Several writers have given examples of levels of development of various systems. In schemes of Piaget and Kohlberg, the levels run strictly consecutively; in fact, we are told that it is impossible to skip levels, but that each level has to be reached, consolidated and “fulfilled” before the next level can be begun. In Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” this is less strict; while the lower levels of safety and nutrition have to be satisfied as preconditions of life, in the higher levels (affiliation and achievement etc.), it would seem natural to jump back and forth to reach ever higher satisfaction on each alternately. It would seem that this is what most people do.

When Norman Dowsett speaks of 6 levels of being (physical, vital, mental, psychic, spiritual, transcendental), are these strictly hierarchical stepping stones or do they overlap? I would argue for the latter, and I have in mind as an analogue the rather complex image of electrons filling the energy levels in atoms as we proceed through the Periodic Table. (The next paragraph is in text books, and can be skipped if readers are either familiar with it or not interested in such details.)

From hydrogen to helium (2 elements), shell 1 subshell s is being filled. (Symbolized as Is.) That is the only subshell there is in this first shell. From lithium to berylium (2 elements), subshell 2s is being filled. Then from boron to neon (6 elements), subshell 2p. (Shell 2 has subshells sand p only, a total of 8 elements.) After that come complications. We go into 3s with Na and Mg (2 elements) and then into 3p from aluminum to argon (6 elements), which continues the previous pattern; but shell 3 also contains subshell d (10 elements), and its filling is deferred until later. What happens before that is the filling of 4s (potassium and calcium). Only then is 3d started 10 elements from scandium to zinc). Then we pick up 4p (6 elements from gallium to krypton). We continue as follows: 5s (2 elements, rubidium and strontium), 4d (10 elements from yttrium to cadmium), 5p (6 elements from indium to xenon), 6s (the 2 elements caesium and barium), 5d (taking just the first element of this subshell, lanthanum), then 4f (the 14 rare earth elements from cerium to lutetium), then the rest of 5d (the remaining 9 elements from hafnium to mercury), then 6p (6 elements from thalium to radon), then 7s (2 elements, francium and radium), then the first element only of 6d (actinium), then 5f (14 elements from thorium into the trans-uranium series)…The succession is then interrupted because of the rapidly increasing instability of the heavier nuclei. It would be a nice question for an intelligence test to be asked to “continue the series” according to the pattern indicated. It can be done up to a point, until we wonder what the next letter will be in shell 5 after f and when does it start filling in. (See summary of this scheme in Appendix to this essay.)

The interweaving pattern is due to the overlapping of energy levels; some of the lower levels (subshells) of a higher shell have lower energy than the higher levels of the previous shell. The pattern weaves an increasingly more complex braid, until interrupted by nuclear instability. If the pattern could continue, it would resemble the structures being uncovered in modem chaos theory: we seemingly go from a simple linear consecutive pattern into turbulent complexity, which seems like “chaos” to our simple minds, but which really has a super-pattern that a super-mind is able to follow.

I propose that Dowsett’s levels, mentioned above, interweave in some such analogous pattern, for example as follows: “Vital” is always there in every shell, like s. (This assumes that even stones are “alive” in some low-grade sense, but have not yet got organized enough to express recognizable “life”.) Mental (P) starts only in the second shell, and then develops increasing orders of complexity in succeeding shells (stages). Psychic (d) starts only in the third shell, and spiritual only in the fourth shell; but each attains higher and higher stages as they proceed. The main feature of the pattern is that the four intertwine in their development. The vital level still continues to develop when the mental is started, and so on. The result is a seamless web of development instead of a hierarchical staircase.

This scheme is, of course, highly tentative, being argued only by analogy. The pattern is probably different in detail. Also, the first and last levels (physical and transcendental) have been left out, for the sake of simplicity, and to fit in with the s,p,d,f model. This is too artificial and almost certainly not true.

Other theories of developmental stages may follow similar patterns. One that comes to mind is Jantzsch’s levels of “mind”: genetic, epigenetic, metabolic, hormonal, and neural. (Discussed in the nex1 essay “Levels of Being”.) These are increasingly sophisticated methods of manipulating information into meaning (see essay “The Three Essences” in Section II), and they certainly all coexist right into the most highly evolved organisms today. How the methods overlap or interweave is an interesting topic for speculation. .

APPENDIX.

Some details of shell-filling in the Periodic Table.