles involved in change processes and their outcomes. Such observations are in the LoP framing attributed with serious problems since such a third-person perspective only enables an outside perspective which makes it impossible to observe what is going on inside at the quantum level. The LoP assumption of “sentient agents” from the quantum level and upwards in the micro and macro scientific levels appears to generalize the measurement problem across several levels: Organisms naturally respond to being measured because, whether we realize it or not, the act of measuring and observing creates a relationship with living things that alters how they behave. This suggests that if there is a possibility that quanta are sentients then a relational lens is needed to unravel the meaning of quantumness and where it comes from. (Marman, 2018, p. 76)

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As illustrated in Fig. 7.1, the horizontal inward-outward axis involves a spatial movement in two directions, towards smaller dimensions inwards and towards larger dimensions outwards. The vertical backward-forward axis involves a temporal movement in two directions, towards the future forwards and towards the past backwards. The human mind is in “here and now” meta positions in between moving across the four A, B, C, and D domains of the duality system by goal directed interactions and reflections, as described. The upper side of the system refers to irreversible external interactions, while the lower side of the system refers to reversible internal reflections. Speculatively the quantum physical processes take a central role in the reversible, backward, and inward reflections taking place in the lower side of the system in Fig. 7.1 In the irreversible, forward, and outward interactions, the classical physical processes take a central role in the upper side of the system in Fig. 7.1 These movements are schematically illustrated in Fig. 7.1. How can the human mind movements crossing the four domains of the duality system in goal directed interactions and reflections be understood in Marman’s approach? A point of departure can be taken in Tegmark’s reasoning regarding the role of micro quantum processes in relation to consciousness outlined above. Consciousness is here not claimed to require any kind of particle or field. It is instead related to a particular kind of information processing. A similar idea is, as described, elaborated by Chalmers in his psycho-physics theoretical reasoning. Such information processing is further understood as being: “fairly autonomous and integrated” to the extent that: “the whole system is rather autonomous but it’s parts aren’t” (Tegmark, 2017, p. 315). The idea of the whole being rather autonomous, but not its parts is a basic duality feature according the DIID approach. This approach as a duality system claims to build an autonomous identity wholeness of such basic dualities constituting the movements of change and development of human mind. The whole duality system is in this sense something more than its parts, which involves the meta-emergent capacity to transform stage in a hard stage wise manner in interaction with external systems. The system might be conceived as a system of information processing, but it does not explain the developing mechanism. An overriding issue here concern whether, why and how such an information process system is autonomous and integrated enough to constitute something more than its parts. If this is the case, this information approach can be suggested as a mental system organization which

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guides and integrates the quantum physical particles and fields, following Tegmark’s and Chalmer’s reasoning. This seems to imply that the mental system (e.g., the DIID system) at the quantum level “in itself” consists of quantum fields and particles in the micro physical level movements. It might further imply that these movements are guided and directed (implicitly or explicitly) by the mental-duality system if it is fairly integrated and autonomous. This is assumed to be the case regarding the DIID approach. The human mind is according to the DIID approach suggested to fulfill the guiding function reflected in the goal-directed interactions and reflections across the four duality system domains. The guiding role of the duality system has above been related to biological systems, for example the brain hemisphere functioning. The guiding movement and progression principles concern more generally the necessary and sufficient causes of the developing process which involve the relative influences of internal and external systems in a wider sense. In the DIID framing, the human mind is in its continuously ongoing “here and now position” not capable to objectify oneself, its processes and wholeness from a “total outside position” The movements of the human mind system involve, as described, at least 12 feedback spirals in different directions, passing the four duality (A, B, C, D) domains (see Figs. 6.1, 6.2, 9.1 and 9.2). The passing of the A and B domain in the upper part of the system is based on the classical physical laws related to for example gravity influence on the human body in irreversible movements. This is not the case regarding the passing of the C and D domain in the lower part of the duality system which might follow the quantum physical laws related to for example electromagnetic influence on human thinking in reversible movements.

Mathematics and the Coordinate System In this section, the meta feature of the DIID approach is interpreted mathematically in coordinate system terms being expressed as feedback spiral loop interactions. These movements (illustrated for example in Figs. 7.1 and 7.2) are in the DIID approach assumed to be interpreted mathematically. The left and right side of the coordinate system is assumed to reflect the socially and causally oriented sides of the duality system. These mental categories can be assumed to be expressed mathematically in three dimensions. As described, the movement of the two duality axes drive the duality

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system as a whole in a clockwise direction. However, as also described, this movement involves different directions within the system in reversible horizontal and irreversible vertical movements. The spiral character of these movements reflects two types of spiral movements, a linear (irreversible) dominated one in the vertical axis and a circular (reversible) dominated one in the horizontal axis. The characteristics of the duality movements implies curve linear spiral movements inward-outward in the horizontal direction and backward-forward in the vertical direction. Since these axes and movements are assumed to be basically interlinked, they generate in total at least 12 spiral feedback loop directions. Mathematical reasoning has, as noticed, been applied by both Piaget and Commons (MHC) approaches. In the DIID approach, such ideas can be further developed regarding their duality spiral loop movement features. Such movements can be assumed as two interlinked coordinate systems in terms of mathematical movements within such a three-dimensional system. In such an effort, we return to the original creator of the coordinate system, the philosopher Descartes, the interpreter of the body and mind dualism outlined in the introduction of

Fig. 7.2 The duality system movements across its four domains (A, B, C, D) comprising the duality system axes of sociality-inward-reversibility and causalityoutward- irreversibility movements as well as past-backward-reversibility and future-forward-irreversibility axes involved in a common movement of opposing directions designated in plus and minus terms

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the book. His “dual dilemma” is returning to the focus, however taking another pass way when approaching the relations between the dual parts and their characteristics. The two axes of the duality system can be assumed to cross each other in the origin of the axes. The spirals of the duality system move within and along the four duality system domains in minus and plus directions of the four quadrants corresponding coordinate systems. The backwards, inwards, and reversible directions are conceived as “minus positions”, and the forward, outward, and irreversible positions are conceived as “plus positions”. Doing so, the coordinate systems are related to human mind meaning making of belongingness-social-ego and comprehensibility-causal-agent interactions and reflections from the past to the future. The horizontal and vertical axis of duality system axes might be entitled as X-axis and Y-axis and their common movement as a Z-axis mathematically. They represent a three-dimensional movement constituted by two basic axes. In their diagonally crossing of the duality system, they pass the four A, B, C, and D duality system domains. Here minus and plus assignment combinations represent spiral movement progressions towards expansions in different interlinked directions. They refer, for example, to increasingly smaller directions designated as minus-minus, which create expansions towards smaller dimensions and increasing larger directions designated as plus, which create expansions towards larger dimensions. Both movements “expand” but in different directions. The pass ways across the four (A, B, C, D) domains reflect turning points in the system movements designated as plus and minus combinations. They express the directions of the system movements as a whole in a clockwise Z-direction. The movements within the system seem to rotate around its axes in a similar way as planet earth rotation around its axis in its movement around the sun. The principles of the duality system movements are illustrated in Fig. 7.2. The duality system movements across its four domains (A, B, C, and D) illustrated in Fig. 7.2 comprise in total four crossing axes, moving in 12 opposing directions designated in plus and minus terms. The movements across the four domains are here (as in Fig. 6.1) illustrated in plus-minus combinations which look somewhat like schematic versions of “human faces”. In this framing, plus represents “open eyes” outward towards the irreversibly and forward moving external world. Minus represents “closed eyes” inward towards the reversibly and backward moving internal world. The plus and minus signs of “the mouths of the faces” represent mathematically the results of the combined eye signs and at the same time

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the main direction of each domain in their goal-directed interaction spiral as a whole. The “noses of the faces” concern the balance point in each domain, as the human mind regulation of the system opposing motivational duality drives towards a “center of gravity”. The directions of these movements can be described mathematically across four domains of the “coordinate system version of the duality system”. The different and contrasting types of expansions these movements create are in the DIID understanding, interwoven and contrasting. A movement in either of the directions, from an inward-backward, reversible minus position or an outward-forward, irreversible plus position creates a mutually balancing moving dynamic. These movements of the human mind can be related to the coordination of the two brain hemispheres. The left hemisphere can be mainly related to agent dualities, and the right hemisphere can be mainly related to the ego dualities. In the DIID approach, these processes are both progressing latently and manifestly and are necessarily rooted in body- brain functions. The mathematical way of approaching stage development are both in Piaget’s and the MHC theory related to the progression of the four arithmetic methods. These imply reversibility principle, as one side of the equal sign is the same as the other side. The further articulations of Piaget’s stages of logical reasoning are in the MHC approach progressing in its stage order of abstract thinking, which is underpinned by stage order of primary thinking and the stage order of concrete thinking. The primary order thinking enables addition and subtraction, while the concrete order thinking enables multiplication and division. The further progression in this direction concern equation systems and maybe functions. The same reversibility principle apply regarding the two sides of the equals sign of equations with one or more unknown variables. They can be disengaged by replacing each other when solving equation systems as elaborated in the MHC approach. In the case of mathematical functions, the two sides of the equal signs (e.g., the Yaxis as a function of the X-axis) might be assumed to express the direction of the duality system movements. This stage-transformative progression might, as a speculative assumption, be reflected as an X-axis (as a base variable location) shift towards the Y-axis (as an exponent variable location). Such movements might be assumed to reflect duality transformations as, for example, subject-object, internal-internal duality shifts. However, such speculations await further considerations.

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References Bertilsson, M., & Christiansen, P. V. (2020). Inledning (Introduction). Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914). In M. Bertilsson & P. V. Christiansen (Eds.), Pragmatism och kosmologi (Pragmatism and cosmology) (pp. 7–43). Daidalos AB. Bryman, A. (2004). Social research methods. Oxford University Press. Capra, F. (1975). The Tao of physics. Shambhala. Capra, F. (2010). The Tao of physics: An exploration of the parallels between modern physics and eastern mysticism. Shambhala. Chalmers, D. J. (1996). The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press. Colby, A., Kohlberg, L., Speicher, B., Hewer, A., Candee, D., Gibbs, J., & Power, C. (1987). The measurement of moral judgment: Theoretical foundations and research validation (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press. Commons, M. L., Trodeau, E. D., Stein, S. A., Richards, F. A., & Krause, S. R. (1998). Hierarchical complexity of tasks shows the existence of developmental stages. Developmental Review, 18, 238–278. Cook-Greuter, S. R. (1999). Post autonomous ego development: A study of its nature and measurement (Doctoral dissertation). Harvard University. Damasio, A. (2012). Self comes to mind: Constructing the conscious brain. Vintage Books. Dawson, T. L. (2003). A stage is a stage is a stage: A direct comparison of two scoring systems. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 16(4), 335–364. Dawson, T. L. (2004). Assessing intellectual development: Three approaches, one sequence. Journal of Adult Development, 11(2), 71–85. Dawson-Tunik, T. L., Commons, M. L., Wilson, M., & Fischer, K. W. (2005). The shape of development. The International Journal of Cognitive Development, 2, 163–196. Day, J. M. (2011). Religious, spiritual, and moral development and learning in the adult years. Classical and contemporary questions, cognitive—Developmental and Complementary paradigms, and prospects for future research. In C. Hoare (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of reciprocal adult development and learning. Oxford University Press. Fischer, K., & Bidell, T. R. (2006). Dynamic development of action and thought and emotion. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Theoretical models of human development: Handbook of child psychology (pp. 313–390). Wiley. Forster, P. (1997). The logical foundation of Peirce’s indeterminism. In J. Brunning & P. Forster (Eds.), The rule of reason: The philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce (pp. 57–80). University of Toronto Press. Hagström, T., & Stålne, K. (2015). Comparing meaning making and logical reasoning. Integral Review, 11(3), 30–71.

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Harris, L. S., & Kuhnert, K. W. (2008). Looking through the lens of leadership: A constructive developmental approach. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 29(1), 47–67. Jaques, E., & Cason, K. (1994). Human capability: A study of individual potential and its application. Cason Hall & Co. Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development. Harvard University Press. Kjellström, S., Sjölander, P., Almers, E., & Mccall, M. E. (2017). Value systems among adolescents: Novel method for assessing level of ego—Development. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 58, 150–157. https://doi.org/10.1111/ sjop.12356 Lahey, L., Souvaine, E., Kegan, R., Goodman, R., & Felix, S. (1988). A guide to the subject-object interview: Its administration interpretation (Faculty of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education: The subject-object research group). Harvard University. Lewis, P., Forsythe, G. B., Sweeney, P., Bullis, C. S., & Snook, S. (2005). Identity development during the college years: Findings from the West Point Longitudinal Study. Journal of College Student Development, 46(4), 357–373. Loevinger, J. (1976). Ego development: Conceptions and theories. Jossey-Bass Inc. Marman, D. (2016). Lenses of perception: A surprising new look at the origin of life, the laws of nature, and our universe. Lenses of Perception Press. Marman, D. (2018). The lenses of perception interpretation of quantum mechanics. Integral Review, 14(1), 5–143. Merton. R. K., & Sztompka, P. (1996). On social structure and science. The University of Chicago press. Peirce, C. S. (1982). Charles Sanders Pierce. In H. S. Thayer (Ed.), Pragmatism: The classic writings (pp. 41–120). Hacket Publishing. Pratt, M. W., Diessner, R., Hunsberger, B., Panser, S. M. R., & Savoy, K. (1991). Four pass ways in the analysis of adult development and aging: Comparing analyses of reasoning about personal-life dilemmas. Psychology and Aging, 6(4), 666–675. Sjölander, P., Lindström, L., Ericsson, A. J., & Kjellström, S. (2014). A pattern recognition method for disclosing different levels of value system from questionary data. Behavioral Development Bullentine, 19(3), 114–127. Stålne, K., Kjellström, S., & Utriainen, J. (2016). Assessing complexity in learning outcomes—A comparison between the SOLO taxonomy and the model of hierarchical complexity. Assessment & Evaluation of Higher Education, 41(7), 1033–1048. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2015. 1047319 Stein, Z., & Heikkinen, K. (2009). Models, metrics and measurement in developmental psychology. Integral Review, 5(1), 4–24.

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Tegmark, M. (2014). Our mathematical universe: My quest for the ultimate nature of reality. Vintage Books. Tegmark, M. (2017). Life 3.0. Being human in the age of artificial intelligence. Alfred A. Knopf. Westenberg, A., Blasi, A., & Cohn, L. D. (1998). Personality development: Theoretical, empirical and clinical investigations of Loevinger’s conception of ego development. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wouters, E. (1998). Creative abduction in the detective story. In J. van Brackel & M. van Leuven Herden (Eds.), C. S. Peirce: Categories to Constantinople (pp. 119–138). Leuven University Press. Xie, Y., & Dawson, T. L. (2006). Multidimensional models in a developmental context. In M. Gamer, G. Engelhard, M. Wilson, & W. Fisher (Eds.), Advances in Rasch measurement (pp. 185–195). Jam Press.

CHAPTER 8

The Duality System as Cognition, Socialization, and Organization

The Duality System and Cognitive Science In this section the increasing knowledge domain of cognitive science is focused. Cognition has taken a meta position as a broad scientific knowledge field. It spans several scientific domains such as biological, psychological, and epistemological knowledge disciplines. In this sense it overlaps the DIID approach. The position of the psychology knowledge discipline is not seldom located somewhere between biology and sociology as focusing the mental and behavioral sides of human mind. However, the human mind is a more comprehensive issue. The DIID duality system and its meta characteristics bring to the fore other knowledge disciplines, some of which have been elaborated in previous chapters of the book. In the DIID framing, the biological and psychological spheres have been described as a basic whole of an embodied mind. The human mind is consequently located in a meta position in a micromacro reductivist hierarchy between these two disciplines, which captures the physical level downwards and the social level upwards in this micromacro hierarchy. In the framing of the DIID approach, the human mind is assumed to guide the other surrounding systems by abstract and self-conscious goal-directed interactions and reflections. The comprehensive and cross disciplinary character of human mind has since some decades resulted in an increasing multi-disciplinary knowledge domain of cognitive science. This movement has, as one of many © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 T. Hagström, The Developing Human Mind, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28647-6_8

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examples, focused on artificial intelligence (AI) which will be further addressed in the next chapter. The meaning of cognition has integrated many other knowledge areas as well. The cognitive broad approach thus concerns for example ideas formulated within “The Santiago theory of cognition” emanating from the latest decades of the twentieth century (Maturana & Varela, 1980, 1998). Here is not the place going into details in this formally far-reaching theory framework, but their thinking appears to share some general common features with the DIID approach. This is the case for example regarding their definition of a phenomenological domain, as: …defined by the properties of the unity or entities that constitute it, either singly or collectively through their transformations or interactions. Thus, whenever a unity is defined or a class of unities is established which can undergo transformations or interactions, a phenomenological domain is defined. (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 137)

The duality system is, as a meaning system in a broad sense, basically a phenomenological system, where the properties of its units—the dualities—undergo transformations and interactions. The definition of a phenomenological system cited above is based on the notion of autopoiesis, referring to self-production of living systems, established by Maturana and Varela in the 1970s. Their notion of cognition is related to autopoiesis systems, and a cognitive domain is defined as “…the domain of all the interactions in which an autopoietic system can enter without loss of identity” (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 136). The autopoiesis conception concerned initially biological systems but came in the late 1980s to be considered in sociology (Luhman, 2008) as self-organizing and self-reproducing consciousness and communicative systems. This conception came to inclusively capture meaning-based systems and generate epistemological general issues about for example relations between autopoiesis and internal and external self-observations. The study of human mind has, in a wider cognitive understanding in these and other directions, been elaborated as a systemic perspective. This has: “… blossomed into a richly interdisciplinary field known as cognitive science, which transcends the traditional frameworks of biology, psychology and epistemology” (Capra & Luisi, 2014, p. 252). Moreover, the increasing interest in consciousness has resulted in the application of complexity theory as, for example, nonlinear processes and as first-person

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experience in somewhat different directions. Capra and Luisi discern for example three such schools of thoughts, a traditional, a functional, and a neurophenomenological school (Capra & Luisi, 2014, pp. 262–263). The traditional school is associated with micro biological processes. The functional school (entitled as the currently most popular among cognitive scientists and philosophers) focuses on nonlinear neural patterns as functionally organized systems but denies consciousness as an emergent non-reducible phenomenon. The neuro-phenomenological school (being represented by a smaller group of scholars) tries to discern correspondences between disciplined study of conscious experiences of neural processes and patterns. Such a dual approach is used to understand how different experiences are emerging from complex neural activities. It is an effort to catch the mental and self-conscious part of human mind in the direction from the neural processes, as a downward reductivistic causality. The causes originate from the neuro processes and produce effects as mental processes. However, this process may also be interpreted more in terms of ongoing feedback loop interactions within the duality system as necessarily interlinked. The biological part of the process can be conceived as a necessary condition for the mental part to occur, but the latter part can be assumed to constitute a sufficient part as an emerging phenomenon in its own right, in terms of feedback loops as those described. A key issue appears to be which one of the systems is ruling in a process of ongoing man and environment interaction from inside-out and outside-in. “Ruling” does not in the DIID framing refer to the biological, psychological, or sociological parts of this process which interact mutually subordinated or superordinated in clear isolated sequences. The feedback loop duality is rather suggested as a process of reversible interactions between duality parts and dualities of the system which, taken together, as a holism, progress irreversibly. The process involves simultaneously both a linear and circular movement as a spiral. The feedback duality loop progression in this way influences for example both the functioning of the human brain and human mind “holistically”. As such an embodied mind, the stage-wise emerging progression in this way generates the abstract self-awareness of human mind interactions towards broader outsights and deeper insights of “oneself in the world” and “the world in oneself”.

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A plausible definition of a feedback loop can be stated as: … a circular arrangement of causally connected elements, in which an initial cause propagates around the links of the loop. So that each element influences the next, until the last “feedback” the effect into the first element of the cycle. The consequence of this arrangement is that the first link (“input”) is affected by the last (“output”), resulting in self-regulation of the entire system, as the initial effect is modified each time it travels around the circle. (Capra & Luisi, 2014, pp. 90–91)

Such a definition seems to apply to the spiral duality movements of the duality system which appear to legitimate this system as an autopoietic and a phenomenological system in these respects. The interactive roles of brain physiology and consciousness in the duality feedback spiral movements might be understood as: “two interdependent domains of research with equal status” (Capra & Luisi, 2014, p. 263). The equal status is reflected in strictly methodological terms using introspection, a phenomenological approach and evidence from meditative practice in different spiritual domains. The latter span for example Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, and Christianity. In the DIID approach, the mental part of human mind rather takes its departure in basic mental concepts derived from developmental psychological theory and research. These are recognizable by the interacting humans in meaning generating mental terms. What can more be stated regarding the duality system when it comes to its relative autonomy in guiding other systems? The notion of human mind in the DIID approach corresponds not at least to other conceptions of human mind as an embodied and emerging phenomenon, but in what sense is it really ruling? The autonomy has been problematized for example in an approach presented as “beyond free will” (Mascolo & Kallio, 2019). These authors conclude that although consciousness, experience, and representation are emergent qualities which are related to higher orders of biological organisms, the general capacity towards hierarchical regulation is characterizing living systems in general. They recognize that consciousness involves the capacity of transforming the change process towards a hierarchical organization. However, they don’t conceive this as constituting an autonomous center of control of the process. The function of consciousness is instead understood as a system for coordinating new representations of the most pressing demands on the organism. Consciousness is thereby not considered to

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enable the regulation of interactions directly. It plays an important role but not an autonomous role in psychological functioning (Mascolo & Kallio, 2019, p. 437). This concluding interpretation of consciousness brings to the fore, for instance, the meaning of autonomy and control in the context of human mind. Consciousness of the human mind is in the DIID understanding framed holistically as for example an embodied mind. The abstract self-awareness thinking of mind is thereby per definition not autonomously functioning in the sense of not being essentially integrated in the human body and its brain functions as a wholeness system. The DIID framing implies the human brain functioning as basically related to the body system and the mental system, as together necessarily constituting a wholeness. However, the human mind is still according to the DIID approach assumed to guide the other parts of the system, as a mental system of abstract goal-oriented thinking and interacting, basically guiding the rest of the embodied wholeness. This is, in turn, due to the capacity of planning and obtaining desirable goals of basic survival and meaning value. It is not assumed to exist an isolated pilot here, exerting the control over the “body-vehicle” and ruling the whole process consciously. However, the abstract self-aware type of human mind can, if not control the holistic process, still exert a basic autonomous and guiding function in directing the other systems. The directing function appears to rule the holistic human kind of consciousness due to its vision and goal-directed interactions, which have generated the contemporary advanced societies in a myriad of aspects. The abstract self-aware thinking forms appear to exert increasing and basic influences both inside and outside the human body. In this capacity the human mind can be anticipated to exert a basic ruling and autonomous function, as an open interactive evolving abstract and self-aware duality system. This is necessarily integrated in the body systems and external systems, from the micro levels to the macro levels and as holding a meta “in between” position in this hierarchy.

Societal Strata, Life Course Passages, and Social Class In this section, the DIID approach is related to increasing social and societal strata levels and passages in human mind’s life course development as well as in its social class orientation. One issue addresses the

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ego-agent conceptions of the DIID approach as collective egos-agents in for example identity terms and in their own respects. Another issue addresses the roles of such collective egos-agents as “centers of gravity” which guide the interactions of its individual formal-informal members. The positioning of human mind in a micro-macro level can be articulated in a broad cognitive system perspective as is the case in the section above. It is a system that involves both social and biological levels of for example autopoietic common system characteristics which apply in certain respects also to the duality system. The cognitive and social dualities of the duality system, although being basically interlinked, still should be understood in the perspective of their broader societal and cognitive manifestations. This raises issues regarding central passages in the society across the life course and critical life events. They are of interest in understanding the outside-in part of societal interactions of human mind. Another issue of importance concerns distinctions between individual and collective identity development in these processes and more generally. Let’s start with the former issue by summarizing some core aspects of the ecological system theory of Bronfenbrenner (1979) which involves the four increasing micro, meso, exo, and macro levels. The ecology thinking in these terms refers to: …the scientific study of the progressive, mutual accommodation between an active, growing human being and the changing properties of the immediate settings in which, the developing person lives, as this process is affected by relations between those settings and by the larger context in which the settings are embedded. (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 21)

Here both an interaction and a development perspective are integrated which constitute both socialization and life spanning passages. The microsystems concern activities, roles, and interpersonal relations such as families and peers which seem to correspond to the third stage of SOT entitled the socialized mind. The mesosystem involves interrelations between two or more settings where the person participates actively such as at home and at school among children and family and at work among adults, as “systems of microsystems”. The exo system level concerns one or more settings which do not involve the active participation of a person, but which is affected by or affecting this person’s setting such as mass media and local polities. The two system levels can be understood as transition bridges between the third social mind towards the

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fourth authorized mind of the SOT approach, which enable an abstract understanding of societal institutions in formal and abstract system terms. The macro system is described as the grasping of consistencies of the lower levels which constitutes wholeness features in terms of cultures, subcultures, belief systems, or ideologies. It might be understood as transition bridges between the fourth and fifth stages of the SOT approach, the latter entitled the self-transforming mind enabling the grasping of alternative societal systems. This might be even more plausible regarding a still higher “chronosystem level” which refers to transition patterns spanning the life course and major changes in such courses. These tentative comparisons mainly intend to illustrate the ongoing system interaction feature of the developing human mind and possible internalization and externalization conditions in the process. Bronfenbrenner states that ecological transitions take place whenever a person’s position in the ecological environment is altered as a consequence of life roles or life context changes or combinations of them. Thus, the hierarchical character of Bronfenbrenner’s theory is discernable also in stage hierarchical terms although the former perspective does not explicitly elaborate on the transformation and internalization features of the process. The system interaction and progression in the terms outlined focuses on individual person interactions with the systems rather than the interactions between or within collective and ecological systems. That is the case even if the human mind according the DIID approach constitutes a system as well as the human body. The individual person constitutes, as noticed, a body and mind system where the mental basic elements are interlinked in a system in its own right although it is embedded in the biological body system. The self-organizing character of living systems and their autopoiesis (referring to “self-making”) involves emergent properties. Capra and Luisi (2014) claim that basic life properties are emergent and, in this capacity, they cannot be reduced to the properties of its components, which is in accordance with the DIID approach. Moreover, such self-organizing features have been elaborated also within the social domain. Human communication such as conversations: “…creates thoughts and meaning, which give rise to further conversations and thus the entire network generates itself”. This means that communication recur in terms of multiple feedback loops (Capra & Luisi, 2014, p. 308). However, collective systems interacting with other collective systems constitute a more complicated issue according the DIID

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approach. The role of organizations as “social agents” can be conceived as groups organized to obtain common goals and to be guided by the same stage levels of the DIID duality system as their “center of gravity”. However, collective group interactions can be assumed to involve higher order processual features, perhaps with ontological connotations compared with individual-collective duality interactions even if these two levels are overlapping. In what sense could collectives be tied to human mind ontologically beyond its necessary integration in the human body and its individual, personal holistic identity? This appears to generate philosophical considerations and concern old spiritual-materialist issues. Furthermore, it brings to the fore different scientific stances regarding human mind as essentially a process, holism, or as basically explainable in lower levels of the scientific reductivism hierarchy, or as a guiding superordinated mental system. The latter issue concerns the conceiving of “explain” as necessary and/or sufficient causal conditions for a phenomenon to occur, being maintained and to develop. This, in turn, addresses ontological issue regarding the basic properties of reality as basically process movements or particle units. In a social and collective framing, social entities on aggregated levels have been suggested to be partly autonomous functioning agents with a kind of identity as interacting “social individuals”. This relative autonomy is illustrated for example by referring to the distinction between a class in itself and a class for itself: “A class in itself is a social aggregate, something which has a statistical meaning and where the statistical description is indeed descriptive of the social order as a whole. A class for itself emerge when the individual members of a class become conscious of their common position. This requires consciousness and agency” (Byrne & Callaghan, 2014, p. 47). This does, however, not imply that collective agents’ interacting necessarily are directly derivable from that of its individuals. Such a reductivism and downward deterministic hierarchical understanding, they argue, can be disputed for example as constituting a “flat ontology” (Byrne & Callaghan, 2014, pp. 44–47). A way of understanding collective ego and agents in other ways than such “flat ontologies” might be to consider them as persons interacting together guided by the same development stage framing, for example as hard stages in terms of the DIID approach. The social agent is in this sense unifying its individuals if a critical frequency of them as a group has internalized such a stage order as a common “center of gravity”. Such a center might be conceived as an

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ontologically based guiding frame of reference, internalized at the same stage level. A common center of gravity thereby enables and promotes the motivation to fulfill the common collective functions, goals, and visions of such collective agents as, for example, “classes for themselves”. The same DIID stage of meaning making can provide such a common guidance. The human mind identity formation is as more or less influenced by and internalized as an internal meaning context, formed in socialization processes. Among the hard stage theories described above, the subjectobject (SOT) approach is the one which most explicitly focuses the human mind socialization process. It is in this approach elaborated as self-other duality regulations towards higher stages. In socialization terms they here refer to the internalization of meaning and to the involving of increasingly more inclusive group conceptions. In that sense, the socialization process can be conceived as an identity formation system. In the DIID approach, this refers to both a belongingness and comprehensibility sense of meaning.

Socialization as Identity Formation In this section the development processes are elaborated in terms of socialization and as life course identity shifts due to people’s changing functional life roles. In the DIID approach, the socialization process is related to the ego-belongingness-social part of the duality system in terms of the deep identity formation of human mind. The socialization process in such terms shares basic common features with a “person in context” theoretical approach. One of its main conclusions is that: “… the primary mechanisms that stimulate transformation in identity include self-awareness, self-focusing, and self-consciousness due to dialectic or incongruent thoughts, feelings or behaviors” (Adams & Marshall, 1996, p. 438). The theory is based on literature reading, research findings, cultural observations, and clinical findings, and adds complementary understanding of the duality system. The authors claim that their findings suggest applications of differentiation and integration regulations to reduce imbalances and inconsistencies to obtain identity equilibrium. This process is, in turn, related to transformations of such an identity where each new transformation provides: “… a new self-as-known that brings the real self-closer to the ideal self”. However also adding that the: “ideal self is never fully obtainable” (Adam & Marsall, 1996, p. 438).

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This theory takes one of its departures in the identity conceptions of Erikson (e.g., 1968) and further understandings in similar directions. The Erikson identity developing progression across the life course, as briefly noticed in Chapter 2 as functional stages, involves in its final version nine such passages. Each of these stages involves basic opposing directions in a syntonic direction and a dystonic direction. Syntonic refers to, for example, growth and expansions by goals promoting self-respect and commitment. Dystonic refers to for example mistrust, shame, isolation, and stagnation. Without going into detail, the progression from early childhood towards old age passes typical dual conflicts and their solutions (Erikson & Erikson, 1997). They concern: – – – – – – – –

Mistrust vs trust towards hope Shame and doubts vs autonomy towards will Guilt vs initiative towards purpose Inferiority vs. industry towards competence Identity confusions vs identity towards fidelity Isolation vs intimacy towards love Stagnation vs generativity towards care Despair and disgust vs integrity towards wisdom.

“Towards” here refers to further developing constructive solutions of the life stage conflicts stated. The outcomes of the corresponding dual conflicts can be conceived as dialectically opposing thesis-antithesis movements of the mind which can generate transformations or stagnations. The Erikson idea of identity differentiates between the “I”, the self, and the ego. The “I” is all conscious while: “… The selves are mostly preconscious, which means they can become conscious when the “I” makes them so and as far as the ego agrees to it. The ego, however, is unconscious. We become aware of its work but never of it.” (Erikson, 1968, p. 218). These distinctions overlap to some extent with the DIID duality reasoning. The all over consciousness of the “I”, which also seems to be the case of the “I” conception of Mead (1934), refers in the DIID understanding, to the center of gravity of the duality system. The identity is here understood as a goal-directed wholeness involved in goal-directed social and cognitive interactions, and as interacting “here and now” in the temporal and spatial reality. The interacting person is in this position interacting as

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the total embodied mind, being a centered individual and “conscious all over” in this sense, The “I” breaks free of itself, which means breaking oneself free from the social and societal part of identity. In the DIID understanding, this is related to the separation of the individual and collective duality parts in the interactional level of the duality system. This, in turn, is related to the self-other duality in the epistemological level of the duality system. The “free breaking” of the individual and collective duality parts seems to correspond with the “I-me” separation in Meads thinking. This breaking point might be regarded as an act of free will, as a unique moving passage in its combination of being performed in a specific moment of time, in a specific location of space, by a specific human being, regarding specific goals and specific moving external similar conditions. It is a combination which generates something essentially new, which never has and never will reoccur exactly in such unique combinations. This process reflects ultimate idiographic conditions of the human mind generation of new feedback. These passages are according to the DIID approach taking place in the overlap of the A and B domains of the duality system. However, the “I” in these direct passages is not assumed to be capable of consciously objectify oneself in these positions. The capability to conceive oneself from such an external outside-in position rather takes place as reflections of the action consequences in the overlap of the C and D domains of the duality system. Here the “I” is related to the “me” as in the thinking of Mead (1934) and the individual is related to the collective and self-other duality positions of the duality system. The unconscious status of ego in Erikson’s approach seems to correspond to its DIID understanding of ego as not being directly objectified as a wholeness but indirectly and indicated as existential signs of mental imbalances. It can be concluded that the main difference between the Eriksson and Mead approaches compared with the DIID approach concerns the duality grasping of the identity conception. The grasping of this identity covers the process-structure, social-causal, and ego-agent features of the moving duality system. In the framing of the socialization identity formation theory of Adams and Marsall (1996), the social and individual distinction is conceived in similar terms as in the DIID approach. The individual dynamics is related to the human need to be a unique and special creature. An intrapersonal side of this individuality focuses on various differentiated self-aspects and an interpersonal side focuses on an emerging autonomy between self and

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others. The social dynamics, in turn, is related to the human need for belongingness and connected as a union and fellowship with others. This is an interpersonal side of sociality which focuses on the self-construction and an intrapersonal side which focuses on connectedness and communion with others (Adams & Marsall, 1996, p. 431). This process is further articulated as an interaction process with other living systems which: “…undergird socialization and human development also function to support the life and growth of living systems” (Adams & Marsall, 1996, p. 432) and where: “…differentiation and integration serve to shape the identity of life systems. Thus, identity is a necessary part of human social groups in that it contributes to the structural characteristics of permeability, continuity, and coherence of each life system” (Adams & Marsall, 1996, p. 433). These authors underline the socialization of identity as an ongoing process towards faith and meaning by passing experiences, incongruity and loss which enable resolutions of gaps between self and others. Such processes involve dialectic imitations and identifications which is more or less provided in the actual social and societal settings of the external environment. Such development socialization conditions interplay with the individual strivings to close a gap between a manifested real self and a potential ideal self. Each society is described as providing sensitive points which refer to: “… the life cycle where rites, rituals, institutional expectations, or regulations heighten self-focusing behaviors and identity formation” (Adams & Marsall, 1996, p. 436). These refer to certain life stages or passages such as adolescence and midlife crisis, which are related to certain typical challenges which are associated with, for instance, instance major individual choices and self-transformations. Such challenges are reflected in the life stages of Erikson’s theory as major life challenges and tasks reflecting existential meaning issues. These issues characterize also the stage transitions and transformations of the subject-object (SOT) approach of Kegan seemingly inspired by Erikson in this respect. Both these approaches focus on the close connection with the identity formation of socialization processes as a “person in contexts” interaction wholeness. They also overlap the DIID approach in these respects since the human mind identity here is constructed in relational context. Macro and micro environmental conditions are understood as forming the identity formation by for example ideologies, common values, and norms mediated by socially constructed and communicated symbols, institutions, and artifacts. In its social societal forms,

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they are mainly related to the belongingness and collaborative parts of human mind. However, the individual side of these processes is in the DIID framing mainly related to the causal side of the processes and its comprehensibility side of the duality system. These sides involve temporal parts of the human mind goal-directed movements across the four duality system domains. The social and causal parts of the system are necessarily and basically interlinked in the socialization process as well as in the development of human mind and thereby also in the identity formation, maintenance, and development. The importance of both the social and causal parts of human mind identity is reflected for example in the societal work life structure in modern and postmodern societies. In theory and studies of unemployment, the main human mind losses, beside pure socioeconomic and material ones, have in industrial societies been attributed to so called latent functions of unemployment of the wage labor markets. (Hagström, 1988; Jahoda, 1981). These concern collective identity, collective goals and social contacts reflecting basic social losses as well as time structure and activity structure reflecting basic cognitive losses. The dissolving of these structures in postindustrial societies raises further issues of identity formation in these settings, as it requires more autonomously integrated individuals both in social and causal terms. This is further addressed below.

Organizational Forms and Development Hampering-Promoting Conditions In this section, organizational issues are brought to the fore. Such issues overlap those described in section two above but are focusing more on overriding or meta-organizational structures and functions. The meta features overlap those of the DIID approach which add further angles of interest for the understanding of the duality system. One example is the holon theory of Koestler (1978). Holons are considered to be: “…applied to any stable sub-whole in an organismic, cognitive, or social hierarchy which displays rule governed behavior and/or structural Gestalt constancy” (Koestler, 1978, p. 293). Holons involve: “…two faces looking in opposite directions: the face turned towards the lower levels is that of an autonomous whole, the one turned upward that of a dependent part” (Koestler, 1978, pp. 292–293). Thus, every holon functions as an integrated part of a larger holon. They span temporal and social levels

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as well as progress evolutionary and societally, from individual, family, tribe, and nation entities. As is the case regarding the duality system, holons are understood as self-regulating open and hierarchical coordinated systems involving governing principles as a fixed set of rules of invariant, structural, and functional patterns. To this can be added a common understanding of consciousness as emerging in phylogeny and ontogeny towards more complex and precise states. However, as contrasting the DIID approach, temporal, spatial, physical, and abstract holon demarcations are mixed and differentiated in, for example, functional, cognitive, behavioral, and linguistic ones. Further, the understanding of integrating and differentiating motivational incitements in the balancing dynamics within the holisms of the two approaches differs. The differentiation process is attributed mainly to negative connotations in the holon theory. The overriding similarity with the DIID thinking in these terms seems to concern the hierarchical coordination of the system. The overriding difference seems to concern the internal-external focus of the hierarchical regulating rules and the understanding of the basic internal regulating mechanisms. The human mind as “deep identity” involves social-cognitive, belongingnesscomprehensibility and being-becoming dualities as being “tied together” as an ontologically based holism. In this sense the social and collective elements of human mind appear to be ontologically based as a basic preference for collaborations to obtain common goals, evolved evolutionary towards increasing self-awareness and abstract thinking. This typical human characteristic has enabled the collective, cultural, organizational, and institutional external contexts. The collective manifestations can in this sense be assumed as kinds of “prolonged ontological forms” of human mind. They are manifested as physical artifacts, institutions and organizations and can in the latter form be assumed as “collective agents”, i.e., basically persons who are assembling and uniting in collaborative interactions to obtain common goals. In what sense would such collective agents be essentially interlinked with human mind ontologically, beyond its necessary integration in the human body and its individual and personal holistic identity? This is some to some extent a philosophical issue and concerns the old spiritual-materialism issue. It also brings to the fore scientific different stances regarding human mind as essentially a process or a holism such as the duality system, or as explainable in for example lower levels of the scientific reductivism hierarchy.

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At the same time, the increasing autonomy of individuals enabled by higher stages self-other conceptions can be assumed to generate different interaction patterns compared to other collective agents guided by the gravity centers of other stages. Moreover, collective ego and agents in this sense can be assumed to generate different interactions both inside and outside its own collective entity beyond the interactions of individuals as well as other kinds of effects. Organizations can, for example, be assumed to be agents by themselves in terms of the stage levels of their center of gravity interacting with other organizational agents on varying stages as well as with sub agents inside and outside itself. The development potential of collective agents as organizations might generally concern optimal forms of collaboration within as well as between individuals on different stages within groups as well as between groups on different such orders. The optimality here seems to concern issues which overlap those of the Vygotskian conception of “proximal zoon of development”. The common understanding in the collaborations of collective egos and agents can be assumed to be gained by optimal stage distances between individuals in a group, between subgroups of individuals in a group, and between collaborating groups of varying sizes. The linking towards common goals and visions is promoted by interacting persons capable of communicating across stage-level limits from inside-out and outside-in. The optimality in these terms also seems to apply when it comes to enable the functioning of self-organizing collective ego-agent’s decentralization. In the frame of the DIID approach, overriding duality conflicts between and within such organizational egos and agents as well as subegos and subagents might for example concern, on the one hand, a profit and growth-oriented organizational paradigm and, on the other hand, a socioculturally oriented organizational paradigm as described by Laloux (2014). The sociocultural position is here considered to oppose the profit-growth position in terms of: “its materialistic obsession, the social inequality, and the loss of community:” The profit-growth position, in turn, is considered to oppose the sociocultural position regarded as: “harmony, community, cooperation, and consensus as unrealistic idealism” (Laloux, 2014, p. 30). These two stances may be considered as typical dialectical thesisantithesis positions within formal-system stage of the duality approach. A synthesis of such a conflict might, in turn, lead to a unification of these positions towards a dialectical multisystem stage of the DIID approach. Such a collective-organizational human mind ego-agent may express

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features of a radical self-organized and decentralized agent organizational system (Teal organization according to Laloux). Such an organizational setting can be assumed to involve necessary (although not sufficient) conditions to combine growth and profit advances (e.g., management by objectives, project groups, virtual teams, cross-functional initiatives) with sociocultural advances (e.g., a pluralistic world view, equality, relationship values above strict outcomes). Such types of organizational issues are discernable for example in decentralization and company cultural efforts to combine employee autonomy and collective coherence (Hagström & Backström, 2017). Centralization and decentralization of an organization concerns a deeper issue of what is constituting its center of gravity, which involves its type of management. Decentralization is promoted by external development mechanisms towards dissolving external time and space societal boundaries (Allvin et al., 2011; Hagström & Hansson, 2003), calling for organizational flexibility. Increasing organizational complexity involves more instrumental goal rationality in combination with social integration. Human resource management and socio-technical systems have challenged earlier hierarchical structures and scientific engineering. They have been followed by shared visions, adaptive, and self-organized systems of proactive and meaning-oriented agents (Morgan, 1986; Senge, 1990; Tsoukas & Knudsen, 2003) but also by normative control of these (Alvesson & Kärrman, 2004). Efforts in these directions are in line with changes of the leadership roles and functions. A stage-like progression has been reported from narrow individual towards broad collective leader functions and deeper as well as general human development perspectives (Kjellström et al., 2020). What are the individual and collective sides of these processes beside the one suggested above? As described, the conception of a central human mind regulation refers to a: “…central organizing tendency, or a meaning making whole organizing the parts” (Kegan et al., 1998, p. 55). This organizing tendency can be assumed to reach beyond individual persons and include groups of collectives as well. Egos and agents can be conceived as such groups or collectives guided by the stage level of the duality wholeness which exercise the main influence on their thinking and interacting, their “center of gravity” (see e.g., Laske, 2011). An organization’s center of gravity can, for example, be understood as the stage of the duality wholeness which influences most of an organization’s structure, practices, and processes (Laloux, 2014, p. 40). The character of

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the stage-wise vertical transformations of DIID approach reflects relatedness with the complexity theory notion of emergence conceived as new radical shifts appearing in dynamic systems. The complexity notion of attractor conceived as: “…something towards which a dynamical system evolves over time” (Byrne & Callaghan, 2014, p. 27) might, in turn, be interpreted in terms of ego-agents’ motivational incentives and in organizational theory in terms of belief systems and company cultures (Goldstein et al., 2010). Moreover, as already addressed above, the complexity theory notion of fractals can be attributed to the duality approach as well, here as reoccurring “wholes in wholes” in scale independent progressions. How can the meta concept be theorized in organizational development terms? According to a meta organization theory of Edwards (2010), the metaapproach of Wilber (2000), addressed above, has been created by sifting through: “…a vast amount of literature in order to find patterns of convergence and divergence” and is “…consistent with a traditional methodology that relies heavily on personal capacities of analysis and synthesis” (Edwards, 2010, p. 88). Edwards, taking one of his departures in Wilber’s meta theory, as a contrast formulated a highly structured and step-wise elaborated method procedure. The “what is developing issue” of development concerns organizational transformation which per se involves main external development elements. Such search for transformations on the basis of a broad range of “middle range theories” (Merton, 1986), generated stepwise six main categories of “theoretical lenses”, which are combined to analyze different transformative organizational settings. Among these three kinds of holons were identified one temporal stage based developmental one, one spatial ecological collective grouping based, and one governance holarchy one based on different ways of organizing. However, despite these differences as compared to the DIID approach, it is interesting to notice that in both approaches the temporal, spatial, and goal-oriented dimensions are present. Furthermore, in spite of different methodological approaches, the meta theories of Edwards and Wilber overlap the DIID approach regarding a non-materialistic-reductionisticatomistic standpoint in the sense of not searching for ultimate causes on increasingly lower micro levels of science. Moreover, many of Edward’s lenses seem to be discernable in the regulation principles of the duality approach as well. The integral meta theory involves for example a bipolar

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lens category including dualities and polarities such as the interior-exterior and internal-external ones. Edward’s method approach seems to have generated the discerning of ontogeny characteristics taxonomically from this inductively based approach. Furthermore, the DIID approach seems to have conceptions in common within the family of complexity theories whose roots are to be found in the natural sciences and where explicit holon or agent conceptions are not frequently represented. In the frame of neo-Piagetian adult stage theory, the understanding of such theories has been associated with post-formal thinking (Sinnott, 2003) which roughly refers to the dialectical and multisystem stage levels of the DIID approach. Common conceptions concern for example self-organizing, open system and feedback loop process characteristics. Common features seem to concern nonlinearity and a non-reductionist standpoint. As corresponding to the DIID understanding in these respects: “…Complexity focuses on what new phenomena can emerge from a collection of relatively simple component. Simple bits interacting in a simple way may lead to a rich variety of realistic outcomes – and this is the essence of complexity” (Johnson, 2007, p. 17). The meta characteristics and methodology of the DIID approach can be considered by relating its taxonomy and ontogeny perspectives to different stage conceptions and domains and by relating its taxonomy and ontogeny perspectives to different holon and agent conceptions and domains. It can be related to some contemporary challenges and conflicts related to human stage development. The approach applied seem to enable the interlinking of taxonomy and ontogeny steps in the knowledge domain focused in the book which otherwise might be less discernable. As concluded, the underlying meta characteristics thereby discerned, seem to interlink basic structural, processual, and functional aspects of the developing human mind in potential big stage-like developmental epistemological jumps. These characteristics can be assumed to constitute basic duality regulations progressing as increasingly self-aware and abstract feedback spiral loops. Furthermore, the duality system captures interlinked transformative stage levels which may provide a link between Wilber’s different more independent stage conceptions (see Wilber, 2000, p. 28).

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References Adams, G. R., & Marshall, S. K. (1996). A developmental social psychology of identity: Understanding the person in context. Journal of Adolescence, 19, 429–442. Alvesson, M., & Kärrman, D. (2004). Interfaces of control: Technocratic and socio-ideological control in the global management consultancy firm. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 29, 423–444. http://dx.doi.org/10. 1016/S0361-3682(03)00034-5 Allvin, M., Aronsson, G., Hagström, T., Johansson, G., & Lundberg, U. (2011). Work without boundaries: Psychological perspectives on the new working life. Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119991236 Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press. Byrne, D., & Callaghan, G. (2014). Complexity theory and the social sciences: The state of the art. Routledge. Capra, F., & Luisi, P. L. (2014). The systems view of life: A unifying vision. Cambridge University Press. Edwards, M. G. (2010). Organisational transformation for sustainability: An integral metatheory. Routledge. Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. W. W. Norton. Erikson, E. H. (1997). The life cycle completed (Extended version with new chapters by Joan M. Erikson). W. W. Norton. Goldstein, J., Hazy, J. K., & Lichtenstein, B. B. (2010). Complexity and the nexus of leadership: Leveraging nonlinear science to create ecologies of innovation. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230107717 Hagström, T. (1988). Arbetslösas beredskap inför arbetslivet. En kartläggning och analys av aktiva-passiva förhållningssätt och betydelsen av olika yttre livsförhållanden (Preparedness of the unemployed for working life: A survey and analysis of active-passive attitudes and the importance of various outward circumstances) (Doctoral thesis). Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Hagström, T., & Backström, T. (2017). Decentralized autonomy and company culture integration: Individual and organizational development incentives and potentials contextualized. Behavioral Development Bulletin, 22(2), 361–376. https://doi.org/10.1108/09696470910949953 Hagström, T., & Hansson, M. (2003). Flexible work contexts and human competence: An action-interaction frame of reference and empirical illustrations. In A. Bron & M. Schemmann (Eds.), Knowledge society, information society and adult education: Challenges, trends, issues (pp. 148–180). Lit Verlag Münster. Jahoda, M. (1981). Work, employment and unemployment: Values, theories and approaches in social research. American Psychologist, 36(2), 184–191.

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Johnson, N. (2007). Simply complexity: A clear guide to complexity theory. One World. Kegan, R., Lahey, L., & Souvaine, E. S. (1998). From taxonomy to ontogeny: Thoughts on Loevinger’s theory in relation to subject-object psychology. In P. M. Westenberg, A. Blasi, & L. D. Cohn (Eds.), Personality development: Theoretical, empirical and clinical investigations of Loevinger’s conception of ego development (pp. 39–58). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kjellström, S., Stålne, K., & Törnblom, O. (2020). Six ways of understanding leadership development: An exploration of increasing complexity. Leadership, 16(4), 434–460. Koestler, A. (1978). Janus: A summing up. Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd. Laloux, F. (2014). Reinventing organizations: A guide to creating organizations inspired by the next stage of human consciousness. Nelson Parker. Laske, O. (2011). Measuring hidden dimensions: The art and science of fully engaging adults. Interdevelopmental Institute Press. Luhman, N. (2002). Risk: A sociological theory. Aldine Transaction. Luhman, N. (2008). Risk: A sociological theory. Aldine Transaction. Mascolo, M. F., & Kallio, E. (2019). Beyond free will: The embodied emergence of conscious agency. Philosophical Psychology, 30(4), 437–462. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living. Kluwer. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, J. V. (1998). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding (Revised Ed.). Shambbala Publications, Inc. Mead, G. H. (1934/1967). Mind, self and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. The University of Chicago Press. Merton, R. K. (1986). On social structure and science. The University of Chicago Press. Morgan, G. (1986). Images of organization. Sage. Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of learning organization. Currency Doubleday. Sinnott, J. D. (2003). Complex postformal thought and its relation to adult learning, lifespan development, and the new sciences. In T. Hagström (Ed.), Adult development in post-industrial society and working life. Stockholm Lectures in Educology; Series No. 2. (pp. 78–108). Department of Education, Stockholm University, Stockholm. Tsoukas, H., & Knudsen, C. (2003). Introduction: The need for meta-theoretical reflection in organization theory. In H. Tsoukas & C. Knudsen (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of organization theory: Meta-theoretical perspectives (pp. 1–36). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1177/017084060 30247008 Wilber, K. (2000). Integral psychology: Consciousness, spirit, psychology, therapy. Shambals Publications.

CHAPTER 9

General Conclusions, Intelligence, and Challenges: Limits and Potentials

Human Mind as a DIID Approach: Conclusive Considerations In this section the duality system is briefly summarized in seven conclusions and considered in general terms. Some central characteristics of the dynamic balances of the system are summarized and illustrated. The DIID approach is constructed in an abductive manner, involving both inductive and deductive reasoning traced in life span development theories from different disciplinary fields. The purpose was to search for and identify their common features and thereby discern more general and basic characteristics. These features were understood in the duality system terms elaborated in the book. The duality system was constructed gradually which reflects its presentation in this book. It has been approached and interpreted from different philosophical, theoretical, and methodological perspectives. The intention has been to present basic theoretical building blocks of this duality meta theory from the beginning to the end of the book and, at the same time, contextualize these blocks in different knowledge areas of relevance. The aim is to provide a comprehensive and integrated understanding of the duality system, summarized below in seven conclusive understandings, and by considering some basic balance dynamical system aspects.

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1. The understanding of belongingness and comprehensibility as basic motivational drives in the search for basic existential meaning of life (beside and beyond survival). It is reflected as basic dualities, balancing their two opposing and interlinked parts towards equilibration. 2. The understanding that these dualities constitute the human mind as a meaning making system moving deeper (e.g., in epistemological and ontological terms) and broader (e.g., in system and multi system terms). It constitutes a human mind duality and open system which develops dialectically by transformations towards hierarchically organized and interlinked forms. 3. The understanding of this system as evolutionary developed by an adaptive survival process towards an internal body and mind identity whole. It interacts with the external world by inside-out and outside-in movements towards the capacity of hypothetical thinking, enabling the objectification of oneself as a socially related ego and a causally related agent. 4. The understanding that the balancing duality movements involve inward-social and backward-past reversible reflections and outwardcausal and forward-future irreversible interactions. The human mind strives to balance these sides of the movements as a goal oriented kind of gravity center. 5. The understanding of the duality balancing in these terms as progressing continuously in multiple feedback spiral loops. These are regulated by the human mind to obtain and maintain meaning balance, performed in a meta navigating position within and between the parts and axes of the duality system. 6. The understanding that the duality system takes a meta position in the reductivism levels of the science hierarchy. It is doing so as a system in its own right driven by goal-directed interactions and guiding other system functions of the mind (e.g., physical, biological, social) when solving meaning challenges in terms of duality unbalances. 7. The understanding of the duality system as necessarily and basically integrated in natural laws and societal systems in a micro-macro scale. It is suggested to involve quantum physical processes and to enable mathematically applications. It seems to rotate in at least twelve different directions as duality feedback spiral loops in a common system movement in a clockwise direction.

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These conclusive understandings can be challenged from different angles such as the scientific and philosophical justification of the selected theories and methods underpinning the DIID approach, and the stringency of the interpretation of the common characteristics of these. As described from different angles through the chapters of the book, the duality system involves several interlinked and dynamically balancing parts. The dynamics reflect the movements of the system which are visually understood as spiral feedback loops. As dualities each of them moves as two mutually balancing loops which progress in a curvilinear spiral manner. The movements are generated by the human mind’s strivings towards meaning balance and stability in an ongoing process of system changes which potentially transform dialectically to higher abstract awareness levels, or stages in this sense. This is a fundamental characteristic of the DIID approach as essentially adapting and developing. This feature clearly reminds of the functions of homeostasis and equilibration in other theories addressed in the book. The notion of homeostasis can be understood in both neurobiological and cognitive-mental terms as forces towards dynamical internal balance. Homeostasis in a broader understanding can be conceived as life regulation principles spanning many life fields. Damasio regards for example neurobiological homeostasis to serve such overriding life regulation functions: Life regulation is at the root of a lot that needs explaining in biology in general and in humanity in particular: the existence of brain; the existence of pain, pleasure, emotions, and feelings; social behaviours, religions; economics and their markets and financial institutions; moral behaviours; laws and justice; politics; art; technology, and science - a very modest list as the reader can see. (Damasio, 2012, pp. 59–60)

Also Piaget, in the capacity of initially being a biologist, emphasizes the basic role of dynamic balancing in cognitive terms in the assimilationaccommodation dialectical interplay towards adaption, for example in equilibration-reequilibration balance terms in the stage progression of logical operations, to avoid cognitive incoherences: …the subject seeks to avoid incoherence and always tends therefore to certain forms of equilibrium, at times reaching them, but using them only as temporary stage. Thus the most developed science remains a continual

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becoming, and in every field non balance plays a functional role of prime importance, since it necessitates reequilibrations. (Piaget, 1978, p. 178)

The dynamic balances of the duality system are illustrated in the chapters and figures of the book. Most of them are, directly or indirectly, involving the system movements inward-outward and backward-forward. These movements can finally be summarized in two figures illustrating a general movement of the system as a whole. This movement passes the inward-backward, inward-forward, outward-forward, and outwardbackward positions as schematically illustrated in Fig. 9.1. The system movement as a whole is, as illustrated in Fig. 9.1, progressing continuously in a clockwise direction. Moreover, as illustrated by the arrows of the piles in Fig. 9.1, the movement of the system passes the three interactional, epistemological, and ontological system levels (see Fig. 3.1) both back and forth. The dynamical balances of these movements are mutually interlinked as described previously, and they are moving both horizontally and vertically. Another way of describing the balancing dynamics of the system focus more explicit on the passages

Fig. 9.1 The dynamically balancing movements of the duality system horizontally and vertically across and within the three system levels (interactional, epistemological, and ontological) driving the system as a whole clockwise passing the four A, B, C, and D domains by eight position shifts

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between the four A, B, C, and D domains of the duality system, as illustrated in Fig. 9.2. The system balance dynamics which more directly focus the A, B, C, and D system domains reflect, as described in previous chapters, the passages in human mind goal-directed interaction sequences. The clockwise movement direction is in Fig. 9.2 not crossing the navigating gravity center or origin of the duality system. Its four passages across the four domains add four more movements duality dynamically balancing movements to those illustrated in Fig. 9.1. Taken together, Figs. 9.1 and 9.2 appear to capture at least twelve dynamically balancing movement directions of the duality system. These figures underline the essential and general character of the duality system as a basic dynamically balancing and continuously ongoing phenomenon. It involves two basic duality axes forming a three-dimensional mental space which involve a common external time dimension. Taken together and in this sense, the duality system thereby appears to involve four dimensions as necessary ingredients of the human mind awareness of oneself and the world, according

Fig. 9.2 The duality system movements across the four A, B, C, and D system domains which don’t directly cross the axes of the system and explicitly concern the driving of the system in a common clock wise direction illustrated by the arrows of the piles. The common movement of the system as a whole is related to the goal-plan sequences of human mind which are reflected in the eight temporalspatial position movements illustrated

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to the DIID approach. It is a system that appears to essentially combine the social and causal sides of human mind to understand the meaning of both humanity and reality. The social and causal interactions seem to share some common features more philosophically. Cause-effect thinking was stated by Kant as following “the law of causality” implying that in all events something is preceded and determined by something else and that all events thereby involve their causes. Another philosopher, Aristotle made distinctions between different notions of causes. A material cause was related to its physical properties, a formal cause was related to its structure and direction, an efficient cause was related to a thing or agent which produces it, and a final cause was related to its ultimate purpose. According to the DIID approach, final causes, formal causes, and efficient causes seem to overlap both the social and causal duality regulations. If so, this underlines their basic interlinked character as dualities and thereby also their common balancing progression. The abstract self-awareness of human mind has enabled a gradual but fast increasing disembeddedness of human mind from the concrete manifestations of the world to the generation of human mind typical reflections on ontological issues and the meaning of life. However, does this concern intelligence in a deeper sense? Below this issue is considered and related to contemporary human challenges and conditions that hamper or promote deeper insights and broader outsights.

The Duality System and Intelligence: Cognition, Sociality, and Development In this section some main applications of the DIID approach of high relevance are considered. It concerns the notion of intelligence, notably some suboptimal ways of understanding this as merely a strictly cognitivelycausally dominated process and quality. Does the DIID approach contribute to a more comprehensive intelligence understanding? Stage development approaches such as the duality system can be considered as intelligence theories which potentially lead to increasing efficient problem solving and flexible adaption towards new life conditions, Or, more generally, as increasing survival opportunities and finding security and meaning in life. Such developing advances concern social and cognitive abilities related to increased interaction and meaning making associated with positive health as salutogenes, elaborated by Antonowsky (1987). The abstract and self-aware thinking of human mind enables increased internal scopes

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of interaction and hypothetical choices in stage-wise broader, deeper, and longer “helicopter perspectives”. Such advances can be assumed to increase intelligence in a broad understanding like increased efficient problem solving and flexible adaptions. Such advances can, in turn, be further associated with advances of science, health, technology, economy, and culture as extensively elaborated by Pinker (e.g., 2011, see also Rosling et al., 2019). Broader intelligence understandings reach beyond “harder” cognitively loaded intelligence conceptions and include also “softer” intelligence conceptions. The cognitive intelligence is usually associated with central aspects of the general G-factor intelligence and fluid intelligence, associated with for example spatial and logical thinking, working memory, and verbal intelligence. In the DIID framing, these intelligence aspects might mainly be approached as the ability of abstract thinking, solving of novel problems and the comprehending of them. These capacities seem to be mainly attributed to genetic differences. The social intelligence, in turn, seems to more often be associated with external and emotionally loaded factors, as elaborated in emotional intelligence theory of Goleman (1995, 2007). This is based in a brain neural circuit interplay within the prefrontal cortex as an executive center of emotional circuity located mainly in amygdala. The brain process of the emotional intelligence approach is related to the mental conceptions of self-awareness and self-management as two of four domains of the emotional intelligence (EI) model. These two domains are constituted more separately by the forebrain and involve for example empathy. The other two domains are entitled as social awareness and relationship management, and involve abilities which are the social function to “get us motivated on the other”. The cognitive intelligence factors here are clearly related to the comprehensibility dualities, while the social intelligence factors appear to be clearly related to the belongingness dualities of human mind. These two intelligence factors are thus basically interlinked in the DIID approach, and mainly related to the developing process which integrates these two motivational strivings and incitements. The DIID approach is in this sense expressing a developmental intelligence. Other efforts to understand human intelligence in a broad perspective differ among scholars in the field as well as whether and how social intelligence is reflecting the G intelligence factor. Such and other common broad features in system terms have been carried through from many angles by Demetriou and colleagues (e.g., Demetriou, 2004;

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Demetriou & Kyriakides, 2006). They have for example elaborated on a theory of the architecture and development of human mind. By combining different psychology fields, dynamic relations of cognitive organization processes over time and underlying individual differences a hierarchical three level system is here presented a first environmental level, a second self-oriented level, and a third information processing level. Developmental hierarchical levels are here proposed to interact with core capacities. Such specified capacities involve for example categorical, quantitative, causal, spatial, and propositional thoughts. Many of these features of development, cognitive and social elements, and their dynamic interactions can be recognized, directly or indirectly in the DIID approach. The roughly outlined definition of intelligence from the theory of Demetriou seems, in spite of certain differences, to provide theoretical overlapping links between the cognitive, social, and developmental intelligence models and the developmental intelligence of the DIID approach. However, the duality system characteristics and its ontological deep identity are not at hand in the former approach. How does the IQ measure fit in here regarding IQ values and its differentiation in the normal distribution curve, focusing on different intelligence capacity levels in this metric respect? This measure has been found to be highly correlated with the working memory span. Both these intelligence conceptions seem to refer mainly to the cognitive intelligence aspects, focusing this kind of capacity. It is associated with the G-type “hard” type of more hereditary character than is the case regarding the social “soft” development type of intelligence. The normal distribution of IQ, which is highly correlated with working memory and G-type intelligence, tends to remain rather stable across the life course although varying for example to some extent with age and education level. The collective IQ levels have, however, increased “generationally”. Even if they seem to have stagnated in recent years, the IQ values have increased for more than a century all over the world at the rate of about three IQ units per decade. This tendency which is referred as the Flynn effect (Pinker, 2018, p. 240) seems to be hard to explain as a raise in general intelligence which is usually associated to a substantial extent to heredity. The steady increase of IQ may rather be related to a generationally increased abstract thinking level. The increase of such thinking reflected in the Flynn effect may thus be interpreted as advanced abstract thinking among new “decade

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generations”, building their abstraction levels on the thinking of generations of the past decade generations. The fact that the IQ of every such decade generation vary in this way might suggest that the stable factor here can be assumed to be the working memory and its related processing speed. This capacity perhaps functions as the stable intelligence factor that differ between individuals. The working memory concerns the capacity of holding sequences consciously together (varying between the range of seven plus and minus two sequences). Holding such sequences in mind enable thinking manipulation between these in order to analyze patterns of information. Every new abstraction level might imply such increased abstract “sorting principles”. The variation of the working memory sequence span may reflect the normal distribution variation of IQ levels but may also reflect increased IQ levels among the decade generations. The stability of intelligence concerns the various positions in the standard normal distribution curve among individuals. However, this ability seems to develop collectively in each decade generation towards higher abstraction levels, which in the framing of the DIID approach involve both abstractcognitive and self-aware social thinking. Such a developing intelligence might be explained more substantially by the conceiving of intelligence as an embodied human mind continuously interacting with the outside world. The external world provides increasingly abstract problems to solve tasks to carry through and goals to obtain, expressed in inside-out and outside-in ongoing feedback spirals of human mind. This process can be gained mainly by mental speed and holding much information in mind in a planful, foresighted, and flexible way giving rise to different intelligence capacities in these respects. Both the cognitive intelligence aspects are at hand as efficiency in terms of the speed of information flow and as holding this together in a working memory. These abilities are at the same time related to interactive goal-plan sequences which require both social and cognitive motivational drives. A main conclusion from the different intelligence conceptions is thus that the notion of intelligence has developed in different directions out of which some have gained status for example as of prognostic value in career advancements. The cognitively loaded intelligence aspects have provided good prognoses for academic careers in modern and postmodern societies and have been related to increasing abstract life and work tasks as well as to the flexibility capacity of managing such demands. This, in turn,

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could have promoted the thinking of intelligence as mainly a stable cognitive capacity of its own among individuals variation within the normal distribution curve. The development of intelligence in a broader sense involving the emotional and social more context-sensible kinds of intelligence, such as communicating, discussing, and challenging the results of cognitive intelligence, might be left outside its hard core, cognitive features. Such lack of challenges against intelligence as a pure cognitive capacity might promote the look upon intelligence as a separate ability which can be constructed and isolated, for example technologically outside the human body and processed digitally—even to the intelligence level and character of human self-awareness, or even far beyond. The notion of such a superintelligence will be addressed more below. The duality system elaborated in the book takes its point of departure in the abstract self-aware thinking of human mind in an ongoing goal-directed interactive movement across its four domains. It captures social- and cognitive-related duality progresses in time from the past to the future, doing so by externally directed interactions and internally directed reflections. The progressing movements are necessarily involved in ongoing dynamic balances understood as a system process of constant change, activity, and progress. It is a function of the understanding of dualities in the DIID framing as two basic complementing but also opposing sides of their triad wholeness. The duality whole is per definition an internally balancing whole. This is the case of each duality of the system as well as between the duality system parts which builds the system from its right to its left and from the downside to the upside of the system (see Fig. 3.1). Imbalances are in this sense not a problem. They are on the contrary a basic function of the duality system as adaptive regulations of meaning.

The Art and Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) In this section the role of artificial intelligence (AI) is focused in terms of “superintelligence”, developing intelligence and/or increasing abstract self-awareness. It is argued the AI-related intelligence does not enable the human mind abstract awareness according to the DID approach to occur due not at least to the lack of an ego-agent deep identity and an embodied mind character. The DIID approach involves these aspects. It makes intelligence discernable as a broad and deep developing general type of such a capacity based on both sociality and cognition. Worries about

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how such a human intelligence can manage the risks of contemporary and future humanity challenges have raised calls for AI solutions. There is a tendency in the scientific and other public arenas to put their trust on technical ways to develop and expand the capacity of human mind. Below, some overriding considerations and conclusions will be briefly addressed regarding limitations and possibilities of human mind in these terms. The thinking of Stephen Hawking’s on such issues can serve as a point of departure. Leaving his formal background as a physicist somewhat aside in his book “Brief answers to the big questions” (2018), he approached universal human issues. They concern, for instance, where we come from, how the universe began, the meaning of everything, and whether there is “anyone outside”. One of these issues is considered in terms of artificial intelligence which might outsmart human beings. His initial position was that there is no significant difference between the work of the brain of an earth worm and the computing of a computer. He further stated that a consequence of the evolution is that there is no qualitative difference between such a brain and the brain of a human. From these statements he concluded that computers in principle can emulate and even exceed human intelligence. This statement is based on for example Moore’s law, implying that the doubling of the speed and memory capacity of the computers every eighteen months, with high likelihood will result in that they will: “overtake human in intelligence at some point in the next hundred years” (Hawking, 2018, p. 184). Hawking draws these conclusions to the extent that when such an intelligence capacity is developed to a higher level than that of human engineers, it can improve itself recursively. This, in turn, would imply: “…an intelligence explosion that ultimately results in machines whose intelligence exceeds ours by more than ours exceeds that of snails” (Hawkins, 2018, p. 184). He claimed, the need to assure ourselves that computers have goals in accordance with ours. He stated that intelligence in a more everyday life understanding concerns an ability to make good decisions, plans, or inferences. This is an understanding that seems to be approximately and roughly corresponding with the general G-type and fluid intelligence. However, in the computer AI version with its extremely high memory and speed capacity, it has generated remarkable advances in various tasks such as speech recognition, image classification, autonomous vehicles, machine translation, etc. This is also due to cross fertilizations between knowledge disciplines such as statistics and neuroscience towards a common theoretical framework. In

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spite of these apparent advances, Hawking feared the consequences of creating such an intelligence that can match and surpass the intelligence of humans. The concern is that AI would take off on its own and reconstruct itself at an ever-increasing rate (Hawking, 2018, p. 194) and evolve in this capacity a will of its own that may conflict the will of humanity. Moreover, to the better or the worse, it is concluded that: “…There is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human mind” (Hawking, 2018, p. 187). Hawking thus seems to have recognized AI as a kind of potential superintelligence which can be decoupled from the embodied mind. It enables an enormous and increasingly larger capacity type of intelligence in terms of speed memory storage and availability, and also of increased self-generation of such further increases. In its contemporary advanced versions, these capacities are considered to enable playing chess and to find solutions that was not known before in this game. The possible turning point towards higher capacity than that of the human mind in this sense of such an intelligence is provided by fast increasing data aggregation. This statement is based on for example Moore’s law, as noticed above. What kind of intelligence can thereby be created? One way of reasoning may claim that such data aggregations enable increasing data combination possibilities of different kinds. Such combinations build bases for patterns of data (such as in statistical cluster analyses) and may in turn be combined as patterns of patterns, which can be ordered hierarchically as, for example, latent abstraction levels. Algorithms can here guide the searching for goal-directed task solutions enabled by such increasing abstractions, as regulating principles in this sense. However, the question of who is regulating and why and how this who wants to regulate in certain directions remains to be answered. This is not made explicit in the kind of superintelligence capacity reasoning outlined above. Such a reasoning can be traced in traditional cognitive intelligence thinking which appears to delimit intelligence too much in terms of for example increasing information speed and storage of data. Limitations of intelligence capacity related to the working memory and processing speed of human mind thus seem to be disengaged by AI from the evolutionary and biological chains. The processes are thereby able to fly increasingly faster of its own, based on an increasingly larger thought bank. However, such a developing capacity appears not in its own right

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to necessarily enable the human mind self-awareness of reasons and basic motivational drives elaborated in the chapters of the book. As described, this awareness implies a continuously ongoing interaction between the human body and mind with the external systems such as biological, social, and ecological ones. In the human mind, the processes are mutually transmitted by neurological electro chemical processes as a type of organic interactions which involve the human body-brain-mind wholeness of the mind as essentially embodied. Such an integrated system cannot function if it is separated organically and physically in an absolute sense from this wholeness. In the DIID framing, such a radical isolation would lead to loss of oneself as a deep identity. This identity involves basic motivational drives as both belongingness and comprehensibility generating abstract and self-aware thinking. The “who” that is regulating the biological and the mind parts (being guided in the capacity of self-awareness) is a motivationally and goalrelated continuously interacting creature, interacting with the systems of the external world. AI may contribute with mass information grouping and as sorting principles by algorithms and digital transitions. These are, however, constructed by the human mind. The putting of these algorithms in play implies that the AI-ongoing interaction with the external world needs to be locked in the computer. Can the duality system according to DIID be replaced by computer-driven algorithms? Such claims must explain how this is compatible with the human mind as an embodied and thereby motivationally driven, increasingly self-conscious and socially interpreting oneself in others and others in oneself, as a deep identity. These considerations follow those of Pinker stating that the technological advancements of AI have been associated with human civilization threats as did Hawking mean. Such as: “…the danger that we will be subjugated, intentionally or accidentally, by artificial intelligence (AI)” (Pinker, 2018, p. 296). This threat, he considers as highly unlikely. One fallacy of the threat imagination is attributed to the thinking of intelligence: “… as a boundless continuum of potency, a miraculous elixir with the power to solve any problem attain any goal”. Another fallacy is: “…the confusion of intelligence with motivation, of beliefs with desires, inferences with goals, thinking with wanting” (Pinker, 2018, p. 297). Knowledge is generated by explanations being tested against reality and is not, he states, generated by running an algorithm increasingly faster. AI is rather considered as any other technology: “…It is developed

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incrementally, designed to satisfy multiple conditions, tested before it is implemented, and constantly tweaked for efficacy and safety” (Pinker, 2018, p. 300). An overriding issue regarding human mind which concerns both its biological and psychological levels as well as the body and soul issue presented in Chapter 1, is its “material” existence in its own right and according to natural laws. Is it an artifact of merely biological processes, such as those of the electrically transmitted cascades of impulses in the neurons of the human brain? Where is the mental conscious level located and what is it? This issue is still an object of different interpretations, even if the knowledge frontlines have advanced far from those of Descartes’. The tentative suggestion of the DIID duality system approach assumes the quantum physics level and its waves and particles, to be guided in its movements by the regulating principles of the duality system. The quantum level is located at the micro physics level in accordance with the physical laws of this level. They are contrasting the laws of the macro physics level in important respects, a difference that still has not been overcome. What can finally be conceived as the most striking characteristics of the human mind in the framing of the DIID approach? In intelligence terms it would be designated as developmental intelligence as the most superordinated or basic feature as compared with other intelligence conceptions. The development characteristics are a function of its basic motivational drives of belongingness and comprehensibility to guide the human mind interactions with its environment. This interactive spiral feedback movements from inside-out and outside-in constitute the continuously ongoing balancing movement of the human mind as a broad adaptive kind of intelligence. If intelligence is the most adequate conception to be used here, it is in a basic and broad understanding. It involves, for example, both its cognitive and social functions as necessarily and basically interlinked in the duality terms elaborated in this book. Furthermore, the basic moving character appears to express a self-organizing development logic of a fractal kind, manifested in dialectical progression towards hierarchically ordered stages of complexity.

The Duality System---Possible Applications In this last section, some conditions related to the DIID approach and to broad historical and contemporary societal development trends are addressed. They focus on some general more or less optimal developmentally gainful combinations of human collaborations which can contribute

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to meet contemporary and future challenges in theory as well as in application advancements. Human mind is described as a self-organizing open system, which can be assumed to reorganize its own organization in terms of combinations of a belongingness-related sociality awareness and a comprehensibility-related causality awareness. It is the basic interlinked regulations of these two kinds of awareness which are assumed to constitute the typical human mind progression of abstract thinking. This combination seems to promote increasing transformative shifts described in the book, which are adaptive responses to increasingly changing and abstract external conditions. Sociality and causality have been described in chapters of the book as two contrasting epistemological domains, which are potentially driving the development dialectically towards stage-like transformations. This two-fold progression provides necessary conditions to grasp the societal development in basic respects. This is the case regarding for example globalization and related technological, economical, and social innovations as well as regarding the ecological impact and functioning. Phenomena such as ecological systems seem to require the understanding of dialectical thinking in terms of, for instance, system thinking and exponential progression. How, and to what extent, is such internal and external complexity progressing and what are the central hampering and promoting conditions involved? How can a developing human mind have gained human civilization, well-being, and meaning and what are the reasons to assume a further development in such or other directions? Some final main points addressing this will be considered. In the broad and long-term perspective of Pinker’s analysis of the decline of violence in history and its causes (Pinker, 2011), some broad threads that have promoted this decline are brought to the fore. They concern the pacification process, the civilizing process, the humanitarian revolution, the long peace, the new peace, and the right revolutions. Common features of these threads are summarized as the creation of states referred to as the Leviathan, the creation of “gentle commerce”, and feminization, “the expanding circle” and “the escalator of reason”. These broad threads are elaborated further as follows. The Leviathan (or Justitia, the goddess of justice) refers not at least to the state monopoly of violence and thereby to protect its members from each other. The cost of breaking the law of the state became bigger than following the law, and its effects are suggested to lie behind the pacification and civilizing processes.

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Gentle commerce concerns the advantages of mutual gains of exchange by commerce and the profitability of cooperation leading to countries being more open to the world as well as economy which hamper their war incitements. Feminization in modern societies tended to free women from chronic child-rearing and domestic duties and to take part in the labor market in the longer life spans of postmodern societies. The expanding circle refers to internal expanding capacities to take the perspectives of others as: “circles of sympathy”. It involves meeting people with diverse frames of references that: “…invites us to take their points of view, changes our emotional response to their wellbeing: in causal chains of such events gaining perspective taking and sympathy” (Pinker, 2011, p. 689). These processes are in accordance with the ego, belongingness, and social duality system side of human mind. They refer to human interaction as reversible-social feedback spiral processes. The expanding circle is also associated with the escalation of reason. The expanding circle captures the taking of another person’s perspective by: “imaging his or her emotions as they were one’s own”. However, also as taking: “…the perspective of eternity, the view from nowhere— and considering one’s own interest and another person’s as equivalent” (Pinker, 2011, p. 690). The latter position thereby adds an external source behind the expanding circle: “…The nature of reality, with its logical relationships and empirical facts that are independent of the psychological makeup of the thinkers who attempt to grasp them” (Pinker, 2011, p. 690). This is in accordance with the agent, comprehensibility, and causal system side of the duality system. The social and reason aspects underlined by Pinker seem to reflect the ego-social and agent-causal sides of the duality system. This refers to human interaction as irreversible-causal and reversible-social spiral feedback processes. Pinker concludes for example that it is not always easy to separate empathy and reason, or the heart from the head and that social and reason aspects seem to be reflected in: “…empathy needs the universalizing boost of reason to bring about changes in policies and norms that actually reduce violence in the world”, as well as value systems evolving towards humanism because it is generated by reasons that can justify such values. This is claimed to be the case since: “…it can be mutually agreed upon by any community of thinkers who value their own interests and are engaged in reasoned negotiation” (Pinker, 2011, p. 691). This reason overlaps the comprehensibility interlinking with belongingness in the DIID approach. Optimal development conditions that combine these

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two aspects of expanding circles might in the DIID approach be understood in duality terms and the circle logic as feedback spiral loops. Main challenges in contemporary societies apparently seem to call for broader and deeper-rooted analytical tools and applications. Overload of information in postmodern societies has, for example, been interpreted as passing “in over our heads” (Kegan, 1994), which challenge the meaning making of its inhabitants. The overload of information of increasingly abstract nature, of both a social and causal nature, requires also higher levels of these forms of selfawareness. The transformations in this direction according to the DIID approach involve “optimal polarizations” between the social-causal sides of the duality system as well as between the stage levels of this system. Such polarizations are necessary conditions for the dialectical thesisantithesis-synthesis interplay behind the DIID stage transformations. The gaps within and between the DIID hard stages partly overlap the proximal zoon of development according to Vygotskian theory (1978). They differ from the “zones” of the DIID approach regarding, for example, the explicit personal guidance to obtain higher abstract levels of thinking. Thus, the DIID framing of “optimality” in this sense may more generally be referred to as the optimal zoon of stage transformations. However, also here support is assumed to promote development, as expressed in: “…the experience of optimal conflict in the context of optimal support” (Kegan, 2003, p. 44). Support is important since the dialectical development of both the SOT and DIID approaches is related to deep identity challenges in existential terms, as one reason behind “immunity to change” (Kegan & Lahey, 2009). Polarizations thereby run the risk to strengthen the conflicts between persons in different stages or between persons between social-causal positions of these stages. It is a risk which can be assumed to increase in correspondence with increasingly rapid external changes such as those in the global postmodern societies. Thus, optimal development gaps can be assumed to involve interaction, communication, and collaboration forms which link together opposing positions within and between stages. Such conditions can be assumed to promote, for example, formal and informal learning, collaboration towards common goals and negotiation interactions. Opposing conflicting polarization positions involve, for example, belongingness as relatively more “emotionally and expressively” oriented and comprehensibility as relatively more “cognitively and instrumentally” oriented.

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As outlined in terms of organizational theory, the social and belongingness side can be claimed as naïve from the comprehensibility side and the comprehensibility side can be claimed as cynical from the belongingness side. In a broader societal perspective, sustainability efforts concern, for example, to combine the opposing positions of the reproductive and productive spheres of the societal production of goods and services. In a still broader global perspective, these positions can be associated with ecological sustainability care as opposed to market economy progress. (e.g., Björkman, 2016; Raworth, 2017) Moreover, such opposing positions also appear as discernable in international comparative value research and theory (Schwartz, 1996) in terms of two basic value dimensions of bipolar types. One of these concerns self-transcendence as opposed to self-enhancement the other concerns openness to change as opposed to conservation. These opposing positions seem to reflect the DIID stage difference as both stage levels and as social-causal contrasts. Broad generational and global value shifts in partly similar directions are indicated in the international World Value Study documented trend from materialistic preferences in industrial societies towards post materialistic values in post-industrial societies (Inglehart, 1997, 2007). These changes concern intergenerational value shifts. They, as well as life course stages, appear to progress more slowly than faster global technologically and economically generated “disembedding” of societal context boundaries (Allvin et al., 2011; Giddens, 1991; Hagström & Hansson, 2003). Another related gap concerns contemporary ideologically colored opposing globalist and nationalist standpoints. Big global challenges have been elaborated and discussed as a necessary application or renewal of the ideas of Enlightenment (Pinker, 2018) and as requiring a system perspective on planet Earth. Polarizations can both hamper and promote the stage-wise transformations of the duality system, and the developing human mind is a phenomenon with critical turning points. An optimistic perspective can be related to Pinker, who claims that the difference between a so-called natural disaster and one that is caused by lacking knowledge is an issue of time and place (referring to Deutsch [2011]). Thus, later developed scientific and technological advances could hypothetically have hampered several earlier disasters (Pinker, 2018). The scientifically based knowledge development in general progresses increasingly fast, and the human mind meets this progression by, for example, the stage development processes described in this book. However, the latter processes seem to progress slower due to, not at

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least, resistance towards deep identity threatening changes. Therefore, knowledge of the human mind development appears to be of great importance in order to understand how to promote optimal development conditions and to avoid the hampering ones. The proposed DIID duality system could hopefully contribute to this as one tool in more elaborated and advanced collaboration between different scientific fields. Taking the position to understand and explain the human mind solely from certain scientific fields appears to make it more mysterious than necessary. There are good reasons to assume that collaborative scientific efforts to understand the human mind is a powerful causal force behind radical changes. The human mind is, in the DIID framing, not understood as an epiphenomenon, in the sense of a secondary effect or a by-product of for example “material” physical or biological causal processes. The human mind is instead assumed to exert a basic causal influence of its own in the capacity of increasing abstract and self-aware thinking. It has been necessary for the vast social-economical-technological and, not at least, the scientific advances behind complex postmodern societies. The DIID duality system approach is an effort to propose a tool in a further theory development of human mind in close collaboration between different science disciplines. It might free knowledge potentials far beyond the sum of the different disciplinary contributions. Such efforts should also involve a deep respect for the holistic human mind, for its unique individuals and for the humanity in general—a human mind whose socialmoral and causal-rational strivings make meaning of belongingness and comprehensibility.

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