Note. Taken literally, atomic meaning is based in word-concepts referring to structure-less indivisible objects, thus fixed and independent of context

Presentational—meaning is holistic, i.e. in part of the form itself, more than the ‘sum’ of atomic meanings

Susanne Langer’s 1942 work Philosophy in a New Key, is a source for the discursive / presentational distinction

Poetry of Form

… poetry of precision, of emergence and self-evidence, and of holism; meaning and word choice, assertion, and power

Wittgenstein’s writing in the Tractatus comes to mind; also think on Iris Murdoch’s reflection on form in her essay Against Dryness

Use of sections and headings. Section and paragraph length

Self-containment

Metaphysics is Knowledge of Being and Universe

Metaphysics is completed by Journey

The development is complemented by Tradition

A document that comes with a dictionary of meaning and deviant meaning (and spelling and grammar); and why

Symbols, Styles, and Formatting to Mark Kind of Text: Details

Symbols and styles are used for various purposes

Symbols Used as Information for Readers

Below are some symbols and their main uses

* — An asterisk indicates specialized material—a paragraph, section, or chapter—e.g. academic material

^†— A superscript dagger indicates general material within a specialized section

Symbols Used to Produce Versions and Mark Work to be Done Later

The first two marks are repetitions from the previous section

* — An asterisk indicates specialized material—a paragraph, section, or chapter—e.g. academic material

^†— A superscript dagger indicates general material within a specialized section

** — Metatext (apply the asterisk two times)

^&— The ampersand indicates a temporary part or material; any permanent content will be absorbed elsewhere

^W— Indicates a part or topic that may be written later

^$— A topic that may be studied or researched (and perhaps written) later

^A— Marks an alternate section title and or material.

^C— A Central Statement; there will be a prompt for a Level

Symbols may occur in combination

Styles

See the template journey in being simple big

Font: face, bold / underline / italic, color, raised etc., size; paragraph: indentation, line spacing, paragraph spacing. Special MS Word formatting may be used for the original document but not for print or web versions in which such formatting does not show up

Use hidden text to combine all documents—this, metadocument, planning…(may have brief temporary versions of sub-documents to save time)

Writing

Brief Plan

1. Review / edit outline in THIS till satisfied; save to meta and retain outline

Make two TOC’S. One will be an outline of (parts and) chapters

Catalog Central Statements as a TOC

Number by importance (e.g. with tables) and possibly by sequence

2. Write essential version and mega-outline with comments

Use hidden text to combine all documents

Fine Tune

…to mark, for versions: Academic-applied | human-general-seeker-universalist

Styles

Targeted material—Human-Universalist; Academic (include Applied Interest)

Publishing

Publishing Houses

The Association of American Publishers

The Association of American Publishers (members)

Publishing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Self publishing

Do-it-yourself with common software (Word Processors, Desk Top Publishing) and direct contact and sales

Self publishing book companies

Web Authoring Resources

Software

Design principles—e.g. Web Design in a Nutshell, 3d Edition, Jennifer Niederst, Feb. 2006

Site design and designers—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_design, Web authoring companies—e.g., 2012 Top Web Authoring Companies (http://www.jazdtech.com/techdirect/leaf/Website-Management/Web-Authoring.htm)

INTRODUCTION

Concepts

Origins

External

‘External’ sources— Universe, Cosmos, World, Civilization, Tradition… The Human Endeavor

Personal and Individual

My life—endeavor, experience, reflection (imagination, criticism), and experiments

Original

The metaphysical framework in Experience and Being

Ultimate Character of the Metaphysical Framework

Uniqueness

Given an Object, it has one metaphysics (as perfect knowledge of Being as such) which may of course vary in mode of expression and detail

Ultimate in Depth

Non-relative foundation without axiom or substance

Ultimate in Breadth

Implicit capture or representation of the variety, extension, and duration of Being (knowledge-that)

Universe Revealed as Ultimate

The Universe cannot be greater; it is the greatest possible; actuality is ‘logical’ possibility; it has no limit; the variety, extension, and duration of Being is without limit

A Unique, Ultimate, and Universal Metaphysics

Therefore, as will be seen, the metaphysics of the narrative is a unique, ultimate, and universal metaphysics

It is called (the) Universal Metaphysics

Since it is unique and contains all other metaphysics (i.e. of Objects in the Universe) it may and will also be referred to as the metaphysics

Why Journey in Being?

Therefore a Journey in Being

Modes

Modes. Ideas and transformation

Destiny

Destiny of Human Identity

Nature of the Journey

Journey. Process; limitless variety, degree (elevation), summit / dissolution, extension, duration

Narrative Form and Linguistic Meaning

The form of this narrative and (linguistic) meaning are interwoven. For the present purpose the following are significant

Object, Concept

In iconic thought objects are known via Concepts (Mental Content, Icon)

Without the representational aspect of a Concept, reference is impossible

Word, Sign

A pure sign is not at all iconic. A sign associates to a concept and thereby to an object

A word is an example of a sign. Many but not all words in common use have an iconic component; in technical uses the iconic component is minimized but cannot always be eliminated (in the metaphysics of this narrative the iconic component is zero rather than eliminated because iconic distortion is eliminated in abstraction of the concept)

Words, Concepts, Objects come in triads

Implications for Understanding and Thought. Although word-concept-object is conveniently conflated in common use, the distinction is crucial to understanding and analysis

Meaning

Word, Concept, Object

However, meaning is context (sentence, narrative / actual) dependent

Meanings are fluid / fixed

Implications for reading and understanding. Therefore in this narrative it is essential to pay attention to meanings as defined and to the system of meaning; and, especially, as these are new to a significant degree, it will require familiarization to acquire understanding

Narrative Form

Analytic (Unfolding, Elemental) versus Synthetic (Articulated, Holist)

Comments on Meaning in this Narrative

Comments on Meaning in this narrative. I have found that some meanings approach stability—e.g. Being and Universe (even these harbor surprises), some remain experimental in at least some aspects e.g. Void, Experience, some rise and fall in importance e.g. Intuition (which is now marginal to the metaphysics) and World (whose general significance is waxing)

Significance

Significance. Human endeavor, this world, destiny (meaning of religion and spirituality). Knowledge—the academic disciplines, especially the reasoning (empirical and symbolic) and the arts (iconic, symbolic, and dramatic)

^&Preliminary Comment—Temporary Section Headings in the Introduction

The temporary level 2 headings of the Introduction are the topics to be discussed

Metatext. There is no metatext

Functions of the Introduction

Describe the Journey in Being

Introduce and Explain the Idea

Introduce and explain the idea of a Journey in Being

Narrate the Origins and Describe Sources for the Journey

Tradition (The Endeavor of Being: The Human Endeavor)

Individual (Personal)

Formal

Introduce the Framework for the Journey

Framework

Ways and pathways

Explain the Meaning and Significance of Being as Used Here

Provide a description of the Journey

Provide a brief description of the Journey, its origins and sources, its conceptual framework, and its ways and pathways

Describe the narrative

Concept

Form

Development of the Ideas

Outline of Contents

Implications: Significance of the Developments

Describe academic and human implications of the framework of understanding and its entailments for action and realization

Human

Human Being and Society

Ideas

Ideas, Thought and The Academic Disciplines

While ideas are part of the human endeavor, this section is about more technical though not less real implications

In fact, if ‘reality’ is ‘applicability’ then more technical is more real

Includes ‘intellect’

Civilization

To My Audiences

Intended Audiences

Suggestions on Reading the Narrative

Some Essential Concepts (Ideas)

Introduction to the Idea of a Journey

In its form in this account, the idea of life as a journey has sources in my life, experience, ideas, and goals. It has sources in my search for understanding and realization

The idea of life as a journey is not new. What appears to me to be new here includes (1) The variety of experience and transformation in the conception (2) The framework of understanding and its translation into process (the framework is developed in the chapters Being, Metaphysics, and Being in The World; the process and its ways are the topics of the chapter Journey). The framework shows the Universe to be limitless in its extension, duration and variety; that, subject some limits, individuals inherit this limitlessness; and that therefore individual process is one of endless variety and limitless extension and duration. What may be unusual is the variety of experience, learning, and thought that has gone into the framework and the persistence with which I have sought to develop the framework and develop and realize its implications for process

Although this idea has personal sources it grew beyond its personal aspect. The narrative does not focus on my experience. Its goals include describing an understanding the Universe (the framework of understanding), seeing how the understanding frames our process as a journey, describing the framework and the journey, and pointing out aspects and ways of such a journey

Origins and Sources for the Journey

Tradition—The Human Endeavor

In its use here tradition refers to what is valid in the cumulative history of human culture from its (known) origins to the present day. It includes science. Of course I am not versed in the entire tradition and my exposure to it is necessarily selective. It is true, however, that I have pursued three threads: an ancient thread through anthropological and other accounts, an Indian thread that emphasizes the philosophy of India, and a Western thread whose main components are science, mathematics, philosophy and, informally, western art and literature. My pursuit of the tradition has been: systematic, intuitive, random, serendipitous-opportunistic browsing and study of the tradition has been an immense source of ideas and approaches to understanding

Individual

Personal sources include search for understanding and meaning, reflection, experience, and experiment. Development of the metaphysics was the result of many avenues of search, experience, reflection—academic and in the world. Even before the metaphysics I experienced this as a journey. Two facets of that experience are (1) The road to the metaphysics was through numerous informal and formal phases and systems, e.g. a phase of science as revealing the universe (extensive reading and study), nature and travel as source-inspiration-revelation, materialism, evolutionary metaphysics, idealism, absolute-as-principle, and, finally, extended experiment in regard to ‘Being’ as a ‘paradigm free paradigm’, (2) Cultivation, use, and influence (including unintended influence) of breadth of world, social, and human experience and academic-intellectual interests

Formal

The final source that I shall mention is formal. It is a world view or metaphysics I demonstrated and developed. The scope of the metaphysics is the Universe and so I named it The Universal Metaphysics. It is shown to be unique and may therefore be referred to as ‘the metaphysics’. It is also shown to be ultimate in senses to be explained below and demonstrated later. This metaphysics—consistent with and allowed by science, experience, and reason—constitutes a framework for a journey

Framework for the Journey

Metaphysics

The meaning of metaphysics used here is roughly that of understanding things as there are. There is a variety of criticisms of and objections to this idea and these are taken up in the chapter Metaphysics

The metaphysics is universal, unique and ultimate

It is an understanding (knowledge) of the Universe and I have therefore named it the Universal Metaphysics

It is unique for there can be only one true understanding (knowledge) of the universe as it is (this knowledge may of course have different forms and degrees of detail). It is therefore also referred to in this narrative as ‘the metaphysics’

It is ultimate in that it provides foundation in what is (shown to be) given and in that it captures All Being (the capture is implicit and it is shown that while the degree of explicit capture is significant there can be no full explicit capture)

The core conclusion of the metaphysics is that there is one Universe that has no limit—i.e. that could not be greater

The metaphysics is broadly inclusive of what is

It goes significantly beyond the tradition including modern science and philosophy. However it does not—any true metaphysics cannot—contradict the valid parts of the tradition including science. The valid regions of human understanding may be seen as contained in the metaphysics

Finally, the metaphysics is demonstrated. The demonstration is empowering because it gives confidence, it provides understanding of the fact and meaning of the idea that the Universe has no limits, and it provides methods of proof that empower its development and application

Applied Metaphysics. As developed later, Applied Metaphysics results from interaction of the metaphysics and tradition (and experience, imagination, and reason)

Tradition

The idea for a Journey in Being is mine. Of course, however, the idea of a journey as associated with travel, the epic or heroic adventure, enjoyment, quest and so on is an ancient as well as a modern theme

The ideas have inspiration and source in the tradition. However, my ideas are broadly inclusive of and go significantly beyond what I have seen in the tradition

Process

The metaphysics and tradition come together in the process of individuals and groups. The group aspect is that of sharing individual experience, giving support and inspiration, the strength of joint action, development of a culture of process

The individual process emphasizes search for understanding and inspiration, cumulative learning and experience, and experiment in transformation of their being

Doubt and Attitude

The promise is immense

However, there are various sources of doubt regarding the Universal Metaphysics. These are successfully addressed in the narrative. Doubt is important because attending to it is a source of elimination of doubt—i.e. it is a source of certainty: when we want or need to be secure in conclusions it is important to cultivate and attend to doubt

There is one doubt that I have not been able to eliminate. This doubt concerns the proof of the Principle of Being. Although the proof is reasonable it appears to be questionable. I have therefore developed alternate proofs and plausibility arguments but doubt remains and one source of this doubt is the magnitude of the principle it seems to be a case of ‘so much from so little’. Objectively it is perhaps not a case of ‘so much from so little’ because even given the conclusion its manifestation still requires time and effort. There is a way in which residual doubt is good. Since the principle is not illogical but at most given less than certain proof, the existential challenge is even greater. The journey becomes an adventure without guarantee but with definite possibility of ultimate realization. Faith is important in this situation but it is an ‘existential faith’, perhaps of the kind that is better than what might be called mere courage for it combines fortitude with intelligence. This kind of faith is that attitude that is not certain of but maximizes expectation of outcomes

The Significance of Being

The Power of Being in the Framework and the Journey

The idea of Being is empowering in developing the metaphysics. The journey is unending in variety and duration and unlimited in extension. It has no limit with regard to kind of Being and the idea of Being is a convenient ‘container’ for a journey without limit. ‘Being’ names the unknown (and the known) without the prejudice of other ideas such as matter and mind and allows the truth regarding such and other ideas to emerge without the force of preconception. In this use Being is empowering rather as is the use of ‘x’ in elementary algebra which is empowering in providing a symbol for what is unknown

Being in this Narrative

Being will be defined as what is there

What is empowering about this use is its neutrality: it makes no reference to kinds of distinctions (except to what does versus does not exist)

Other uses, which may be used here but informally, are discussed in the chapter Being

The Journey

Framework of Understanding

The metaphysics constitutes a framework for a journey. The metaphysics reveals (demonstrates) identity of individual and Universe and that realization is an endless journey

This account is not about my journey (the section Past and future is included as an example of a program). However the ideas, arguments, and results presented here are essentially mine (naturally the ideas draw significant inspiration from the tradition)

Ways and Pathways

The ways of the journey are an amalgam of traditional ways of action and self-overcoming

However, I should emphasize that the ways found here are not prescriptive. The presentation is that of a framework (the metaphysics) and practices (based in sources, understanding of the human bio-psychic organism, and experiences). There is no guarantee of results and—as may be seen from the metaphysics itself—there cannot be. Where the traditional ways (e.g. religions) offer hope above action, what is offered here is real. It is that action based in the best understanding improves but cannot guarantee expected outcome. This is not only the most that can be offered it is, in sense, the best; it is not palliative, and instead of offering formulas it offers that we may, individually and together, encounter the real and but unrealized as it is

There is no guarantee that pain will be eliminated; pain is found to be unavoidable and while it is not to be sought it is given meaning by its integration into process (there is no intent here to minimize the pain of chronic suffering and so on). What is presented is (a) a framework of ideas and action that will be useful (b) a framework that begins in the present, that emphasizes enjoyment and deployment of the present, and is designed toward the ultimate and greatest realization as an endless journey but that does not exclude perfection in the moment or a sense of perfection of states of mind

The Narrative

The Concept of the Narrative

The original intuitive notion of a journey was to live a life of ideas and action; ideas would illuminate action and action would include the development of ideas (with inspiration from tradition) and their implementation. Later I came to see that action was not merely the action of a given individual or group and that action was not a mere implementation of ideas. Ideas are of course a form of action but are incomplete without immersion in the larger field of action. Further, when understood fully must also involve real transformation of the individual. What is the meaning of such transformation? It is a transformation of Being in which individuals change and transform all aspects of their being, physical and psychic (which includes what may be called spiritual). Thus the journey is one of ideas and transformation

The first few chapters of the narrative describe the ideas that constitute a framework for the journey. The journey itself, and its ways and means, are the topics of the chapter Journey

Form

Development of the Ideas in the Narrative

I have attempted to develop the ideas from what is obvious and trivial. Thus understanding will be enhanced by a linear reading of the text

The particular concepts and their properties have been selected—in part by experiment—to precisely correspond to an aspect or element of Being and to result in a system that is not trivial (it is therefore essential to attend to meanings used here)

The resulting system, the Universal Metaphysics, turns out, though not by design, to have ultimate depth and breadth

That it is ultimate in depth means that it explicitly founds All Being—the Universe—in simple, given, necessary, and elementary aspects of Being

That it is ultimate in breadth means that it captures All Being in the Universe. This capture is not and cannot be explicit but is implicit or ‘in principle’. Nonetheless the extent of explicit capture is significant, surprising, and far from evident (I find that familiarity has reduced but not eliminated its non-evident character; familiarity continues to reveal the significance of the system). As noted earlier, the system reveals that the Universe cannot be greater than it is in that it is without limit

Outline of Contents

The Chapters of the narrative are Being, Metaphysics, Being in The World, and Journey

Being introduces, motivates and develops concepts used in the metaphysics; the concepts selected for the fact that they are founded in Experience and for their efficiency in developing the metaphysics. The foundation requires seeing that as defined they are abstracted from Experience in such a way that the concept is immune to the distortions that are typically if not essentially part of more detailed knowledge. In this way the concepts are fully empirical. The efficiency with regard to the metaphysics required extensive and iterative experiment with the meaning of the concepts until, finally, it became possible to develop the metaphysics as a powerful system. This process of analysis of meaning was part of the development but what remains is only the final meanings. In this first chapter two significant aspects of emerge; they are abstraction and analysis of meaning

The next chapter develops the metaphysics. The essential step in the development is the use of the properties of the Void to show that the system of concepts introduced so far can and do constitute an ultimate metaphysics. The metaphysics is ultimate in founding understanding in the givens of the previous chapter and in capturing the entire variety of Being implicitly and a significant portion of that variety explicitly. The metaphysics shows that the Universe is ultimate in the sense that Logic is the only limit on the real. This truth is called the Principle of Being and though the idea has been glimpsed in the history of thought its present forms are significantly new and there is no record of earlier demonstration (proof) or, as far as I can tell, any significant thoughts toward demonstration. The proof is crucial for it is enabling, first, in showing what it means; second, in providing a framework and methods for showing what it entails; and third, in giving confidence in the principle and its entailments or consequences. The remainder of the chapter develops some of these consequences (the section and subsection headings for the chapter) which are selected (1) To develop the metaphysics as a system and to show its power, (2) To show some significant academic and human consequences of the metaphysics, and (3) For their significance for a Journey in Being

While the metaphysics is empowering, the journey must be grounded in our actual situation. The next chapter, Being in The World, Universe develops an understanding of some aspects of human life in our cosmos. A first goal of the chapter is that of understanding ourselves, our lives and the world in which we live; this development is very selective and the limitations on the selection include what I think significant and my own knowledge (via tradition and experience). These developments show the illumination and enhancement of the tradition by the metaphysics; they simultaneously provide examples of the use of the metaphysics; they show how the metaphysics may be applied. A significant part of this development is the criticism and where valid the extension of inherited ideas into domains that would have been refractory to understanding without the metaphysics; and a significant tool in the extension of the ideas is analysis of their meaning and possible extensions. The second and more focused goal of the chapter is to focus on those aspects of our natures and world that may be useful in the journey. The interplay of the two goals illustrates a significance of general understanding: understanding developed in a general context but with examples in the specific eliminates what is merely specific while remaining grounded. Such understanding is effective as a source of meaning and application

The final chapter, Journey, describes the journey, some ways, some accomplishments, and a program of action

Significance of the Developments

Select details from the following which repeat later sections

The section Ideas, Action, and Transformation: An Outline has an overview of application and areas for future application and development

The Human Endeavor

Human Being and society: culture including language, knowledge; science and religion; agency, search and destiny; place of human being and our world in the Universe. Science and religion. Journey, immersion-participation, variety over depth, doubt and faith… and their intersection with tradition

*Ideas, Thought, and The Academic Disciplines

Redefinition of the system of disciplines and its completion and ultimate extension in depth; applied study as the intersection of the metaphysics, tradition, and experience. Framework for foundation of the major disciplines; and immense intersectional implications including details of the disciplines to be worked out

^W-Civilization—Its Nature and Destiny

To Audiences

Intended Audiences

An author may over or underestimate the appeal of a work. However it may be useful and perhaps interesting for readers to know to whom I think this work may appeal

I imagine that this work will have three kinds of interest. The first kind will be interest in the significance of our lives and place in the Universe and I think of this as general interest. A second kind may be interest in the ideas and this will include readers with an academic or intellectual interest. A third interest will be in process of life as a journey. The kinds of interest are not entirely distinct and of course readers may embody any combination of these and other interests

For readers who elect to be selective in their reading or browsing or who simply want to be informed, I have used the following symbols

* — An asterisk indicates specialized material—a paragraph, section, or chapter—e.g. academic material

^†— A superscript dagger indicates general material within a specialized section

^†A-and *^A- —Mark alternate section titles and or material

Some Suggestions on Reading the Narrative

The following thoughts reflect difficulties that I have had in developing the ideas and that readers have had in understanding manuscript versions of the text

The narrative has a viewpoint or worldview that I think is new and may be counterintuitive in its view of Being and Universe as well as in apparent contradictions of science and experience. As a consequence understanding will likely require attention to more than details and may require familiarization to see the work—intuitively and formally—as a whole. Readers may benefit from a temporary suspension of their critical attitude. That does not imply not being critical—that is often hard to do. Rather, I mean that criticisms may be noted, perhaps jotted down, and returned to later (perhaps on a second reading)

As I noted earlier, I have attempted to develop the ideas from what is obvious. Therefore understanding may be enhanced by a linear reading of the text. There is no law that ‘all texts shall be read linearly’. I almost never do. One can jump around in a text but also read linearly. In fact the jumping around may provide motivation to read with greater attention (because you see that reading linearly may be useful and perhaps because you find that careful understanding may pay dividend)

I discuss the idea of linguistic meaning in the chapter on Metaphysics. However, some considerations on meaning are pertinent here

Meaning involves a concept (in the sense of some kind of mental content) that refers to an object (some thing or process or interaction etc. in the world); the reference is intended but may or may not obtain. In human language words are used to designate concept-object pairs. This is of course not the only way or use of language but it is the one that is of primary interest here

One source of difficulty in meaning is that we associate an abstract sign (a word) intuitively with a concept-object or a concept intuitively with an object (after all what we know most intimately is the concept and the connection is so intimate that we would hardly use the word ‘know’ except when we examine a concept); this gives language efficiency; but it also leads to confusion when analyzing and understanding meanings. So it will be useful to remember that words are not absolutely associated with concepts and that the relation between concepts and objects may be tenuous. This idea is of immense significance in the development and understanding of ideas and the nature of ideas (because it helps uncover mistakes and lack of clarity of which we are not aware); and it may be very helpful in understanding the narrative

A second concern regarding meaning is that many of the concepts of the narrative are used in specific and often new ways. It is therefore essential to attend to meanings as used here. To assist the reader, the text uses small capitals, e.g. BEING and EXPERIENCE, to mark definitions (capitalization of the first letter of a word marks a specific or new use). Although definitions are laid out early in the use of a term, typically at the first occurrence, the meaning is brought out by the development, first, because the development helps bring out the range of objects that lie under or in the meaning of a concept and secondly because the development provides occasion for the reader to develop experience and become familiar with a concept

Readers may ask how a particular definition is ‘right’ and what ‘the correct’ definition may be. A brief answer may be that there need be no right answer in the sense that a particular word is absolutely attached to some specific meaning. We learn the idea of a ‘right answer’ in part from education and of course from the fact that we have common contexts. However there is no single context and no final authority. In any context, there is no one possessor of meaning; we all contribute to meaning and of course some of us contribute more and some of us in more formal ways

However, the meanings used here are selected so as to result in the metaphysics of the narrative which, it is shown, must at least implicitly contain what is valid (as knowledge) in the tradition and experience. This should not be taken as discrediting all other meanings which, when related to the present meaning, may enrich understanding and significance. However, it does show that there is a universal context and though it is not the only context it is shown to have universal significance to be made clearer in what follows. Further, since the system of thought is shown to be consistent, the meanings of the text have validity and significance

Some Essential Ideas or Concepts

Also see meta: a medley of concepts

Following is a preliminary set and division

General, Human, and the Journey

Being, Experience, Metaphysics, Tradition, Law, Universe, Void, Principle of Being, Limit, ~~Logic~~—conceptual realism, Faith, Identity, Power (and powers), Yoga

*Academic

~~Being~~ and the word ‘is’, meaning, word, concept, Object, knowledge, Method (demonstrative, creative), Domain (phenomenal; includes Extension-Duration), ~~Law~~ (and law), ~~Universe~~ (and complement), ~~Limit~~ (versus fact), Logic~~, conceptual realism~~ and Logos, Doubt and Certainty

Alert readers to unusual features and potential difficulties of understanding. Because the narrative is unusual in form and significantly new in details and framework of content it is effective for the reader to have be oriented to the character of its form and content. The introduction provides this orientation

THE ENDEAVOR OF (HUMAN) BEING

Alternate title: The Endeavor

A goal of this work is to discover, to engage in the endeavor of Being. In Chapter Being we start with a ground and neutral definition from which more specific aspects and details may emerge

Here we consider the endeavor of human being as preliminary to the larger investigation and so that we may later reexamine and redefine the human endeavor

The largest human endeavor must be the endeavor of Being

The actual endeavor will include discovery of endeavor; but, if this is not given to us, then it will involve trial. We will find a sense in which it is given and a sense or senses in which it is to be discovered; one way in which this is possible if the given sense has implicitness

If enjoyment is in process then the endeavor shall be in process. Its discovery shall be in dialog with the world

Although this topic is noted in the Introduction and treated in Chapter Being in the World, the purposes of this Chapter include (1) The content is now being used as a backdrop to the development (2) In the final versions of the work I may have this as a preliminary topic—perhaps as part of the Introduction. Elaboration on these purposes follows. Note. It adds to the material on tradition

Purposes of this Chapter

In many traditions of thought, systems of ideas are developed with the Human Endeavor in mind (1) As ground and motivation (2) So as to appreciate, evaluate, and enhance Human Endeavor, Ambition, and Destiny

A Ground and Motive to Reflection on Being

As ground and motivation, the subject may of course be partial, for humankind occurs as an element of the Universe which is ultimate ground and (source of) motivation

The Universe is understood as including rather than as entirely remote from human affairs. In talking of the Human Endeavor, therefore, there is certain if implicit reference to the Universe. Indeed one goal and motive of our endeavor is understanding the meaning of ‘Universe’, i.e. understanding the concept of ‘Universe’ and the Universe itself

The appreciation etc. may be the primary goal of a system or narrative. Alternately, the system may have some general goal of understanding, concept, theory etc. and the appreciation etc. may be a targeted application or testing ground for the system. In fact, for any being on the order of human being in psychic ability and makeup, the endeavor of being and any well conceived general system of thought will be bound to have connection

A first purpose of this Chapter is to provide partial background and motivation for the main developments

An Initial Position that may Later be Improved from Knowledge of Being

If we ask what is the nature of human being, what are or may be its proper goals and ambitions, and what is possible or probable or necessary, we should first, perhaps, enquire into the nature of human being. However, answers to that query are likely to remain incomplete without an understanding the world (Universe) of human being. Therefore asking about our nature and destiny motivates such understanding of the Universe, e.g. as in science and metaphysics which in turn informs our understanding of our nature and destiny

A second motive to this chapter is to provide a (brief) preliminary account that may later be improved upon from the understanding of the Universe and our World developed in the narrative

A Brief Comment on Progress and the Attitude in this Narrative

Talk of goals suggests the contentious idea of progress which has a practical and a conceptual (including ideological) side. The practical includes our clear knowledge that medicine and technology are two edged swords. The conceptual includes the nature and meaning, the value or desirability, and possibility of progress

The attitude here must be as it is for the general ideas of the narrative. As an example, consider Being. We will later conceive it in what is perhaps the most general and neutral way that allow it to have any meaning at all. This avoids pre-commitment which may after all be commitment to erroneous or immature positions. It allows truth to emerge; of course such truth may be knowledge of ignorance—i.e., possible outcomes include (a) definite knowledge (b) partial knowledge (c) we do not know (d) we cannot know. All of these are better than posited views whose truth we may believe in but do not know (there is no general bar against taking a belief as an existential stance provided of course the belief is not obviously absurd, prejudiced and so on). This neutrality will turn out to be immensely powerful. In fact it will be an initial neutrality for neutrality may be turned back on itself and when certainty—to whatever degree—emerges it may then be time to proclaim and apply what has emerged

My formal and initial attitude to progress is neutral. Within this neutrality I am of course, I hope, able to view the thoughts and opinions of others with adequate neutrality and judgment. Such neutrality and judgment will be informed by what I know, by awareness that my knowledge has gaps, that my intellect has limits, and that the paradigms of human knowledge are limited and that includes the paradigms of positivism, relativism, nihilism, fundamentalism, and ideological though not political secularism

The Human Endeavor

The Root of the Endeavor

At the root of the idea of Endeavor is that we have knowledge and foresight, that we can conceive and choose from alternate actions and futures, that our insight—part of knowledge—suggests right actions / good outcomes, and that knowledge shows how to effect actions and outcomes

Critics

There are critics of this idea who think we are mere organisms or merely mechanistic and when we think we know and when we think we make choices and act on them we are in fact driven by our organic nature to make the actions that we do and to feel we are making choices that we are not in fact making

Neutral Ground

The most neutral of positions is that we have a mechanistic side, an organic side and likely a side or aspect that involves random andor indeterministic process; additionally we do have knowledge, foresight, choice and determination of action and outcome but these are imperfect and further, choice / freedom is in balance with the other side of our nature and except in trivial cases (a healthy person choosing to lift his or her right arm and doing so) knowing what actions are possible (they are incremental), choosing from among and effecting actions is difficult: it is in some ways the most difficult, most challenging aspects of our lives and in some ways the most defining and essential. That is not to say that our choices make our organic being but that it is a defining aspect of what makes us more than mere mechanism or organism

Possible Destinies

We live in the Universe and our fate ranges from self-destruction to cataclysmic destruction to living in the here and now to loving our fate (and nothing more) to degrees of progress to universal life (in some sense)

Art and Literature

By ‘art and literature’ I mean to include the entire range of expressive endeavor but the brief title is suggestive and effective

I have shortened the title to ‘Art’. I think of art, the artistic endeavor, as expression and communication of what is deepest in the individual and the culture. I might consider other terms as alternates or to complement the idea of ‘deep’; and I do not want to exclude the lighter side of art

One thing that writers can do is to give expression to their intuitions, feelings, cognitions, insights and so on regarding human destiny

Some individuals have greater insight, are more incisive, more imaginative than most. There is something that may be called ‘rational imagination’. It is powerful and visionary but does not lose contact with the real and the human. Power of expression is important; some writers are dry; others suggest much by poetry of expression

Art is a source of ideas and on destiny. Art conditions what a culture sees as destiny. There are values in art that see the human condition as it presents itself as essential; and there are values and modes of expression that show transcendence as beautiful

Science

Science has implications for destiny. It provides insight into the future of the cosmos and the possibilities for humankind

Philosophy

The great philosophers of the past thought on human destiny. There is today a tendency to leave such thinking to scientists, technologists, and futurists. This is in part a result of the view that science is the essential vehicle that reveals universal and human nature

Human Knowledge and Action

The entire range of human knowledge, institutions, and action are pertinent. This consideration is left to later sections

Ideas and Action

The scientific picture of the Universe tends to be mechanistic. I.e. whether deterministic or not, its evolution proceeds from one moment to the next with cause and effect essentially local in time and, if there are alternate outcomes, the actual outcome is the result of blind probability rather than foresight and choice

The elements of the human endeavor are ideas and action. Idea is used here as a general term for perceptions, conceptions, understanding, theories, emotions and motivations which may be received and reflective values, foresight and goals and so on; the entire range of human (and other as accessed) knowledge and ideational elements of culture falls under ‘idea’. What is essential here about ideas is that they include some ability to see alternate actions and outcomes and choose from them according to needs and values of survival and quality of life. In saying so there is no suggestion of inevitable success or perfection. However, there is at least some local degree of success and failure and the total process has some measure of adaptation

What is the essence of action? It concerns, first, enjoyment of the moment, enjoyment of the human life cycle, action in the interest of the group, in culture, and in their cycles. It is concerned, second, with good action—simple enjoyment and improvement. Culture includes the entire range of human interest. Thus improvement immediately extends to civilization; the improvement of the group and of reaching out and across to other groups here on Earth and in the Universe and linking in mutual and universal interest and advancement. We will see to what extent this may be consistent with a Universal Metaphysics

It is the interaction of Ideas and Action that make talk of the Human Endeavor (and Destiny) meaningful. Where blind mechanism reigns, endeavor has no meaning and there is no destiny in the sense of having effect on a future

A primary goal of the narrative is to understand Being. A related goal is to see what destiny may mean for Being and to see to what extent this general destiny is shared with human being

At outset we are of course neutral

Since the narrative has been conceived, thought through, written and is being acted through, I know what the conclusion will be. It is roughly that there is no (absolute) certainty but that (a) there is confidence in universal destiny (b) this occurs for a limited form by forming a cognitive-emotive-body image of the universal and / or by engaging in an unending journey of unlimited variety, extension, and duration (and the metaphysics reveals the Universe to be similarly unlimited) (c) the journey begins in the immediate (d) there is no choice but to be in the journey: the choice concerns appreciative and effective engagement which enhance enjoyment and effectiveness (e) there is no avoidance of difficulty and pain, no final and eternal nirvana (f) the metaphysics suggests that approach through our being and identity is most effective; science and technology are possible approaches (but will be without significance if we do not address the issue of what it is to be human) (g) we will in unlimited form realize identity with the Universe which however goes through un-manifest phases: we may realize an affect of permanence but there is none; however, this is positive for the actual case is infinite adventure (pain not avoided) in variety, i.e. ever freshness of Being

Limits

Science, philosophy, and common experience suggest limits to human outcome

The metaphysics shows these to be ‘Normal’; i.e., highly likely rather than necessary while we maintain our present form

This will be shown in the narrative

As preliminary, it will be useful to analyze the limits to the main paradigms of thought

Limits to Our Paradigms of Thought

We can identify three paradigmatic approaches to understanding the Universe and our place in it, (a) Science and Secular Thought (b) Philosophy and Metaphysics and (c) Religious and Mythological views on origins, the nature of the Universe, and its destiny (eschatology)

Religion and Mythology

The earliest views on the Universe of which we are aware are those of myth and religion

The form of these views is typically that of an account rather than that of something systematically thought out; this does not imply that there were no deep questions that the accounts attempted to address. However, the typical religious account does not appear to be systematic or connected

Why did, why do people believe? We do not know very well why people believed in the past. A recent anthropological account, that of Weston LaBarre, suggests that all religion has origin in crisis. Psychologists suggest that it is in crisis and times of duress that we are most susceptible to non-rational paradigm change (and that different individuals have different susceptibilities). But why do Religions continue on? I am not sure that the normal answers are complete. While a view might not be rational it may be more rational to have some view than no view; for some view is a basis of action, e.g. a political statement against a tyrant to withstand oppression, a view of the Universe as a guide in the world which is connected to the Universe. What is the dynamic between the charismatic leader and the group? What an absurd metaphysical belief stands for need not be absurd for it may be a metaphor for what may be true (in absence of further knowledge). In established religions charisma is replaced largely by the patriarchal institution. Religion has other functions that explain its spread that are interesting but of course do not justify its metaphysics (these include withstanding oppression and invader, social bonding, myth to live by, moral code; and of course the negative upon which I need not extol)

I am attempting to give a more favorable account of religion than is normally accorded it by secular thinkers. What are my motivations? First, I think that such secular thinkers, the common and the public intellectual, are rash and ego serving in their judgment (as are many religious thinkers and supporters of religious creeds). Second, religion is often criticized for its woes, the use of religion to motivate war and violence, the immoral conduct of priests (the criticism is not untrue); however, especially because it is true it is important to reach out rather than to condemn as a most effective approach to the human problem of irrationality and abuse in the name of religion. Third, I hold that the most effective (and true) criticism is one that understands

One of my goals in this narrative is to show that there is a view of Religion that is different from the (world) religions; that there is a necessity for such a view for, as is demonstrated in the narrative, the sum of human institutions do not approach the truth shown (demonstrated) in the metaphysical development; and that the view is of Religion (which might not be the most effective name) is of beings, individually and collectively, engaging all dimensions of their being in search and realization of All Being (the metaphysics shows this agenda to be one of immense reality and magnitude)

This is the source of the third reason above to understand religion. It is to defuse what is irrelevant and to know what is true and useful in the religions (a fourth reason that includes stands motivation to action and taking stand against oppression). There is of course some risk for there is always potential of collective delusion and its destructive side

Philosophy and Systematic Metaphysics

The primary object of this section is the systematic metaphysics of the Universe (of Being). For rough purposes these may be divided into pre-modern and modern (recent and post-modern thought tends to eschew systematic metaphysics)

The rise of metaphysical speculation in Greek civilization reached its apex with Plato. In contrast to religious metaphysics this Greek metaphysics was marked by significant openness, true questioning of the nature of things, and careful reflection on experience and conceptual necessity. At the time however, empirical penetration of the microscopic and macroscopic scales was unavailable. There was no mature paradigm of science of the magnitude of Newton’s Mechanics (with its immense though of course limited predictive power). Therefore Greek metaphysics was attended by considerable uncertainty and required considerable speculation. Plato is remarkable in the power of his ideas, his critique of them, and in his openness regarding his uncertainty

The modern era is marked by the rise of science beginning with Newton’s Mechanics until the present time. Newton’s Mechanics was immensely successful and powerful but left open vast territories of unexplained reality: electrical and magnetic phenomena, chemistry, geological process, and life; and the completeness and nature of the mathematics invented and used by Newton; and the incomplete understanding of logic and scientific induction and their similarity and difference. By the end of nineteenth century these ‘gaps’ had been substantially filled and it had begun to seem to many thinkers that even if science and reason were incomplete, they covered the entire range of phenomena in the world

The period between Newton and the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries is what I refer to as ‘modern’ (the early twentieth century on may be called recent and perhaps postmodern)

In the modern period thinkers may have been impressed by the systematic theory of Newton (as well as Euclidean Geometry). These certainly impressed Kant who argued from their necessity to the reason that their categories are the categories of human experience (which had therefore captured the categories of nature). We know now that Kant was metaphysically wrong though practically correct and, further, his method remains exemplary and useful

The interesting trend of this period for the present purpose is typified by Hegel’s thought who attempted to build a systematic metaphysical understanding of the Universe and our place (as spirit) in the Universe. His was an idealist view of contraries that in their interaction realized the Absolute Spirit. This trend was maintained in Germany, England, and America through the nineteenth century

By this time, however, science had penetrated all or most realms of the known world. Therefore the thinkers of the day rejected systematic idealist metaphysics in favor of a scientifically and logically oriented approach to philosophy. This spelt the death of the fame and fact of idealist, systematic, and speculative metaphysics

The history of science in the twentieth century is well known. Einstein’s special theory was published in 1905, his general theory in 1915, quantum mechanics was placed on sound footing in the 1925 work of Heisenberg and 1926 work of Schrödinger (and extended in its foundation and relativistic and field aspects by Bohr, Born, Dirac and others). 1936-1947 saw the new synthesis in evolutionary biology that cleared up uncertainties and gaps in evolutionary thinking, and the DNA model of genetics was established in the 1950’s completing more or less the understanding of the chemical basis of life. The standard model of particle physics was finalized by 1980. Today, cognitive science, an interdisciplinary study (philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and psychology) offers theoretical and computational models and simulations of human thought; also, today, in physical cosmology, the big-bang model of the cosmos is considered well tested and widely accepted

Science makes of course no rational claim to all knowledge. However, it had made inroads to all dimensions of the known world by 1900 and cleared up incompleteness in biology by 1950 (continental drift was accepted by the mid 1960’s). After 1900, science made further inroads into ‘nature’ after 1900 in the discovery of what may reasonably called ‘amazing’ new phenomena and in explaining them

Thus surely it seems that while science is not complete, what is left is really rather small and vanishing. Science is asymptotically approaching the truth

(I am going to criticize that view and provide an alternative that agrees with science in its domain of validity but goes far beyond that domain)

That is one of the reasons that religion has lost much of its hold, especially in Western Europe. I do not think the ascent of science is the only reason for this. Economic circumstances and education are significant; education is training in critical faculties and economic well being has removed much of the motivation to religion (which may be roughly argued to have been replaced by intellect and secular art)

Nietzsche declared God dead; he meant of course the elimination of any rational basis of belief; and today, education, economic well being, and the good life have eliminated (for the fortunate) any need for God

It is interesting that there are reasonable admittedly speculative arguments based in computer science and modern physical cosmology that we may be able to survive as information emulations and as such populate and take control of the Universe to gain eternal life in a final Godhead or Omega Point—if science is not God it may recreate God

It is important to note that the abandonment of speculative metaphysics with non rational and even irrational elements and the failure of related political ideologies does not imply that systematic metaphysics is impossible

Science and Secular Humanism

Humanism is a credo that asserts the fundamental importance of human being—in some forms it asserts our fundamental metaphysical significance. Secular Humanism is a response the ascent of science; and it is in the wake of this ascent that humanism acquired some moderate momentum. In some versions, this humanism finds religion in science; for example Charles Hartshorne saw that God being in all things is consistent with science (especially process and evolution). However, in many versions Secular Humanism accepts science as showing a material universe with humankind holding no special place in it but nonetheless intrinsically important. Humanism then sees our fundamental objective as one of leading a useful and rewarding life

The way of life of the economically well off, educated a-religious individuals all over the world and concentrated in Western Europe may be thought of as humanist in the above sense though often only tacitly so

I want to argue against the view that science is asymptotically approaching the truth. I will show that science has no handle at all on what is outside its valid domain; this will of course undermine major current paradigms of thought and life (primarily scientific materialism and the consequent metaphysical underpinning of Secular Humanism; this will of course not imply that such ways of life should or must be abandoned but it will show that they have a certain emptiness even if the individuals themselves do not experience emptiness; and while such individuals may not know otherwise, if they did they would recognize but perhaps not care that they are in the midst of a present though not eternal loss of Be-ing). This will open up the road to metaphysics but not of course to an uncritical one. That I show that science does not bar metaphysics or is consistent with a certain metaphysics does not at all show that metaphysics is thereby established

The standard view of scientific theories is that they are hypotheses, often novel ways of seeing—i.e. formulated in terms of novel concepts, that are projected upon but agree with the extant data, agree with older relevant theories in their domains of validity and that, so far, continue to agree with the data and survive conceptual scrutiny. The implication of the fact that they ‘agree so far’ is that they may later fail in the face of sufficient contradictory data. However, if it is true that a theory agrees with all the data so far that means that the theory has a domain of validity: in that domain it is a fact. The significance of the possibility of failure is that we think of our theories as universal or at least aspiring to universality. However, instead of seeing successive theories as successive approximations we can also see them as successive facts. This way of seeing scientific theories will fit well with the metaphysics to be developed which, on account of its revelation of the universe as conceptually unlimited, will show the successive approximation of theories to universal theory view as untenable

Now here is why I hold that scientific theories have not been shown from experience or on the merits of science itself to be anywhere close to the entire truth. A theory is a conceptual model of the world we have experienced, i.e. the known universe. What is physical cosmology’s and quantum theory’s extent of that Universe? At distances greater than the age of the cosmos times the velocity of light we have no data; at distances less the Planck length we have no data. These boundaries may open up into regions that are anywhere between very small and without limit. In other words, as a conceptual projection on to a limited portion of the universe we have no reason to suppose that we are in fact anywhere near the entire truth (thinking about it this is Hume’s argument)

The Essential Criticism of Metaphysics

We have now eliminated the major external criticisms of metaphysics

However, Hume’s criticism of the necessity of scientific generalization and causation and Kant’s criticism of metaphysics as not based in experience require address

The response to Hume is simple; the metaphysics of this narrative is not based in generalization

The response to Kant is that the metaphysics is based in experience. Since the criticism of experience is that it is necessarily projective and that since it is subject to error, it is not altogether reliable

How do I respond to this? The response is that the metaphysics is based on abstraction from experience that what is abstracted is not susceptible to errors the measurement type or of projection

The observation is so trivial and the consequent metaphysics so easily developed that I am incredulous that it has not been developed before (it has been thought in some ways but has not been seen as it is seen here, has not been demonstrated, and has not been elaborated as here)

At the same time I must admit to surprise at the original development (which has by now become commonplace in my thinking). In fact my experience was and sometimes still is that nothing has been discovered but I have stumbled upon some new vista, that I have been led as if by some external force that may be labeled the inexorability of reason

BEING

Concepts

Experience

Experience, Naming the Given, Abstraction, Robustness of Experience, Solipsism, Real World (‘External World’)

Note. Robustness of Experience is the fact and full status reality of Experience. This follows from naming the given, analysis of the meaning of Experience which is both subject and object (while Experience may be subjective in its reference to the world, the fact of Experience is objective because Experience is primitive). Robustness, richness, and the fact of the Real World follows from refutation of solipsism

World

The World (all experience, especially with respect to—richness of—variety including but not limited by distinction or paradox; container for understanding human being)

Richness of the World follows from richness of the Real World and Experience of it and richness of the pure subjective

Being

Being, Neutrality (of reference) and Emergence, Container / Leveler (matter, idea; structure, chaos; determinism, indeterminism; causation, occasionalism; concrete, abstract; entity / pattern; element / Law; atomism / holism…), verb ‘to be’, Analysis of Meaning (and experience); Identity-and-Distinction (Identity-Distinction and its relative character), Duration (and identity: distinction for same object), Extension (and distinction: different objects); Global Description (range: somewhere, somewhen), ‘Is’

Existence

Intension and Extension of Being and Existence are the same. We could propose a different intension but there would be no point to it; however a distinction may obtain in specific contexts

Paradox of the non-existent object

Universe

Universe (everywhere, everywhen)

Creation

Creation, God, gods

See Concepts Regarding God

Possibility

Possibility, Actuality

Part

Domain (phenomenal including spatiotemporal, i.e. range: somewhere, somewhen), Complement

Law

Pattern, law, Law

Void

Introduction

Ideas and Structure of this Chapter

The next chapter, Metaphysics, develops a framework for general understanding of the Universe and the experience of an individual as a journey (the concept of metaphysics was briefly explained in the Introduction and is defined and analyzed in the chapter Metaphysics)

Since metaphysics may be regarded as the study of things as they are (as far as this study is possible) it is necessary to found it upon concepts that (a) refer to definite things or objects (these include things, processes, interactions, states of affairs) and (b) that are effective as elements of a Universal Metaphysics

This chapter introduces elementary concepts that will be used in demonstration and development of the metaphysics of the next chapter

These essential elementary concepts include Experience, Being (and the verb to be), Extension and Duration, Existence, Pattern and Law, Domain, Universe, Complement, and Void. These concepts are defined below. The terms have other uses and so it is important to attend to the definitions of the narrative. The other uses may of course be significant and the present uses are not justified by being correct while the others are incorrect. The importance of the present uses is that they enable the development of a powerful system of understanding and the other uses may be useful in enriching the quality and understanding of the present system

In this chapter the goals include explaining the meaning (defining) the concepts as used here, showing that the concepts do refer to ‘things as they are’—i.e., that for them the projective component of a knowing mind is allows perfect knowledge, and explaining the choice and significance of the concepts

Being and Experience in this Narrative

Being and Experience are defined and explained below

Being and Experience are fundamental to the metaphysics and its development. The facts of Being and Experience—i.e., the fact that there is Being and the fact that there is Experience; in talking of the ‘fact’ of Experience, it is not implied that the impressions in Experience are necessarily objective… or that they are not—will be seen to exemplify perfect knowledge—i.e., the corresponding objects are clear, definite, and perfectly known; and the concepts of Existence, Law, and Void will inherit these qualities and—later—Logic and Logos will be seen to possess the same qualities

Being is sufficient to foundation and demonstration of the metaphysics. Being is a container for all things. It is neutral in that it does not imply any kind or category and in using Being we therefore avoid errors that may attach to the use of such categories as mind and matter and process as the foundation for metaphysics. Being is neutral in that it commits neither to categories nor the absence of categories. It allows the fact of categories (yes or know) and any specific categories to emerge as understanding emerges

However, Experience is important (a) in itself as a framework for understanding human being and mind and what is meaningful and significant human being (b) in contributing to an understanding of Being and the world as robust and significant (i.e., more than mere technical constructs) (c) in placing human being in and in relation to the world (d) in understanding that though human experience is certainly only a fraction of Being, it is of the order of Being and not, as it is commonly seen, something ethereal in its being and only passively significant in our lives: Experience is at the center of significance, understanding, intention, and action: metaphorically, it is the theater of these aspects of human life (e) as a base to develop a broader but not categorially different concept of Experience that makes it at least coextensive and coeval with Being

Being and Experience are duals. Being is universal; Experience (in our fist understanding of it) is intimate. The range of Being is the world (Universe); Experience is (includes) our knowledge of the world (and from (d) above is also solidly in the world). This dual is parallel to a sequence of duals that include metaphysics-knowledge / epistemology, content / method, object / concept

As understood here Being provides a framework for understanding what is in the Universe; Experience frames human being

Experience

The Concept of Experience

Meaning in this Narrative

Definition

The first meaning of Experience is that it is subjective awareness

Explanation

As used here, the concept of experience may be roughly explained as ‘what things are like’

Example

*Presence, concrete

Need for and Possibility of Meaning by Example, Illustration and Ostension

Related Words

Consciousness, awareness

Other Uses of the Word ‘Experience’

The uses, spelling

Informal use unless otherwise specified

The Givenness or Fact of Experience

Givenness

The givenness—fact—of Experience. That we experience something—that it is in Experience—we have the Experience of an object, e.g. a brick—does not guarantee the Being (existence) of the brick. This has a shallow meaning—we may be day dreaming or hallucinating—and a deep meaning: even when our experience of ‘the brick’ is well grounded it does not follow that the object is as we experience it (because of projection). We may of course say that for some practical purposes the brick as it appears in Experience. However that is not true for all purposes even all practical purposes (which at least suggests that the practical and the academic are indistinct). Ask now, how do we know of Experience. We have Experience of Experience and while the details of Experience may not have perfect faithfulness to any object our knowledge of having Experience, i.e. our experience of experience-as-experience, is at such a non-detailed or abstracted level that it is perfectly faithful. Our abstracted knowledge—experience-as-experience—is perfect and empirical

Experience is a perfect object

*Note. See the metadocument for discussion of doubts and issues… and for general significance of doubt

The Issue of Robustness and its Significance

The following questions arise regarding Experience. (a) Is Experience real? (b) Is it a significant part of (human) life? (c) Is it significant in the World? The three questions are typical of robustness issues: we think something is real but is it real and does it have the significance we may assign to it. This is what I mean by robustness

Robustness issues may arise on account of common experience and science. Our practical experience may be that the world is essentially material and this appears to be confirmed by physical science. This may lead to doubts such as those above. This is the issue of robustness of Experience. Further we would like to know what in fact is the case: this may perhaps should have significance for how we live and relate to one another and the world. This is the significance of the robustness of Experience. The issues of robustness of the world and of Being taken up below are similar in their natures and significance

Because of its significance we would like to know what in fact obtains regarding robustness, e.g. the questions raised above

We have already seen that there is Experience—i.e., Experience is real. How can this be reconciled with science? The reconciliation must be that either mind is outside physical science or that it is not but is not part of the vocabulary of physics. The categories of Experience, Experience as effective in human life and the world are not inconsistent with the categories of Newtonian physics. However, we will see in the following that we do in fact have freedom: human freedom is real (though not quite as independent as some existentialists and analytic philosophers imagine). Therefore this must be allowed by physical science. What is freedom? It is choice of some outcomes from a larger number of available outcomes. This is simply out of the question in the Newtonian world view but allowed in quantum physics. However, emotions, thoughts, human choice are do not emerge from quantum theory. Although consistent with quantum theory it is not clear that they are contained in it or whether enhancements to the theory are needed. In any case it is reasonable to think that there is a physical theory X that contains emotions, freedom etc. (it does not follow that we can or will find X or that we would be able to use it to show the facts of psyche)

We conclude that while physical science and world views based on it may lead us to doubt the robustness of Experience, this doubt does not at all follow from physical science

At the present, however, physical science is not adequate to explanations of the facts of psyche; and even if it should become adequate to do so, explanation of psyche in its own terms will remain essential (and probably superior0

Therefore robustness and other dimensions of psyche shall be investigated in terms of psyche. In doing so it will be pertinent to remember (a) that this investigation is not inconsistent with natural science and (b) natural science—theoretical and empirical—may however provide constraints and illumination to the investigation

Robustness of Experience and the World

We may question the givenness of Experience. In this questioning we may be led to two extremes of doubt, (a) That there is no such thing as Experience or that it is ineffectual and (b) That Experience is all there is; i.e. that there is no real or external world

A brief response to first doubt is already present in the section on Givenness: Experience names feeling (for example). A brief response to the second doubt is that we are able to name Experience: therefore Experience figures as subject (primary experience) and as object (world)

Detailed and more robust responses to the doubts follow

Robustness of Experience

When we think of in terms of images of the world we may tend to minimize the reality of Experience: we may think of it as unreal or a lower grade of reality. This attitude has counterpart in philosophical doubt regarding Experience. Some thinkers take this doubt in a very real way. Here, however the function of doubt is to sharpen our understanding and, by responding to the doubt, to establish the reality and significance of Experience

*Views that Minimize or Deny Experience and its Significance

*Details of the doubts about Experience-1. (Doubt 1) Eliminativism—There is no Experience. (1a) Epiphenomenalism—There is Experience but it has no causal significance—i.e., when I intend to do something and it gets done my attribution of intention to my experiential form and causation to the intention and its acting out are erroneous attributions (and nothing would be different without Experience)

Consequence: Experience is Real

Consequence. There is Experience; Experience is essential; we see later that Experience is essential to our adaptation and our form of Being… and, appropriately understood, even to all Being; understanding of Experience. Method. Recognition and naming of the given, i.e. ostensive definition of the fundamental

Robustness of the World

Views that See Experience as Everything… and as the Only Thing

*Details of the doubts about Experience-2. (Doubt 2) Idealism—Experience is everything. (2a) Solipsism—everything is the field of Experience of a single individual (‘myself’) and there is no real world

Consequence: There is a Real or ‘External’ World

Consequence. There is a real (‘external’) world corresponding to a significant domain of Experience; our knowledge of it is robust. Method. Consistency, analysis of meaning

Experience as Central to Human Being

What is essential about Experience is that it is given to our being and essential in it (later we see that—with expanded meaning, i.e. sense-reference—it is essential in Being)

The Reality and Extension of Experience

The reality and extension of experience. There is a human tendency to minimize the reality of Experience and the range occupied by it; it is a common tendency to minimize the role of Experience. However, Experience is our theater, it is real, and has causal efficiency (arguments for the latter later). There is also a counter tendency to overextend the range of Experience, to make it the only real—these tendencies are ‘idealist’ and their consequences are some forms of idealism which is the position that mental entities are the only reals. While our Experience is real, effective, and has centrality there is a world outside Experience. Can the idea of Experience be extended to include the whole world? We will find that with sufficient broadening of meaning it can be so extended. However, experience will not exclude the material; and Experience will not be seen as support for the material it. At the same time, the outcome will not be a dualism. Speaking in general terms the outcome will be a generalized view of the terms mind and matter in which those terms are duals or dual modes of description that cover the world

Attitude and Action are Duals Within Experience

Presence to the world—*attitude, *intentionality, and ^†intending—and presence in the world—action—are duals within Experience

The present treatment of Experience is that of our Experience (including animal Experience) but is otherwise general. Experience and action may be seen as containers within which we express and discover depths and details of our being

The World

Without having Experience, which includes consciousness, we might have significance to alien observers but we would not experience significance. Although we could perhaps objectify ‘significance’ without Experience there is nothing to make objective. Experience includes all our conscious, awareness, knowledge, designs, and agency. As discussed so far it is Experience is not everything but without it there is effectively nothing. Further, later we will find senses in which the range of Experience, even if it is not all things, is far greater than we have seen it to be so far and it will include what we call the autonomic functions and the unconscious

Therefore our cumulative experience is immensely rich. This stands in contrast to our treatment of the fact that we have Experience in the previous section. That we have Experience is a given, it is a crucially important given, but it is a single abstract fact and its importance lies (a) in its metaphysical significance and (b) in its being the place of all that is rich in our being in the world. It was important for the metaphysical development to treat Experience as a simple robust fact and it will be important for the significance of the metaphysical development that Experience is not merely a world in itself but includes the image of a robust real world. However, the two robust items of the previous sentence were demonstrated as simple facts whose richness we know but did not show

This richness is not necessary for the metaphysical development but it is important to us and therefore important in parallel with the metaphysical development. The richness is suggestive for the metaphysics which in turn illuminates and is part of that richness

The idea of The World is a repository for all richness, ignorance—blind and intentional—and contradiction. We will later see that there is a sense in which the metaphysics developed here contains a representation of The World and that the maximal representation contained in The World and the metaphysics are identical because (a) the metaphysics is in The World, (b) the metaphysics finds that the Universe is the object of Logic, and (b) any contradictory—non-Logical—ideas in The World represent nothing

In this narrative The World will refer to the rich welter of cumulative human Experience. It includes what may be objective but it is also the place of what is not objective, what we may confusedly think of as objective or confusedly think of as not objective, and the realms of Experience for which objectivity has no meaning and those for which it needs no meaning. The World includes what is familiar and less familiar—what is perhaps only imagined; and it includes what is solid and what as far as our knowledge goes is perhaps ethereal. While it is thus not entirely solid, it is the ground for what is firm; and it is the soil of our designs and fantasies

‘The World’ is the world in which we live. It is not just the objective world but also the affective world. The emphasis in this narrative on metaphysics is not intended to deemphasize the significance of the World. The World has intrinsic significance to human being

‘The World’ then is counterpoint to the stark metaphysical development and could be considered counterpoint also to science

When a philosopher such as Heidegger argues against matter and mind as fundamental and when he puts Being in their place one of his or her objectives is to map out what is here called the World. For Heidegger, Being is the root. Here too but even more. Whereas for Heidegger Being stands in contrast to mind and matter (he regarded them as high level concepts), here Being is neither identified nor contrasted with mind and matter and what actually obtains is allowed to emerge with analysis. What will emerge is, among other things, (a) that there is and can be no ultimate substance, (b) that there is no need for substance: whatever foundation there may be can be given without it (foundation will be demonstrated and not posited), and (c) that we can define notions in terms of Being that have universal significance and that roughly correspond to our notions of mind and matter. However, these are not contained in the pure sense of Being (even though they have rough correspondence to our Experience) but emerge from our considerations of Being. While Heidegger is or attempts to be an advance over substance theory his advance stops short of the neutrality required for a fundamental concept of Being. There is analogy between what is here seen as the world and Heidegger’s mapping out of it. His mapping is, first, rather early twentieth century European. And it is second the mapping made by a European intellectual of the common European. I am suspicious of philosophical analyses of the ‘common man’ primarily because I see it as a set up (and secondarily because it stokes the ego of the intellectual in a number of ways). In what ways is it a ‘set up’? It is a set up in that the intellectual and the common man are not different. It is not as though the ‘common person’ never thinks about the nature and significance of what he or she is doing; and it is not as though the intellectual is sole possessor to the keys to significance. The analysis of everyday activity is a worthwhile endeavor but if it excludes the entire range of human endeavor it is incomplete

My initial attitude to the world, therefore is to not characterize it. A philosopher may say ‘existence before essence’ but he or she may be also suggesting (saying) ‘look, I have the essence just right!’ I suppose I might be saying or suggesting the same. However, I suggest that it is my best interest, in terms of ego as well as intellect, to attempt to in fact get it right

And to this end I will here define the World no more but later investigate what might emerge from considerations of the metaphysics, the traditions, and further reflection

Although it is in a sense a single point in the Universe revealed below in this and subsequent chapters it is also the World that holds images of that Universe, it is the place of our immediate Being and, for those who would explore the Universe it is the place that the search begins and it is inspiration for that search. The World may be a place of comfort but it is also that place of all our losses and our aspirations. It is where we love, live and die. It is the affective and the cognitive springboard for our ambitions (whether to the Universe or simple contentment)

It is our understanding of the World via, e.g. tradition-experience-imagination-criticism that provides raw concepts that we transform into metaphysics which re-illuminates the world

Some would contract the Universe to the World. The World is the place of the beginning and the continuing of our searches and in the process the World may expand where expansion is right (and contract where contraction is right) to the borders of the Universe

Being

The Concept of Being in this Narrative

The Concept

Being is that which is (somewhere and somewhen)

Being is what all beings have in common

Related Words

Existence (taken up below)

The purpose to the following is that these are in but not at all the whole of Being: life form; organism; creature; living being; human being; person; individual; mortal; valid uses included in the present use

Other Uses

In one use ‘Being’ refers to divine quantities and in another it refers to essence: thus the ‘being’ of a person is his or her essence or core. The use in this narrative is among the common philosophical uses of ‘Being’

It is not the claim that any one of these uses is correct and the others are not. In general multiple uses are valid

What marks the present use is that it is part of a metaphysics to be developed that is ultimate and includes what is valid in other systems. In this sense the present use is especially effective and in some ways it inherits the ultimate character of the system of which it is a part

‘Being’ has been thought of as ‘existence-in-itself’ and (mere) ‘existence’ as ‘existence-in-relation-to-other-things’. Here, it will be shown that this distinction is empty

*Duration and Extension

Distinction-sameness; requires Identity; given Identity we note that objects maintain identity over duration; scanning yields different objects and therefore extension; however scanning is not free of duration and identity is not free of extension

Duration, Extension

Meanings of the Verb ‘to be’

*‘Is’—somewhere, somewhen

*Other meanings of ‘is’

The Significance of Being in this Narrative

Source of power of the concept of Being as used here—ultimate abstraction, neutrality, simplicity, emergence

*Neutral, abstract (naming, definition; abstraction of the incompletely empirical)

The Robustness of Being

Robustness has a psychological and real side. The psychological side is our feeling e.g. nausea, insecurity, confidence; it is significant and we therefore address it below. The real side concerns such things as material attributes. Evaluation of the material attributes for robustness is illusive when we come to the world with preconceptions whether from our psychology or from science or religion. In the following we find that the response to questions regarding ‘real’ robustness has a psychological and reasoned side

Response to Doubts that There is no Being

Doubt. There is no Being—all is illusion. A fist response to the doubt that there is no Being. Trivial (these words or the illusion thereof)

However this response does not remove all doubt. The response shows that there is Being but not that there is anything worthy of the name. Now ‘worthiness’ in this case does not mean ‘important’. Rather it means that what is there is truly real, more than illusion, more than Experience (Experience of course is truly real but we want more). What do we want? We want, of course, there to be a real world, one whose Being does not depend on being experienced

Doubt. There is no real or robust Being. Response. The demonstration that Experience has an object, i.e. the real world is a good response. However, in what follows in this chapter we will demonstrate much more

Response to Doubts that Being is Ephemeral and Ineffectual

This doubt intersects the previous one regarding robustness

We can always have psychological doubt as distinct from rational or common sense doubt. I think immediately of two sources of psychological doubt (a) Insecurity, neuroses and the unpredictability of the world which are not doubts about the robustness of the world but of our place in it and (b) That we assign too much ‘concreteness’ to the world and when we discover that it does not have this concreteness we react to an opposite extreme

Response to the psychological issues. The world has just as much reality and causation and so on as it has; it is our views or feelings about it that may go to extremes

Response from considerations of the real. The analysis of Experience shows the robustness of both Experience and the World. Therefore Being is as robust as anything in our knowledge (better than which we cannot do)

Later in Metaphysics and subsequently we will find and demonstrate an ultimate variety and immense depth of Being; therefore although we cannot do better than our knowledge, we will find that there is no better (e.g., we need no God to inform us of the robustness of the world). Metaphysical knowledge will combine the empirical with regard to the world and knowing (language, logic, science…)

*Functions of Doubt

Note how doubt refines clarity, understanding, and certainty. We will find that doubt is an essential aspect of method. It is pivotal in understanding and establishing specific concepts and objects, systems of concepts and their objects—e.g., metaphysics. At a higher level of generality, doubt leads to criteria and methods (proof, demonstration) of establishing certainty

There is further discussion of doubt in the chapter on Metaphysics

Why Being?

The Neutrality of Being is Paramount

Being does not commit to matter or mind or any special category. It does not commit to not-mind or not-matter. If we were to choose mind or matter or both or not-mind or not-matter or both as the basis of a metaphysics we would start with a problem. We would not be able to say ‘there is matter’ etc. and yet we would be attempting a metaphysics founded on the idea of matter

Choosing Being allows foundations of the metaphysics to emerge. If matter or mind or other substance(s) should turn out to be foundational then this case will have been proved rather than merely posited and will therefore have been strengthened immensely. In fact, deployment of the concept of Being results in a metaphysics without substance that is nonetheless a non-relative metaphysics. The neutrality of Being allows this to emerge

The Fact of Being is Given

However, it is beyond doubt that Being is there. ‘Being’ is the naming of what is there and we have already seen that there is Being (and the Universal Metaphysics will show that there must be Being). Thus the beginning of metaphysics with Being is on firm ground

Being is a Foundation for Metaphysics

Specifically, Being is essential to foundation of the concepts of Universe, Domain, and Void that are essential to the development of the metaphysics of this narrative

Particularly is a proper foundation for the idea of Universe as all inclusive (which was an essential point). We will further see that with Universe as All Being there is and can be one and only one Universe which leads to the fundamental conception of the Void (on a matter-metaphysics or materialism, the Void would be the absence of matter and we would then have to puzzle about whether space and time were part of the universe or [one of] its manifold[s]… and whether laws or ideas or minds were in fact part of the universe)

In saying there is Being there is no commitment (or anti-commitment) to any particular object (concrete objects e.g. footballs, space, time, matter, mind, ideas, values, abstract objects such as numbers). This relieves the metaphysics of an immense tension and relegates the question of What there is to a problem of metaphysics which in fact will be seen to have the dual advantage of making the problems tractable as well as immensely clarifying

Further Considerations

Also see The Significance of Being in this Narrative

*Existence

The Concept

What is there. Therefore Being

Being and Existing are not Different

Sometimes regarded as being-in-relation-to and as distinct from Being-in-itself. There is an intuition that the distinction may be empty and this is later shown to be true

Some Problems with the Idea of Existence

Triviality etc.

The problem of the non-existent object

Universe

The Concept of the Universe

This Narrative

… everywhere, everywhen

May switch between global and spatiotemporal description

Everything in the Universe has Being; nothing outside the Universe has Being

Significance of this Concept of ‘Universe’

This provides a definite concept of the Universe

It is neither ‘better’ nor ‘worse’ than other concepts e.g. the idea of the universe as the empirical universe. Because it is All Being it provides a definite notion whose extension (to what it refers) does not change as knowledge changes; this definiteness is essential to implications for the concepts of possibility, actuality, necessity, and creation. That the Universe is all Being gives enables clarity with regard to what is in the Universe. Are laws the mere creation of minds? Or are laws and concepts in the Universe? The answers to these questions are significant in the demonstration and development of the metaphysics and are possible on the present definition

Enables clear understanding of the concepts of possibility, actuality, below and necessity, later. Enables clear and definitive thinking about the question of the creation of the Universe and of domains and cosmological systems in the Universe

That Laws have Being (as seen below) is crucial to demonstration and development of the metaphysics

This concept of Universe and that of domain below will contribute later to understanding science and its relation to metaphysics

Relation to Eriugena’s Concept of ‘Universe’

The Physical Universe and Other Common Uses

Why this Concept of ‘Universe’?

As seen Universe includes All Being and therefore all categories—all things that actually are there such as Laws. About this we do not have to puzzle

There is one Universe. About this we do not have to puzzle

If a creator is external to the creation the Universe has and can have no creator

The concept of Universe clarifies the meanings of possibility and necessity

Possibility relative to a context is what could obtain in another configuration of the context that does not violate the constitution or definition of the context (and the possible may or may not actually obtain). The Universe is All Being over all time and space and therefore there is no other context and it is in the definition of Universe that there can not be another. Therefore to be possible a (sub) configuration must be actual; and of course the actual is possible; therefore, relative to the Universe, possibility and actuality are identical (the concepts are distinct but they have the same extension). For the Universe, is and must be, and is not and cannot be are identical (in extension)

*Domains

The Concept of a Domain

Domain as realm of phenomena

^†Includes spatiotemporal domain

^†‘Is’—some spatiotemporal domain

Complements

Given a domain it has a complement, i.e. every existing domain has an existing complement

Why Domains?

Use in development of the metaphysics

Leads to the idea of distinction (which has Being)

Leads to the idea of extension and later to duration as necessary

Allows that one domain may be a creative force in the being of another

If a domain exists, its complement—the part of the Universe outside the domain—exists

Pattern, Law, and Law

The Contingent and Therefore Non-Universal Character of Law

As far as we know from science no Law is more than local and contingent. We often think that the Laws of science are universal or that there is an at most small and shrinking domain where the Laws do not obtain. However, science and its methods allow that the domain where a Law does not obtain is without limit. We think that the extra-scientific domain is small because we have no experience beyond science and we allow it to frame our world view (of course it frames a world view that is valid over some domain but science has not shown and its method does not require that domain to be the Universe or an approximation to it. It is conceivable from science and reflective experience that the extra-scientific domain is shrinking to zero but we will later see that this is far from the case: the extra scientific and extra traditional and unqualified extra experiential domains are without limit

Laws Have Being

Laws are patterns over a domain: they are there: the Universe is all being and nothing is outside the Universe

Doubt. But Laws are mere correlations etc. Response. They are also patterns and that they are correlations in no way implies that they are mere or nothing but correlations

Universe and Law

The Universe is All Being—i.e., over all extension and duration—and contains all Laws

Possibility and Actuality

Creation

The Universe has no external creator

One domain may be implicated in the creation of another

Void

The Concept of the Void

The Void is the complement of the Universe

Properties of the Void

Essential Properties

The following properties of the Void are essential to development of the metaphysics

Existence

Contains no Being

Contains no Law

I.e., The Void which is the absence of (contains no) Being exists and contains no Laws

Other Properties

Except that there is at least one, the number of Voids is without significance. A Void may be taken to be attached to every element of Being. The Void is in the Universe but may be regarded as being outside the Universe

Significance. Why the Void?

The Void and its properties are critical in establishing the ultimate character of the Universal Metaphysics

The Term ‘Void’

I originally introduced the idea of nothingness because I thought that if I could show the equivalence of the Universe and the Void I might be able to arrive at a metaphysics (I decided to use the term ‘void’ because ‘nothingness’ would suggest Sartre’s thought and so be distract the impressions of readers away from fundamentals to the human issues of existentialism which we do not minimize but do observe the rather futile even if rather illuminating character of so labeled existentialist thought). At least, I thought, the equivalence would be empowering. I sought to show that the Universe was equivalent to the Void. Finally I realized that I should focus on the Void and its properties

The Concept of the Void

The Void exists and is the absence of All Being including Law

As seen above, therefore

The Universe has no limits—i.e.. The Principle of Being (PB)

PB implies that The Variety of Being is without limit; our cosmological system repeats infinitely (all this is on the proviso that it is Within the Bounds of Logic or WBL), the variety of physical law has no limit and for each there is unlimited repetition, there is advanced life and mind without limit, the Universe has diffuse and acute phases of Identity, individual identity repeats without limit and becomes Universal Identity from which it falls away, death is real but not absolute

METAPHYSICS

Concepts

Metaphysics

Metaphysics, Uniqueness

Truth

Word Magic

Principle of Being

Principle of Being (and Variety)

Universal Metaphysics

Universal Metaphysics (metaphysics, the metaphysics, euphysics), Ultimate, Depth or Foundation, Breadth or Variety, The Universe has no Limit (Actuality is logical Possibility: the Universe cannot be Greater)

On Demonstration

General

On Demonstration. Demonstration, Proof. Modes of Demonstration. Givens, Naming, Abstraction, Deduction (Proof)

Note. The concept of Demonstration leads to the concept of Logic. And, properly understood, includes deduction as well as empiric. Logic may be extended to probable argument, e.g. the hypothetico-deductive approach of science (which is more than probable argument but less than necessary; it may be called confirmatory andor articulated). Here, I do not make this extension. This is because, first, I follow usage and, second, I wish to maintain the distinction. However, a contrary case could be made because it is not clear that there is any absolute certainty

On Argument. Probable Inference. Science. Experience. Cause. Correlation. Possibility

Note. Argument is more general than demonstration because it includes probability in the range [0,1] while demonstration is probability = 1. Plausible proof may or may not be considered to be an Argument

This Narrative

In this narrative. Demonstration, Argument, and Interpretation

Doubt and its Functions

Doubt (Realistic / Philosophical, Traditional). Realism (External: empirical, experiential and scientific; Internal: logic and deduction; Truth: Existential: Attitude, Faith)

Science

Science (Traditional; Factual over Domains, Open over Complements), Reflective Common Experience; the Normal; Cosmos and Cosmomorphism, Future (Today’s approach, supplemented by Participation and Immersion)

Logic and Logos

Logic (Realism), Fact and Logic, Logic (logics, Deduction), Logos (object of Logic: Universe in all its detail)

Cosmology (General)

Cosmology (General), Variety (includes Method of Cosmology), Variety: General (metaphysical in inspiration) and Special (inspiration in world and culture); Extension, Process; Being, Space, Time; Mind, Matter, Spirit; Special Metaphysics, Religion (versus religions), Spirituality (concept versus forms)

A view of Religion versus the Religions: Religion is the attempt to integrate the immediate and the ultimate

Objects

Object; Perfect, Practical; Particular, Abstract; Unified Theory and Duality; Epistemic, Practical and Valuational Perfection; Habitability of Objects

Individual, Identity and Realization

Individual, Identity, Soul, Eternality, Ultimacy, Realization, Journey, Death

Power

Power, Ultimate, God, Anthropomorphism (Positive, Negative), Atheism (concept, impossibility), Access (to power), Powers (Ultimate, Mediate and Human)

Applied Metaphysics

Applied Metaphysics; ‘Good Enough’; Context, Intrinsic Limit; Value, Perfection; Range, Metaphysics, Tradition

Method

On knowledge. Concept, Object, Icon, Symbol, Atomism, Divisibilism (Tomism: etymologically similar in derivation to A-tomism; not Thomism); Knowledge (knowledge of), Correspondence, Error, Projection, Distortion; Pragmatism (Good Enough); Knowledge that; Authority (meaning that Tradition includes adaptation, and in absence of explicit reasons may carry weight); Epistemic versus other Valuational Criteria

On Method. Method, Content, Coevalism (no a priori: method is content), Transparency (versus opacity; absolute opacity only in the Normal case); Epistemology (and Metaphysics, Unity of, simultaneous development of); Demonstration, Proof; Imagination, Realism; Icon, Symbol; Discovery, Justification, Creation, Plausible Reasons; Doubt, Necessary / Certain Reasons; Unity of Method (i.e. no ultimate distinction between discovery and justification); Doubt, Faith, Attitude

Word Magic

Methods

Demonstration. Abstraction, Naming the Given, Analysis of Meaning (and therefore Experience which is empirical)

Applies to Void through Power (and more if we allow degrees of abstraction besides abstraction to Applied Metaphysics)

Creation. Construction, Imagination; Plausible Argument; Heuristic; Reflexive Approach (Self, Interacting; Horizontal, Vertical; Sequential, Parallel; Inter / Intra Level); Neutrality (openness to perception and judgment), Emergence, Iteration (parts of reflex?)

Creation and Demonstration. Interaction, Interpenetration, Unity (ultimate?; of fact and meaning?)

Meaning

On Linguistic Meaning

On Linguistic Meaning. Meaning, Word, Sentence, Language. Icons (generally not atomic), Word (sign) designation. Sense and reference, Concept and Object (experience), Intension and Extension—explicit, implicit, and implied objects; Use and Relative Stability; all Grounds are Contextual (there is an absolute context); Definition (supersedes use in specific contexts; except when the Icon is effectively Unitary, it is Opaque)

Implications for Understanding and Thought. Meaning is a compound of word (sign)-Concept-object. Although word-concept-object is conveniently conflated in common use, the distinction is crucial to understanding and analysis. Numerous examples are found in the narrative (e.g. analysis of meaning as clarification and as empirical and, when it so obtains as in the metaphysics, as perfect—examples are analysis of Experience, Being, Universe, Void, Extension, Duration and, especially, of Existence; analysis of the meaning of Limit—limitlessness implies that every Logical concept of referential type has reference and that Logic is not a limit; analysis of paradoxes such as Liar and other self-referential paradoxes; analysis of ‘Universe’ to show identity of possibility and actuality; from PB in the form ‘from the Void, every state shall emerge’, analysis of the phrase ‘every state’ to a formulation in terms of Realism and Logic and a powerful notion of Logic that includes the intension and extension of the received notion)

Meaning and Context

Meaning and Context—Fluid / Fixed, Narrative context / Cultural context, Relative (to context) / Absolute, Holist / Elemental

Wittgenstein’s term for ‘context’ is ‘language games’. The word ‘games’ suggests fixed rules, e.g. the rules of soccer. However, soccer is more than its rules, so the idea of a language game is that of a flexible context (even if the rules did not or even could not change). The different contexts interact. In a given context, one sign may be associated with more than one symbol; e.g., the sign ‘sow’ may be the symbol as in ‘as ye sow, so ye shall reap’ and the symbol in ‘make a silk purse out of the ear of a sow’. This, however, is not an example of fluidity; it is simply an example of one sign, two symbols (unless there is some family connection of which I am not aware). For an example of fluidity, consider the sign ‘one’. It could be used as in ‘one year is 365 days’ and as in ‘the universe and I are one’; the uses are different but obviously related. This is what Wittgenstein calls ‘family resemblance’. Here, by fluidity of meaning I mean more than family resemblance. I talk of the shifting / expanding (or contracting) meaning as I grope around in a new context for the ‘best’ meaning of a term (e.g. Being). This is experimental in part. It took processing to see that what I was looking for as basis for metaphysics (i.e. trying out a variety) to glimpse that the idea of ‘Being’ was a good one. But what is ‘Being’ and what role does it play. After much experiment I found that ‘Being is what is there’ is the best notion of Being. There are many other connotations: being as God, being as essence and so on. How can I say the notion I use is best? I should say that there is a certain relativism to ‘best’ in this case. The system of concepts, Being, Universe and others enable an ultimate metaphysics. While the same metaphysics may be possible with other concepts, here it is these concepts that enable it. In other situations other connotations may be effective but from the point of view of ultimate metaphysics the present notion is most effective. Thus, in a sense, my use is perhaps the least relative possible: it is an effective foundation of a metaphysics which is the ultimate metaphysics (further the other valid notions may find a place within the metaphysics). The way to this situation is strewn with partial metaphysical systems, each of certain value and thus Being figured as fluid. Even now ‘Being’ remains a container term

Meaning and Understanding

Meaning and Understanding—Analytic (Unfolding) / Synthetic (Articulated, Holist)

Comments on Meaning in this Narrative

Perfect Metaphysics

Metaphysical Variables (Mode of Expression, Domain or Topic, Degree of Detail, Demonstrated / Perfect versus Tentative versus ‘Invalid’)

Science and swathes of Applied Metaphysics have no pretension to Perfect Metaphysics in the Epistemic sense

Perfect Metaphysics, Perfect Metaphysician

Metaphysics and Perfect Metaphysics are identical; the only Metaphysician is the Perfect Metaphysician

Philosopher

Not as easy to define as metaphysician for in philosophy we demand in some sense the best but cannot demand epistemic perfection. The divides between Being and Idea and, similarly, between Philosophy and Philosopher are not sharp. This is not psychologism but the simple recognition that the pure symbol is embodied. With regard to those who argue that the embodiment of concepts implies that concepts must be revalued it is significant to observe that concepts as such are already embodied, that the pure symbol of the symbolic sciences (logic, mathematics, linguistics) is already embodied and there is nothing further (see A Variety of Objects: Abstract) except, of course, that marks on paper, electronic media etc. are aids to clarity and memory

Is there a point to defining ‘philosophy’ and ‘philosopher’. The definitions should pay heed to history and the Universal Metaphysics and to the fact that sense and reference evolve (and, because progress and retrogress are mixed up, devolve). Still, whatever the philosopher is, it is in him or her that concepts find good embodiment. And in consequence of PB, the Being of the Philosopher as Philosopher goes beyond mere Idea as Idea and requires Becoming

What is Metaphysics?

Many readers will be familiar with the meaning of metaphysics in this narrative. However, since there is more than one use of ‘metaphysics’ it will be useful to be state what it shall mean in the narrative

Metaphysics is Study and Knowledge of Being

Introduction

^†Metaphysics has a number of meanings. Here it is knowledge of what is and as it is, i.e. metaphysics is knowledge of Being. A good deal of this study has been developed in the previous chapter; the goal of this chapter is to extend this study and perhaps to see how far this study can be extended. This knowledge and the study of it may be called pure metaphysics—it is neither exclusively nor specifically of the remote, the deep, the profound, the esoteric or the occult; it will later be seen that this conception of metaphysics entails much more than the mere knowledge of things-in-that-they-are-there. The idea has been criticized but what we have shown is that it is most robust. The ‘academic’ sections of the document are designed, among other things, to support this. It is essential to the development that (1) the metaphysics developed here (the Universal Metaphysics) is well founded (2) It shows the Universe and our place in it to be without limit to possibility and actuality (3) But that realization is a process without end

Metaphysics as a Discipline

Metaphysics is knowledge of Being-as-Being

It is implicit in the concept and intended use that metaphysics is perfect knowledge. It certainly makes sense that some discipline should have this intention for (a) Science supplies practical knowledge whose precision is dependent on the field which at least in physics which in some ways comes closest of the sciences to being metaphysics, the practical precision is often immense. (Of course there are ways in which Biology, Sociology, and Psychology come close to metaphysical content but it should be noted that western academic psychology and sociology avoid being-even-roughly-as-being by a supremely caricatured notion of objectivity and science) and (b) There is a place or need for such a discipline (should it be possible) as a perfect ground for life, action, and specialized study

Possibility and Fact of Metaphysics

This notion of metaphysics has been objected to as impossible on the grounds that it lies outside experience

However we find that it is far from lying outside the empirical and we will find an immense realm accessible to metaphysics. It is a realm that we do not and will not merely posit; we posit it not at all

The Concept-objects of the previous chapter, Being, include Experience, Being, Universe, and Void. In each case Concept is defined and as far as the definition is concerned, the Concept corresponds tentatively to an object. In each case it was shown that there is perfect correspondence and, further, that the meaning of the concept was an acceptable meaning (Being is what is there, Universe is all Being and so on). Although there are other meanings or shades of meaning in use that is not an issue; the claim is not that the given meaning is the meaning but, rather, that the given meanings will enable a powerful metaphysics that is consistent and that corresponds to objects in the Universe (in the sense of ‘knowledge that’). Thus although it has not thus far been named ‘metaphysics’ the concept-objects of the previous chapter constitute metaphysics or, at least, some part of it

Thus the fact and possibility of metaphysics has already been demonstrated. The Universal Metaphysics of this chapter builds upon the metaphysics of the previous chapter. The following aspects of the development are worth mentioning. The development is a demonstration. It shows that the Universe is ultimate in the sense that it could not be greater (it may not be altogether clear what this means; the meaning will be brought out via the demonstration, alternate but equivalent expressions, and application).

Metaphysics as an Activity

As an activity, metaphysics is the study of Being

It is search and research

It develops metaphysics as knowledge, as a discipline

It seeks to discover the most appropriate form of that knowledge and presentation

The present approach to presentation combines the discursive, narrative, and presentational forms

The present approach to form of content and content is neutral and emergent with regard to truth as well as system

What the Metaphysics of this Narrative is Not (other uses of ‘Metaphysics’)

It is not Study of the Occult

However, the fact and study of the occult are not excluded

It is not a Speculative Metaphysics

This does not exclude imaginative creation of concepts and their use in understanding

That it is not speculative is that the metaphysics must be demonstrated regardless of its inspiration and other sources

It is not Systematic by Intention or Imposition

In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, speculative systems became the vogue in metaphysics. What does this mean?

These systems had the following characteristics

1. The best of such systems were works of imagination and reason, based in clear ideas of what is fundamental to Being, and designed to understand, explain, and be useful in our negation of our world and the Universe

2. The developments were coherent and articulated systems of concepts designed to accomplish these purposes

3. They were typically idealist in nature (they posited that some aspect of mind was fundamental to the constitution and processes of the Universe)

4. The systems, instead of being piecemeal or ad hoc, were designed to show reality as an articulated whole and to reveal the system and its articulation as necessary

5. No matter how reasonable and how imaginatively argued they retained significant elements of unsupported or pure speculation

6. It was therefore not possible to select any system as final or to select one over another; there was therefore a proliferation of systems that never achieved factuality or necessity

To the extent that the ideas of this narrative are systematic, system has emerged and has not been imposed; and the basis of the ideas lies in Being, Experience and other objects that have been seen via abstraction of what is undistorted and incapable of distortion (even in severe psychosis there is a world of some sort, e.g. the doubt regarding a world). While such metaphysics, though necessary, may therefore seem immensely thin and shaky, it is therefore that its development has been supported by arguments for robustness

It is not by Design a Metaphysic of Experience

In the twentieth century, some philosophers suggested that since metaphysics as knowledge of Being was (as they believed) impossible, it would be worthwhile articulating the dimensions, structure, and processes of Experience. Since this was all we had, they may have argued, this metaphysic of experience would, in addition to its intrinsic significance, be the best kind of ‘metaphysics’ possible

If this were all that was possible I would not deem the name ‘metaphysics’ appropriate unless the metaphysic of experience could be shown to be somehow the essence of the world

In this narrative the metaphysics is grounded in concepts that are simultaneously in Experience and of Being. It is therefore simultaneously pure metaphysics as well as a metaphysic of Experience. This emerged as a result of necessities of faithfulness rather than any thought that I should limit considerations to Experience apart from Being

Responses to Some Criticisms, mainly Modern and Recent, of Metaphysics

Modern Doubts Regarding Metaphysics

Various doubts regarding metaphysics have arisen in the history of thought. Since the thought of Hume and Kant, the possibility of metaphysics has come into serious doubt (at least) (Hume doubts even the necessity of science which necessity he regards as metaphysics even while he understands the practical value of science). Since the rise of science and analysis the logical, epistemic, and utilitarian (as knowledge, as foundation for understanding and other disciplines, in its implications for the human endeavor, and in capturing popular sentiment) value of metaphysics, especially of idealist (and ideological), speculative, and systematic metaphysics has been significantly diminished and marginalized if not negated altogether. The grand schemes of the eighteenth and nineteenth century are without adequate foundation and therefore not true metaphysics; their political realizations, e.g. the import of aspects of Hegelianism into Marxism, are widely regarded as impractical failures. Therefore it would seem that the only metaphysics might be trivial. Alternatively, in some views, the idea of an overweening real-metaphysics-of-all-being ought to be eschewed in favor of a metaphysic of experience; this metaphysic would be a map of our experience and not of the universe per se

In summary the objections to metaphysics are (1) Metaphysics is not possible (2) Speculative metaphysics with its grand systematic schemes are failures (3) Metaphysics is impractical (4) If at all possible, metaphysics would be trivial and (5) The only ‘metaphysics’ would be a metaphysic of experience

It seems to me that while these doubts are valid in relation to some metaphysical systems, they are based on certain kinds of metaphysics—speculative, universally comprehensive, systematic, and on certain ways—speculative and ideological—of doing metaphysics. It is therefore important to address these doubts (a) To show that they are not necessary of all metaphysics and ways of doing metaphysics and (b) Because it is important to avoid repetition of errors of past metaphysics

That many metaphysical systems have failed does not imply that all systems of the world shall be essentially speculative, that the only systems should therefore concern substitutes for the world (e.g., metaphysic of experience), and that all speculative systems will fail or that there is no better approach than artificial (if inspired) speculation. In the development of the metaphysics of this narrative I did indeed wade through speculative seas but found in the end a direct approach to development

In analyzing the objections of the modern period I found that they tacitly assumed that metaphysics should be direct (experiential) knowledge of All Being (or at least significant detail thereof). Instead, again as the outcome of wading, I found a metaphysics that is empirical and direct in its fundamentals but indirect though not speculative in some of its developments and that detail is covered in a combination of direct and indirect knowledge. It is important to emphasize that the principle behind the indirect knowledge, in one form it will turn out to be a conception of Logic, is direct

The next few sections constitute generic address of the concerns and objections

Metaphysics is Possible

Metaphysics is the study of Being—i.e. of what is there. It is implicit it is the study of Being as it is—Being-as-Being

The possibility of metaphysics was criticized severely by Hume and Kant. Hume argued that we know nothing but empirical data; all else is possible inference from the data. Kant attempted to rescue metaphysics from Hume’ critique but he insisted that all knowledge begins in Experience but he argued from Experience to its necessary conditions (a metaphysic of Experience that transcends Experience). However, (1) Kant’s ‘necessary’ argument is not necessary even though a reasonable argument regarding our world (now however from modern science known to be inadequate) (2) It has therefore be concluded that metaphysics that goes beyond Experience is not possible

However, this has been shown only for systems so far and not for all possible systems. Therefore metaphysics has not been shown to be impossible

Here, a metaphysics is demonstrated (thus showing the possibility and actuality of metaphysics). How is this possible? In what way does it differ from Kant’s metaphysics? It differs from the basis Kant’s (and Schopenhauer’s) metaphysics in its selection of categories. Their categories (Schopenhauer’s reduced version of Kant’s) are space, time, and causation. The essential present categories are Being, All (Universe), None (Void), Some (Domain) (supplemented by Identity; change within Identity—duration, the root concept for time; different Identity—r extension, the root concept for space; and Experience and concept as content of Experience). The Kant-Schopenhauer categories are, as we now know, are approximate and local. The categories of this narrative are beyond distortion

The origin of the doubt is the concern regarding origin of knowledge in experience alone. Response. We need a careful analysis of knowledge and of experience. Here we demonstrate possibility by demonstrating and actual and ultimate metaphysics. We think metaphysics impossible when we naïvely think that (a) metaphysical knowledge should be of all things in all detail and (b) metaphysical knowledge should be only that knowledge given in direct experience. In contrast we find in this narrative that (I) There is direct metaphysical-experiential (empirical) knowledge of a system of fundamental objects though far from all detail and (II) There is consequent though not directly experiential knowledge of all detail. Thus the metaphysics of this narrative shall turn out to be a mixture of direct knowledge (knowledge that) of basic elements (Chapter Being) and inferred knowledge (knowledge of) a vast system of detail. This knowledge of is non-trivial in two ways (a) It shows the vastness of the Universe and our Identity and the journey ahead and (b) In combination with experience it illuminates and guides knowledge and being in process

Significant Realist (Empirical), Systematic, but Non-speculative metaphysics is possible

Do. There are some philosophers such as Nietzsche who argued against systematic metaphysics. The general concern regarding the systematic metaphysics in vogue especially in Germany in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries concerns its speculative character. That was one of the reasons that systematic metaphysics fell out of favor in the English speaking world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A.N. Whitehead argued for such systems and developed one in his 1929 book Process and Reality; his argument was that it is only via hypotheses and development of consequences that we can at all find any understanding of the universe as a whole. There are some current workers in metaphysical system but the enterprise is not central to philosophical thought in the places it had earlier fallen out of favor. While speculation is significant in the outcome, it is simplistic to think that speculation was the only reason for the move away from system. Other probable factors are the idealist nature of the 18^th/19^th century systems; the rise of science and materialism; the successive overturning of scientific theories which suggested that there may be no final understanding; the professionalization and democratization of philosophy and the consequent multiplicity of voices in the field; and the rise of logic and analysis

General response. That some systems are no more than speculative does not imply that all systems should be merely speculative. Therefore it has not been shown that such systems must be impossible. The way of the (merely) speculative systems was to infer reasonable conclusions from reasonable ideas; it is not surprising that the outcome was essentially failure. However another approach is available. It is to make hypotheses and then justify their validity and develop further necessary conclusions (the hypotheses will of course not be arbitrary but creative and ‘educated’). What kind of justification? In science it is not necessary justification; instead it is a comparison of predictions with observation and as agreement accumulates so does confidence in the system. In metaphysics justification must be necessary and this has not been shown to be impossible

Specific response. As seen above the categories of this narrative are beyond distortion (their definition and selection was iterative resulting finally in categories beyond distortion—empiric; logical internal relations; and necessary consequence, i.e. the principles and Logic of subsequent sections). Thus the present system is not speculative in the sense of positing unjustified conceptual systems to describe the Universe. Further in so far as the work is systematic, the system emerges from fundamentals and was not especially sought to be imposed

Metaphysical Thought May Have Practical Motivation and Consequences

Think of some human endeavors—everyday practical matters, our hopes, religion, science, philosophy… whatever we do our action is informed by an at least implicit view of the world in which we live. This view may be called a world view or a metaphysics. This view is important in how we conduct our practical lives and how we feel in and about the world and is therefore important

The metaphysics is informed by our beliefs: our practical experience, our religion (especially for the religious), science and philosophy (especially in the modern world). However these determining elements may vary between the incorrect and incomplete

In terms of correcting and completing our understanding of our universe and our place in it metaphysics is potentially significant

The metaphysics of this narrative will be seen to have immense consequences for the human endeavor and the academic disciplines

Non-Trivial Metaphysics is Possible

Since Being is common to ‘everything’, it might seem that metaphysics will be trivial. However, the conclusion appears reasonable but is not a necessary conclusion. Further it is not a necessary conclusion that since some metaphysical systems of the past were without necessary basis or that they had bases in reasonable but invalid categories that this should be true of all metaphysical systems

The analysis of Experience, Being, Universe, and Void so far already shows significant metaphysical development. The complete development that follows is that of a system of immense significance

Direct Address of the Criticisms of Metaphysics

The discussion so far shows what is incomplete about the various objections to metaphysics and generic ways in which the objections may be overcome. In following sections we describe and develop a Universal Metaphysics which constitutes definite and specific response to the criticisms of metaphysics

The Metaphysics of this Narrative

Development of the metaphysics begins in the next section. Here are some preliminary comments

The Metaphysics of this Narrative and its Entailments

The metaphysics of this narrative, developed below, is named the Universal Metaphysics. It is unique and may therefore be called the metaphysics. It is ultimate in providing absolute foundation

The notion of metaphysics entails the discussions below of Logic, the concept of the Normal and of future science (and religion), Objects, Cosmology (General), Identity and Realization, Power, and Journey

A Unique, Ultimate, and Universal Metaphysics

The characteristics of the metaphysics are most effectively addressed after completion of its derivation in the section Principle of Being and its Demonstration. However it is also effective to see what characteristics may be established before the demonstration. This is a motivation for the present ‘preview’ section and a later ‘post-view’ section—A Unique, Ultimate, and Universal Metaphysics Revisited. It is useful to note again that we already have some metaphysics—a part of the completed metaphysics to be developed—in having established that the concepts of Experience, Being, Universe, and Void refer perfectly to certain objects and that we can already establish certain consequences such as some issues of creation and of possibility and actuality addressed above

Uniqueness

In the history of metaphysics there have been many formal and informal systems of metaphysics. While some of these systems have little merit others have much to recommend them. This suggests that there may be a plurality of complementary or competing metaphysics

That there is a variety of sciences—physics, biology and so on—also suggest the possibility of a plurality of metaphysical systems and this is further emphasized by the successions of fundamental theories in the sciences. These observations suggest the possibility of varieties of metaphysical systems by analogy

However, if metaphysics is knowledge of Being-as-Being it would seem that there can be only (one) true metaphysics

What are the ways in which there can be different metaphysical systems (a) As the study of different regions of Being. Although Being does not distinguish its different regions as far as their Being is concerned it does not follow that differences that are invariant with regard to Being will not emerge (b) As successive approximation (c) As different ways to express the same knowledge (d) As development to different degrees of detail

The metaphysics developed here will be that of the Universe. It may have divisions but for this metaphysics as a whole option (a) above is eliminated

However metaphysics does not allow approximation: it is either true or not metaphysics. This eliminates option (b) above. It does not of course eliminate tentative metaphysics. Further in fact approximation is important and we see its re-introduction later in Applied Metaphysics

Therefore the metaphysics to be developed (its demonstration will show its fact and therefore possibility) will be unique except that it may have different modes of expression (option c) and different degrees of detail (option d)

Universal Character

The Universal character is possible in view of the concept of the Universe that has been introduced. If we can demonstrate a metaphysical representation of the Universe at all it will be a universal metaphysics

Therefore, the demonstration in the section The Universal Metaphysics below is also a demonstration of universality

Ultimate Character

This has two aspects—The metaphysics is ultimate; and it shows the Universe to be ultimate

Meaning and demonstration of these assertions is in the section The Universal Metaphysics below

*Simultaneous Emergence of Metaphysics and Epistemology

The fall of metaphysics in modern western thought is coeval with and related to the rise of epistemology in western philosophy

Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. Its concerns include the following. What is knowledge? What kinds of knowledge are there? What are criteria for truth (validity) of knowledge? What disciplines count as knowledge?

One of the sources of the fall of metaphysics was that prior to the modern period there was a certain naiveté to previous metaphysics and indeed elements of this naïveté were retained by later systems; could these systems that posited certain fundamental elements in either naïve or self-conscious ways make claim to truth. The fall was encouraged by the rise of science because science offered objectivity as well as an alternative. It was a natural consequence in philosophy that the fall of metaphysics and a rise of self-awareness regarding truth should result in a rise in epistemology

The metaphysics of this narrative makes worthwhile reexamination of these issues. Of course there are other modern systems in a recent revival that encourage this reexamination (which is not to say that the various modern systems are uniform in kind and extent); and such reexamination should always have merit because of, among other things, our tendency to regard current paradigms as world view or integrated into worldview and so as obvious and therefore to unaware of their areas of blindness and to be indisposed to see and investigate such areas of blindness

A thesis of this narrative is that metaphysics and epistemology do and should emerge together. This may be seen on a superficial account for knowledge is in the Universe (it is a virtue of the approach from Being that this is evident; it is not so evident on a materialist account) and is therefore a metaphysical object. If metaphysics is doubted, epistemology should therefore be equally doubted and this is precisely what obtains in some modern thought. However, such doubt is often ‘reified’ and doubt is confused with impossibility. In fact at most doubt should result in neutrality (unless non-existence of metaphysics or knowledge is demonstrated)

One reason for the confusion of doubt and non-existence lies in the implicit thought that metaphysical knowledge must be direct knowledge of the entire Universe. In fact metaphysical knowledge may be that of the Universe as whole and without regard to detail, the development of degrees of detail, and knowledge that is direct in part and indirect in other parts. Such is the case for the metaphysics of this narrative

In the present narrative the simultaneous emergence of metaphysics and epistemology is fine grained and occurs in careful analysis of ideas from the outset. The fundamental example is that of Being. We saw by abstraction that there is Being. Abstraction is the method (epistemology) and ‘there is Being’ the metaphysical result. This approach and variations result in the entire metaphysics; this development present in what follows and recapitulated and made explicit in its fact and principles in the section on Method. Method (e.g. Logic, epistemology) comes down from the a priori and the remote and is an equal and dynamic partner with content (e.g. metaphysics, knowledge)

The Universal Metaphysics

Principle of Being and its Demonstration

Properties of the Void

Principle of Being Stated in Terms of Existence of States

Meaning of ‘Existence of States’: Concept and Object

Statement of the Principle of Being in terms of Limits

Need for Clarification of Meaning

Meaning and Significance of the Principle of Being

Meaning of the principle is ‘what it says’. Its significance is ‘what it implies’

Though distinct, the acquisition of meaning and understanding of significance overlap; and, of course, theory meaning and formal implications overlap in the sense that the latter are tautological implications of the former

Meaning lies primarily in proof and clarification of the statement

Significance lies primarily it its development and academic and human (including universal) implications

Meaning of the Principle of Being

Meaning of Limitlessness

Meaning of the Principle is also Brought out by Alternate Formulations

Need for an Effective Formulation

An Effective Formulation in Terms of Logic

Formulation in terms of logic

Effectiveness of the Formulation

Need for an alternative conception of logic

The Concept of Logic

Other Formulations

Two Equivalent Fundamental Forms

The Universe which is all Being has no limits
The Logos which is the object of Logic is the Universe in all its detail

The second of the above forms is a computational version of the first

Primitive Forms—Givens that Harbor Explicit Forms

Being is that which exists over some domain; Laws and Patterns have Being
The Universe is all Being and contains all Laws and Patterns
The Void which is the absence of Being exists and contains no Law

Alternative Forms

The following forms and their names emerged along the way to the present level of definition and maturity. The forms below may be regarded as archaic

The Principle of Reference. Subject to Logic every concept has reference (an object)

This is the concept form of the principle in terms of the Logos; the latter does not explicitly refer to concepts. This translates computation into common terms

Principle of Variety. The (variety of) being in the Universe is the possible

Note. The possible is the greatest (Logically) possible. This is the concept form of the formulation in terms of limits

“Being fills every niche”; this has been called the principle of plenitude and is related to the Principle of Variety; there are two differences: first, ‘every niche’ is not determinate (but has been specified as an earthly and a higher realm filled with angels and God) and, second, the Principle of Variety has been demonstrated. Another form of the principle of plenitude is that ‘given infinite time, everything that is possible will happen’. Compared to the Principle of Variety, this is deficient in that for this form of the plenitude principle, possibility is not defined, an infinite time must be specified, and the principle of plenitude is not demonstrated. Incidentally, that something is possible does not imply that it will happen even in an infinite amount of time. It is possible that a random real number sequence will contain π. However, the probability is zero even if we consider actual infinite sequences (and not just the limiting case of a finite sequence of length n for which the probability is computed and the limit obtained as n approaches infinity) because the measure of an infinite sequence on the real line is zero

Principle of Variety, another form. The Universe Cannot be Greater Than It Is
A form based in the concept of Law. There is no Universal Law. The one Universal law is that concepts that refer to Being are limited only by Logic

Therefore all Laws are immanent in the Logos. Also note that laws are immanent as well for they are conceptual and as will be seen later, concepts are objects (the concept as object is distinct from the object to which the concept may refer)

A form based in the idea of indeterminism. The Universe is absolutely indeterministic

This means, first, that the states of the Universe are not determined (no limit) and, second, that given the Universe or any part of it in some state, its subsequent trajectory is not determined (there may be tendencies or probabilities). It is a corollary that the Universe is also absolutely deterministic. However, latter is not the familiar temporal determinism; its meaning here is that every state shall follow

Some Detailed Consequences

Early provision of some consequences is useful. It is most useful to provide consequences in the areas of cosmology and identity

Purpose of this Section

The purpose to early presentation of some of the details developed systematically later is, first, to provide a provide a preview (of content, significance, and method of demonstration) and, second, to provide material for criticism and doubt

The criticisms and doubts that arise are natural and it is important to address them so as to allay unnecessary doubt and to provide clarity

In responding to the doubts we are able to refine concern with what doubts are essential, to refine understanding of and to improve the system, and to motivate and provide alternate formulations and proofs. Having alternate formulations is important because each formulation has purposes for which it is more effective. Alternate proofs are important in addressing questions of certainty and in understanding of the metaphysics

Consequences for Cosmology and Identity

Some details of general cosmology and Identity (see A variety of consequences and Being in the metadocument)

Remarks on significance and method

Fundamental Doubts

Doubts regarding the fundamental concepts have been addressed in chapter Being

The following fundamental doubts concern the certainty of the proof in its own terms and internal (logical) and external or empirical validity

There are also psychological sources of doubt such as ‘so much for so little’ (that so much is gotten from so little input of intellectual effort) or ‘something from nothing’ (as given by the metaphysics)

Doubt: so much from so little. Three sources for this doubt occur to me. First, that the proof is easy and the basic concepts simple (a response to this doubt is that development of the ideas was not at all trivial; a second response is that the metaphysics is indirect knowledge that rather than direct knowledge and remains to be filled in by experience, action, and transformation). Second, a feeling of unease about proof via conceptual analysis (a response to this doubt is that experience is built into the concepts). Third, ‘something from nothing’ emphasizes this doubt; I now take up this doubt

Doubt: something from nothing. We are used to the idea of conservation laws from physics which seem to be violated by ‘something from nothing’. A number of responses may be made. (1) Something from nothing does not violate fundamental physical laws—e.g., simultaneous creation of matter in gravitational interaction may conserve energy because the energy of the gravitational field is negative; many of our attitudes to conservation laws are from older physics (2) Still conservation is characteristic of our cosmos. However, if conservation is not the order of the Universe we will still find that livable and stable cosmological systems are conservative (in the present sense) (3) The Universe has either been manifest forever or became manifest at some point in the past. In the first case there is no something from nothing. The second case, if it is the case, would be empirical evidence of something from nothing. Therefore the alternatives are (a) no something from nothing or (b) empirical evidence for it

Thus the ‘psychological doubts’ are not pure—‘mere’—psychological doubts they express some realistic concerns that we just addressed. The importance of any purely psychological doubt is that it emphasizes that the metaphysics should receive serious criticism and it is this to which we now turn

Existential, Internal, and External Sources of Doubt

Doubts. Existential, intrinsic or internal (logical) and extrinsic or external (empirical including contact with other conceptual systems, which latter may also be seen as internal if we expand the notion of system)

In responding to the external it is crucial that we include consideration of knowledge that (indirect knowledge) and knowledge of (direct knowledge)

Response to Doubt that the Metaphysics is Empirical

The fact of empiricism—empirical character of the fundamental concepts

Apparent violation of science—the detailed consequences above—science and reflective common experience allow the metaphysics that has been demonstrated

Response to Doubts Regarding Internal Relations

The metaphysics allows an ultimate definition of Logic

Response to Existential Doubt

Alternate proof and plausible arguments above and below in Alternate proof

Residual doubt—Doubt and faith below

A Unique, Ultimate, and Universal Metaphysics Revisited

Uniqueness and Universality have been adequately treated above in the earlier section of the same name (A Unique, Ultimate, and Universal Metaphysics). Note that the Universality is expressed as a combination of ‘knowledge of’ and ‘knowledge that’; and that regarding uniqueness (for a universal metaphysics), different modes of expression and degrees of detail do not count as different metaphysics

The ultimate character of the metaphysics can now be made explicit

As noted above this ultimate character has two aspects: (a) concerning the metaphysics itself, and (b) concerning the Universe

The Metaphysics

Depth and Breadth

The Universe

No Limits, Greatest Possible

On Demonstration and Interpretation

In simple cases statements of results will not require explicit demonstration

In these cases the main concerns are interpretation and mesh with the valid parts of traditional and modern human knowledge. In fact, the mesh with science will illuminate science and illustrate the metaphysics

In non-simple cases the development of the logics and of Logic itself constitute the problem of Logic mentioned above

Alternate Proof

Also see demonstration after all in the metadocument

Doubt has basis in formal doubt regarding proof itself and in credulity of various kinds: the consequences of the Principle of Being, of the proof itself (apart from formal doubt), e.g. that it appears to be purely based in meaning or in deduction without clear premise (which is of course addressed by recalling that experience is built into meaning, especially the meaning of the fundamental concepts of Being and so on). The former—formal doubt about the proof—is addressed in the section on necessary proofs. Plausible proof is not proof at all but may address the issue of credulity (as well as form a basis for investigating necessary proof). The issue of credulity is also addressed by the necessary proofs (other issues of credulity, e.g. internal and external coherence are addressed in the sections Response Empirical Doubts and Response to Doubts Regarding Internal Relations)

These issues are addressed in the two sections below

Necessary

Plausible

^A-Doubt and Attitude

Alternate title to next

Doubt and Faith

Residual doubt

Faith

Doubt and faith

Lack of proof is better than proof (in some ways)

Belief

Belief must be belief in the intervention but not existence of ‘God’

There is no reason to think that the human race is so chose as to occasion special intervention

Existentially, non-belief is desired; it places potency such-as-it-is as well as normal limit in the individual

Topics in Metaphysics

*Substance

Substance (?); a non-relative non-substance metaphysics; properties of the Void; necessity

There are no substances; there can be no substances; there is no need for substance

Local substances are of course possible and may be useful

Many Worlds Metaphysics

Many worlds metaphysics (Journey in being-detail); significance

Problems of Metaphysics

Fundamental Problem.

Consequences

Systematic, the above and other (a) kinds—results vs. implications vs. potential including further study, human and academic (b) brief list and where to find them

Why Metaphysics?

This question can now be answered effectively. Two aspects to the question are addressed in the next two subsections

General Significance of Metaphysics

As the study of Being, metaphysics is the most general of studies of the World

We may say that metaphysics is science (even though its content and methods are somewhat different than those of what we call science: the contents are not as detailed and we may refer to experience without having to conduct further study—naturally we may reinvestigate experience and we may conduct studies of various kinds to the benefit of the development of the metaphysics)

We now see that metaphysics is possible and that the metaphysics is unique, universal and ultimate (in depth and in conceptual and referential breadth; the latter means that the Universe has no limit)

Metaphysics is therefore conceptual container for all life and development (science, humanities, literature, art, religion…)

The metaphysics shows its own incompleteness with regard to encompassing the real; its realization lies in the journey

Significance for this Narrative

The metaphysics shows its own incompleteness with regard to encompassing the real; its realization lies in the journey

Together with tradition, the metaphysics shows the necessity and character of the journey and shows / suggests ways

*Logic

Note that I now see Logic as Realism and not just conceptual realism. This is because a principle of Logic is that facts are not non facts. However, Logic refers to discourse and so a fact is, effectively, my concept of a fact; I never escape this because concepts always mediate but I may transcend it in that my concepts may be perfect (at another level we ask what is a concept in terms of elements and may find that it is an element itself). The point is the, whether I call it ‘realism’ or ‘conceptual realism’ we must include internal as well as external relations. Logic is the requirement on concepts for realization. However, however much I approach truth in general (i.e. apart from the perfect case), I do not know that I am there (and because of time and other constraints while truth may be the fundamental value in some ideal universe, in the real world even though truth is ever important, especially in contemplation, there are real exigencies, which are perhaps as important as eternal contemplation of the eternal, that call for judgment; but more than judgment: they call for attitudes as well and this is where the existential (or religious or spiritual) attitudes including doubt and faith enter. In summary, as realism / conceptual realism, the practical dimensions of Logic are internal, external, and existential (holist?)

^†Conceptual realism

Logic amounts to conceptual realism

Logic should be interpreted, developed, and applied with sufficient regard to holism

This reveals immense possibilities for development of Logic and working out its object

Conceptual Realism includes that predictions will not contradict facts. We may take it as a first principle of Logic that facts are given

Recapitulation: The Concept of Logic and its Origin

Principle of Being in terms of Logic (conceptual realism)

Within the bounds of Logic (WBL) every concept is realized

The logics and Logic

Though introduced by definition, Logic is not empty because the classical logics are at least approximations to it

This concept of Logic reduces to the idea of logic as deductive inference by application of Logic to multiple concepts

Logos as the Object of Logic

The Logos is the Universe in All its Detail

The Logos is the object of Logic. It is the Universe in all its detail

The Sense of this Statement

On the Nature of Logic

Immensity and Open-endedness of Logic

Working out the Logos is the problem of Logic

Deduction and Logic

Consider A ® B which is read ‘A implies B’. I.e. B is true when A is true (and B can be either true or false when A is false) // Consider a universe that is a set of sets. The statement ‘A’ is ‘there is a set a’ and ‘B’ is there is a set ‘b’ and ‘A implies B’ is ‘a contains b’ // Now consider B ® C //In the above universe b contains c; and therefore a contains c; i.e. A ® C. Thus Logic as realism implies logic as deduction

What does it mean that Logic is empirical?

1. Consider the law of non-contradiction

The law of non-contradiction is the assertion that a proposition and its negation cannot both be true (this is one of three ‘classic laws of thought’ (the others are the law of identity: an object is the same as itself and the principle of the excluded middle: that a either a proposition is true or its negation is (and there is no third possibility)).

2. What do or should I mean by an assertion that the law of non-contradiction is empirical? I do not mean that I can determine its truth in the same way that I determine the truth of a factual assertion such as the ‘Sun is shining’. And I do not mean that there are logics that deny the law (e.g. dialetheism) and that this proves non-contradiction wrong. Further I cannot say that just because in classical logic there is explosion (if there is a single violation of non-contradiction then every proposition is true) that therefore non-contradiction is true. What I do mean is that in asking whether it is or is not true I should not invoke such concerns as ‘obviousness’ or ‘a priori’ character. Instead I may start with the intuition that it is true. Then I look at examples: either the sun is shining or it is not. That seems obvious enough. But what of the proposition ‘The tenth planet of our solar system is green.’? Taking it for granted that there are less than ten planets what is the status of that statement? It is not false (I may think). But then (excluded middle) it must be true. But similarly ‘The tenth planet of our solar system is not green.’ is also true. The resolution of this example of apparent violation of non-contradiction is rather easy: assertions regarding most of any alleged properties of a non-existent planet do not have truth values (and therefore do violate the law of the excluded middle but not non-contradiction).

3. However what this shows is that there may be exceptions to even the law of non-contradiction and what we must do to ascertain the case is best on experimentation with contexts and propositions regarding such contexts. Now it may be the case (even allowing for the idea of dialetheism) that non-contradiction is truly absolute. However what is required to know this is demonstration in principle or by exhaustion. And it is not clear that either or the combination will work for all logical contexts. In any case even non-contradiction has a probably empirical character. Excluded middle certainly has

4. We can be sure, however, that there are, in the case of logics of greater intricacy, places where certainty will not attach to axiomatic systems and where certainty of those systems is open to revision. This is the sense in which logic is and therefore Logic must be empirical

5. Note that the analysis of a possible exception to non-contradiction is based in the concept object notion of meaning as was the analysis of the idea of the non-existent object itself

^†Art and Fiction

Why and How Logic and Logos?

Why?

PB: the Universe has no limits

What does this mean? It means that every state is realized or, more precisely, that every realizable state is realized

What does that mean? Does it mean every physically realizable state? It cannot mean that for then the Universe would have limits (it would ‘have’ to follow physical law)

What is a realizable state? It is essential here to distinguish Concept from object for without this distinction, ‘realizable state’ has no meaning! For every possibly realizable Concept, there is an object

Thus note—a first essential ingredient of the development is semantic

Suppose a Concept violates Logic (since we have gone through the ‘logic’ from logics to Logic this need not be repeated). Will this be realized? No! (In a trivial sense it will be realized as the Void or its contents but this piece of sophistication / sophistry may be ignored except where it makes treatment simpler or more elegant). Except this case, every Concept is realized. Thus, the Logos as the Universe in all its detail is the object of Logic. Is this a limit on the Universe? No! First, because it is a condition on our Concepts and not a limit on the Universe: Logic applies to Concepts and not the Universe as such and it arises because we have an extra freedom in the creation of concepts which is the freedom to imagine what is not there. Second, of course, Concepts outside Logic are also realized in the sense that they are realized in the Void (elegance, uniformity of treatment)

How?

This is how Logic arises as metaphysics

The following thought is intuitive. Relative to the logics, Logic must simultaneously be immensely permissive and immensely restrictive. To see this think of the possibilities of spatial manifolds. Here there are complexities unimagined by human minds; and of these complexities immensely many must be realizable and therefore realized but immensely many unrealizable and, equivalently, unrealized

Why is Logic important? It provides a ‘computational’ approach to the metaphysics while also remaining outside actual computations so that it leaves open for discovery what is undiscovered

The formulation in terms of Logic makes it clear how vast is the Universe

What does Logic allow and require? What it allows is what it requires. Logic is neither permissive nor withholding

The idea of Logic opens up a universe, almost unlimited, for thought. We can enter here but to advance into this lush land we must our selves enter into transformation

On Logic and Realism

Thus Logic and Realism are identical

*Science

The Concept

Concept of science so far

Universal hypothesis (in physics over the physical universe, in biology over life on earth, in psychology over mind for life on earth)

Conceptual Consistency and Deduction

Comparison with existing facts and results of experiments that are random as well as designed to test hypotheses

An Interpretation of Science as Fact

Science and the Metaphysics

The Normal

Normal Limit

The metaphysics is consistent with, contains, and requires our science

Future Concept of Science

Impossibility of Science of the Universe Revealed by the Metaphysics

Consequences and Necessities of Being as Journey Without Limit

Limitless with respect to extension, duration, and variety and kinds of Being

Participation and immersion

Miracles

(1) There are no miracles relative to the Universe or its description in the Universal Metaphysics (2) In this cosmos there is no miracle while in the normal realm (3) However there are obviously immense exceptions to the laws of science even if their normal likelihood is very low (but necessary on the universal scale); and you may be privy to such normally unlikely occurrence. This may be regarded as miraculous even though it is well understood via the Universal Metaphysics. Perhaps someone will find a loophole in the normal; this too would be well understood. Quantum Theory is a loophole in 19^th century science

Why Science—The Significance of Science

Critique of Science

When I use the word ‘science’ I mean the science of the modern world as well as the tradition of science and its history. Since science is an extension of common experience with regard to content as well as criticism (method) we may regard science as including reflective common experience

Modern science reveals much that we did not know before—about our cosmos and physical world, about life and mind…

It also that much that we thought we new is invalid. This includes the religious cosmologies. However science does not show that all aspects of religious cosmology are necessarily invalid and this is one reason for critique

In this narrative there is a more important reason for critique. Because science provides both Concept and object for our modern world view it is commonly thought that the Universe is pretty much our cosmos as revealed in science. However a critique of science shows that this is not at all the case. It reveals that science has a significant range of validity but that it is silent on the extent, duration, and variety of Being outside that range

Therefore science and the metaphysics are not in contradiction of one another

The Inspiration of Science

The theories, concepts, and frameworks of science are inspiration for development and application of the metaphysics. They are sources of ideas. However, in developing the metaphysics there are two regions to consider (a) Where the development is rational, and (b) Where the development is plausible and therefore tentative but open to future consideration

Thus, science suggests definite developments in metaphysics and realms for future development

We should not—of course—fall into the error of thinking that science is the only source of inspiration for development of the metaphysics

*Cosmology

This chapter effectively transferred to Journey in Being.html

*Objects

This chapter effectively transferred to Journey in Being.html

Individual, Identity and Realization

Identity is (sense of) sameness over time. (Sense of ) sameness of an object is object identity. Sense of sameness of self is personal identity

PB requires that the Universe will have diffuse and acute states of Identity; as well as states (dissolutions) without recognized identity

Identity is an aspect of object-hood and therefore requires no special treatment

An Individual is a near stable more or less adapted organism with acute mind and acute Identity

PB requires that individual identity will approach universal Identity; suffer its dissolutions; death of body and identity are real but not absolute; identity has and must have continuities over death of the individual and states in which there is no manifest Being

The Principle of Identity

Consequences

Identity and Cosmology

Preservation of Identity

Nature of Void State

Realization is a Journey

Identity and Death

Under the metaphysics, death is a gateway to realization of the ultimate. In death we open up to infinite time

However, death is not necessary

What is the view from science and common sense? It appears to be that death is final. However, in birth we came from nothing. This disproves that death is necessarily final. Someone says ‘I have not experienced past lives.’ A good response is to ask how they know. Someone says ‘I have experienced past lives.’ A critical response is to ask how they know, for the how is most important. Someone asks ‘But what is the significance of past and future lives if there is no connection between them?’ Two responses are possible (a) You may think but do not know that there is no connection between your ‘ordinary’ lives and (b) Universal Metaphysics requires connections even among ordinary lives and extraordinary connecting lives

Regarding item (a) above, the response would typically be ‘but the likelihood of connection’ is infinitesimal (secular thinking). The earlier analysis of science shows that science and common sense have no estimate of such likelihoods and it is only the adoption of a science-as-universal paradigm that finds science and common experience so far to have explained ‘almost everything’

Power

This chapter effectively transferred to Journey in Being.html

*Applied Metaphysics

In these ways—the way of adaptation and of value, common knowledge may be regarded as perfect even though not epistemically perfect

The expansion of pure metaphysics in this sense to encompass all that is valid in human knowledge and the culture of knowledge is Applied Metaphysics

The Object in Pure Metaphysics

Practical Objects and the ‘Good Enough’ Criterion

Context. Practical Object as Perfect

Value

Limit of context

Value and Perfection

The Range of Applied Metaphysics

*Method

In abstraction, Epistemic and metaphysical concerns arise and are addressed simultaneously

The development encompasses Primitives, Primitive Facts, and Primal Method (Logic and demonstration) which result from abstraction rather than postulation

It leads to a new understanding of knowledge and of Logic

It may be extended in some sense (Applied Metaphysics) to all valid knowledge

To repeat: the method of science will grow to include immersion but it will not reject its classical method

Neutrality and emergence, and reflexivity have introduced as powerful but informal elements of creative thought

Review of Developments

Metaphysics and Logic

In the development so far we were able to assert that there is Being because what the notion of Being abstracts from things is not capable of distortion. From this we were led to the ideas of Universe, domain, Void in a description that was similarly abstract. From this a notion of Logic emerged that is an abstraction of our semi-empirical logics. The surprising result is an empirical Universal Metaphysics

If metaphysics is the study of being-as-being then it stands to reason that metaphysics will have something to do with what is true everywhere. Now logic must be satisfied everywhere—specifically our metaphysical assertions must satisfy logic. Rather, more precisely as we have seen, it is Logic that must be satisfied: Logic is necessary for validity but this is (a) Necessary but in itself not sufficient however the earlier proof shows sufficiency and (b) Seemingly trivial but in fact powerful

It is surprising on a number of counts. First, metaphysics is commonly regarded as a study of being-as-being and so it is surprising that it should be an account of the Universe. Second, metaphysics has been regarded as impossible because it has been thought of as non-empirical. Here, however, the elementary concepts Being, Universe etc. are empirical. Third, hovering over unease over metaphysics is the implicit concern that detailed knowledge of ‘all things’ should be possible for is not science just such a study and is it not at the forefront of our knowledge… and so how should this Universal Metaphysics be at all possible let alone demonstrated. The answer to this concern that the metaphysics is indirect ‘knowledge that’ and not the direct ‘knowledge of’ that obtains in science. And, as we have argued this knowledge that is not trivial even though it requires to be supplemented

Comments on Logic

Since the object of Logic is the Logos or the Universe in all its detail, the logics are the study of Logic in its infancy. Every section of this Chapter, even where impressive, is a trivial development in Logic; the full study will go far beyond

In this incarnation, Logic is as permissive as it is restrictive

Method and Content

General

An interesting feature of the developments is that we see before us method emerging simultaneously with content. Method comes down from the a priori: we find that there is no a priori. In retrospect we see how this occurs: we have dissected the natures of science and metaphysics and the kinds of demand made of them and the kinds of knowledge relevant in each case. For science we see that there too there is knowledge that and this lies in the conceptual and theoretical generalizations (and alternately science is empirically valid over a limited domain: the data points that invariably lie in the past). Thus science and metaphysics lie on a continuum; further they complement one another

The purpose of this section is to make these developments explicit and fill in various details

Note that it is clear that method and content are both knowledge or, rather, since knowledge has not yet been defined they are tentative knowledge candidates because they suggest the idea of knowledge. It is convenient to defer formal discussion of knowledge

Epistemology and Metaphysics

On the concept (definition) of Being, knowledge is Being and therefore epistemology, the study of knowledge—i.e., of content—is also part of metaphysics. Stated that way the dual emergence of content and method, of metaphysics and epistemology, is natural. In the development we can see the dynamic of this natural dual emergence

Method and content, epistemology and metaphysics are coeval and interactive; there is no meta-analysis; there is no a priori

Imagination and Realism

Two Caricatures of Method

Method as Guarantee. Fostered by partial success and hopes for universal method; by reliance on authority and tradition

Method as approach to a given outcome. Fostered by some educators and some textbooks and by reliance on the great ideas and works

Imagination and Realism

In reviewing our approach we find that imagination and realism are the keys to method

Imagination and realism are the keys to method

Intuition is an aid to imagination. Realism requires that we relinquish intuition but what we then learn may be drawn back into a new dimension of intuition. Human being is a animal that is capable of this kind of learning

Internal and External Relations

Internal and External Relations are sources of imagination and realism

Internal and necessary—logic; internal and imaginative—picture building. External and necessary—empirical test of conceptual understanding and its prediction… agreement with other systems; external and imaginative—suggestive power of experiment and experience and other systems

Imagination and Realism: Details

Imagination / Creation / Construction / Plausible / Heuristic—Plausibility and Creativity are duals

Realism / Criticism / Doubt / Negative imagination—Doubt and Certainty or Necessity are duals

Positive imagination: iconic and symbolic creation

Negative imagination or doubt. Doubt and realism. Realism: external or experiential-empirical and internal or logical-critical

Imagination and realism are interpenetrating

In the following imagination and realism, plausibility and necessity, are not competing but complementary. On a widespread though not quite universal account the creative is the source of the material for demonstration—proof or disproof—of necessity. Although in the following positive and negative, creation and criticism, are separated and they may therefore be construed as separate or alternate approaches that is neither the case nor the intended meaning. In fact of course there may be situations that call for one or the other or where only one or the other is possible; practically when called upon to act on reflection we go with what we have. Generally however and when we have the luxury of attempting perfection (even though we might not get there) the two approaches and their elements and levels are combined as (a) complementary, (b) interpenetrating, and (c) sequential according to situation, need, intuition, reflex analysis (vertical e.g. analysis of analysis or horizontal e.g. analysis and experiment)

The Iconic and the Symbolic

Plausible and necessary aspects of method can both be iconic and symbolic even though the iconic is emphasized in plausibility (without implication that the symbolic is absent or de-emphasized) and the symbolic is emphasized in necessity (without suggestion that the iconic is not present)

The iconic in the plausible: imagination e.g. causal, spatial, temporal relations

The symbolic in the plausible: experiments with naming the icon or picture, intuition of symbolic form and relation

The symbolic in the necessary: necessary relations among symbolic forms (tautology); naming the given icon or experience

The iconic in the necessary: naming the given icon… And…

A Conventional and Convenient Distinction: Discovery and Justification

Heuristic-Plausible Argument and Creation

Neutrality, emergence, and imagination (regarding context and object). Reflexivity. (1) Self-reflex (e.g., neutrality with regard to neutrality, self-reflex and the absolute…) (2) Cross reflex. Knowledge and doubt®construction and criticism and their interaction—sequential and interpenetrating (no ultimate distinction between context of discovery and of justification—of creativity and demonstration (proof)). Cross-fertilization. (3) Vertical reflex: thinking about thinking; meta-analysis. Some examples: doubt as knowledge self-reflex; faith as having a source in doubt reflex upon itself

Heuristics—relation to creativity with comments on criticism and creativity

Imagination—iconic and symbolic; intuition and its education; intuition of the symbolic

Doubt and Necessary or Certain Argument

Comments on Descartes?

Aspects of Certainty

Proof / Demonstration

The Given. Abstraction. Naming. Analysis of meaning. The linguistic given (source of Logic). Experience; meaning has already experience built in; further context and confirming

Origins of Doubt

A first stage of knowledge is simple delight in knowing: the fact that we sometimes know and its extension via generalization and also conflation of word and object

Doubt begins as a second and intermediate stage. Having discovered error and its negative consequences we wish to eliminate it: we doubt our assertions. This is of course an intermediate stage because we want to go beyond the stage even though we do not want to eliminate doubting. The going beyond has a number of forms that include the possibility of positive assertion, and when that is not possible the balance of doubt and construction, the reflex of doubt (doubting doubt: is it always a good thing), taking risks, and even return to joy and innocence which we think may think inconsistent with the discovery of doubt but that is not so. Some cultures and individuals become trapped in this second stage (which may be useful but it is not the end of knowledge)

Functions of Doubt

Doubt and certainty are duals. The first function of doubt is to eliminate doubt, i.e. to approach certainty. The more we desire or need certainty, the more important is doubt. The first and practical function of doubt is so that we may know (with confidence)

Doubt and clarification of concepts and thought. In metaphysics doubt leads to more than certainty

First, metaphysical doubt is severe. In science and day-to-day affairs we tolerate some uncertainty. In metaphysics, there is no room for error: that is the nature of metaphysics: we are looking for a realm where we have certain knowledge and given that we have a practical realm the provided we do not devote too much of our resources to metaphysics and provided that we do not expect everyone to have the same enthusiasm for it, metaphysics and metaphysical doubt is a good thing. So severe is metaphysical doubt, however, that we doubt its possibility; this has been a dominant part of our mood roughly since Kant. Many stop there. However, if doubt is so important should we not doubt even doubt itself? That does not mean of course that we should stop doubting. It means that we may hold the conclusions from doubt in abeyance; we should look at the doubt itself. This is what we have done in this narrative and we have found that the impossibility of metaphysics is based on a certain view of what knowledge should be and a requirement that metaphysics should cover all aspects of Being. We found that in the case of knowledge-of, we do in fact have metaphysical knowledge of Being-as-Being, Universe-as-All-Being (though not the details). Then we saw that in the case of knowledge-that, we have knowledge of immensely more but even that knowledge is restricted unless we all knowledge as a process

Second, metaphysical doubt is about more than mere numerical correctness. In doubting knowledge of Being we are led to question the nature and meaning of Being. Here we find that there is no such thing as ‘the’ meaning of Being. Rather we found that a certain meaning is pivotal in developing the Universal Metaphysics which we found to be unique, and to be ultimate in breadth and depth (and to show the Universe to be ultimate). A similar situation obtains in scientific explanation. Strictly it is not correct that the earth revolves around the sun; we may do celestial mechanics in any coordinate frame; however a heliocentric frame is most natural and efficient; and it is thus more proper to say that from a dynamical perspective the earth does indeed rotate around the sun. Returning to metaphysics, then, doubt is also about clarification. However, the role of doubt in clarification (and correctness) is limited if we stop at doubt and do not go on to construct and apply doubt to our constructs and their consequences

Thus, doubt is pivotal in understanding and establishing specific concepts and objects, systems of concepts and their objects—e.g., metaphysics

Doubt and Method. At a higher level of generality, doubt leads to criteria and methods (proof, demonstration) of establishing certainty (and bounds to and the meaning of certainty). In responding to appropriate doubt we find not only security / clarity in particular instances (e.g. the nature of experience and the centrality of the fact of experience) but also generic security in the form of method (demonstration); we have seen this in the developments

Reflexivity and Doubt. In repetition of what I said earlier, doubt should be applied to itself. We then find mature construction and criticism in balance. We then also found that there are and should be places beyond doubt

Logical doubt—semantic and syntactic (review)

A collection of doubts—That I can or do know anything; That there are experience and Being; The givenness and naming of experience and Being; That there is anything but Being (i.e. the real or external world); The robustness of the real world and the experience (concept); The fixity of meaning. The possibility of reference without a concept. That meaning is determined by dictionaries. That final meaning is possible; That metaphysics as study of things as they are is possible. The possibility, actuality, precision, and uniqueness of metaphysics; That existence is a non-trivial concept. That existence is a meaningful concept

^†Observations on Method, Necessity, and Heuristics

After discussion of method and content as coeval, interactive and overlapping add the following questions

Having made these observations and drawn these conclusions, what use have we of prescribed method?

What of certainty—is there any final certainty in relation to what is essential to our Being?

And—is the disjunction between ‘discovery’ and ‘justification’ absolute? Is there a continuum?

Knowledge

A classical conception of knowledge stemming from the time of Plato and Aristotle is that ‘Knowledge is justified true belief.’ Precisely what does this mean? I believe that A. I justify this belief. But how will I know that A is true apart from justification? I think that this is the source the Gettier ‘paradox’: at root it assumes a kind of idealism in which truth is distinct from justification (and which forgets the projective character of knowledge)

However my primary objection to ‘justified true belief’ is that it is not a conception or definition at all but a proposed test and regardless of its adequacy that is what it is

What then is knowledge? The naïve prototype is perfect faithfulness of a concept to an object; we think this meaningless (therefore the question of its possibility does should not even arise) because of projection

However we have seen that we can and do (even without analysis) have some perfect knowledge. We have direct perfect knowledge of Experience, Being, Universe, Void, and Logic, and Logos as a certain kind of empirical abstraction and we know that the Logos, the object of Logic is the Universal in all its detail and of this again our knowledge is perfect though not direct: it is knowledge that

Regarding practical knowledge we see that perfection is not relevant because it is not possible (apparently). Rather we have the criterion of ‘good enough’, i.e. it is useful (e.g. so far and subject to revision). This is a kind of perfection if we accept it as such. Then we also have the value notion of knowledge. E.g., this knowledge (some piece of knowing) is perfect in terms of some value (e.g. utility, e.g. power). Of course various kinds of care are necessary: value-knowledge is the language of tyranny, e.g. totalitarianism, and ideology, e.g. Lysenkoism. I do not suggest any one criteria; it is necessary in this one Universe without any ideal world in the explicit or intuitive or incompletely conscious background to have multiple, dynamically (contextually), emerging and adapting

In the end, I hold that knowledge has to do with faithfulness but, except where demonstrated perfect, measures of faithfulness must always have an element of the practical and our values

Science and Metaphysics

The metaphysics of this essay is conceptual but it is also thoroughly empirical

Science is of course empirical but it is also conceptual in its generalizations that give it predictive power

How do science and metaphysics compare? Metaphysics sacrifices detail while science sacrifices universality; it is not a priori clear that this observation would empower either. So far however in the modern world the study of the detailed features of our world at a level of some generality over and above mere detail has empowered science: an important feature of science is that it finds general patterns among the detail and this is a source of its strength. What of metaphysics? It has not fared so well. However, the Universal Metaphysics marks a turn the tide. Here, science and metaphysics lie on a continuum

Applied Metaphysics

Applied Metaphysics may be seen as the join of the points on the continuum

The sciences of the present may be seen as factual over their empirical domains; they may be extrapolated but the metaphysics shows that universal extrapolation is impossible

Perhaps the sciences are or approach the limit of knowability in their contexts

We have seen that the science of the future must grow to include participation and immersion: this is required by the metaphysics

The concern here is imperfect knowing. We have seen that the attitude of ‘good enough’ is a perfect attitude in the presence of imperfection. Concern with values that motivate knowledge are another source of perfection in the presence of imperfection

We can distinguish two phases of Applied Metaphysics

Special Metaphysics

We have defined metaphysics as the study of things as they are, i.e. the study of Being. This study may be divided, somewhat artificially, into two areas. The first is the study of Being and its general characteristics. This study could be called General Metaphysics and in it we cannot avoid appeal to Experience for without it there would be nothing to study (or even to do); but the appeal is for inspiration and not for proof: proof or demonstration is developed independently of the inspiration. The second is the study of topics such as Logic, Cosmology, Objects, Identity, and Power in which we appealed to special aspects of our experience that is coded in the non-metaphysical study of logics, physical cosmology, and the study of particular and abstract things, personal and object identity, and sources of access to power. These studies had (and may have) two aspects. In the one the non-metaphysical studies were used as a source of ideas and inspiration but the development was entirely metaphysical. Here, we remain in metaphysics, but the study is of more specialized characteristics. The study could be labeled Special Metaphysics

The labels general and special as applied to metaphysics have been used by other writers such as Immanuel Kant and the present use corresponds roughly to the use of Kant. However, the development of both kinds here is far greater than Kant’s. Further, Kant saw a gulf between the general and the special because he regarded his general metaphysics as demonstrated but the special metaphysics as undemonstrated but possible. Here both general and special aspects, each of which exceeds previous metaphysics in content, are demonstrated

Special Metaphysics may be regarded as falling under both pure metaphysics (because it is metaphysics) and Applied Metaphysics (because it develops material of interest to the applied disciplines)

Applied Metaphysics Proper

Applied Metaphysics ‘Proper’ is not metaphysics in the epistemic sense. I.e. knowledge is not (known to be) perfect

This study occurs at the intersection of other disciplines and metaphysics and it is one in which either side may inform and critique the other with results that go beyond metaphysics in detail and the disciplinary side in content while the result has some degree of reasonableness but is known to be imperfect or not known to be perfect

Method

Discovery is creative and its inspiration is reflex among metaphysics, the disciplines, imagination (symbolic and iconic), and criticism

In justification we are looking, first, at the epistemic case. If discovery can be shown perfect, then the result is metaphysics. If we can show reasonable accuracy, the result may be ‘disciplinary’ e.g. science. However, the standard empirical approach (open testing with the possibility of being proved inadequate / incorrect) is necessary. The narrative suggests but has not taken up possibilities for physics or biology but there are some developments in the study of mind that may count as science

Second, we are looking at ‘knowledge’ that may be regarded as good enough for use or that is regarded as having value. The entire development of pure metaphysics beyond the metaphysical givens (Experience through Void) is perfect with regard to knowledge-that but open with regard to knowledge-of and is therefore immensely valuable with regard to knowledge-of

Finally, in all cases, we are looking for knowledge that approaches the limit of the context. An example is given in the indeterminacy principle of quantum mechanics. Is this, e.g. that position and momentum cannot be simultaneously measured precisely, a limit on measurement or a limit of the fact of simultaneous precise values. If a particle is a wave that is sometimes more and sometimes less distributed then the indeterminacy principle is not a limit on knowledge (measurability) but a fact of the nature of the entity in question. This is of course an example from science that we hesitate to call Applied Metaphysics because it has not been developed by inspiration from the Universal Metaphysics; however, we can see how the Universal Metaphysics might give support to the case and therefore to other yet unknown or unclearly understood contexts

Philosophy

Logic and Mathematics

Art and Religion

Doubt, Faith, and Attitude

We have seen that doubt remains regarding the metaphysics

It is not merely a lack of certainty about what obtains. There is lack of certainty about certainty

If certainty is a kind of death, this is good. It is good especially in an existential way

We have defined faith as that attitude that is conducive of maximal outcomes even in the presence of uncertainty

*On Meaning

May change this to ‘Meanings in the narrative’ etc. and say something simple such as in a new metaphysics it is inevitable that meanings will be new, that meanings will stand together, that this will entail a new viewpoint and a new intuition. Therefore understanding will require attention to meanings as defined here and willingness to temporarily suspend old intuition (and the temptation to reject violation of that intuition)… and everything else will go to On Meaning

I.e., linguistic and theory meaning

This discussion is general and orienting but will emphasize word, concept, object; system meaning; emphasize fluidity and illusions of concreteness in all affairs; need for balance, according to context, of fluidity and fixity

It is an introduction and a more complete account is provided in the later section on meaning

^†General Comments

It was noted in the Introduction that words are associated with Concept-object pairs. Meaning is given when the Concept is internally consistent and the range of objects or the extension of the concept is known in fact or in principle. The sense of the concept is its intension

The following pairs are similar: sense-reference, Concept-object, intension-extension, denotation-connotation

There are of course concerns regarding this notion of meaning (multiple use, dictionary, concept object) . Here are some

1. Not all language use concerns a Concept that refers to objects. First, some words refer to things other than what we normally think of as objects. Some words refer to processes, others to interactions, and still others to ‘states of affairs’ which are typically the object of descriptive sentences. However, such notions can be brought under a more inclusive notion of ‘object’. Second, some words, e.g. the connector ‘and’ and expressive words ‘ouch’ do not appear to have objects. There are often ways around this concern and often implicit objects may be found but it is also important to note that in metaphysics we are thinking primarily of descriptions. Of course feelings and expressions are also part of the world and therefore language use that does not fall under ‘description’ is also part of metaphysics. In this case it may be the objective of metaphysics to elucidate what is happening and (a) in talking of what is happening, e.g. what is the state of affairs in use of the expression ‘ouch’ we are in fact describing a context (the context in which ‘ouch’ is used) and (b) it may be possible to find implicit objects when there are no clear and explicit objects

2. Words have multiple uses. One example is the word ‘can’. Here are two uses. I can do that. Give me the can. Perhaps there is some tenuous relation between the two uses of ‘can’ but clearly the two uses are quite different. In this case the ‘right meaning’ is without significance for clearly there are two concepts that happen to have the same sign ‘can’ associated with them. This could be confusing but our linguistic ability allows us to avoid this confusion. Still, there may be less familiar examples where it will pay to defuse any possible confusion. This kind of ‘multiple use’ can be understood by describing it as an example of ‘one sign, two symbols’ (the symbol is the association of word-object or word with Concept-object). Another example of multiple use concerns the word ‘father’. Here are two uses. My father is a very good man. Einstein is the father of relativity. Is this a case of two uses? If we allow the idea of father to be ‘source of’ then it is one family of use; at a more specific level there are two uses. In metaphysics ‘family resemblance’ can enrich but also confuse understanding. If we maintain awareness we may allow enrichment but avoid confusion

3. What is the source of the meanings of words? One answer is dictionaries but this cannot be the entire story because there were words before there were dictionaries. Consider that every word in a dictionary is defined or explained in terms of other words and the other words refer to still other words. The chain never finds its way out of the dictionary and so a dictionary must be self-referential. Yet we find dictionaries useful. There is more than one way this happens but an essential way is that every individual has some core set of familiar words. This set is of course not the same for all users but there is significant overlap for competent users of a language. In the circularity of dictionary definition, there will come one or more points that make contact with the users core set of words

This is important because it points to the fact that meanings are not finally established by definition but by use; the dictionary attempts to capture (and also to clarify) use. Before dictionaries there was use and perhaps some people who were more competent and were preservers (and even creators) of tradition. Still this points to the fact that there is no one single authority; we all contribute even though some contributions have wider and more formal influence

The reader may have experienced debate over use of a word. Perhaps he or she used a word in discussing some idea. A listener questioned the meaning of the word and suggested dictionary lookup. The discussion turned away from the reader’s intention and became a discussion of some other topic. This is an example of the intrusion of authority. This is not meant to discount authority altogether for ‘authority’ is sometimes simply the establishment of common meaning. It is important therefore to give some regard to authority but not to overestimate its usefulness, especially when there may be reflection in a new key

4. Simple dictionary lookup is inadequate for another reason. It is that the meaning of a word depends on the context of use, e.g. the sentence in which it occurs (a phenomenon that is not the same as colloquial or idiomatic use). Therefore dictionaries often give examples of use. However, dictionaries do not cannot give an exhaustive range of examples because they cannot cover the range of literary and common occurrence and they certainly cannot anticipate all possible uses. The reader will find that the meanings of the terms in the present development will be brought out with the development and that the meanings of terms depend on their place in the net development. We may speak of ‘theory’ or ‘system’ meaning which arises because the meaning of a system depends not only on individual meanings but also on the relationships among ideas

5. Definitions or explanations of meaning may be made more formal and precise by use of artifacts such as similarity and difference but the problem of circularity remains

6. There is an alternative to definitions in terms of other words. Consider a definition of the term ‘car’ or ‘automobile’. It is unlikely that a sentence or two could bring to a person unfamiliar with cars the particular nature of automobiles in modern society. Therefore enculturation and example is an important source of meaning. There are other words or concepts for which verbal definition is inadequate. One such kind of word concerns a Concept / object that is so basic that there is no other thing in terms of which to define it. As we have used it, the word ‘Experience’ refers to one such concept. If we try and reduce Experience to its material base (on the assumption that it has such a base) we invariably end up with a description of the place of Experience in life and function but not what it is. To bring home the meaning of Experience it is necessary to find devices to show or point to what it is rather than to explain it. Even if Experience is entirely material, material description as we commonly know it is inadequate to a description of Experience. The kind of definition that occurs when we point to something is called ostensive definition. We always run the risk when pointing, especially of something that has a degree of ineffability, that the hearer will not recognize precisely to what it is that we are pointing. This may occur because the location of the ‘object’ is not precisely pointed to or because the reader must have some experience with the object to see what it is that we are pointing at (a person born blind may have difficulty with the idea of ‘blue’ and a young or non-reflective person may have similar difficulty with the idea of ‘Experience’)

*Fallacies of Meaning

This sub-section’s contents—or parts of them—may go to the later section on meaning

This section repeats some of the content of the previous section

Dictionary fallacy. And: dictionaries are context relative in a world of changing context; therefore they are as we move out grounding of where we are and suggestive for where we would go; they are not definitive; one of their greatest uses is to illuminate parts of the global context with which we are unfamiliar or only partially familiar but they do not and cannot show the entire universal context or go beyond reasonably well known contours of the tradition

Meaning is absolutely fixed. Meaning is absolutely fluid. All naming words name a definite object. The non definiteness of the object is particularly in evidence in the case of artifacts (because they are our creation) and abstract terms (because they do not refer to concrete objects) and this is even greater in the case of abstract artifacts such as love (which of course has a concrete-material basis but also has an abstract and artifactual aspect). However, we have seen in the metaphysics (and this can be seen also in science if you unyoke yourself from the authority of the established ideas) that even concrete objects have a non ultimate and artifactual nature. There is a balance of fluidity and fixity of meaning

*Formal Development

Meaning comes in triads: word-Concept-object

Without conceptual content, a word as a sign is empty. This may be a source of confusion and is, for example, a source of confusion regarding the ‘non-existent object’ (this was seen in discussing ‘existence’)

In recognizing the triad, much clarification regarding meaning may be obtained because it brings to light the structure of meaning which is otherwise submerged and implicit. In naming what is conveniently implicit for the common purpose we gain a framework for understanding

What we gain is not merely the understanding of particular terms and the removal of apparent paradox (e.g. the non-existent object, the liar paradox) but also of context dependence, the meaning of multiple meanings, the basis in use, the fluidity versus fixity in meaning, the non-possession of meaning by any one authority or time

The problem of infinite regress in meaning and its resolution in ostension

The possibility via abstraction of perfect Concept-object pairs

That experience is already woven into meaning and therefore analysis of meaning is more than definition and analysis but is also analysis of the world (though of course not the only source of understanding of the world)

^†Some Essential Ideas or Concepts

This material is also placed in the Introduction

Also see meta: a medley of concepts

Following is a preliminary set and division

General, Human, and the Journey

Being, Experience, Metaphysics, Tradition, Law, Universe, Void, Principle of Being, Limit, Normal ‘Limit’, ~~Logic~~—conceptual realism, Faith, Identity, Power (and powers), Yoga

*Academic

^E-Perfect Metaphysics

Introduction: Perfect Metaphysics and the Perfect Metaphysician

The chapter Being, developed the ideas of Experience, Being, Void, Universe, and others. In the senses used, the Concepts correspond perfect to objects; each of these words designates a perfect Concept-object pair

Since metaphysics is a study of things as they are, the content of chapter Being, is metaphysics

Although the metaphysics of Being, was not without content and had significance of a number of kinds (e.g., robustness of the concepts, study of possibility) its development was trivial in some ways

The next chapter Metaphysics, took the study far beyond the foundation of Being.

However, as metaphysics the metaphysical developments of both chapters was metaphysics

I.e. as metaphysics, those developments are perfect

This indicates what I will mean by Perfect Metaphysics. Science may have degrees of perfection (e.g. precision), but there is no almost precise metaphysics. A piece of knowledge is metaphysics or it is not: all metaphysics is perfect; if a metaphysical claim is not perfect it is not metaphysics

I.e., as content or system, there is perfect metaphysics; all else is not metaphysics

As activity or process, there are of course tentative metaphysical systems

Therefore there is interest in what makes for good study in the discipline of metaphysics

The point is of practical interest because even while the Universal Metaphysics has a number of claims to finality much is left open. First, there is the question of proof; and the related question of what to do regarding doubts regarding given proofs. Second, there are potential developments of detail within metaphysics—in general and for special topics. The metaphysics of abstract objects is an interesting special case. Third, is potential for development at the boundary between metaphysics and other disciplines. Finally, the Universal Metaphysical shows an essential incompleteness regarding knowledge and realization: their most complete forms require action (the endless journey)

In what follows I attempt to characterize ‘good study’ in metaphysics in terms of The Perfect Metaphysician

The Perfect Metaphysician

The characteristics of a good metaphysician are of course the characteristics that make for good metaphysics

Characteristics for Pure Metaphysics

Openness. Openness means ‘open openness’ and not mere ever-openness. Thus it is openness to new ideas, to revision, to breadth of knowledge, to criticism, to judgment. In the fullest sense, openness is balance

Judgment. Judgment is multifaceted. Logic has criteria of necessity that constitute judgment. However, the connotation of judgment in its essence here is that it is called upon where necessity is not available or not forthcoming. When we do not have certainty there is judgment; where there is no certainty the options are judgment versus complete ignorance. Thus judgment does not imply judgmentalism which is the tendency to judgment when it is not indicated (and in the vocabulary of humanism was associated with negativity). Judgment includes judging judgment. In the end, taking any half-approach honestly to the limit yields a whole. Judgment leads to balance with openness; openness leads to balance with judgment

Thus openness does not mean unwillingness to commit to system or to play with non-system. However, having written down one system, e.g. by intuition-imagination-judgment (and originating in sources, play, and reason), there is willingness to review and improve or discard. And openness means willingness to do this again and again until a final metaphysics, systematic or other, imposes the desired certainty by its own force (the healthy ego is a force in the process but in its very health is found taking the seat of the spectator in the end). Further, openness means willingness to investigate the meaning of certainty, possibility of certainty, levels of certainty, and, already implicit, the meaning of meaning

Willingness to look at the world and think, imagine, reflect, and criticize over a period of time as to what might be essential in it. Perhaps there are no essences but the presence or otherwise of essences depends on what we mean by ‘essence’ and what light emerging metaphysics sheds on ‘essence’

This points to a problem of piecemeal and specialized thought. In each ‘piece’ of piecemeal analysis or investigation, concepts from other areas enter: they are germane to the piece in question. However the believer in piecemeal-ism stops short of analyzing too much of what is beyond his or her territory. Thus while they may do a wonderful analysis of their own topic, errors from beyond their pale enter. This discolors the entire piecemeal enterprise. Further since they enter into piecemeal-ism under the down with system (critical of course but again incompletely and insufficiently critical especially to the point at which criticism turns back on itself not only to justify but also to see where it should open out into positive criticism which includes imagination) they never to get to see anything like the real possibilities of holism. Thus piecemeal-ism, including the modern academic variety of it (to which the modern academic setting is singularly suited and structured), is self-selecting of its nature and this includes blindness to its problems and to its alternative

Willingness to see wholes as well pieces and to wait for material itself to emerge rather than to abort such emergence under beliefs that are self-promoting but whose ‘demonstration’ is plausible from looking at contingent data (e.g. the failures of some approaches to system and holism and some examples of the same do not imply the impossibility of the same)

Familiarity with the history of thought in general and metaphysics in particular

Familiarity with metaphysical systems, ancient through recent, through modern (not necessarily carried to the points of compulsion or pedantry)

Familiarity with a breadth of disciplines for insight and suggestion. The disciplines of course include those labeled ‘method’ and ‘logic’. In the end, insight and suggestion lead back to strict method and strict method to insight…

A reflexive process. The foregoing considerations bring to the fore the idea and value of reflexive process. Self-reflex is the application to itself—so far as possible—every idea or tendency; this generalizes to reflexive process which includes cross application (and includes horizontal recursion e.g. what has been called cross-fertilization of ideas and disciplines, interaction of aspects of method including criticism-construction and their interpenetration as well as vertical reflex e.g. general-particular and method-content)

Characteristics for Metaphysics as Study of Abstract Objects

Edward Zalta, The Theory of Abstract Objects, has the following conception ‘Whereas physics attempts a systematic description of fundamental and complex concrete objects, metaphysics attempts a systematic description of fundamental and complex abstract objects’ and ‘Abstract objects are the objects that are presupposed by our scientific conceptual framework’

Although it is clear that Zalta’s formulation is incomplete and approximate (in light of Universal Metaphysics), the study of abstract objects from the abstract perspective is indeed interesting. It is of course useful for even though abstract objects are in the Universe it is an open question how to locate them (in all cases)

I claim little expertise or authority in this study. However, it seems to me that the entire range of symbolic disciplines from logic, mathematics, linguistics, and computer science to the arts are or include abstract studies and that the characteristics that make for abstract study are range from those of the logician through those of the writer of fiction to those of the artist

The only Metaphysician is the Perfect Metaphysician

The only metaphysician is the perfect metaphysician—

This follows, from the earlier points

‘As content or system, there is perfect metaphysics; all else is not metaphysics

As activity or process, there are of course tentative metaphysical systems’

The perfect metaphysician is willing to work with tentative metaphysics (and much else) but is directed to the greatest possible perfection (to the exclusion of course of neuro-psychotic behavior); and in light of the value of recursion, is willing to ask what perfection may be possible without prejudice from personal or received opinion whether positive or negative

The perfect metaphysician seeks rational and intuitive recursion to its maximal degree

The Characteristics for Applied Metaphysics

A selection of the foregoing criteria applied to the following and their join with metaphysics

A broad range of knowledge from ancient and modern disciplines

Serious / specialized knowledge in a representative range of such disciplines

Willingness to pay serious heed to the paradigms behind these disciplines; serious heed of course means respect and respect means listening but not bowing

Willingness to look at the world and ask What are the elements of its being and organization (i.e. not being satisfied with traditional through modern academic divisions)

Willingness to be bold and synthesize; and to criticize

The importance of reflexivity is again evident

The Characteristics for Action and Transformation as continuation of Metaphysical Activity

Third, living in the light of the above

Fourth, learning from the history of action and transformation (openly which includes positive and negative criticism and criticism of criticism)

First, willingness to act and seek transformation in light of the Third and Fourth items immediately above

Second willingness to think about the here and now and the search for transformation to the ultimate, to seek balance and maximal outcomes, to seek representative and minimal systems of experiment, and above all to take good risk which is occasionally sheer risk

The Perfect Metaphysician: Summary

A person who intends to do metaphysics is or is not in fact doing metaphysics. This is the meaning of the assertion that there are no good metaphysicians but perfect metaphysicians

The perfect metaphysician seeks to find the Universe within his or her Experience (as well as experience; and recall that attitude and action lie within Experience). To this end they are willing to extend their experience in every way they can; and this extension is not primarily that of quantity but is reflexive and includes that they neither accept nor reject the various canons of tradition regarding content and method and of course that they understand that ‘finding the Universe within Experience’ may occur for some but not other modes of knowing and that it may not occur at all

‘We’ are reminded of the well known lines “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time” from TS Eliot’s Little Gidding; these lines have kinship with the spirit of the metaphysical journey of this narrative (the journey has no end to knowing and exploring but it does and may have resting places)

BEING IN THE WORLD

Concepts

Experience, Distinction (and its grades and reflexes), World, Real World (external world)

Explanation

Related though different concepts. Explanation, Theory, Hypothesis, Argument, Justification

Associated concepts. Correlation, Causation, Conceptual System (theory); Possibilistic, Probabilistic, Necessary; Complete, Partial; Explanatory Ideal

Explanatory Triad, Phenomena, Elements, Explanatory Framework

Our World

Kind, Extension, Duration

Kind. Nature (matter, life, mind / Experience / psyche), Society, the Ultimate (Universal, Unknown)

Extension. Cosmos (matter-energy, i.e. physical), Identity (personal and transpersonal), Civilization (matrix of societies and cultures), the Universe (of the metaphysics)

Ultimate

Universe, Universal, Unknown

Even in the Normal whose boundaries are ever shifting… even in our sometimes meager perception, there are windows to the ultimate (one window is science, another Experience including reflection… and of course science and Experience / reflection or metaphysics are and should not be considered entirely separate)

Matter-Energy

Scales. Sub-atomic to Cosmos

Elements. Particles, fields (forces, waves)

Framework. Kinematics (descriptions of motion, positions and distributions), Dynamics (relations among elements expressed in terms of motion), Motions (i.e. ‘solutions’)

Kinds of Framework. Deterministic, Probabilistic, Anti-determinist (elements of sheer arbitrariness); Absolute (e.g. space and time are an absolute grid), Relative (space-time is immanent in, not other than matter, i.e. it is a coordination of matter-energy by matter-energy)

Local Cosmology

As for matter except (1) The focus is the cosmos as a whole and its large scale phenomena including those concerned with high concentrations of matter and intensities of fields (gravity), e.g. black / worm holes and (2) Special explanatory features, e.g. singularity versus oscillatory versus stationary models, inflation, multiple cosmoses including evolutionary / adaptive / population models of cosmos generation and selection (e.g. for stability, life), combinations of quantum and gravitational theory, and assumptions regarding the origin (initial / boundary conditions) and end (e.g. that intelligent life will continue and proliferate and perhaps that life is nothing but computation)

Life

See Life and Organism

Human Psyche

See Human Psyche: Explanatory Triad for details

Phenomena

Categories of Intuition

Elements

Primitive Experience, Process, Interaction, Direction. State: esp. Bound / Free. Modality, Quality, and Intensity: External—‘Five’ Senses, Internal—Body, Affect…

Frameworks

Reduction: Lower / Higher, Physical / Mental, Element / Elaboration, Bound / Free

Universal Metaphysics

Human Being and Nature

Freedom, Constraint: Exclusive, Inclusive Balance; Elemental Basis of Freedom; and of Necessity; Parameters of Human Nature; Structure and Processing in Human Mind; Complexity / Ineffability of Human Mind (question of)

Human Society

Phenomena

Repository—Persons, Groups, Activities. Kinds. Variety. Change and Stability

Elements

Personal—Expression, Communication, Knowledge, Freedom

Institutions—Person, Group, Language, Culture, Organization-Transaction-Decision

Framework

Person, Psyche, Object. Psychosocial Evolution

Institution—Adaptation, Creation, Institutional Binding, Patriarchalism, Charisma (Tension between), Conservation, Institutions of Freedoms of Living, Expression, and Creation

Human Endeavor

Culture, Science, Religion, Thought, Metaphysics, Transformation, Action, Immersion, Participation, Variety (over Depth), Doubt, Faith, Attitude, Tradition, Destiny

Human Endeavor and its Normal Limits

Normal, World View, World Censor, (implies) Normal as Absolutely Open

Civilization

Identity, Continuity, Universal Matrix, History, Design

Preliminary

In earlier documents I called this chapter ‘Worlds’. However, there is a sense in which The World is everything we have. If we were to meet some alien from an alien world then our worlds would (might) begin to coalesce (and it if enabled the import of significance then we would likely seek that significance)

In this document I first named this chapter Being in the Universe. I considered the titles—Our being in the Universe | Human being in the Universe | Intelligent being in the Universe | (The) Human World | Worlds. However, these and more are implicit in ‘World’

Therefore I am tempted to use the title ‘World’ but ‘The World’ seems more natural

However, for the purpose of the chapter it is important to our Being here

The title ‘Being in The World’ is important because it includes what may be objective, what may be non-objective and Experience for which objectivity has no clear meaning and for which objectivity may have no meaning at all. This allows us to take a neutral approach and see what may emerge

This is not intended as any excuse for careless thinking or development. The development allows science and the scientific attitude and it strives to consistency with what is valid in these. However, when we attempt to map out the human world and what is significant in it we find that we are not completely in bright sunshine and that if we are to talk of this world and make any headway in it we must admit the gray and the dark and be willing to do and share our best regarding this vast ‘penumbral’ zone

Introduction

The interest in this chapter is application of the metaphysics in particular contexts

This application is understood to include science (Applied Metaphysics)

The focus is our world, particularly the human organism and world

The applications are nature (organism, psyche) and society

Also considered are the human endeavor and a particular conception of civilization

^†Review of Metaphysics, Identity, Realization, Power

^$World and Metaphysics

The World is the world of Experience

Every object of Experience is in the World: the Logical concepts are in the World, the non-Logical objects, since they have no Being, are or may be considered to be ‘in’ the World

Experience is in the World

There is a sense in which the World is the Universe. This sense is one in which we may label what we do not know as ‘unknown’

One may of course have disagreement with the assertion of the previous paragraph. However, to the extent that there is disagreement with that assertion there should also be disagreement that ‘Universe’ is a valid name

A purpose of metaphysics (including the Applied Metaphysics) is to make discernments regarding The World. These discernments will be regarding epistemic status: perfectly or well enough known—i.e., pure or practical knowledge; known to the limit of or less than the limit of the context; knowledge that may be imperfect from the epistemic points of view (correspondence, coherence, pragmatic) but perfect from a value stance

On Explanation

The essence of this section absorbed to Journey in Being.html

*Nature

Most of this section absorbed to Journey in Being.html

*Human World

This section absorbed to Journey in Being.html

*The Human Endeavor: Ideas and Action

^†The Human Endeavor

Human Being and society: culture including language, knowledge; science and religion; thought, metaphysics; transformation, action; agency, search and destiny; place of human being and our world in the Universe. Science and religion. Journey, immersion-participation, variety over depth, doubt and faith and attitude… and their intersection with tradition

The Human Endeavor and its Normal Limits

Much of the content of this section is derived from material established elsewhere

The tradition includes science, religion, and myth. Today when we tend to think of science as showing us reality we tend to eschew mythology as such but the mythic function finds expression in symbolic interpretation of religion and science and in a variety of forms of art, drama, and literature. What I have just described amounts to secular humanism also sometimes referred to as scientific humanism (even though the two are not identical). The other major modern paradigm is that of religion which varies from fundamentalism pure and simple to attempts to reinterpret scriptures so as to not contradict science. Secular humanism and an attitude of religious faith characterize the two main modern paradigms; ‘political ideology’ is perhaps a third and its milder forms fall under secular humanism. Although ‘secular humanists’ do not emphasize economics, I think it is a reasonable claim that difficulty in seeing beyond the paradigms of the day are not rational or ideological alone but include practical concerns such as economics (science is critical to technology today… and there is little economic motivation to believe in a comforting God for many who live in the wealthy nations) and the future of ‘spirit’ or ‘ideational form’ (in our world) will be affected by these factors

Universal Metaphysics shows the failure of religious faith as a world view and the immense and extreme limits of science and the limits of scientific method. I.e. Universal Metaphysics validates both science and method in their valid domains; shows those domains to be limited; and shows some aspects and suggests others of what must be outside the domains of science and its methods

The Academic Disciplines

Ideas, Action, and Transformation: An Outline

In an entirely mechanistic world the only process would be mechanism

For human being however there is more than mechanism. Action (transformation) is process that has at least part of its source in ideas

An essence of the human world, of civilization, is that what we do lies in the interaction of ideas and action

In a simple view, ideas and action are distinct but they interact. We can however also see ideation as a kind of action. In a broader view, as follows from the Universal Metaphysics and as seen in the section Mind and Matter, Ideas and Action are identical. This however is perhaps not the case for finite form

In separating the human endeavor into knowledge and artifact we recognize the distinction between ideas and action. The later topics under knowledge and the earlier topics under action below are the places where there is most obviously a continuum between idea and action. However as we have seen the future of science will be one that for a finite form will require immersion and participation: ideas require continuity in action for there completion; this is the way things are and is not some utilitarianism. For the Limitless, Idea and Action are one

Overview

Symbol and study of knowledge. Symbols and symbolic systems. Humanities. Method

Knowledge: the Universe. Metaphysics. Physical sciences and Earth sciences. Sciences of life and mind. Society, institutions, and change; Social sciences. History and Civilization

Action and Artifact. Art, and literature. Technology and Engineering (corresponding to the sciences). Faith, Religion as negotiation Being by all faculties and modes of being (religion and science have coextension). Human Endeavor: tradition and process; realization; for finite form—Journey in Being

Knowledge and Symbol

1a. Symbols and signs; semiotics—the study of signs and sign behavior; icon as essential in symbol / sign; art, literature, drama… as metaphysics. Symbolic Systems including language and linguistics, logic, mathematics, and computer science. 1b. The Humanities and Philosophy; Study of Science and History. 1c. Method extended, first, to perfect abstraction, analysis of meaning clarified (word-concept-object) and seen to include the empirical, neutrality and emergence as the elementary algebraic approach in conceptual understanding especially metaphysics, and (method extended), second, to interaction with particular context in Applied Metaphysics: perfection as ‘good enough’, ‘approaching limit of context’, and Valuational. Science (relative to the Universe) first seen as knowledge of limited domains (e.g. this cosmos) then extended to immersion and participation (for finite forms)

Main contribution of this work. Critical method—abstraction, analysis and synthesis of meaning and Experience; neutrality and emergence; imaginative approach—reflexivity. Universal Metaphysics ultimate in foundation and breadth; shows Universe as ultimate. Impossibility but lack of need of substance as foundation. Logic as requirement for conceptual reference; then extended to Realism: External or Empirical or Scientific, Internal or Intrinsic or Logic of Conceptual and Symbolic systems, and (Existential) Logic of Action. Unification of Concrete and Abstract objects. Ultimate Cosmology. Universal Identity: acute, diffuse, non-manifest phases; identity with Individual, which in finite form is realized as a journey in being

Knowledge: The Universe

2a. Metaphysics including science of Being and general cosmology; theory of power and its forms—ultimate, mediate and proximate;, nature and unlimited variety and extent of Being, which includes Logic, theory of Objects with unified theory of the concrete or particular and the abstract, Value or ethics and aesthetics, epistemology; full Realism (full Logic) as external-empirical or science, internal-conceptual or conceptual Logic, and intrinsic-existential or living under Truth and limited reason; nature and varieties of Knowledge, where, note, Belief is fundamental and the varieties of belief include Faith as (primarily) Belief-Action, Knowledge as Belief-Justification; 2b. Physical science, nature, behavior of energy and varieties of force and material object including physics, physical cosmology, and chemistry; 3. Geology; 4. Biology, life—its nature and variety and origins of life and variety; Medicine; 5. Mind as the study of psyche in its integration and its ‘functions;’ nature of mind; 6. Society, nature, institutions (groups) and change… and aspects including culture (institution of knowledge,) economics, political science and philosophy (and Law;) and 7. History and Civilization

Main contribution of this work. Metaphysics and cosmology as above. Identity of Logic and Metaphysics. Coeval nature of knowledge and method, metaphysics and epistemology. Value and journey; nature of value in this world. Identity of method and content, epistemology and metaphysics, significance of ‘knowledge that’ mode of knowing. Faith as that attitude (includes cognition-emotion) that is conducive of optimal action in face of doubt and limited rationality. Intersection between physical theory and the metaphysics: Void and quantum vacuum; Universal theory of state, interaction, process and quantum theory; Universe as Whole, i.e. All Being and relevance nature of duration (e.g. change in identity of given entity) and extension (different entity) and therefore local patchiness and immanent character of space-time and possible connection to relativistic theories of matter-interaction-space-time. Philosophical significance for and learning from evolutionary biology. Mind and matter: preliminary account as second and first order Being but amended because there are no essential atoms. Experience as pervasive and, there-from, understanding of the varieties of mental phenomena and varieties of Being: feeling, consciousness, dimensions and parameters of psyche with emphasis of the bound-free dimension (and relevance to perception, conception, emotion, and personality)

Action, Transformation and Artifact

8. Art, its nature and varieties (literature, music, painting, sculpture, architecture…;) 9a. Technology elements: energy, material resources, tools and machines… and fields: agriculture, transportation, information and communication, earth and space exploration, ‘land’ and other material / psychic resources: location and access… and bio as well as psychosocial technologies as well as technologies that drive economic and political engines; 9b. Engineering; note here—items 8 and 9, continuities with knowledge); and 10a. Faith, literal and nature and varieties of non literal meaning and non meaning functions; religion, its nature and varieties: religions of the world—hunter gatherer and agriculture based societies, throughout pre-history and history. The concept of religion as knowledge and negotiation of the entire universe by the entire individual in all its faculties and modes of being. The relation of this concept to possible and potential realizations of as yet unnamed and un-thought ideational form. 10b. Human Endeavor: tradition—institutions of process, e.g. language, knowing, communication; ways of transformation; and local and ultimate endeavor for a finite form: a Journey in Being

^W-Civilization

Nature and Destiny

The Identity and continuity of—all—societies and cultures; a Universal matrix; the analogy of Islands rising above an Ocean that are connected below

History and Design

Choice

E.g. policy

Status

E.g. state of the world

A Set of Global Issues

The following, a start, is as much about what is wrong with thinking today as it is about what is right (this does not mean that I think that the identified issues should be ignored)

Introduction

The following, a start, is as much about what is wrong with thinking today as it is about what is right (this does not mean that I think that the identified issues should be ignored)

Richard Smalley

1. Energy

2. Water

3. Food

4. Environment

5. Poverty

6. Terrorism & war

7. Disease

8. Education

9. Democracy

10. Population

United Nations

Ten threats identified in 2004 by the High Level Threat Panel of the United Nations:

1. Poverty

2. Infectious disease

3. Environmental degradation

4. Inter-state war

5. Civil war

6. Genocide

7. Other Atrocities (e.g., trade in women and children for sexual slavery, or kidnapping for body parts)

8. Weapon of mass destruction (nuclear proliferation, chemical weapon proliferation, biological weapon proliferation)

9. Terrorism

10. Transnational organized crime

JOURNEY

Use: universal journey-ways.html (ways, spirit), dynamics, catalysts and catalytic states, and Journey in being-detail (very detailed, 2009, catalytic factors including chemicals…)

Concepts

Basic

Individual Identity, Universal Identity, Realization, Journey in Being, Limitlessness, Moments, Immediate World, The Ultimate, Local / Intermediate / Ultimate Value, Ideas, Appreciation, Effectiveness, Faith, Attitude, Optimal Outcome, Action, Experiment, Transformation, Tradition, Metaphysics, Experience, Reflection, Imagination, Criticism

Approach

Dynamics, Ways (Practice, Catalyst, Action, Imagination: Science, Literature, Art, Drama, Humanities, Religion)

Future and Past: Plans

Dimensions. Being, Special Modes

Preparation. Mind, Body, Spirit

System of Experiments. Principles. Aspects (Dimensions). Nature. Self, Culture, Society. Psyche, Spirit, Body / Being. Special Modes—Artifact (Simulation, Symbolic Being, Construction; Design, Experiment), Society (Society-Value-Action-Immersion)

Journey in Being—The Idea, its Origins and Sources

Tradition

Individual

Life and Experience

Experience, Imagination, Reflection (Criticism), Action, Experiment

Metaphysics

The Journey

Realization is a Journey

There is realization

Realization is a journey

The moment and the individual have identity with the ultimate

Because of concerns regarding the demonstration of the metaphysics (PB) and in negotiating the journey it is effective to approach the journey also (simultaneously) from Faith as the attitude that is most conducive to ultimate realization and being on the path to this realization

Demonstration

Characterization of the Journey

The Journey is an exploration of our immediate world and the ultimate. There are two interacting and intersecting ways of exploration: (1) Ideas—understanding of the world, and (2) Transformation—living out the ideas and other experiments

These ways correspond roughly to ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ or ‘mind’ and ‘world’ (world includes body

As knowledge, ideas are instruments of negotiating and transforming our being, our lives, and the world. As understanding and feeling, ideas condition knowing and transforming; and they are the medium of enjoyment and appreciation of being, life, and world. In the usual meaning—I have an idea rather than I am an idea—ideas are an incomplete mode of transformation

Value concerns choice that promotes power and realization; values concern actual choices

Local Value concerns this world; Intermediate Value concerns transitions among Normal worlds; Ultimate Value concerns transformation to the ultimate

Completeness requires transformation of Being

The idea and grounding of a Journey in Being is this. Human cultures reveal pictures of the universe: science is a picture of the physical universe and religion / art a picture of an aesthetic, moral, and symbolic universe. The Universal Metaphysics developed in this narrative reveals a Universe that is immensely larger and more varied than the canons of culture. The metaphysics shows that realization of the Universe may and will occur for all finite beings and the way requires ideas and transformation. It remains that The World is important; it is ground

Realization is given; however, aware (all seeing or at least the attempt) (and patient and intelligent) seeing and acting is essential to appreciation and effectiveness

Ideas are negotiation and appreciation and enhance effectiveness and communication. Sharing enhances appreciation and efficiency

…

The journey of realization is without limit in extension, duration, variety of Experience and Being (including summits, their elevations, plateaus, and dissolutions)

This World

The journey begins in this world

It is day-to-day, season-to-season, year-to-year, and age-to-age living

It learns from Experience and Reflection. The Experience of others is coded in culture. The sources are myriad and well known. Good teachers are useful. Selectivity is important. Above all—personal experience, patience, and direct observation and learning

Why Journey?

Although it is given must we attempt to enter into it volitionally?

No. And it may not be the way for all

However, for efficiency and enjoyment we will enter into it freely and intelligently

We note that it will be immensely enjoyable but not without pain

An answer to essential existential doubt

Even given doubt, the PB is WBL. Therefore PB is not ruled out and as seen has strength. Therefore it is valuable (existential risk) to explore under the aegis of PB. I think this value is objective and it is objective if PB is given. That however, though it has strength, is in question regarding the essential doubt. Therefore there is to the necessity of exploration an individual component of value. While the value is not singular, there is value and significance to the off the map, the singular, which is risk and opportunity, and to the charismatic which engages others in singular experiment and which is safeguard against the decay of the stable which is also in its time a source of strength and enjoyment

Framework

The framework closely follows the origins and sources

Metaphysics

Tradition

Experience and Reflection—Imaginative and Critical

Action, Experiment and Transformation

Dynamics of Being

The dynamics is a synthesis of the framework

Yoga, meditation, spiritual practice, mystic practice, nosomation (mind-body practice), are possible names. Each has connotations that merit consideration and limits

Of these I prefer the name Yoga: it includes cultivation of mind, body, and person

However, I will stay with Dynamics or Being-in-Action for now

What is crucial is what it covers. The whole Being is crucial. Practice and action and practice-in-action are essential

The Idea

Approach

‘Method’

Reflexive Cultivation

Renewal

Illustrations of the Dynamics

Significant as some learning so far

Ideas

Meditation in Action

A new section though not a new idea

Identity

(Being-as-Being)

Ways

Practice

Practice. Based in the framework, the practice will include discipline and catalysts. The ‘practice’ will include training of focus as well as focus in action and in life

Dynamics

Meditation

Jnâna and Other Yogas

Death as Transition

Right living

Crisis and Edge

The Logic and Adaptation of Twelve Step Programs

Nature

Vision Quest

Construction of Organic Being

Shared Endeavor

Travel and Access to the Masters

Systematic Approach

Early versions of the narrative emphasized a system of experiments. See Journey in being for details

The goal of a system is to cover the dimensions of being—psyche, nature, culture, and the universal; the ‘vertical’ element—the approach, recognition of transformation as it occurs (for appreciation and learning and design)

At present I favor eclecticism, immersion, dynamics and openness. These are sufficiently covered in the preceding discussions of ‘agents’ (and system is available in at Journey in being-detail)

However, some system remains important (below)

What is Meditation, Yoga, Dynamics of Being…?

What is critical? Approach? Goal? Emphasis? Achievement? Content? This / that life? This / that master?

Everyone has an idea. Some are better

The keys. Everyone contributes. Your experience and path. Your goals etc. And always, you can learn from anyone and everyone. Learn to be open and selective

Catalysts

A summary of the section A Catalog of Catalysts from universal journey-ways, which is in turn a selective summary of dynamics, catalysts and catalytic states. Further information is in a detailed version: Journey in being, especially the part on the Journey

Types of State

Approaches: Means

Approaches: Attitude

Enhancing or Inducing Factors

Other Factors—Sacred Places, Rituals, Texts

Individual Factors—Sensitivity, Power; Charismatic Transformation

Savant States—Induction

Catalysts—Plant, Animal, and Synthetic Chemicals

Journey in being-detail lists fourteen plants, their psychoactive chemicals, and effects (taken from Plants of the Gods by R.E. Schultes and A. Hoffman) as well as two animal toxins of possible psychoactive value

The plan of the section would be to sketch uses and their integration into a larger program

Amanita Mascara. Plant—Mushroom ‘Fly Agaric’

Use—lucid dreaming rather than intense hallucination

The Nightshade Family. Plant—Henbane

…Hyoscyamus niger; Belladonna, Atropa belladonna; and Mandrake

Use—hallucinations

Cannabis. Plant—Genus Cannabis

…genus that includes three species, C. sativa, C. indica, and C. ruderalis

Use—depends on proportion of different cannabinoids; sensory enhancement, meta-cognitive

Claviceps. Plant—Ergot

…a group of fungi of genus Claviceps

Ethnography—“Long a medicine in medieval Europe, Ergot frequently caused mass poisonings with attendant hallucinatory attacks. Use—seems to be restricted to ancient Greece, where it may have been associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries

Datura. Plant—Solanaceae

Use—sacred hallucinatory use in the Old World

Tabernanthe Iboga. Plant—Iboga

Use—stimulates the central nervous system in small doses and induces visions in larger doses

Anadenanthera. Plant Fabaceae

Plant and ethnography—“A genus of South American trees in the Legume family, Fabaceae

Use—sources of the hallucinogenic snuffs

Banisteriopsis Caapi. Plant—Ayahuasca

…also known as Caapi or Yage

The MAOIs in B. caapi allow the primary psychoactive compound, DMT (which is introduced from the other primary ingredient in Ayahausca, the Psychotria viridis plant), to be orally active

Ethnography and use—to prepare Ayahuasca, a decoction that has a long history of entheogenic uses as a medicine and “plant teacher” among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon Rainforest

Brugmansia. Plant—Solanaceae

Plants and ethnography—“A genus of seven species of flowering plants in the family Solanaceae, native to subtropical regions of South America, along the Andes from Colombia to northern Chile, and also in southeastern Brazil

Uses—ritualized Brugmansia consumption is an important aspect of the shamanic complexes noted among many Indigenous peoples of western Amazonia, such as the Jivaroan speaking peoples. Likewise, it is a central component in the cosmology and shamanic practices of the Urarina peoples of Loreto, Peru

Lophophora Williamsii. Plant Commonly Peyote

Plant and ethnography—“Lophophora williamsii, commonly Peyote

Use—when combined with appropriate set and setting, peyote is reported to trigger states of deep introspection and insight that have been described as being of a metaphysical or spiritual nature. At times, these can be accompanied by rich visual or auditory effects

Three plants—Psilocybe, Panaeolus, Conocybe

Four species of Conocybe are known to contain psilocin and psilocybin

Use—Conocybe siligineoides was used for shamanic purposes by the Mazatecs of Oaxaca

Echinopsis Lageniformis. Plant—Bolivian Torch Cactus

… a fast-growing columnar cactus from the high deserts of Bolivia

Use—long shamanic tradition of use throughout its native habitat

Two plants—Ipomoea and Turbina

Use of Virola in magico-religious rituals is restricted to tribes in the Western Amazon Basin and parts of the Orinoco Basin—perhaps the most common hallucinogenic drug used by the natives

Virola. Plant—Virola

Plant and ethnography—also known as Epená—a genus of medium-sized trees native to the South American rainforest

Ethnography and use—“ recent report indicates that ‘…Today in almost villages in Oaxaca one finds the seeds still serving the natives as an ever present help in time of trouble.’

Toad Venom

Bufo alvarius venom contains 5-MeO-DMT, and in high enough quantities to smoke directly for effect. Use—psychedelic

Tetrodotoxine

From Tetraodontidae, a family of marine and estuarine fish, the puffer fish

This is not a very nice chemical that is 100 times as poisonous as KCN. In near lethal doses as is used in Haitian Voodooism it leaves a person in a state of near death for several days, ‘the closest to zombieism in the physical world’.

Batrachotoxins—Source: the Golden Poison Frog

‘The most poisonous animal in the world.’ No known use

Action

Experience

Personal experience and seeing for oneself is crucial (it includes what we learn from others, the tradition)

Practice and Action

There is an interaction between practice and action; there cannot be no such interaction; and the interaction and sufficient attention to it and the balance between practice and action should be consciously and otherwise (intuitively) emphasized

Employing Practice in Action

An essential aim of ‘practice’ is that its essence be absorbed into action and living

Practice suggests possibilities for dynamics-in-action (e.g. meditation-in-action)

Action Suggests Practice

Experience gives us insight into practice

Painting Pictures of the Real

Imagination: painting pictures of the real. ‘Science’, literature, ‘art’, drama, humanities, and ‘religion’ combine in painting pictures of the real

^$A Metaphysics of Being in The World

^$The goal is to study perfection (paramita) of presence in The World

^$The perfection sought is inner and outer

FUTURE AND PAST

Journey so far; accomplishment—dimensions and implications for tradition—journey; faith and existentialism; knowledge, system of knowledge; method—method as such, logic, mathematics, science, religion, art… and follow up studies (what is art?); follow up studies in physics, logic… for implications and follow up (including potential contributions) see, especially, Journey in being.html (Consequences in Science, Metaphysics, Method, Religion, and Journey and Contribution); also see Thermodynamics and the Destiny of the Universe

Includes plans and planning—general and specific

Primary Phase. Being

Ideas and Action (Transformation)

Ideas

Program of study and research, see § Ideas, Action… (in Web page Journey in Being-final)

Writing and communication—talking, speaking, and publishing

Study for Transformation of Being: Metaphysics, Science, Technology; Ways, Catalysts

Transformation of Being (Action)

… includes action, experiment, real transformation

Study for Transformation of Being: Metaphysics, Science, Technology; Dynamics, Ways, Catalysts (repeats entry under previous section, Ideas)

Practice into action; sharing

Experiments and accomplishments so far

Special Phase. Technology and Artifact

Being (Technology of life, mind, and spirit) and Action (Science and Technology of Society)

Organic-Mechanical

Ideas and experiments in building life and mind

Materials—material and organic

Approaches—design for emulation (simulation) and adaptation (variation and selection), use of randomness and ad hoc elements

Implementation—mechanical and organic, analog, symbolic and computational

§ Dynamics of Being above

§ Illustrations of the dynamic in Journey in being-detail.html

Reflection, review

Civilization, problem, opportunity