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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).

The Three Eyes and the Trouble of Transgression

Ken Wilber, Evolution, and the Mixing of Sciences

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Ken Wilber has long championed an epistemology that honors multiple ways of knowing, each corresponding to different domains of inquiry. In Eye to Eye (1983), he introduced a compelling framework of the “three eyes of knowledge”: the eye of flesh (sensory and empirical knowing), the eye of mind (rational and interpretive understanding), and the eye of spirit (mystical or contemplative insight). Each of these eyes, he proposed, corresponds to a valid form of “science” with its own methods, standards, and truths.

Wilber's vision was meant to prevent the reduction of one domain into another—scientism into meaning, or mysticism into mere psychology—and to encourage a pluralistic integration of knowledge. His early work rightly criticized the confusion of domains, emphasizing that "trouble starts when the eyes are confused."

However, as Wilber's system evolved—particularly in his discussions of biological evolution—he began to blur the very lines he had once so clearly drawn. By inserting spiritual metaphysics into the domain of empirical science, Wilber ends up violating his own principle of epistemological differentiation. Nowhere is this more evident than in his insistence that evolution is “Spirit-in-action,” driven by an inner telos or Eros toward greater complexity and consciousness.

This essay explores the strengths of Wilber's triadic model of knowledge, clearly illustrates the distinctions between the three forms of science, and then examines how Wilber's metaphysical claims about evolution conflate and compromise these distinctions. It concludes by reaffirming the importance of respecting the autonomy of each domain, especially when the integrity of science is at stake.

I. The Three Eyes, Three Sciences: Clear Domains, Distinct Questions

To appreciate both the power and the potential pitfalls of Wilber's model, we must first ground the abstract terms—“eye of flesh,” “eye of mind,” “eye of spirit”—in concrete examples from real fields of knowledge. This helps clarify how these domains function and why crossing them improperly can cause confusion.

1. Empirical Science — The Eye of Flesh

This is the realm of measurable, observable phenomena. It uses sense perception (often extended by instruments) to gather data, form hypotheses, and build predictive models.

Examples:

• A biologist studying how zebras evolved stripes to deter flies.
• A physicist measuring gravitational waves.
• A chemist analyzing the molecular structure of water.
• A climate scientist tracking CO₂ levels via satellite data.

Here, questions focus on mechanism and causality: What causes X? How does Y work? This is objective, third-person knowledge meant to be repeatable and verifiable.

2. Mental or Historical Science — The Eye of Mind

This interpretive domain involves understanding meaning, narrative, and culture. It includes disciplines that study symbolic systems and human subjectivity from a rational standpoint.

Examples:

• A literary scholar analyzing themes in Dostoevsky.
• A historian reconstructing the causes of the French Revolution.
• A psychologist interpreting dreams or behavior through psychoanalytic theory.
• A sociologist exploring the impact of Instagram on identity.

These sciences ask questions like: What does this mean? Why did this happen? What values or ideologies are at play? The method is hermeneutic and the knowledge is subjective but disciplined.

3. Spiritual Science — The Eye of Spirit

This is the domain of contemplative and mystical knowledge, derived from firsthand experience of transcendent or nondual states of consciousness. It is not symbolic belief but phenomenological realization.

Examples:

• A Zen monk experiencing nondual awareness after long meditation.
• A Christian mystic describing union with the Divine.
• A Tibetan yogi navigating subtle states of consciousness.
• A Sufi entering ecstatic states of love and oneness.

Here the questions are: What is the nature of awareness? What lies beyond thought and ego? What is the ultimate Ground of Being? The method is contemplative discipline; the result is inner transformation.

Each domain is valid in its own right. They deal with different types of “data,” use different methods, and yield different kinds of truth. Wilber's great early contribution was to insist that these domains should not be collapsed into one another—but instead held in integral relationship.

II. Confusing the Eyes: Eros, Spirit, and the Meaning of Evolution

Given Wilber's careful delineation of the three eyes, one would expect him to respect the boundaries between empirical and spiritual knowing. And yet, in his later work—especially beginning with Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995)—he routinely asserts that evolution is not a random, material process but is driven by a spiritual force: Eros, or “Spirit-in-action.”

This Eros is not metaphorical, Wilber insists, but ontological. He portrays it as an inner pull in the universe toward greater depth, complexity, and consciousness. In doing so, he introduces a metaphysical principle as if it were a causal explanation of empirical phenomena—precisely the kind of domain confusion he earlier warned against.

The result is a subtle but serious epistemological transgression. What should be treated as a poetic or symbolic interpretation becomes an ontological claim about biological processes. In effect, Wilber installs a form of intelligent design—albeit in spiritual, not religious garb—at the heart of his theory of evolution.

III. Evolutionary Science vs. Mystical Metaphysics

Modern evolutionary biology is built on naturalistic mechanisms like variation, selection, mutation, genetic drift, and environmental pressures. It explains complexity through cumulative, non-directed processes. While debates continue about the role of contingency, self-organization, and convergence, no credible biological model posits a teleological Eros guiding evolution.

Wilber's framing, however, casts doubt on these explanations, arguing they are insufficient to account for life's increasing complexity. He ridicules purely scientific accounts with rhetorical lines like: “Why on earth would dirt get right up and eventually write poetry?”[1] The implication is that something else—Spirit—is needed.

But this represents a profound category error. Evolutionary biology doesn't fail to invoke Spirit—it refrains from doing so, because that's outside its domain. It adheres to empirical methods, not because it's blind to meaning, but because it is methodologically humble. Wilber's criticism conflates scientific restraint with conceptual inadequacy.

Moreover, his assertions about evolution misrepresent the state of biological research. Fields like evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-Devo), epigenetics, and systems biology are already expanding our understanding of complexity—without invoking spiritual forces. Science evolves by improving its methods, not by importing metaphysics.

IV. Projection and Reversal: Who Is Really Resisting?

In the course of critiquing Ken Wilber's metaphysical approach to evolution, it's not uncommon for his spiritual students to respond not with empirical counterarguments, but with psychological diagnoses. One of the most frequent claims made against critics like Frank Visser is that the real resistance does not lie in Wilber's defense of Spirit—but in Visser's fear of it.

The argument goes something like this: Visser clings to reductionistic science because it protects his secular identity. He is afraid that accepting Spirit as a real force in evolution or consciousness would destabilize his worldview. Thus, his critique of spiritual metaphysics is not a product of rational analysis, but of psychological avoidance—an unconscious defense against transcendence.

While rhetorically convenient, this move is deeply problematic—for several reasons.

1. It pathologizes disagreement.

To psychologize a critic's position rather than engage with their actual arguments is to sidestep rational debate. It replaces evidence with projection. It's one thing to say, “Your epistemology is limited.” It's another to say, “Your soul is scared.” This is not philosophy—it's armchair therapy deployed as a deflection.

2. It reverses the burden of proof.

The claim that “Spirit is real and you resist it” is not self-evident. It requires demonstration, not assertion. If someone argues that Spirit is a metaphysical assumption rather than an empirical discovery, the burden is on the proponent of Spirit to show that it belongs in the explanation of natural phenomena—not on the skeptic to prove their inner purity.

3. It ignores the ethical stance of epistemological clarity.

Frank Visser's commitment to naturalism is not a refusal of awe or mystery. It is a principled refusal to confuse categories. To insist that evolution be explained biologically is not to deny that consciousness is rich, layered, or profound. It is to insist that disciplines respect their boundaries. Visser's critique is not anti-spiritual—it is anti-slippage.

Indeed, the very accusation reveals a psychological dynamic of its own: it functions as a defense mechanism for those who feel existentially committed to a spiritually teleological cosmos. When that narrative is challenged, they retaliate not by defending it rationally, but by attributing emotional or spiritual failings to the challenger.

In that sense, the claim that “Frank resists Spirit” says more about the accuser's discomfort than the accused's intentions. It protects a metaphysical worldview by framing disagreement as pathology.

V. Evolution as the Pressure Point of the Wilberian Worldview

Given Ken Wilber's consistent advocacy for epistemological pluralism, it is striking how unequanimous his treatment of evolutionary theory has been. In areas such as psychology, systems theory, or even neuroscience, Wilber tends to maintain an appreciative and integrative stance. He draws from multiple disciplines, highlights partial truths, and weaves them into his AQAL framework. But with evolutionary biology—especially neo-Darwinian theory—he adopts a markedly polemical tone, accusing it of being “flatland,” “reductionistic,” or “merely materialistic.”

Why this disproportionate response?

The answer lies in what evolution represents for Wilber's larger metaphysical and spiritual vision. His entire integral model hinges on the idea of development—not just in individual consciousness, but in culture, nature, and the cosmos itself. Evolution serves as the spine of his grand narrative of increasing complexity, depth, and integration. It is what allows him to claim that Spirit is not just timeless and unmanifest, but manifesting—actively unfolding in the world.

In this vision, evolution becomes not a contingent biological process but a theological drama. The cosmos itself is becoming more conscious, more integrated, more self-aware. Biological evolution is not just a backdrop to human and spiritual development—it is the very mechanism by which Spirit comes to know itself.

If evolution were truly random, contingent, and non-teleological, as most scientists argue, this would pose a direct threat to Wilber's central claim: that Spirit is “in action” in the unfolding universe. A purely naturalistic account of evolution would decouple development from divinity. It would render the emergence of consciousness a lucky accident rather than a cosmic inevitability. And that would leave Wilber's entire metaphysical scaffolding in jeopardy.

So the resistance to evolutionary theory is not just epistemological—it is existential. It is a defensive maneuver to preserve a deeply cherished worldview in which the universe is not just lawful, but meaningful; not just complex, but purposeful. To accept that life's complexity might be the result of bottom-up processes rather than top-down guidance would feel, within Wilber's framework, like a betrayal of Spirit itself.

This helps explain why Wilber has treated evolutionary biology with far more suspicion than other scientific disciplines, and why critics who defend mainstream evolution (such as Frank Visser) are met not with dialogue but dismissal. The issue touches a nerve—because it exposes a fault line between Wilber's integrative epistemology and his metaphysical commitments.

VI. Improving Science vs. Escaping It: The Misstep of Spiritual Supplementation

This brings us to a deeper irony: Wilber argues that because science “can't explain” evolution adequately, we must turn to higher forms of knowing—mental and spiritual science—to fill in the gaps. But this is unnecessary and epistemologically unsound.

When empirical science faces explanatory challenges, the solution is not to leap into mysticism, but to deepen empirical research. Evolutionary theory, for example, is far from static. It is expanding through new discoveries in regulatory genes, microbial symbiosis, and ecological dynamics. To say that “science can't explain it” is often just to say that current science is still working on it—as it always has.

And yet Wilber dismisses critics who defend evolutionary science as being “extremely conventional.” He applied this label to Frank Visser—one of his earliest supporters turned critic—whose views on evolution remain aligned with mainstream biology. Wilber's spiritual readership often echoes this dismissal, applauding Visser's conventionalism as a failure to “see” the spiritual depth behind evolution.

But this is a profound misunderstanding. To defend empirical science's autonomy is not to be blind or reductionistic—it is to respect the boundaries that Wilber himself once insisted upon. Visser's refusal to spiritualize biology is, paradoxically, a better enactment of integral methodological pluralism than Wilber's own metaphysical overreach.

VII. Conclusion: Integral Integrity Revisited

Ken Wilber's contribution to the philosophy of science and spirituality is significant. His articulation of the Three Eyes and the call for methodological pluralism opened a path beyond reductionism and dogma. His early warnings against mixing domains remain relevant and wise.

But his later metaphysical claims about evolution violate the very distinctions he once defended. By inserting Spirit into the workings of empirical nature, Wilber blurs epistemic boundaries, confuses interpretation with causation, and risks undermining both scientific rigor and spiritual insight.

Furthermore, dismissing empirical defenders as “conventional” for refusing metaphysical explanations reveals a tendency to valorize spiritual imagination over methodological discipline. But pluralism is not integration-by-force; it is honoring each domain on its own terms.

An authentic integral vision must not only include science and spirituality—it must respect their differences. The eyes of knowing must remain open—but distinct. Only then can integration be genuine rather than confused, and inclusive without becoming imperial.

To improve empirical science, we don't need to consult historical science—let alone spiritual revelation. We just need better empirical science.

NOTES

[1] Here's just one example, from Boomeritis: A novel that will set you free, 2002, p. 43-44.

"Here's what you believe: evolution started with the Big Bang—a bunch of matter just blows into existence. Why? Well, according to you, it's just random oops, no reason, it just happens, right? And then this mindless idiotic matter struggles billions of years—billions of years, mind you, this matter keeps struggling—and eventually it evolves into the conscious beings that are sitting at this table. Well, one of us is conscious. But why on earth would dirt get right up and eventually write poetry? You think that is random? You can only think that by abandoning the immediate reality of your own consciousness. Do you even recognize your own consciousness? Nooooo, you think that your consciousness is just some wiring arrangement of frisky dirt. No wonder you can't sleep."