Short version

Destiny is the part of the past-present-future continuum, linear or otherwise, that it is possible to know and desirable to influence (in ways that are desirable or good). The good refers to positive influence—and therefore in choice and action—and will be found to be ever in experimental and conceptual relation to process.

The aim of the narrative is creative and constructive engagement with destiny in the sense of the good. If this is interpreted liberally, a more general aim is hardly possible. Our cultural narratives address this aim in detailed and wide terms. This aim is taken up in the later part of the narrative, especially under the labels Journey and Path.

The significance of time includes the attenuation of influence and predictability: influence and knowledge for a longer period, it is likely, is for more general features. Another significance of time is that having arrived at the present we are attuned or adapted to process—i.e., present and future are interwoven: culture and individual encode value (what is of worth) and means (disciplines—knowledge, know how, and reflexive experimental and conceptual method or way regarding world, identity of self, value, and means); this occurs on a mythic-holist—literal-atomic continuum.

If influence and knowledge of the state of the world or universe attenuate in time, perhaps destiny has a finite horizon. Is there any destiny in perpetuity, linear or otherwise? The question is answerable only on a worldview or metaphysics—i.e., on an understanding of the universe as a whole and the place of sentient beings in it. If possible it is desirable that the metaphysics should be perfect knowledge in the sense of faithfulness and since this is clearly not possible in general a perfect metaphysics would be at most a frame for the cultural-individual system above.

Here we will conceive being simply and neutrally as ‘that which is’. This idea is pivotal to a perfect metaphysics and the concern with destiny. Its neutrality which makes it trivial is also an aspect of its power.

A preliminary aim, taken up in Foundations, is to develop and demonstrate a new worldview named the universal metaphysics or the metaphysics. This perfect metaphysics reveals a universe that is limitless in that all possibility is realized (which will engender apparent inconsistencies—internal and external—that are resolved). A consequence is that manifestation and identity in the universe repeat in acute-diffuse-dissolution-absent phases with limitless variety and repetition; and that for limited forms this is experienced as a journey in being.

The metaphysics may seem paradoxical and inconsistent with what is valid in culture or tradition, including our modern scientific literalism. Yet it will be shown consistent and will in fact lead the way to a new conception of logic. Our cultures are generally limited on account of local adaptation to a local cosmos or normal world; however, they tend to not acknowledge what is outside their valid domains. The metaphysics requires the existence of local cosmoses such as ours and is therefore consistent with culture in its regions of both light and dark.

The metaphysics will frame, illuminate, and provide foundation for our cultural systems in the literal-scientific to mythic continuum which, in turn, provide detailed knowledge, illustration, and means of incremental action. Culture has elements of approximation and incompleteness but this is perfect in that this is precisely what is needed in endless engagement—each stage of a culture must give way to another stage or culture when the limits of a world are met and continuity must lie in a new world; this kind of perfection may be labeled practical or existential. Another kind of perfection is of course that of being-in-the-world which related to the existential. The interaction of metaphysics and culture is more than this for at the places of intersection we will find some degrees of perfection to our cultural representations that were otherwise enigmatic. Yet we will encounter doubts about the metaphysics and, given its demonstration and internal and external consistency, will give it alternate interpretations: one as an existential proposition and another as a narrative, story, and myth—an experimental guide to action and destiny. The interaction of metaphysics and culture contributes to a new conception and realization of the field of human knowledge and action.

This enables taking up the main aim in this form: to understand the nature of the journey and so to design a generic path whose main purpose is to reflect on and continue engagement with realization. A subsidiary aim is to supplement the text with reports of outcomes.

Long reserve version

The aim of this narrative is creative engagement with destiny—the part of the present-future continuum that it is possible to know and desirable to influence. That is, the aim concerns destiny and the good. If this is interpreted liberally, a more general aim is hardly possible. This aim has been a central motive to write the work. There is a personal but still universal motive that stems from my powerful experience of beauty and, consequently, a desire to cultivate it. This work reflects that desire.

A preliminary aim, addressed in the first main divisions, is as far as possible to delineate knowledge sufficient to destiny and the good. Our cultural narratives—we might see them as lying on field defined by terms of appreciation rather than approbation: a mythic to modern continuum—address this aim in detailed and wide terms. In my early thought, I began with the cultural narratives and this led to the following developments which outline the first part of this work.

The concept of being is ‘that which is’ and is employed in this narrative as neutral to all categories except that of existence versus non-existence (in fact even this distinction is not a priori necessary for it arises without prejudice in any case). This neutrality is pivotal to the following developments; and it is different from some uses in which being is an essence, even a mystery, of something—e.g., of all things or of particular kinds such as sentient or human being or deity. The concept of metaphysics is that of perfect (in-the-sense-of-faithfulness) knowledge of being. It follows from knowledge of the fact of existence that we have perfect knowledge of being and therefore we have metaphysical knowledge that may be called a pure metaphysics. Even though trivial in an obvious sense, this enables a powerful metaphysics that is ultimate in some ways (some mentioned later in this introductory note). What enables this is that the metaphysics is empirical over general but not particular features of the universe. However, as seen below, this metaphysics frames approximate detailed empirical knowledge in a way that is perfect (where perfection in-the-sense-of-faithfulness may lack even sense) with regard to the aim of the narrative and may therefore be called a practical metaphysics.
Development and demonstration of a metaphysics—the universal metaphysics abbreviated the metaphysics based in a fundamental principle of metaphysics: the universe realizes all possibility.
Assessment and definition of our traditions—the mythic-literal continuum—of knowledge and action. A brief assessment is (1) The idea of rationality conceived as necessity in choice of a unique best path of action is illusory for, having arrived at the present via pathways that involve choice, our cultures are selected for not necessarily perfect and perhaps even transient knowledge of value (what is of worth) and means (of achievement including knowledge and know how). Consequently, if rationality is to have meaning, it is that risk and experiment is essential to it but may be tuned to certainly better than random from values and means. What then is the illusion of rationality? From the success rationality as ‘perfect’ in some spheres, the illusion arises that it should be perfect in all spheres. Still, rationality is more than that for it can be brought to bear on itself and to improve its self-understanding and ‘methods’. However, it is also this reflexivity that is one way in which we see the imperfection of rationality conceived as perfect choice of action (or knowledge or method). Therefore the concept of rationality has evolved and may continue to evolve; and its tools or methods have evolved and almost surely will continue to do so. But this is how things are. It is not a matter for lament. Facing a future of opportunity and risk is and should be ‘being truly alive’. (2) While the traditions are often seen as relatively true—i.e. true but only in cultural context—there are universal domains of validity where, despite different modes of expression, there may be overlap. Consequently our cultures may be seen as an implicit movement of an entity named civilization whose significance is that civilization nurtures the individual and individuals foster civilization. We tentatively see human civilization as the web of human communities across time and continents. (3) There is a near universal tendency for all cultures to acknowledge what they ‘see’ and ignore and even deny what they do not see. However, the nature and extent of the universe outside these domains is not at all limited by the valid knowledge of the domain.
Address of issues of internal and external consistency for the universal metaphysics. Internal issues include possible conflicts among possibilities including some that arise from vagueness in the meaning of the term possibility. External conflicts include apparent contradiction with cultural representations as well as our intuitive senses of the real.
Develop consequences of the metaphysics. Broadly, the metaphysics enables new conceptualization of the natures and range human knowledge and new and significantly enhanced systematic delineations of its content. The main consequence for the aim of the narrative is that manifestation and identity in the universe repeat in acute-diffuse-dissolution-absent phases with limitless variety and repetition; and that for limited forms this is experienced as a journey in being. The metaphysics entails a view of universal civilization as a matrix of civilizations across the universe. Then our system of support in the journey of realization is constituted of identity and psyche, civilization and its cultural systems (knowledge including sciences of ‘nature’ and ‘psyche’, action, and technology or know how), and primitive being which in our cosmos is called nature.
Develop the universal metaphysics as a frame for tradition and its process and development. While the universal metaphysics is pure in the sense of perfect metaphysical knowledge the result, though imperfect in this sense, is perfect relative to other criteria such as practical ends and being-in-the-word and, most importantly, relative to the aim of the narrative. That is, as long as our form is limited, we can do no better than non universality and approximation with regard to detail but this is precisely what is needed in the aim of being in a process of realization. The main developments are (a) The metaphysics frames, illuminates, and provides foundation for our cultural systems and the result as noted above is a new conceptualization of the natures and range human knowledge and new and significantly enhanced systematic delineations of its content. (b) The cultural systems provide detailed knowledge, illustration, and means of action which—while form is limited—are ever in a process of revelation of ‘limitless variety’ and which may be therefore be seen as perfect to the aim of realization even in their local imperfection. (c) In some cases the metaphysics shows local perfection to the cultural systems and examples arise in understanding the nature of knowledge expressed symbolically, in understanding the nature of space and time and that they are immanent in being, in understanding that ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ are aspects rather than different constituents of being, and in understanding the nature of objects and particularly that the distinction of concrete and abstract objects is practical rather than fundamental. (d) We may conclude from the foregoing that there is perfection and realization in transience and this is true; but to universalize would be to make a common intellectual if attractive mistake which is may by creative and critical thinkers alike—it is to suppress distinctions in the interest of simplicity and sometimes of ‘ego’; for the truth revealed by the metaphysics is that there is a hierarchy of transience that approaches but does not achieve permanence; and—more—we can imagine and guess and feel but do not know what degrees of being and feeling and permanence lie within a reality defined as ‘all possibility’. (e) An enhancement of understanding for a number of topics including: the nature of symbolic systems including language, logic, and mathematics; the nature of and relations among science, metaphysics, myth, and religion; the relative importance of the question of the nature, e.g. discrete or immanent, of god—or deity—over the existence of god; the in process and evolutionary aspects of the previous issues and insights in to the meaning of the issue of the nature of god; significance of beauty and the good as relational and in process rather than simple objects and, especially, that the issue of their presence in the universe is more telling than a definition of them of them as objects.

With these preliminaries established it is effective to enter into a narrative focus on realization—i.e. creative engagement with the part of the present-future continuum that it is possible to know and desirable to influence. The preliminary developments illuminate the path or way and what it is desirable to attempt. In the final main divisions of the narrative its aim may now be taken up in this form: to understand the nature of the journey and so to design a generic path whose main purpose is to reflect on and continue engagement with realization. A subsidiary aim is to supplement the text with reports of outcomes.