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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

Eros in the Gaps

Ken Wilber's Metaphysical Misreading of Evolution

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Summary of Wilber's Evolutionary View

Ken Wilber holds that evolution is not merely a blind, mechanical process driven by chance mutations and natural selection. Instead, he proposes that evolution is guided by an intrinsic force of creativity and directionality that he names Eros. In his view, evolution is a manifestation of the cosmos awakening to itself, unfolding through holarchic stages of increasing complexity, depth, and consciousness. This process is not accidental but teleological: it reflects a deep spiritual drive built into the fabric of reality.

Wilber also insists that all phenomena emerge within four interrelated dimensions—subjective (I), objective (It), intersubjective (We), and interobjective (Its)—which he calls the Four Quadrants. According to him, evolution happens through a process he calls tetra-evolution, in which all four quadrants simultaneously co-arise and "tetra-evolve" in each moment of becoming.

He critiques mainstream evolutionary theory, arguing that it cannot adequately explain emergence, speciation, or the directionality of evolution. Instead of gradual natural processes, Wilber invokes the notion that entire populations, along with their interior and exterior dimensions, emerge at once in a manner consistent with his Integral framework. The evolutionary sciences, he suggests, unknowingly support his view when they admit there is "no first instance" of a species. For Wilber, this is evidence of a deeper metaphysical structure at play, one that science has yet to fully recognize.

This essay critically examines a series of Wilber's remarks on evolution—both informal and published—to demonstrate how his approach undermines scientific literacy while promoting a metaphysical worldview dressed in the language of biology.[1]

1. False Equivalence Between Science and Myth

Wilber often opens his critiques of Darwinian evolution by aligning it rhetorically with both fundamentalist creationism and Intelligent Design:

"It's so easy to make fun of the Intelligent Design movement... and make fun of the Christian myth... and say 'Darwinian evolution is the only way to go and all else is full of crap.' It's about half right and half wrong."

Here Wilber creates a false equivalence. While creation myths and Intelligent Design are non-scientific (or pseudoscientific), Darwinian evolution is an evidence-based scientific framework. Conflating them as if they are all competing belief systems ignores the fundamental epistemological distinction between empirical theory and metaphysical speculation.

This rhetorical move lets Wilber position himself as transcending both extremes, when in fact he undermines the authority of science by suggesting that its commitment to methodological naturalism is merely a partial truth.

2. Misrepresentation of Evolutionary Mechanisms

Wilber claims that evolution cannot explain the emergence of complex forms:

"You can't explain emergence. It just doesn't work!"

But this is simply false. The study of emergent properties is well underway in fields like complexity science, evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), and systems theory. These disciplines offer naturalistic explanations for how higher-level order arises from lower-level interactions—without invoking mysterious or metaphysical forces.

By asserting that emergence is inexplicable, Wilber invites the audience to accept his preferred metaphysical placeholder: Eros. This is not an alternative explanation; it is a rhetorical sleight-of-hand that replaces a scientific challenge with mystical certainty.

3. The Fallacy of Simultaneous Mutation

In both informal talks and published writings, Wilber suggests that speciation requires multiple identical mutations to occur in two separate individuals:

"For a new species to arise, there must occur dozens of major beneficial mutations... and the same dozen mutations must occur in another animal of the opposite sex... and then they must find each other... and mate."

This reveals a profound misunderstanding of population genetics. Evolution is not the story of two individuals randomly mutating in the same way and finding each other for wine, dinner, and reproduction. New traits spread through populations via variation, inheritance, and differential reproductive success. No biologist claims there is a “first individual” with a new complex trait that must find a mate with the same mutations. This is a caricature, not a critique.

Wilber compounds this with an invocation of improbability that echoes Intelligent Design arguments, claiming the odds are "off the scale of the believable." But evolution does not rely on coincidence of simultaneous mutation; it works through gradual accumulation of small, adaptive changes.

4. The “No First Instance” Misinterpretation

Wilber further misreads the evolutionary consensus when he writes:

“Even evolutionary sciences support this conclusion... there are no first instances in evolution. When the first instance of a new species arises... what first shows up is an entire population of mammals.”

Here, he conflates a descriptive convention in evolutionary biology with a metaphysical mystery. The idea that “there is no first rabbit” means that speciation is gradual, occurring over many generations. Biologists do not mean that a new population appears suddenly or mysteriously.

Rather, because speciation is a population-level phenomenon—often involving geographical isolation, genetic drift, and reproductive incompatibility—it is imprecise to point to a single first individual. Wilber misuses this technical caveat to argue for the sudden appearance of whole species.

5. Four Quadrants as Explanatory Vortex

Wilber then pivots to his central metaphysical claim:

“There is no singular without a plural. That doesn't happen anywhere in the universe!”

This slogan underlies his insistence that all phenomena must emerge in four quadrants simultaneously: subjective, objective, intersubjective, and interobjective. But this is an ontological imposition, not an empirical observation. Wilber assumes that all reality is structured this way, and then retrofits everything—from cells to civilizations—into this schema.

The move is elegant, but it is hermeneutic, not explanatory. It organizes perspectives, but it does not explain how traits evolve, how mutations spread, or how consciousness arises.

6. Eros as Teleological Placeholder

“How do entire populations simply show up? What “mechanism” can possibly account for that? The short answer is: Eros. But whatever we decide on the “how” of it, the factual “what” of it is that the interior and the exterior of the singular and the plural arrive on the scene simultaneously: the quadrants tetra-evolve.

Science truly cannot account for this; Darwinian mutation and natural selection come nowhere close to doing so; you have to have, at a minimum, a self-organizing force—Eros—inherently and intrinsically present in all 4 quadrants to even consider getting this going.”

Eros, for Wilber, is the directional force driving the cosmos to ever-higher levels of complexity and consciousness. In a revealing footnote in Excerpt A, he explains that Eros arises from the metaphysical condition that every holon is Spirit-in-disguise: “Spirit-as-matter, Spirit-as-body, Spirit-as-mind, Spirit-as-soul, and Spirit-as-spirit.” (see Appendix).

Because most holons do not realize their true nature, they possess an intrinsic urge—an "itch for infinity"—to return to Spirit. This telos manifests as a drive toward higher unions, wider identities, and greater wholeness. Eros is thus the drive of all finite things to find the Infinite, resulting in increasing unification and integration within the finite realm.

This framing reveals that Eros is not a scientific mechanism but a spiritual metaphysics: a fusion of idealist cosmology and mystical yearning. As a scientific hypothesis, Eros fails every test: it is not defined, not measurable, not falsifiable, and not predictive. It is a metaphysical placeholder, not a mechanism.

Functionally, this is Wilber's version of Intelligent Design: when science can't (supposedly) explain something, a spiritual force is inserted to do the heavy lifting.

7. The Closure of the System: Micro-Genesis and Tetra-Selection

Wilber's final move is to universalize his metaphysical scheme into every moment of reality:

“Micro-genesis is a tetra-quadrant affair... There is a tetra-selection pressure... All four dimensions of the next moment have to fit with the previous moment, and then add their own creativity.”

This sounds profound but is logically circular. If something persists, it "fit." If something changes, it "transcended." If something failed, it "didn't fit." Like Hegelian dialectic, this framework is immune to disproof.

It also mimics the language of science while being entirely metaphysical. "Tetra-selection pressure" has no empirical definition. There is no way to test whether all four quadrants evolve together moment-by-moment.

8. Involution: An Esoteric Supplement, Not a Scientific Concept

A key component of Wilber's evolutionary framework is the concept of involution, which he presents as the cosmic "giving" or "downward" movement that precedes and conditions evolution. Involution is described as a process whereby Spirit “descends” or “folds in” to manifest as matter, body, mind, and soul before evolving back toward greater consciousness and unity. It is an esoteric notion drawn largely from mystical and theosophical traditions, repurposed as a metaphysical grounding for his teleological view.

Wilber briefly references involution in relation to the “mysterious way” entire populations appear simultaneously, suggesting that involutionary givens precondition the emergent phenomena observed in evolution. However, involution is not recognized or utilized by professional biologists or evolutionary theorists, who rely on empirical evidence and mechanistic explanations rather than metaphysical postulates.

In scientific biology, there is no recognized process resembling involution. Evolutionary biology is grounded in genetic variation, selection, drift, gene flow, and developmental constraints—processes that are observable, testable, and falsifiable. In contrast, involution remains a metaphysical hypothesis without empirical support, serving as a pre-scientific explanation or spiritual narrative rather than a scientific one.

By introducing involution, Wilber further distances his interpretation from mainstream evolutionary science, anchoring it instead in a metaphysical worldview that requires acceptance of spiritual premises rather than empirical verification. This move highlights the fundamental difference between Wilber's integral philosophy and the methodological naturalism that underpins modern biology.

9. Misunderstanding Entropy and the Direction of Evolution

Wilber often emphasizes the apparent contradiction between the Second Law of Thermodynamics—which states that closed systems tend toward disorder or entropy—and the observable increase of order and complexity in biological evolution. He writes:

“Against all scientific sensibilities (which see only 'its' without intentionalities), and against every known law of physics (which imagines that 'its' only run downhill), the material universe appears to be actively organizing itself into higher and more complex systems.”

This formulation reveals a common misunderstanding about entropy and how it applies to living systems and evolution.

Firstly, the Second Law applies strictly to closed systems—isolated from external energy or matter exchange. Earth and the biosphere are open systems, continuously receiving energy from the sun. This influx of energy fuels local decreases in entropy, such as the formation of ordered structures and complex organisms, even as the total entropy of the larger system (including the sun and universe) increases.

Secondly, physics and biology do not claim that evolution “runs downhill” or moves inevitably toward disorder. Instead, complexity and order can arise naturally through self-organizing processes under energy flow, as studied in non-equilibrium thermodynamics and complexity science. These fields explain how dissipative structures emerge spontaneously, such as convection cells, snowflakes, and living organisms.

By framing the increase of biological complexity as violating physical laws or as evidence for a metaphysical intentionality, Wilber misses the nuance of thermodynamics and the well-established scientific understanding of how order emerges in open systems. His argument wrongly implies that naturalistic explanations are insufficient or contradictory, thereby opening the door for his spiritual concept of Eros as a necessary organizing principle.

In sum, Wilber's interpretation oversimplifies and distorts physical science, trading scientific rigor for metaphysical speculation.

Conclusion: Evolution Without Eros

Wilber's attempt to integrate evolutionary biology with Integral Metaphysics ultimately does a disservice to both. By misunderstanding evolutionary theory and framing its gaps as support for his metaphysical vision, he replaces genuine inquiry with poetic certainty. His framework is closed, self-confirming, and untestable.

What he offers is not a scientific alternative but a myth of cosmic development, animated by metaphors like Eros and transcend-and-include. While powerful as spiritual narrative, it should not be mistaken for a valid critique of modern evolutionary science.

In the end, evolution does not need Eros. It needs clarity, rigor, and humility—qualities too often sacrificed in the rush to metaphysical grandeur.

APPENDIX: EROS AS INVOLUTIONARY GIVEN

Here's the footnote in Excerpt A in which Wilber describes/defines Eros:

Eros. Eros basically is derived from one fact: Spirit creates the entire manifest world and every holon in it; in fact, every holon is Spirit-in-itself playing at being Other (e.g., the great nest of morphogenetic potential often summarized as matter, body, mind, soul, and spirit is actually Spirit-as-matter, Spirit-as-body, Spirit-as-mind, Spirit-as-soul, and Spirit-as-spirit). Since the reality, Suchness, or Isness of every holon is actually Spirit, but because most holons do not realize that they are Spirit, then each holon, so to speak, has an itch for infinity: each holon has a drive, a desire, a push, a telos, a hankering for God—which means, a drive to realize Spirit-itself, a drive which ultimately wants to embrace the entire Kosmos itself.

This is a drive toward higher unions, wider identities, greater inclusion—culminating in God-realization, or every holon's realization of Spirit, by Spirit, in Spirit, as Spirit. This ultimate realization, in its Primordial Nature, is not a summation at the end of the line, or a culmination of temporal additions, or a finite sum of finite parts adding up to One Really Big Finite Thing, but rather the realization of the ever-present, spaceless and therefore infinite, timeless and therefore eternal, formless and therefore omnipresent, Condition of all conditions and Nature of all natures and radically groundless Ground of all grounds. Nevertheless, in the manifest realm, the paradoxical result is a drive toward greater unity among finite things themselves, yearning to be Free and Full.

This drive toward greater unity and wholeness in the finite realm is called Eros: the drive of all finite things to find the infinite, which results in the increasing unification and differentiation-integration of finite occasions (the sum total of which is the Consequent Nature of Spirit). In the temporal realm, the sequence of ever-increasing unifications is endless, stretching from the subtle into millions, billions, zillions of manifest realities in the future, as every moment transcends-and-includes its predecessors, thus bringing new truths, new experiences, new realities, and new integrations into being, with no discernible upward limit (because Spirit is not found as the upper limit of finite things but as their ever-present Ground, and therefore there is no final destination upward, and the Consequent Nature of Spirit simply compounds everlastingly). At some point in this spiral of development and evolution, a holon becomes complex enough, differentiated-and-integrated enough, conscious enough, that it can begin to awaken to its ever-present Ground or Primordial Nature, even as the finite display continues on its agitated round of unifications. In that holon, Spirit then continues its play of manifestation, but now as a conscious, felt, vividly present Presence, a ray of infinity hooking out from that holon on the world that it created.

This drive—the drive of Eros—appears, to the 3rd-person perspective of humans at or beyond the teal wave, as a drive toward self-organization in all complex holons, a drive to create order out of chaos, a series of dissipative structures that eat energy and create unified form: against all scientific sensibilities (which see only “its” without intentionalities), and against every known law of physics (which imagines that “its” only run downhill), the material universe appears to be actively organizing itself into higher and more complex systems. Scientists scratch their heads. How can that be? The universe is self-winding. The universe seeks higher unions. The universe has a drive for self-organization. The universe… well, let us say plainly what the it-perspective misses: the universe is on fire with an unquenchable thirst for God. But however you wish to conceive this Eros, this drive to order-out-of-chaos, this astonishing autopoiesis at the very heart of matter, it is an uncontested pattern in evolution, and a pattern that cannot be accounted for by evolution itself.

Thus, Eros is postulated to be one of the involutionary givens: that is, one of the items present from the start of evolution, a deposit in the manifest realm of Spirit's involution into, and as, that realm—faint echoes of Spirit's sneeze that set this particular round of the Kosmic Game in motion.[2]

NOTES

[1] See: Frank Visser, "'Entire populations simply show up', Ken Wilber on Emergence and Speciation", www.integralworld.net, May 2019 for the Wilber quotes mentioned in this essay.

[2] Ken Wilber, "An Integral Age at the Leading Edge", www.integrallife.com, p. 184-185. This is a repost of the so-called Excerpt A of work-in-progress in 2002, presumably volume 2 of the Kosmos-trilogy, that never got published.