To again, continue my series on how I use integral theory to trade the stock market we now move onto levels of development on each of the lines I discussed.
This is the piece of Ken Wilber’s theory that he “borrowed” a lot from other traditions. Personally, I think this is one of the coolest aspects of his theories. The book Integral Psychology does a great job mapping out how all these different theories of development are talking about the same thing just at difference stages in life. I highly recommend the book.
How do development lines work? If you ever heard of Freud’s psychosexual stages of development that is a developmental line. Another example is Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. The most popular set of development stages within the integral framework tends to be spiral dynamics. This is metaset, in my opinion, of development that can be applied to any line. I’ll illustrate an example below.
The Line of development will be pattern recognition. The development stages of pattern recognition could be interpreted as follows.
Beige – Instinctive / survivalist: Reading books on technical analyse & finding patterns that match exactly what you have read.
Purple – Magical / Animistic: Believing you see the patterns in everything. The street lights form a double top and every time frame you look at hold exceptionally strong cup & handles, for example. You find a “holy grail” of patterns
Red – Impulsive / Egocentric: The patterns no longer work and you are angry. You find failing example after failing example. The belief in the “holy grail” has died.
Blue – Purposeful / Authoritarian: You seek more education believing someone must have the “holy grail.” You take this person or educational doctrine word for word. You start to relive the “holy grail” experience that you originally had but it is now done with a stronger authority figure.
Orange – Achievist / strategic : Acting in your own self-interest. “This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about but I do.” This is where you may begin to turn heavily towards statistics to validate your patterns and see how often they do work. You will turn to more scientific methods. [Side note: this orange phased is theorized to have only begun 300 years ago]
Green – Communitarian / Egalitarian: Seek peace with self & others. You now realize you know what you don’t know and don’t know that which you don’t know. You have accepted the idea patterns work and patterns fail. That there is no holy grail. You may even begin to share your knowledge with others.
A picture below should help bring these ideas together. Remember moving on to the next level does NOT mean you are no longer part of the lower levels. As you transcend the previous level you include you! You never disregard the previous levels. Even though you may recognize patterns at a “Green” level of development, it doesn’t mean that “beige” is no longer a part of you.
