Paragraphs and sections—including their unmarked subsections and subparagraphs—marked with an asterisk (*) belong only in longer versions (however if a sub part is marked with a dagger (^†) it belongs in some or all versions). It is not necessary to asterisk secondary material and detailed commentary. ^&

Essentials are dark red. *

Only the essentials are to be kept in the portable version. ^&

Secondary material is dark yellow. *

Detailed commentary, academic or general, is black. *

In definitions, defined terms are in bold font. The ‘is’ after a definition means ‘is defined as’.

Regarding definitions also see the section on Concept meaning.*

PREFACE

About this work

The Way of Being is living in awareness of and toward the ultimate in unity with the immediate.

The Aim of Being is found to be living well in the immediate and the ultimate as one.

The text has two main parts Part I. The Universe—A World View and Part II. The Way.

Comment. The next paragraph is not in longer versions because the material is in the prologue.

The world view of the first part is significantly new—it is not a presentation or synthesis of received paradigms but finds that boundaries of the real are the boundaries of (logical) possibility. The second part, founded in the first, develops consequences and templates for living and action. This main text is followed by an appendix with General resources. ^†

The informal prologue is about the personal and historical origins of the way. *

Formal development—definition and demonstration—begins with Part I. The Universe—A World View: a metaphysics and its conceptual consequences. Part II. The Way—develops consequences and templates for living and action. *

This is followed by an Appendix with General resources. *

For further information on the content, sources, and resources see the prologue. *

In this long version of the document the Appendix has a collection of Canonical dilemmas fundamental to metaphysics. The dilemmas are a set of skeptical alternatives to our usual ways of seeing the world. Individually, they clarify the views. Together they contribute toward a valid, coherent, and powerful metaphysics. *

The long version also has a section on Stories which is under development—“stories are narratives that emphasize heart and mind—to bring the way to life and give it appeal amid everyday life”. *

This work and its ideas have occupied many years and have gone through many versions. This is the latest version. *

This work is dedicated to those who would follow The Way of Being.

Reading the text *

Issues of understanding the text include

2. Its worldview may seem to contradict received paradigms. Instead, it is consistent with and incorporates what is valid in the paradigms.

3. The new and ultimate character of its worldview requires the text to use common terms with unfamiliar meaning (the new meanings are defined and definite).

The text is informed by the paradigms but the readers who expect merely reformulation may find themselves lost. Publication is an assertion that the work is worth the effort of reading and incorporation to life.

To resolve these difficulties I suggest that readers

2. Take time to absorb the conceptual geography of the new system. It should take time to re-educate intuition on the new worldview with and what is valid in the old.

It will be useful to supplement these comments with the first two sections of the prologue.

Database *

This text is initial basis for two databases (1) one dedicated to the way and (2) later, a general purpose database for metaphysics.

PROLOGUE *

The informal prologue is about the way and its roots.

The prologue is informal; full definition and proof are deferred.

Human context

It is in human nature to conceive and build toward future realization while living in the present.

An aim of human being and the way is to find balance in this endeavor.

To understand the endeavor it is critical to enquire into practical and absolute limits to knowledge and realization.

Two limits can be identified: fact—an inner limit that constrains realization, and possibility—an outer limit to what may be known or realized. It is efficient to begin with the most lenient inner and outer limits; these are necessary fact and necessary or deductive logic respectively.

Are there any necessary facts? Here is one. The existence of experience (the word used here for consciousness or subjective awareness) can be doubted as illusion but doubt and illusion are experience. This is a necessary fact in that experience is given even if the experience of experience is an illusion (we can conceive of and will later see other necessary facts that require no datum at all). Therefore there are both experience and Being (existence). Another kind of necessary fact: the value of a measured quantity may be doubted to at a high degree of precision but we would not doubt it at a lower degree of precision.

How is logic limiting? Deductive logic is truth preserving inference. Given a concept or description—a set of facts—of what obtains, logic requires that no inference from any subset of those facts can violate any one of them. In this view logic is seen as structurally necessary rather than inferential (but the two views are equivalent). Thus logic is limiting because a violation of logic cannot obtain in any world. On the other hand it is most permissive—any other kind of possibility is a constraint over and above logical possibility. Logical possibility is even richer than might be thought from traditional logics, e.g. propositional and predicate logic. This is because those logics pertain to certain forms of propositions: propositional logic pertains to propositions without regard to their structure; predicate logic pertains to propositions of the subject-predicate form, allowing the quantifiers ‘none’, ‘some’ and ‘all’. Further richness may arise in that other forms of proposition may arise (this is not a reference to deviant or modal logics which respectively concern other notions of truth or properties of propositions over and above truth alone).

This combination of (necessary) fact and logic is often called ‘argument’; here we also call it Logic (capitalized).

Argument or Logic is the only absolute constraint for realism: if a description satisfies Logic it may obtain in some world; if it does not, it may not obtain in any world. Furthermore, it is the weakest constraint for realism: if it is satisfied, but the natural laws of a cosmos are not, the description cannot obtain in that cosmos.

In the main text it is shown realizations of the universe and beings are whatever is allowed by Logic. This is named the fundamental principle of metaphysics or fundamental principle (FP). The resultant metaphysics is identical to Logic.

That is, the limits of traditional paradigms, including science and common experience, are limitlessly exceeded. But, since Logic is built into FP, there is no contradiction of science or experience. That is, our scientific picture has truth within the boundaries of observation—i.e. what is too remote, too large or too small, too strongly or weakly bound, to see with current instruments—and what obtains beyond those boundaries is limitless, e.g. limitless arrays of cosmoses and physical law, communicating strongly and weakly with one another and the void (absence of Being); their interaction with our cosmos would be weak—thus defining our cosmos as a nearly independent epoch—or strong but disguised. But this limitlessness is not only quantitative; it is also qualitative—in terms of kind and variety of Being and identity. Particularly, the universe has identity which is limitless and which connects with our cosmos and identity over eternity. Further, cosmoses, individuals, and identities combine, peak, and dissolve without limit to variety, magnitude of peaking, and repetition. Whatever God may mean, we are part of it if it has meaning at all. But FP implies that there is a meaning of ‘God’ as beings higher than but also inclusive of our being.

The metaphysics above shows ultimate realization; which is perfectly known. Imagination and the hypothetical side of science build a picture of kind and variety of realization. Science and technology—their local material and psychological forms—are then instruments of realization. So the local sciences of the cosmoses and the metaphysics mesh in what is called a perfect metaphysics. The realization does not require perfection of science; that is the instruments of realization may and ought to be regarded as perfect in their pragmatism (ultimate precision is not to be had but the pragmatic would have its perfection even if there were ultimate precision; and note that this modifies understanding of any need for greater and greater precision but does not altogether remove it). They—the instruments—are perfect relative to an aim of ultimate realization. As a whole the perfect metaphysics has a perfect dual epistemology.

Ultimate realization of universe and Being are found limitless. Realization is communication-transaction among limited and limitless understanding and worlds.

It is clear that realization requires ideas (reason and knowledge). In our modern world we tend in science and religion to think that ideas with only limited material application are sufficient; this is because we picture ourselves as only human; and we therefore conclude that action is play within that framework. Consequently, ideas and action are both necessary but the common understanding of them suffer from disjointedness. We now see that they are essentially one; they are not entirely distinct for experiencing is a kind of action but is incomplete without action; and without experience there is no action (it would be inert process).

Origins of the work

The origins of this work lie in my endeavor to understand what can, may, and will be realized. More precisely, I began with a fire for knowledge and understanding but came to realize that they are ultimately empty without action and realization (and of course learning in the process).

I began with science, art, and wonder as paradigm and inspiration. I experimented with evolutionary, materialist, process, relational, idealist (including mind as spirit), empiricist, and rationalist paradigms. I read widely in science, and philosophy and religion—western and eastern—and incorporated what I found significant in my thought. Travel, especially in nature, has been inspiration in ideas and more—in it I have found sources of the real.

I came to feel that intellect and feeling and even meditation alone were not enough; even if I knew ‘everything’ I would still be a limited being.

I concluded intuitively, over 1997-1999, that if the void could be shown equivalent to the universe, that might be key to understanding the real and its ways of realization.

A critical aspect of this development was to move away from the paradigms—evolutionary and so on (above). I saw materialism, for example, not so much as invalid, but as ill defined. For what is matter? If it is the sensible, clearly we do not sense ‘everything’; similarly, our latest science is, even from its own history and method, most likely incomplete. At the end of physics, matter may be found identical to mind. But there is a more general concern. To see the entire universe in terms of a special aspect is likely to be limiting and distorting; and we certainly cannot guarantee that it will not be. Therefore, I realized in increments, that to avoid all the potential and actual distortions, I ought to jettison the distinctions. How can that be done? Instead on focus on aspects of the world, by focusing on no special aspect or kind—i.e. to focus simply and only on what is there—i.e. on what exists. Now ‘Being’ has many uses but this is one of them and this is what I mean by Being. Being suppresses all the distinctions implied above. In some uses, Being is contrasted to becoming; in this work Being encompasses becoming; it is not in time or space but so far as occasions of spacetime exist, they are immanent in Being. I was so used to thinking in terms of the foundation of things, e.g. as matter, that it was difficult to think in these seemingly non-foundational terms. But once I understood and became used to it, it was immensely empowering (there are of course subtleties that I continue to discover). Thus my thought transitioned from paradigm to Being. But a criticism of the concept of existence or Being has been that it is too universal to be of use; that since it is true of everything, that it is not even a property—not even a concept—that as a predicate it says nothing. But the power of the concept that emerged included that Being allowed concrete and abstract distinctions and details to emerge without the prejudice of the ‘isms’ and informed universally only by Logic and locally by science and art. The move to Being (with the perfect metaphysics) requires that causation and mechanism are not universal but that they must be found in local pockets.

As I thought about what the various concepts should mean for breadth and consistency, I saw that the meanings of linguistic and conceptual meaning are crucial. There are criticisms of the concept of meaning—whether there is meaning at all, that there are so many notions of meaning as to make inquiry into meaning meaningless, that analysis of meaning cannot reveal knowledge. I wondered about and came to realizations about the meaning of meaning. Words by themselves do not have meaning. If someone whispers ‘sher’ in the jungle, a person who understood only English would not feel fear. Yet if the whisper was ‘tiger’ there would be fear—even though ‘sher’ translates from Hindi to ‘tiger’ in English. The reason is that the word ‘tiger’ is associated with a mental picture or concept in the minds of English speakers. Words as signs do not have meaning; a minimum for meaning to occur is a word-concept (or word as sign-concept). But a mere image of a tiger would not evince fear unless one knew about real tigers. Therefore what constitutes meaning is the word-concept-object (and starting from here one can talk about meaning, use, that meanings of words and other linguistic constructs do not occur in isolation but in mutual dependence—and hence the crucial need of system and ubiquity of at least informal system, families of meaning, indefiniteness of meaning despite apparent definiteness, need for definiteness in systematic treatments so as to avoid absence of meaning, the fact of and need for fluidity of meaning at the edge of experience and knowledge (and that the edge is connected to the core), sentence meaning embedded in sentence structure, the adequacy vs inadequacy of standard grammatical sentence other compound forms, the varieties of grammar—descriptive – prescriptive – logical – metaphysical – psychological – and special purpose, and so on). Particularly, and impressively, the notion of meaning just noted, resolves the problem of negative existentials with consummate ease. It is not things that exist or do not exist. Something exists as the object of a concept (for otherwise there is no ‘thing’ and the illusion of things without concepts arises because the association of word and object typically occurs subliminally). ‘Something’ does not exist when the word-concept has no object. This concept of meaning was crucial in seeing that Being did not require a substance foundation; that all that is necessary to assert Being is to see that to say ‘it is’ is valid (here ‘is’ is used neutrally, especially with regard to time).

Care with meaning, on the present concept of meaning, is pivotal to straightforward resolution of many paradoxes; and it generally leads to significant clarification in analytic and synthetic thought.

This notion of meaning resolves issues stated above. Is there meaning or is it just an abstraction without an object? In terms of the present notion, it is not abstract and the object is quite definite. The issue of ‘too many notions of meaning’ is resolved by noting that the present conception is sufficient to its purpose here—i.e. referential meaning, and that other notions where they concern more general meaning may be relevant but for referential meaning are inadequately conceived. Regarding knowledge from analysis of meaning, it is clear that mere analysis cannot reveal new knowledge even if it can be clarifying. But clarification is important. And noting that the present concept is simple-or-compound sign-concept-object, the concern with meaning is not just that of analysis but also of synthesis. That is, while we can separate meaning from knowing it static contexts (the social context is relatively static over, say, the life of an individual), the separation leads to inadequacy of both knowledge and meaning in changing and dynamic contexts. That is, since the object is part of meaning, analysis must be complemented by synthesis of meaning.

This ties into a theme that philosophy and metaphysics require more than piecemeal analysis. When an entire range of concepts are co-analyzed the result is far more than the ‘sum’ of the meanings; and it is not a mere collection but may yield a gestalt and paradigm.

With metaphysics as the most general if abstract of all knowledge, meaning and metaphysics can be definite only when conjoined; and the definiteness can, as we have seen, extend to the maximal or perfect metaphysics (keeping in mind that the metaphysics extends down only to some concrete detail).

For metaphysics, there is a time for imagination; and there is a time to build a system so that something definite is being said and can be compared against reality; and so that one can build again if the system compares poorly or is found limited. For this purpose, the word-concept-object concept of meaning is sufficient (supplemented of course by meaning in sentence structure of propositions and higher forms). The role for informal development and imagination is not eliminated and is efficient when employed in the periods between system. In this regard recall that the perfect metaphysics is ultimate in depth (foundation, for it encompasses all and requires no further foundation) and ultimate in breadth (at least as a framework). That is, the perfect metaphysics gives form to the idea of a formless universe (where ‘universe’ means all Being over all extents of all kinds); but within that form allows formlessness, form, and formation; and the endless play of sub-system, science, variety, and peaking. Here, there is further room for critical imagination.

Just as meaning is significant to metaphysics, it is also significant to logic. What is truth? And what is the validity of the standard logics in which truth is two-valued (true and false)? And the significance of modal logics in which truth is not the only property of propositions that is of interest? Meaning is important here. The standard logics are those for non modal forms for which truth is bi-valued; and if our standard logics are the propositional and the predicate, should there be more so as to cover the description of the real? That can be seen as an issue of meaning. Can affect somehow be included in argument? Of course it can as a fact, e.g. a proposition about an emotional state, but can it be part of the Logic and not just the value of a logical variable? This too is an issue of meaning.

Here is another elementary reflection. Is logic truly limiting? We can now see how logic is not a limit on the world but a limit on concepts for them to be realizable. Thus even omnipotence cannot violate logical constraint—for violation of the concept is easy to imagine (e.g. a square circle) but unrealizable because a violation of logic defines a null object. That is, whereas sciences are limiting (only certain patterns obtain) logic demarcates absolutely unrealistic thought from possibly realizable thought (and the perfect metaphysics implies that the latter must ‘exist’). But now with this insight we can criticize even this meaning of ‘logic’: logic begins with truth preservation from one proposition to another. However, the form of the proposition is an assumed form of the world (e.g. true or false: one or the other and nothing else, and the subject-predicate form). Do such forms necessarily obtain? Or are they merely pragmatic? I do not know the answer but can suggest that they are pragmatic in the concrete but necessary in sufficient abstraction from the world. The discovery of Logic is an ongoing endeavor.

From such developments I saw that philosophy becomes immensely powerful when developed as a system of interacting concepts. One develops an idea; this leads to another; and another; one comes full circle; there are sub circles or cycles; one goes through this again, analyzing better with hindsight, elaborating on the cycles in some conceptual areas, retracting in others, and improving articulation as connection falls into place; in the end the world is immensely better know than in the beginning. Piecemeal philosophy is useful in this process; the micro analysis of concepts is important to the global process. But what the development shows is that it is a critical error to think that philosophy must be only piecemeal.

These reflections on meaning, philosophy, and metaphysics are not just general reflections but they arose out of and in turn informed the metaphysical and other aspects of the development recounted here. We have just been discussing examples of this process. But now think of the Cartesian argument that there is Being. It begins with doubt as to Being and experience. But the doubt is experience; therefore there are Being and experience. There is a whole range of canonical dilemmas of which the Cartesian dilemma is perhaps the most fundamental. Here are some others. Is there an object of experience? This is the solipsist’s dilemma; we already have a primitive answer: we are aware of experience because there is experience of experience so here is an object. But, beyond that is there a real (external) world? Are there other minds? Is the system of world and minds just so; or is it a field in which individuals are concentrations; does the field have a material substrate; what is that material substrate—a substance or a neutral part of the form of experience; and are these distinctions exclusive; and if not exclusive is the more general field interpretation the truth while the more particular individual – world interpretation an approximation that is useful for a limited if important range of circumstances? Here are further dilemmas. Is there free will and what is it? Why is there Being, experience, and free will? Something, rather than nothing? Must these obtain? Can there be experience (consciousness) without free will? Does physics (or determinism and causality) speak to free will (and evolution) or the latter to the former? Is there a resolution to dilemmas such as “Russell’s teapot”, the existence of higher consciousness, the possibility that the world was created five minutes ago and might end six seconds from now? My answer to these questions is that (1) when the dilemmas are considered in isolation some resolution is possible but much doubt remains, (2) when considered together philosophically much of the doubt can be eliminated and while doubt remains what emerges is a far more powerful picture than our doubt oriented secular world views, (3) the abstract metaphysics further amplifies and extends this process, showing a greater—the greatest—universe but not eliminating all doubt, and (4) the perfect metaphysics which is the abstract in mesh with pragmatic knowledge, e.g. the sciences, does not remove all logical alternatives shown by doubt but gives a realistic interpretation of many of them. The Cartesian resolution of the question of Being and experience is beyond doubt. But what of the individual-world vs field interpretations of the range of experience? The metaphysics shows that the field interpretation is real while the other is a useful and real-istic interpretation. What of the possibility that the world began five minutes ago? That the Biblical story, if its internal contradictions are cleaned up, must obtain? When the metaphysics is supplemented by the creative variation and selection or adaptive systems paradigm that we learned from evolutionary biology, the following resolution arises. Yes, the ‘bizarre’ realities must obtain. Yet they must be so fragile and infrequent as to, at least in some sense, not have pragmatic relevance. Of course we may have come into existence five minutes ago; of course we may go out of existence just as we glimpse meaning; of course there may be a cosmos with the Abrahamic God; but these are so infrequent and unstable as to be generally irrelevant and discountable (but note that we allow that the irrelevance is general but not absolute). We cannot do better than to think that our pragmatic reality has significant (but not absolute) purchase and live accordingly. Here ‘accordingly’ of course includes awareness and living toward the (stable) ultimate revealed in the metaphysics.

The unstable realities do not transcend that ultimate.

In 2002, equivalence of the void and the real was shown. This constituted the foundation of a (the) perfect metaphysics of ultimate realization.

This opened a flood of ideas and reason—demonstration gives confidence and shows how to build.

In the period since 2002, I came to understand the meaning of the above equivalence and to develop and act upon conclusions for the real and realization. This development is among the contents of this text, especially Part I.

Historical origins

Realization, local and ultimate, is a theme of human history.

This development would not have taken place without sources in the literature. Since my debt is more of a general than a particular or scholarly way, it is near impossible to give detailed sources and altogether impossible to do so completely. I have read far too much without taking notes and without particular intent to be able to detail my sources.

However, I can list my main sources.

For general information on the historical sources, see the section General resources in the Appendices.

Broadening horizons

For this work to flourish it must be shared. It is not merely to be read but also to be acted upon, to be absorbed into life. This is of course an invitation, not just to read and reflect but also to take part.

PART I. THE UNIVERSE—A WORLD VIEW

The universe will be defined as all Being over all sameness, difference, and their absence, e.g. space-time.

Some writers insist on a less inclusive but more substance oriented concept. However, the most inclusive definition makes for clarity and conclusions that are obscured without it. Some of those conclusions are of the greatest importance to development of the ultimate metaphysics of the text.

The less inclusive definitions are not ‘wrong’ but insisting on only the less inclusive, leads to and may even be intended for confused and limited thinking. What is essential is to distinguish the conceptions; the word of course is not so important. In this text the term for all Being shall be the universe.

Being and experience

Being

A being is that which may be said to be. The plural of a being is beings.

To elaborate, a being is that which may be validly said to be somewhere in sameness, difference, and their absence—for example in space and time or space-time.

To clarify, a being is that which is validly predicated by some form of the verb to be, without distinctions of tense or place or implication that time and space pertain to the being. For convenience, ‘is’ may designate this generic form of the verb to be.

Simply, a being is that which is.

Being is the quality that marks beings as beings. Being is Existence.

Becoming is coming into being, a distinction within Being in its present sense.

In some meanings of Being, it is identified with special kinds noted above. These other meanings of Being are not used here; rather they fall under the present use. However, where confusion will not arise, ‘Being’ may do double duty in its inclusive sense and in its contrast to the special senses, particularly the contrast to becoming. In this text, these other senses, significant and trivial, fall under Kinds of Being. Some kinds are considered in Metaphysics and Cosmology.

Power is relation or interaction—affecting, being affected, and the ability thereof.

Power is the measure of Being. The hypothetical being that has no power does not exist.

At the present level of abstraction, Being and beings have no further distinctions—e.g. with regard to substance or kind.

Being does not make substance distinctions, e.g. of mind versus matter, or dualism versus monism, or non substance foundation (or whether the latter must involve infinite regress).

Being does not make distinctions of kind such as entity vs relation or interaction or power, process or change, place, quality or property and even trope, quantity, and sub-kinds.

Rather than spacetime, we may wish to consider sameness and difference as fundamental and to derive relation, space and time as special conceptual instances (later and in other documents, e.g. The Way of Being).

A further abstraction may be permitted in which the distinction between Being and beings is null. It is precisely this neutrality that gives the concept of Being its ontological power. It is of course essential to consider the distinctions which will be done later, especially in the section Kinds of Being and possibility.

From the very general sense of Being, a being (beings) also has a general sense that allows entities, processes, relations, qualities, and even tropes as beings.

The discriminatory ability of Being within its neutrality renders Being an ultimately powerful concept.

Sources of for this power are (i) abstraction, e.g. at the level of experience as experience (below) or Being as Being (what is there) and (ii) eschewing exclusively discursive definition, e.g. ostensive definition of experience in its own terms.

Being is inclusive and non-prejudicial in contrast to the distinctions made above.

It is a vehicle for action, growth, and transformation.

Experience

Experience is and names the given that is subjective awareness or consciousness.

This given is abstract at a level that is sufficient to perfect knowledge of the fact of experience. It also follows that there is Being.

Experience is relation or interaction—a form of power—whose forms include receptive experience, contemplative experience (or pure experience; which is inner relation) and motive experience (which includes active experience).

To doubt experience is experience (and requires experience of experience), therefore there is experience and Being—at least as experience. But are there an experiencer (self), and an experienced (world with other minds)? In the universe of experience, the notion of the self is that of a delimited self. The experiencer, therefore, is a being in this universe; and its reality derives from, e.g., the experience of delimited motive control. But there is, indeed, a valid alternative interpretation in which the universe is a field of experience. This reduces to the self-world case when the field has value zero outside the self; yet the more general case may obtain and in obtaining would reveal the self-world case as an approximation. Would the more general case be a world of pure formless experience? No, for the form of experience would be part of the form of the world, and there may be further form (‘matter’) that affects experience without being seen in it. Thus self vs world obtains as approximation and interpretation (which is as-if real or substantial). Are there other minds? The ideas of agent and free will are aspects of motive and active experience and therefore obtain. There must be other minds because to deny them is to allow agent behavior without the form constitutive of agency. On the field interpretation, all minds are part of one.

In summary the self-world approximation is adequate for many immediate purposes. It is as-if real in ordinary experience. It would be real but that it will not describe all ‘our’ experience.

Experience is the core of our Being. Without it there is no significant distinction between our existence and non-existence.

The hypothetical being that has no effect on experience is effectively nonexistent.

That is, there is no thing-in-itself. Knowledge occurs via filtering of detail and construction performed by ‘mind’ or brain. Note the use of ‘construction’ rather than ‘distortion’. We could use the term ‘abstraction’ for ‘filtering’ and in that sense all knowledge is a filter-construct. In this sense the concrete is abstract as well. The main use of the term abstract in this text will be in cases where the abstraction is sufficient that although knowledge is not of the thing-in-itself, it is perfect and so it is effectively knowledge of the thing in itself. We have already seen examples of this in Being and experience and will continue to see further examples. The result as it will turn out is immensely powerful and in the end the pragmatic will be justified as being under this umbrella of perfection even though in the traditional sense it is not perfect.

There is another use of the term abstract in philosophy as in the abstract object. It contrasts to concrete objects such as bricks and books which are located in physical space. What is an abstract object? It is usually defined by a concept that refers to another concept. Examples are Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the color red, and the number ten. Corresponding concrete objects are a printed copy of Hamlet, red blood, and ten people. We think we know what concrete objects are but while there is consensus that there are abstract objects, the consensus is that it is not clear what they are or where they are located. In this document we will find that the abstract-concrete object divide is ontologically artificial and that all objects obtain in the one real world.

It may be said to have ‘effective nonexistence’ (and will later be seen to be simply nonexistent).

A Nonexistent being—one that has Nonexistence—is one for which the object component of the meaning is contingently but not necessarily null. When the metaphysics that that the universe is the realization of all logical possibility is established, it will be seen that while the concept component is not realized in some parts of the universe, it is realized some ‘where’.

The term Nonbeing will refer to currently nonmanifest beings in a part of the universe but whose existence (a) has been or will be manifest or (b) is consistent is consistent with the constitution of the part of the universe in question. It follows that the concept part of a nonbeing is Self-consistent. Thus nonbeing or Potential Being has Being.

Concept meaning *

This section is about referential concept meaning and the special case of referential linguistic meaning (though concept and linguistic meaning are broader, the restriction to referential meaning suffices for the metaphysics developed here; referential meaning may of course be used to talk about the broader case).

Another use of the term ‘meaning’ is significant meaning, e.g. as in ‘the meaning of life’. Discussion begins with a consideration of both kinds of meaning as they are weakly related in that significant meaning has some referential character.

Meaning

Meaning is crucial to understanding Being. It has to do with relations between experiencer and experienced mediated by experience.

Meaning has two weakly related aspects—significant and linguistic meaning. Significant meaning is largely holistic and integrates emotion and cognition. Linguistic meaning tends to the atomic; it refers to the holistic via forms built of the atomic; and it integrates emotion by referring to it as an object; it is not initially poetic but may employ poetry over and above the atomic literalism. This section is about referential concept and linguistic meaning.

Concept meaning

Concept meaning is constituted of a concept and its referential object(s).

In linguistic meaning, simple or compound signs are associated with simple or compound objects. Linguistic meaning, then, is constituted of sign-concept and referential object(s). ^†

Linguistic meaning

Linguistic meaning is not another kind; it falls under concept meaning.

A symbol is a sign-concept. A linguistic meaning is a symbol-object; linguistic meaning is a system of symbol-objects.

An object is a being. A concept is any mental content; thus a concept is an object.

This is distinguished from another use in which a concept is, roughly, a ‘unit of meaning or understanding’.

Concept meaning is an association of a concept with an object.

Comment. May make the following paragraph Style Central 2.

As a mental content, a concept itself is an object. Therefore concept meaning is an association of objects—the one being a mental content the other being in the world (which includes mental contents, i.e. concepts). That is, meaning is about relations in the one world and has nothing to do with other worlds of ideas or mental objects.

A sign is an object that denotes a concept-object. If the structure of the sign contributes to the denotation it is a compound sign (which includes the iconic sign); otherwise it is a simple sign. The combined sign-concept is a symbol.

If there is a perfect system of atomic signs, compound signs may perfectly depict compound objects. This development does not subscribe to perfect atomism in meaning because there seems to be no clear rational for the existence of atomic objects underlying all objects. However, some objects are atomic in the abstract. Examples are Being, beings as beings (from which structure and specificity do not survive abstraction to being as being), the universe, and the void.

A linguistic meaning is a symbol-object. Linguistic meaning is a system of linguistic meanings.

Concept and linguistic system or structure

Where meanings are distinct, the concepts are distinct even if the signs are the same.

The meanings of terms in this document are not to be conflated with meanings in other formal or informal use; to do so would lead to misunderstanding and confusion.

It is worth repeating that definitions are bold. An ‘is’ after a defined term means ‘is defined as’.

Fundamental terms for an axiomatic system are undefined. The system of terms and axioms must be consistent. Significant application is necessary except for toy systems used to prove or illustrate a point; and to show completeness is desirable where it obtains. In mathematics, where we want certainty, axiomatic systems are essential as promoting investigating certainty and demonstrating it where possible. In science, the terms and axioms typically correspond to elements and laws, respectively; and the application is typically hypothetical. In metaphysics at a sufficiently abstract level, the terms and axioms typically correspond to fundamental named givens and necessary relations; and the typical case the application is real. Of course, metaphysics and science may merge; then, the real and the hypothetical must be distinguishable and distinguished, else the application is hypothetical. Axiomatic treatment of metaphysics helps enable analysis of certainty. It does not rule out creativity, which works in deriving conclusions, and in coming up with new systems.

Significant meaning

Experience is the Place of Being; it is especially the place of our being—of being human.

Significant meaning is that which answers to existential concerns.

The place of meaning

Experience is the place of meaning—significant and linguistic.

The universe

Whole, part, and null part

A Whole is an entire object; a Proper part is some but not all.

The null part of an object is no part at all.

All null parts are identical, regardless of the object.

Here, the term part means the whole, proper parts, and the null part.

The concept of the universe

The Universe is all Being.

There is exactly one universe.

There is no manifest being outside the universe.

If an object exists, either as abstract or concrete, it is in the universe. Logics and Logic are in the universe.

Mathematics in the universe (the mathematics itself either as intuition or axiomatic system and any of their objects). Language is in the universe—the abstract concept of language and the concrete languages and any of their objects.

The void

The void is the null part of the universe—or of any object; it is the absence of manifest Being.

The void may be regarded as part of the universe; and as outside the universe.

Existence of the void has not yet been shown.

Beings

The following amplifies the earlier definition of a being or beings.

In elaboration of its meaning, A being is a part of the universe—i.e. the universe, a proper part of the universe, and the void are all beings.

Being, beings, experiences, concepts, meanings, the universe and its parts are beings.

Whether nonbeings and the void are beings will be resolved later.

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is knowledge of the real.

In this definition it has been said to be impossible. However, via the abstract, e.g. as for experience, metaphysics has already begun—and this definition has named it. Thus, there is metaphysical knowledge.

Metaphysics so far may appear trivial but it is a shell for the powerful metaphysics now about to be developed. Even so far, that we can talk of Being, experience, power, beings, the universe, and the void, suggests power. The concepts just named, together with the void, possibility, and Logic may be seen as ‘categories’.

These concepts found a perfect metaphysics to be developed in just the way that Immanuel Kant thought his system of categories founded a metaphysics built around the geometry and mechanics of his time.

The discussion in Being and experience shows metaphysics possible, if trivial. Development into a powerful metaphysics now begins.

Demonstration of existence of the void

If the universe enters a void state, the state exists.

This same state or being exists together with or alongside every being.

Therefore the void exists.

All ‘voids’ and null parts are identical. There is effectively one and only one void.

The void is container for nonexistent Being. In this sense the neutrality of Being extends even to nonexistence.

The void and nonbeings are beings.

Doubt

Doubt and resolution have been pivotal to developments so far. This brief account of doubt explicitly considers primarily an essential doubt.

The essential doubt in this document concerns the existence of the void.

However, (1) the given proof is straightforward and involves no ontological sleight of hand and (2) existence of the void is not inconsistent in experiential, scientific, and logical terms. Further, there are alternative proofs and heuristics. One heuristic is that the existence and non-existence of the void are equivalent.

Therefore:

A valid alternative to doubt is to regard existence of the void (and its subsequent consequences) as an existential hypothesis (EH shall abbreviate ‘the existential hypothesis’)

An existential heuristic begins with the assumption or axiom that our existence has a foundation. A demonstration then follows. (1) The foundation must be necessary, for the contingent is not a true or ultimate foundation. (2) The foundation cannot be in another manifest datum, no matter how primitive or simple, and so must be in the non-manifest, i.e. the void, must therefore exist. And now, since existence of the void entails existence, we may express this pithily though imprecisely as the foundation of Being is in Being. Precisely, however, the foundation of All Being is in any being (since all beings are equivalent to the void).

Also see the later section On certainty.

The aim to this existential hypothesis is to enhance the quality of becoming.

That is, the aim is to optimize the expected value of beings as follows: (i) It was seen that EH is consistent with all valid knowledge, (ii) There are good reasons over and above the demonstration to think that EH is true—see The fundamental principle of metaphysics. (iii) If seemingly) remote, ultimate realization (described in what follows) has great value. (iv) EH helps balance expected outcome in the immediate-and-the-ultimate.

Logical possibility

The idea of possibility is crucial to the development.

The naïve concept of possibility may be ill defined and paradox ridden. The following renders the concept of possibility consistent and potent.

Logical possibility is that which can obtain in some world—i.e., which does not violate necessary or deductive logic.

Logical possibility is the outer reach of all Being or universe—there can be no beings outside logical possibility. Logical possibility is the outer constitution of Being; it is not a limit on Being.

A specific being or kind of being is defined by a constitution; logical possibility must be at least implicit in the constitution.

Possibility for a being or kind of being is defined by the states that do not violate its constitution—which are its possible states.

Such kinds of possibility are limits or patterns over and above the logical. These are the limits of the being or kind.

An actual state is one that obtains. Actual states are possible.

Patterns, laws, and Laws

A law is a reading of a pattern of Being. The Law is the pattern; it is a restriction on the possible over and above the logical. Laws and patterns have Being.

The pattern need not be universal. however, since Logical possibility is realized, the patterns or Laws cannot be universal.

The Laws are local.

The fundamental principle of metaphysics

The void has no Laws. Therefore there are no limits to the realizations of the void.

The void realizes all logical possibility.

In particular there must be endless phases of manifest and Nonmanifest Being (“something from nothing”).

The metaphysical issue of why there is Being rather than nothing, is regarded as a fundamental and difficult problem. Indeed, unless Being is at least occasionally necessary (as is implied by the realization of all logical possibility), the problem is at least seemingly impossible. Martin Heidegger named it the fundamental question of metaphysics. The foregoing, resolves this question.

Is there a problem or issue that ought to be named the fundamental problem of metaphysics. There is indeed, for it is apparent from considerations so far:

Consider that (i) there is Being (ii) the fact of Being identifies no specific Being or kind, and (iii) all Logical possibility is realized.

Therefore, what is realized with regard to beings and kinds is a deep issue. What has Being? We may name that the fundamental question of metaphysics. The answer to the question is the content of the discussion of Part I. The Universe—A World View of this document. To elaborate, the fundamental question (problem) is What are the ranges, variety, peak, and spatiotemporal and other extents of Being?

The universe is the realization of all logical possibility. This is the fundamental principle of metaphysics or, simply, the fundamental principle, abbreviated FP.

This derivation need not have invoked the void; for the Laws pertain only to beings (but since we see only beings, we imagine their qualities to extend beyond them).

In the following, conclusions that follow trivially from FP are stated without proof.

In confirmation of an earlier observation, the (hypothetical) object that has no effect on experience (or that has no power) does not exist.

FP is the limit of all Being, experiential and experienced, particularly, so far as they exist, material being and physical law, identity, and spirit.

Comment. Has the following heuristic been repeated in this document? If so, where?

Comment. Identity will be defined in the sections on cosmology. That identity has not yet been defined is not problematic for its use here.

There is good reason, apart from its demonstration and the heuristics above, to think FP is true. A heuristic is that if the universe is as rich as possible, FP is true.

Let us also show that if there is satisfactory explanation (or reason) for our existence, FP is true. Demonstration is simple. First, a satisfactory reason should require no original state; it is therefore grounded in (equivalence to) the void. Second, it should be necessary and therefore be grounded in logic. Third, by symmetry there is no preferred state—the state of our cosmos or any other being. Therefore, Logic is both limit (by definition) and extent (from the argument) or realization.

That is, FP follows from the principle of sufficient reason (PSR)—i.e., all existing beings must have a reason, cause, or ground. Note (i) the principle is associated with select thinkers, from which the name of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz stands above the others, (ii) the principle would be a powerful but controversial metaphysical principle, (iii) there is no accepted proof for it and it is not at all universal in acceptance, (iv) as stated it places reason and cause on equal ground and this is its force—foundation for the principle and for the principle as a foundation for the real, metaphysics, and thought. I.e. the force is the powerful expectation that the universe is intelligible. Leibniz’ arguments for the principle are powerful and illuminating of reason itself but they are no more than that.

Why should we subscribe to PSR? If the empirical world is not necessary, it could have not existed and in that sense it would be an accident. Can it be an accident? In what terms would it not be an accident? Given some other being, e.g. another cosmos, our cosmos would be caused by it or would be an accident relative to it. Is there a being, then, relative to which the cosmos would not be an accident? We are almost force to consider the void. Imagine that there is no manifest being. Then there is just the void. The void has no power, for if it did it would not be ‘the void’. Imagine, however, that the universe was eternally the void. Then the void would have power. Therefore, in sequence, (1) the universe is not eternally the void, (2) there must be a being (e.g. a cosmos), (3) by symmetry there must all possible beings. I.e. we arrive again at FP. Of course we are repeating earlier arguments over. However, the repetition is in a form that shows a version of PSR—i.e. the principle and its form or meaning. The meaning is that all beings are grounded in that ‘reason’ named Logic. Thus the principle of sufficient reason is not a causal principle in the sense of substantial cause (or description thereof in argumentative terms). Rather, PSR reveals the Logical ground of Being (or vice-versa). It reveals that the universe is intelligible—in the precise sense of intelligibility given in Logic (and what that may entail). It neither affirms nor rules out other senses of intelligibility though it seems clear enough that the universe as a whole may well not be intelligible some other senses—e.g. physical law, classical causality—even though parts of the universe are intelligible in other terms.

Some consequences—building the worldview

In the void and therefore in all beings and the universe there is no universality to classical causation, mechanism, or spacetime.

These are but local and immanent; but it is necessary that there be phases or epochs with them (they may be as-if absolute in sub phases). The stability of our world and its laws is necessary, locally with regard to space and time. Such behavior may be termed normal.

Our experience illustrates classical causation but does not necessitate it universally, nor does it rule out other kinds of cause, e.g. Aristotle’s four causes—teleological, efficient, formal, and material—which are now given place and some meaning.

All beings must affect some experience. The hypothetical being that has no affect on experience does not exist.

The universe must be a mix of indeterminism and determinism.

It is seen later that the mix is essential to classical or efficient creation of the new. That is, while FP necessitates creativity, efficient creation will be seen to occur at the intersection of indeterminism and that determinism that arises, of necessity, within indeterminism.

The universe alternates between manifest and void states.

This resolves the fundamental problem of metaphysics (Heidegger)—i.e., of why there is something rather than nothing. It shows that both something and nothing are necessary.

The fundamental question of metaphysics is now, to encapsulate earlier discussion, the elaboration and understanding of kinds of Being.

That there should be manifest and experiential or conscious Being with agency is necessary.

The universe has ultimate Identity. Individuals, too, realize this Identity.

The universe and its Identity—and individual identity—cycle endlessly through dissolved (void), formative, and peak phases without limit to variety, magnitude, extent, or duration—realizing relatively isolated domains, i.e. epochs or cosmoses, limitlessly with limitless range of physical law and strong causation but interrelated weakly.

Individuals, realizations, and re-realizations are a unity within peak realizations which is revealed as the Ultimate Aim of Being.

This aim or destiny is given unavoidable. It is in our interest to render the given as efficient.

The manifest and the void interact; and their Identity-information is preserved in non classical causal potential of the void.

Perfect knowledge via abstraction

Despite human limits, our knowledge of the foregoing is perfect via abstraction; it is consistent with and requires the experience of limited individual and cosmic form.

A relational notion of Being

All objects are effectively experience-experienced or concept-object. There is no object in itself in eternal isolation. This relational notion of Being and knowledge is further confirmed below. It implies that there are no things-in-themselves to be ‘known’; further we never get out of experience because even the object is conceptual; but it is not an infinite regress situation because a small number of iterations suffice: the experience, the experienced, and the experience of their relation. Still, however, there may be objects that are perfectly rendered in the concept (i) by sufficient abstraction, (ii) by perfect cognition of the concrete which is generally seen as impossible in the correspondence sense, or (iii) by relaxing criteria of perfection to ‘good enough’ or ‘pragmatic’, perhaps for some defined purpose.

Being is relational.

There is no thing-in-itself; yet the sufficiently abstract relational thing-in-relation is known perfectly.

Which follows from the earlier conclusion that the object that has no power (or effect on experience) does not exist, Being is relational.

There is no knowledge of the thing-in-itself because there is no thing-in-itself.

Though perfect cognition of the sufficiently concrete is impossible in the correspondence sense, there is perfect knowledge by relaxing criteria of perfection to ‘good enough’ or ‘pragmatic’, perhaps for some defined purpose. Shortly, this will be seen to be perfect relative to the aim of Being if not for local purposes.

Here, the main purpose for which perfection obtains is realization of the ultimate revealed by FP. It combines the abstract and relaxed criteria stated just above.

Perfect dual metaphysics and epistemology

Our experience of concrete limits of local being and knowledge is not illusory but part of the greater revealed whole. Though limited and pragmatic in its local setting, the pragmatic is ideal in ultimate realization for the ultimate shows there is and can be no better instrument. We have revealed a metaphysics—the perfect metaphysics or just the metaphysics: abstract knowledge of an ultimate universe and personal identity joined to tradition-as-the-pragmatically-valid in all cultures. It has a perfect epistemology—a dual one with perfect correspondence in the ultimate realm; it is pragmatic in the concrete realm but this is perfect in relation to the ultimate aim. The dual is that of abstract-perfect and concrete-pragmatic. Local limits are not locally overcome but this is shown impossible and so unnecessary.

Elements of Being *

The elements are otherwise called categories. They are defined by concepts at or just below Being in inclusivity.

The perfect elements have already been considered. They are Being, experience, beings, power, the void, meaning, and logic or logical possibility.

Reason

Comment. Related sections include Meaning and system; Doubt; Logical possibility; Patterns, laws, and Laws.

Reason is means of analyzing and executing activities well. It is tacit above. It is in the world, so part of the metaphysics. To avoid static metaphysics, we regard the metaphysics and reason as one. If we seek perfect foundation, the result is despair. We begin where we are and remain in process, seeking foundation and realization at the same time. What should the elements of reason be? Argument is establishment of truth—by establishing fact and drawing inference; both facts and inference have degrees of confidence from certain to strong to weak; doubt and criticism, imagination and confidence are dual. We have seen instances of certain and necessary fact and inference; the necessary are abstract and cradle our deductive logics; the strong cradle concrete sciences which we have seen have pragmatic perfection. Among our ‘faculties’ are these kinds of experience: cognition, emotion for bonding to the world and source of (pragmatic) value, and their integration; action; and learning. Among our resources are our systems of knowledge and practice. As part of the metaphysics, reason has its perfect and pragmatic sides. It is the essential means of realization. Reason includes both material-instrumental as well as experiential-intrinsic means; but the two are not distinct. Reason is reflexive; all its elements (just described) must interact for reason to be its ‘best’; including imagination and criticism of reason itself.

Reason is means of analyzing and executing activities well; reason is in the world and so both part and object of (the) metaphysics.

Rather than to impose it by fiat, such perfection in reason as there may be will emerge from analysis.

There is an often pedantic but sometimes useful elaboration of terms relating to reason—rationality, logic, argument, rhetoric and others. The essence of these terms is here incorporated under reason. The scope of reason is further expanded to include ‘heart’, ‘mind’, ‘action’, ‘the human element’—but all within a shell of rigor.

Some elements of reason are

2. Use of all faculties—cognition, emotion for bonding to the world and source of (pragmatic) value, and their integration; action; and learning.

3. Using resources that include the perfect metaphysics which implicitly includes systems of knowledge and practice.

4. Including material-instrumental and experiential-intrinsic means (the two overlap).

5. Argument—establishing facts and drawing inferences in degrees of confidence from weak to strong to certain to necessary.

Detailed discussion of argument is omitted from some portable editions.

The idea of argument is developed in the next paragraph.

Establishing facts with certainty establishes truth. Certain or valid inference is deductive and truth preserving; its realm is where conclusions are implicit in the premises, especially logic and mathematics; if the inference is correct it is ‘valid’ and, further, if the premises are true, so is the conclusion and the argument is ‘sound’. The aim of argument as described so far is to establish truth. But we can extend the meaning of ‘argument’ provided we are careful to maintain the distinction between the certain and the probable. In strong but not certain inference the conclusion does not follow strictly but is suggested strongly by the premises and a prime instance is derivation of laws and theories of science. However, proving a scientific result from a theory may be deductive, and arriving at useful axiomatic systems may be inductive. Note that in science, we may often say that there is a realm where the pattern induced is certain; what is not entirely certain is whether and how far that realm may be extended. The realm of argument is wherever knowing and choosing are involved and this may be in the abstract and concrete sciences but also in parts of other disciplines including technology, exploration, humanities, art, and religion.

Do dreams have a place in reason? The following preliminary items are pertinent: (1) Dreams may be creations and not mere happenings, (2) As such they may contribute at least to the imaginative side of reason, (3) Even if a symbolic theory of dream meaning is rejected, other symbolic theories may be possible, (4) The ‘meaning’ of dreams is not given but may be developed by reflection and perhaps also in evolution (note that it is the modern west that we have flimsy theories of dreams as we are flimsy about ideas generally but in ‘primal’ cultures dreams are apparently not consigned to second class status relative to the sensible world and have been used with powerful projective meaning, (5) The production in dreams is sometimes as powerful as real life, e.g. in experiencing profound depths of music, having a revelation of a deep and possible future (which may not have occurred in waking), (6) Item 5 may be the result of turning off of certain parts of the brain during sleep, e.g. part of the prefrontal cortex, (6) Item 5 suggests that there may be physical and psychological ways to induce depth in dreams and similar depth while awake, (7) We may be able to cultivate dream and wake states as in item 6 (this overlaps meditation), (8) We may be able not only to interpret dream meaning, but project and cultivate both the meaning of dreams and the meaning of the meaning, (9) These thoughts may be applied to meditation (with interpretation and translation), (10) It is an interesting question whether rationality in dreams may be cultivated, (11) Even if dreams (and meditation and hallucination) are not intrinsic paths to other worlds, we can use them as such (an aspect of this is that we are not mere consumers of culture—and that the consumer attitude to culture and authority is generally questionable as retarding truth even though it has real practical advantages including the advantage of practical truth.

Reason is means of realization.

On certainty *

Existence of the void obtains or it does not. We doubt its certainty but not that it can be certain. Perhaps the existence of the universe is necessary—could it be otherwise? If it could be otherwise why is it not? It would seem that the existence of the universe is and cannot be contingent. Therefore it ought to be necessary. But if it is necessary, then by symmetry ever logically possibility ought to obtain. And that includes the void. And then, given all that, the pragmatic metaphysics has a necessity—certainty for the abstract part, adequacy and perfection for the role of the concrete part.

Granted existence of the void, the conclusions have certainty. What would be still in doubt is the nature of logic, and whether the range of Being may thereby be captured.

Given ‘experience’, however, there is a range of certain facts. These include Being itself, the external or real world (the difference is that the real world includes experience), other minds, and free will.

Cosmology

Introduction

Cosmology is study of the variety and extension of Being. Extension is (experience of) sameness and difference and their absence. Identity, space, and time is a special case.

Cosmology is not limited to physical cosmology whether of the big bang or speculative multiverse or other. From FP (the abstract metaphysics), the universe limitlessly exceeds the empirically known detail of our cosmos and its extrapolation with theoretical physics.

Cosmology is part of and continuous with metaphysics. So far as they are distinct, metaphysics emphasizes foundation, perfect and abstract knowledge; cosmology emphasizes breadth, and pragmatic knowledge of the concrete. The two are of course synthesized in the perfect metaphysics.

Cosmology includes description; history and cosmography (similar to geography); process, dynamics, evolution; and paradigms of the same (e.g. mechanism vs teleology, classical cause vs necessity and other modes, determinism vs indeterminism and their synthesis).

Interest in cosmology is intrinsic and applied. The intrinsic includes its relations within knowledge. The applied includes exploration and ways of realization of the ultimate and lesser heights.

The methods and realms of cosmology

The realms of cosmology and their principles of method are:

1. General cosmology—those conclusions that may follow from FP and the abstract metaphysics. It is creative and its critical side is Logic, i.e. consistency. Whatever is consistent has Being; no mechanism of formation other than emerging is necessary.

2. Cosmology of formation—a mesh of general cosmology (FP) and paradigms of lesser generality and abstraction (i) particularly the experienced (world) and experience (awareness), (ii) sameness and difference, (iii) the experiencer (self, identity) and space-time, (iii) physical paradigms for the processes of identity and world, and (iv) the evolutionary or adaptive systems paradigm for the origin of a formed world and the probabilities of such formation (the mechanism of creativity is described below).

3. Physical cosmology—mutual implications of general cosmology, cosmology of formation, and modern physical cosmology for our cosmos; and extensions to other cosmological systems.

Methods of cosmology: summary

Comment. Methods or principles

Comment. General: meta / reason

Comment. Specific: science and paradigm

Comment. Heuristic vs formal

1. The abstract metaphysics with Logic.

2. The pragmatic metaphysics—relevant valid tradition, especially the sciences and their paradigms above. The mesh of the abstract and the pragmatic in the perfect metaphysics.

3. Note—the perfect metaphysics is a mesh of the abstract and the pragmatic.

4. Reason and heuristics, including imagination or creative concept formation.

Identity, spacetime, and cause

The universe is a field of experience—of Being, sentience and agency. Its parts are in universal interaction.

The field of experience reveals an experiencer and experienced; experience and experiencer are among the experienced. The experiencer is the self; experience the place of mind, and the experienced is the world. Self, mind, and world may be regarded as labels.

Identity is sense of sameness of self (personal identity) or object (object identity). Difference with sameness constitutes change marked by time; and difference without sameness spatial extension.

When spatial relation mediates change in identity over time, the relation is interactive or causal. Though space, time, and identity can be made objective—sometimes and to some extent—in the sense of being measurable, space and time are interwoven in identity as spacetime.

Sameness and difference, space and time, where they obtain, are immanent in Being—the universe; the universe is not ‘in’ sameness and difference or space and time.

Given any non sentient ‘realization’ there is a higher sentient realization; it is in sentience that there is conscious choice and degrees of freedom of will; it is in sentience that there may be mastery over destiny.

Given the limitless transactions of the void with all beings; how is it that our cosmos is stable? It is because it is possible and that is one perfect explanation; another, more efficient, explanation will be given in the next section on the cosmology of formation. That all possibilities are realized universally allows but does not require a given cosmos to be limitless in some regards.

Perfect metaphysics goes far beyond our main secular and transsecular paradigms; it shows that what all beings will achieve is far higher than traditionally thought.

In showing us this necessity, it gives us new aim, new direction, new ideals, and new hope.

General cosmology

Comment. Internet: philosophical cosmology; Kant’s cosmology and special metaphysics

Comment. Large scale picture

From the perfect metaphysics—the universe is realization of all possibility. All logically possible cosmologies are realized. These are not just material but also systems with identity.

Comment. The following repeats the section Metaphysics > Some consequences—building the worldview.

In the void and therefore in all beings and the universe there is no universality to classical causation, mechanism, or spacetime.

All beings must affect some experience. The hypothetical being that has no affect on experience does not exist.

The universe must be a mix of indeterminism and determinism.

The universe alternates between manifest and void states.

This resolves the fundamental problem of metaphysics (Heidegger)—i.e., of why there is something rather than nothing. It shows that both something and nothing are necessary.

The fundamental question of metaphysics is now, to encapsulate earlier discussion, the elaboration and understanding of kinds of Being.

That there should be manifest and experiential or conscious Being with agency is necessary.

The universe has ultimate Identity. Individuals, too, realize this Identity.

Individuals, realizations, and re-realizations are a unity within peak realizations which is revealed as the Ultimate Aim of Being.

This aim or destiny is given unavoidable. It is in our interest to render the given as efficient.

The manifest and the void interact; and their Identity-information is preserved in non classical causal potential of the void.

Thus the Vedantic tat tvam asi or ‘you are that’—i.e., the essence of the individual is the essence of all Being at its highest.

Memory of the individual across death is the result of re-realization of form and participation in Being at its highest.

Reason is means of conceptual and real exploration—experiential and material.

General cosmology does not show efficient means of realization. Such means begin with cosmology of formation.

Cosmology of form and formation

Source. paradigms of formation and dynamics.html.

From the fundamental principle, given the void or any state, all possible states emerge; and such emergence has one or multiple steps. While stable systems are one necessary outcome, this gives us no insight into the mechanism of formation or its likelihood.

~~Incremental mechanistic traverse through near symmetric, near stable states to greater complexity is more likely than single step origins.~~

~~Where there is ‘blind’ formation, it gives rise to sentient, aware, intelligent formation.~~

Human civilization is the web of human culture across time and continents. Universal civilization, a given, is the matrix of civilizations across the universe; it is one vehicle of realization of the ultimate.

The ideal ultimate Being is result, designer, and builder of the universe. All beings merge with the ideal ultimate; are already merged even if manifestation and awareness are minimal; thus all Being is interwoven, even in absence of concrete mechanism and cause. This ultimate Being or “Beings” may be called ‘God’, ‘Aeternitas’ (of Thomas Aquinas), or Perfect Buddha.

We already participate in the ideal. There are instruments of realization of that participation. Reason is the general instrument. Civilization is both vehicle and instrument. Further instruments are taken up below and in Part II. The Way.

Comment. Stable and unstable

We now enquire into efficient formation. Evolution—variation and selection—provides a pragmatic paradigm.

Random variation shows no preference for adaptation and is not creative; selection is selection for near stable form and is determinist so also not creative; but the join of the two non-creative processes is creative. From the void, the first selections are self-selection; given existing form, there is also environmental selection.

The paradigm from evolutionary biology applies, in broad terms, to cosmological and physical law formation; as well as to human creativity.

The cloud of non-form and its continuum is in transaction with form; and any discreteness and finiteness required for form. This is the paradigm of efficient formation. Note that for essential novelty, indeterminism is necessary because novelty is not contained in what came before. The question of efficiency, therefore, concerns, not the paradigm so far, but whether it must be incremental or saltational (large steps); heuristically, until shown otherwise, it is incremental (however there will be saltations on the scale of the limitless universe even if they are infrequent).

The most stable cosmologies and the most frequent are the ones formed by a variation and selection or adaptive systems path.

Incremental mechanistic traverse through near symmetric, near stable states to greater complexity is more likely than single step origins.

Where there is ‘blind’ formation, it gives rise to sentient, aware, intelligent formation.

Artificial cosmologies

The Abrahamic Cosmologies, cleaned to eliminate contradiction, obtain but their artificial and in-organic conception seems to render them devoid of universal and significant (literal) meaning. The most likely ultimate cosmologies are those in which ‘Being itself’, is the adaptive cosmological process; it finds its way; it is not created or specified in fragile yet dogmatic terms. We are part of that.

Aspects of abstract and concrete sciences

The main abstract science is metaphysics. Its vehicle is referential meaning—concept and object, especially linguistic referential meaning—sign (simple and compound)-concept and object. Its instruments include grammars, logics, and mathematics.

The difference between the abstract and the concrete is anthropocentric. From a universal perspective, the abstract emphasizes the concept and the general, the concrete emphases the percept and the particular.

The concrete sciences (physical, life, of mind, and social) with technology are instrumental means of realization; they include means of perpetuation of the individual (which may enhance efficiency and quality but not the fact of realization). Intrinsic means are implicit above and taken up in Part II. The Way.

Physical cosmology

The origin of physical form and therefore of the substance of physical sciences is in the section Cosmology of formation. Thus (a) any indeterminism in physics is residue of original indeterminism, (b) any real physics will have a formative (“creative”) side (e.g. emergent which may be determinist or determinist-indeterminist mesh), (c) the quantum vacuum is not the void but perhaps residue of emergence from the void.

Life

Source. life and its origins and evolution.html.

Conditions of life are many. Some essentials are (i) micro form is a prime determinant of macro form, (ii) variations in micro form are prime determinants of change of macro form over generations, (iii) the general mechanism is random change and self selection in an environment, (iv) while neither variation nor selection are individually creative their join is creative, (v) life realizes mind and intelligence and thus these must have been present or infused from what is present elsewhere.

Psychology and agency

Source. psychology as science-experience through agency.html.

Comment. The topics of concern are psychology and agency, and realization and its dynamics.

The kinds include

Bound experience—perception-feeling, as if of an object and or the body felt real;

Free experience—conception-emotion (note that conception has two senses in this narrative—here it is free conception but it is also general mental content), creative play of experience that includes recall or memory, imagination, language, and reason and which show abstract-pragmatic reality to the felt-real; and

Active experience with volition—which identifies action and the active individual in contrast to the rest of the world.

In outline, the dynamics of realization is reason. The dynamics ‘employs’ the kinds of experience.

Artificial intelligence and robotic cosmology

Civilization and society

Source. civilization and society.html.

This is treated in Cosmology of form and formation.

Kinds of Being and possibility

Comment. This section may be omitted from portable (brief) versions.

Is the external identical to the material? There is no basis for the identity on any definite definition of the material that retains its physical and metaphysical sense.

The analysis above yields an acronym, PNSU—psyche, nature, society, and universal-unknown—for the kinds or dimensions of Being and phases of growth.

Civilization is movement of communities of beings outward from local environments. It is used in the sense of being-together, not being-over. Human civilization is the web of human communities over time and continents. Universal civilization is the medium or matrix of civilizations across the universe. To civilize the universe is to make it explicitly aware and agentive, and to make it cohesively social. The achievement of the ideals of course may be occasional—but is then eternally occasional. Significant meaning is eternal if not always manifest in the agent.

In the present sense uncivilized does not mean primitive or lacking the economy, culture, and technology of large scale urban-industrial civilization. To be uncivilized requires that the individual or group understand the value of being together yet explicitly work against it.

Life has struggle and overcoming. Beauty and pain. Amid the tumult there is serenity, in which we may ask—what is this beauty, this pain, this experience about? Yes, it is about a sentient agent in the world; yes, it is about adaptation. But that does not touch the essence of the experience. What is it; why is it; how is it. I am the being that can ask “What am I?” And the limit of the answer has to be that I, my experience, the universe, and its Being, are necessary. What I am, what we are, what Being is—these are projects.

Logical possibility is the limit of all other kinds of possibility. From the metaphysics, universal possibility is logical possibility.

Logical-universal possibility is broader than the natural and the experiential (agent); however, from the metaphysics the natural and experiential achieve the universal: for any non sentient (‘purely material’) realization, there is an experiential-agentive (aware, designing) realization whose formed aspect is greater.

All Gods and religious cosmologies stripped of logical inconsistency are realized; however, from the paradigm of adaptive or efficient formation, they are most probably neither frequent nor stable; in the universe as a whole they are remote. Any ‘real god’ would be just a more potent being but possessed of frailties like the Greek Gods whose frailty might demand they be appeased.

From the paradigm of efficient formation, peaks of Being in which we all individuals participate are the most extensive, meaningful, and stable (from FP, it is necessary).

This ultimate Brahman or Aeternitas (derived from Vedanta and Thomas Aquinas) is our being and neither asks nor needs worship, other than being true. Pain and joy on the way to Brahman are not absolutely avoided or sought or else they become distracting objects; but they may dissolve in Brahman (because of ultimate power).

PART II. THE WAY

The document now takes up The Way.

The ideas are preliminary and abstract. The ultimate is the ideal; the way must also emphasize the concrete.

Our world

Our world—the immediate—is where we begin.

The foundation for the way is the immediate in transaction with the ultimate.

The Aim of Being

We live in the immediate and the ultimate. Living in the ultimate is becoming the ultimate. We therefore adopt this as the aim of Being.

The Aim of Being is being in the immediate and ultimate as one.

Variables of the Way

Comment. This section derives from the earlier section Kinds of Being and possibility which may be omitted from portable versions. However even if that section is omitted, the main content below may be retained in the portable versions.

1. Of psyche or mind and culture—characteristics: identity-inner, mode of being in itself and the world-intrinsic, process-transforming, necessity-essential, and ultimacy-ultimate.

2. Of nature, society, and civilization—identity-outer, mode of being in itself and the world--instrumental, process-sustaining, necessity-contingent, and ultimacy-immediate.

3. Of the universal and unknown—the join of the characterizations and beyond—the realm of the concrete to abstract metaphysics.

Means

Reason

Reason is the general means.

Ways

The ways are the ways of sustaining and transformation of the religions, spiritual practices, and therapeutic techniques.

Our adaptation is (i) non-dogmatic, (ii) experiential, learning, and eclectic according to reason, and (iii) not exclusively transsecular; includes material transformation where efficient.

An example—Buddhism: the four truths and the eightfold path.

Impediments, resources and growth

Impediments are blocks to effective reason.

Examples of impediments or blocks are resentment, attachment and desire, anger and aversion, and ignorance.

Efficient realization must be a balance between resolution of blocks and engagement in realization—for meaning and efficiency.

The resource is reason which includes ways, catalysts, instrumental means, and programming.

Catalysts

The catalysts are similar to the ways but more focused and emphasize the cathartic.

Examples—Meditation: (1) emptying, (2) exploration of inner realms, (3) contemplation of the ultimate and understanding death as catalyst, (4) in action. Also see the templates.

Instrumental means

Physical exploration—aims: Civilizing the universe; universe as identity.

The means include metaphysics and physics of eternity.

Theory and technology of minds in machines or machines as minds—(1) the essential conditions for embodied mind, (2) theory, (3) evolution, (4) self-design.

The environment

The individual

The individual is the ‘locus’ of realization.

Place

Where we live, place and home may be conducive or counter-conducive to realization.

The conducive is important. However, it is also important to spend time in the world at large.

Sangha—community in The Way

Sangha and building sangha—community of shared aspiration, ways, and action.

Teachers and exemplars

Is leadership needed? Yes but as focal point, example or inspiration, and organizer.

Place, community, and leadership. Is leadership essential? Yes as inspiration, channel, and focus; but authority is institution for its own sake rather than realization.

The open world

For the open world, see the world at large above, in the section Place.

The path

The path is presented as two templates that constitute a program that is adaptable to individuals and situations—e.g. at home and in the world.

Everyday template

A brief adaptable everyday template for home and world.

Comment. See everyday process template for details.

1. Rise before the sun. Dedicate to the way. Affirm the aim.

2. Review and meditate on realization, priorities, and means.

3. Realization. Work; relationships; ideas; network; shared action; days for engagement, days for renewal.

4. Tasks. Daily, long term.

6. Exercise (aerobic: in nature; and photography)–explore.

7. Evening. Rest, renewal, realization, and community. Tasks, preparation and dedication of the next day and the future. Sleep early. Dreams as Being, vision, and inspiration.

Universal template

A brief adaptable universal template.

Comment. See universal process template for details.

Template format: ACTION – dimension – detail (hyperlinks are italicized).

Template (in printed versions see the resources section for links):

1. BEING – pure Being, community – everyday process, vision retreat.

2. IDEAS – relation, knowing – reason; art.

3. BECOMING – nature, psyche – nature as ground: beyul.

4. BECOMING – civilization and society – shared immersion, populating the universe, politics and cultural economics.

5. BECOMING – artifact – artifactual being as realization and adjunct.

6. BECOMING – universal, unknown – catalytic transformation, ways, aimed at the universal; includes elements of items 1 – 5.

APPENDIX *

General resources ^†

Comment. This section provides detail that is complementary to the sections Origins of the work and Historical origins and resources of the Prologues.

Documents

the way-template.html (this version)

portable version (this version)

main influences.html

system of human knowledge.html—systems of knowledge and practice

conceptual outline-essential.html—a conceptual outline for the way of being

paradigms of formation and dynamics.html—to be developed from existing documents

life and its origins and evolution.html—to be developed from existing documents

psychology as science-experience through agency.html—to be developed from existing documents

civilization and society.html—to be developed from existing documents

everyday process template

universal process template

beyul

shared immersion

politics and cultural economics

artifactual being

catalytic transformation

ways

canonical dilemmas.html

Document resources

The document resources include:

The preface for conventions and suggestions on reading the text.

The prologue for context and origins.

The section on reason.

Stories *

Comment. When the stories are written on the road, they will be placed in the Part II. The Way.

Stories are narratives that emphasize heart and mind—to bring the way to life and give it direct appeal amid everyday life.

Canonical dilemmas *

Comment. The canonical dilemmas provide a powerful approach to analysis and building up a true and reliable picture of the real.

Comment. May combine with canonical dilemmas.html.

The dilemmas present alternative interpretations of the real. Attempting to resolve the dilemmas is a powerful approach to foundations—and is essentially methodological skepticism, enhanced by (i) a systematic outline of the world and knowledge and (ii) what is learned about method generally by considering the dilemmas together.

Introduction

In seeking secure knowledge, doubt—acknowledging that security is not guaranteed—is essential. Both knowledge itself and knowledge of security can be doubted, so doubt helps illuminate both. Doubt is discriminatory, illuminating where security is perfect and where good but imperfect. Thus doubt is more discriminating than philosophical skepticism as the position that no knowledge is certain or that no knowledge is possible. That is, doubt is constructive and critical. That is, criticism is constructive; and this is argued further, below, in Dilemmas of knowledge or epistemology.

Let us begin the search for secure knowledge by considering experience—the term used here for consciousness, subjective awareness, or phenomenal awareness. What is it? Its essential characteristic is the subjective feeling in being aware. Is there experience? To doubt experience is experience—the medium of doubt is experience—therefore there is experience. Since our definition was really provision of synonyms, we have provided and ostensive definition; i.e. fundamentally, ‘experience’ names a given. The argument here is a tidied rendering of Descartes’ “cogito ergo sum”.

Given that there is experience, there is Being or existence for there is experience. There is also a world—for the world is just the entirety of whatever exists.

Since we can doubt that there is anything, if we want security, we should doubt it. However, doubting leads, in this case to certain knowledge. Perhaps there are other doubts or dilemmas that are also illuminating.

A skeptical attitude toward our standard ways of seeing the world is conducive to seeing the truth of the matter. The certain truth of the matter as far as we can tell may, of course, be entirely negative in a non committal sense (for to be certainly committed to the negative may itself not survive criticism).

However, some dilemmas or skeptical positions do have resolution. Further, when we see a collection of dilemmas together, we may find systematic errors in our skepticism and this may enhance resolution. In some cases we may find that seeming oppositions are merely different interpretations. Skepticism about reason improves reason. Skepticism about skepticism improves our understanding of its role and roles for imagination in critical thought.

Above all, where our common or even standard view of the world may be piecemeal and laced with doubt, viewing a range of skeptical positions and working with them simultaneously may result in a gestalt of reason and system (or paradigm).

That is, systematic skepticism may be a way to see the world as it is. Naturally, we must be skeptical about knowledge too but also skeptical about criticism of the possibility of knowledge. It ought not to be necessary to make this elaboration for knowledge is a real part of the world.

Doubt does not eliminate all doubt; but it helps make it clear what is certainly true and why, what remains uncertain, to what degree, and why; and the division between the certain and the uncertain; and the significance of the conclusions. Regarding significance, where doubt is not eliminated, doubt may show where it is problematic and where doubt as existential doubt is good.

There is a wide range of skeptical positions or dilemmas. The dilemmas that follow are all issues that I have faced over the years. Initially they were considered in isolation. However, I noticed that considering them as a system is more empowering than the net result of their separate consideration.

The aim and design of the system that follows is to support the building of a worldview that is (a) ultimate with regard to the world as well as knowledge of the world and (b) sees the immediate and the ultimate in intimate relation.

Our concern is metaphysics and action in light of metaphysics. Why a system of canonical dilemmas should be especially empowering is further considered below in Dilemmas of knowledge or epistemology.

The dilemmas begin with a repetition of the Cartesian dilemma.

Dilemmas of ontology

1. Is there anything at all—i.e. is there Being; or are there beings; can we be sure? Can there be certainty regarding this (and other issues, as taken up below)? This is the Cartesian dilemma because the question of Being begins (at least) in the question of experience.

As seen above there is experience and there is Being.

2. Is the measure of Being something other than Being—or should it be Being itself?

But then what would be the measure of something else? A foundation in something else must be circular or endless regress.

The measure of Being can only be in Being. But how?

3. Is power or interaction, therefore, the measure of Being?

Yes, for the hypothetical Being without power cannot exist (for it does not even have meaning—in the sense that there is a definition or concept without an object). Experience is a case of power. The hypothetical Being with no effect on or in experience is effectively non-existent and we later see it to be simply non-existent.

That is, Being or beings do not exist in isolation (but it is not being said that experience or power create or cause Being or beings)

4. Beyond power, are space, time (or spacetime), and cause the most basic aspects of experience? Or are the basic aspects sameness, difference, and perhaps quality?

5. Is there more than just experience—a real or external world.

6. Is there a self associated with experience?

7. Does experience have substance? I.e. while experience has form which could be considered its own substance is there a substance or substantial substrate from which the experience arises? Must there be a substrate—or is this just perhaps the case in physical and certain metaphysical contexts?

8. Are there other minds?

9. For experience, external world, self, substance, and other minds, if existence is affirmed is a more inclusive interpretation of world as field of experience possible?

What is its significance? Does the more inclusive interpretation contradict the less inclusive or does the former contradict just strict materialism or strict physicalism? What is the significance of the more inclusive for Being—generally and in terms of the perfect metaphysics to be developed?

I name these issues canonical dilemmas because (1) we can progress toward resolution a priori to detailed experience (2) these dilemmas and others simultaneously makes their consideration simpler and can raise the power of a priori thought to a powerful level of understanding of the world not obvious in the dilemmas taken individually.

The foregoing dilemmas are ontological. The list of ontological dilemmas may be extended:

10. Does the world have a substantial nature or is the fundamental nature of the world just Being or existence?

This is a repetition of the earlier issue of the measure of Being, in the form of the suggestion that the measure has the alternatives of Being itself vs something else (e.g., substance).

Stated this way, the idea to found Being in something else, e.g. a special kind of Being, has absurdity. Something else raises the issues of what that something is, what its Being or kind may be, and what is the proof of our conclusions. To found Being in Being refers to nothing else. Of course Being is its own foundation. The question, now is whether this is mere tautology. We find it immensely powerful.

11. Should free will be defined as an unconstrained capability? Is there free will? Are free will and determinism compatible? What are the implications for physical determinism?

That is, is not the conception of free will the most important issue regarding free will—from which will flow an answer to the question of whether there is free will?

12. Does physics decide the free will issue and other aspects of mind?

It is common today, to think that physics is determining regarding mind. This issue begins a train of thought, of which one consequence is that knowledge of mind—since it is first hand knowledge—is or may be determining of aspects of physics such as determinism and whether the physical is also the mental. In reflecting on this it is important to remember that physics is almost certainly incomplete and therefore its proper role is to suggest than to determine regarding mind. What an incomplete science says has conclusions for the real; what it does not say does not have such conclusions (yet conclusions from negatives regarding physical are often taken as universal negatives). For example, paradigms suggested by physics and materialism—non teleology, universal mechanist cause—are not required by physics but only absent so far in it and therefore unnecessary to the universe and even to physics so far (it is not implied or suggested that physics has or will have teleology).

What we would we be assuming to decide that it does—is essentially that physics is complete and that it is ‘everything’ (though not necessarily that everything can be computed).

Thus our knowledge of mind (and evolution, especially the creative aspect) may determine aspects of physics.

If mind is emergent and physics is complete in itself and over Being, then mind must be physical.

We can now see an aspect of how putting all the dilemmas together can be useful. First, there are parallels between the cogito and free will arguments (but of course they are not identical) and, second, we observe that if we regard physics in too reductionist a way, there can be no mind.

Further dilemmas enhance the development of metaphysics.

Dilemmas of modal ontology

Dilemmas of ontology were about the fact and nature of Being. Here, modal ontology is about necessity. In the next dilemma the word ‘must’ signifies that the concern is with necessity.

13. Must there be Being and experience? Must there be beings and the void? Must there be the universe (see discussion of the concept of the universe under Dilemmas of concept and linguistic definition or meaning).

Is logic that which mediates the necessary aspect of the relation between experience and experienced?

Clearly, given experience there must be Being and the universe: from the fact of experience, the existence of Being and universe necessarily follow. However, do the necessities follow ex-nihilo? Should the consequence be necessary or merely probable, perhaps highly probable, or possible? And should it be ex nihilo or contingent?

Of course, there is a sense in which necessity ex-nihilo is most satisfactory. But must this be the case? That is, could it be otherwise?

If the universe must exist ex-nihilo, is it the existence of just some cosmos; or is all logical possibility necessary? From symmetry, it would seem that it must be the latter. All this also follows from existence of the void.

If the universe must exist, is the necessity temporal or logical? The latter merely says that existence is necessary but not that it is causal or temporal. If necessary, there is no need for a first cause. The logical necessity, if it exists, exists outside time and space and Being but is insubstantial and immaterial; that is, the location of its existence can be taken to be anywhere and nowhere.

If there is a principle of sufficient reason (PSR) is it causal or logical?

If the void exists or must exist it could not be otherwise (see arguments in the text). So is existence of the void necessary? The existence is argued in the text. However doubt remains and this is the fundamental dilemma of metaphysics.

14. What is logic? Is it as stated above, Is logic that which mediates the necessary aspect of the relation between experience and experienced? Is it about deduction? Or, given a system of descriptions and given fact pertaining to the universe is a logic that which is necessary regarding the system for it to be realized? And is Logic the maximal system of logics pertaining to the universe?

15. What are the essential constraints on the real? Are they defined by (1) All fact and all law, both contingent and necessary? Or (2) Only by necessary fact and law?

In #2 the constraint is limited to givens (e.g. the fact of the givenness of experience) and their logical consequences (e.g. Being, universe, and, as seen later, the void).

In #1 it includes also scientific fact and hypothetical (but tested) inference—which is reasonable in its application in our cosmos but not otherwise.

16. Does the void exist? Or is it a vacuous concept—or, as some people claim, not even a concept?

I call this dilemma modal because we do not observe the void and therefore need to prove or somehow show its existence. To regard reasoning that the void exists as sound, the reasoning or proof must be necessary and show necessity.

Can the void be conceived? If the void ‘cannot’ be conceived in pictorial or geometric terms can it be conceived in analytic terms?

Clearly, our laws of physics would not extend to the void; for they are not ‘nothing’.

Would the ‘laws’, e.g., of causality, mechanism, non-action-at-a-distance, non teleology, non-vitalism, naturalism, and so on extend to the void?

Dilemmas of knowledge or epistemology

17. Is doubt entirely critical or is it also constructive?

Should or must it be constructive? Relative to what rational criteria?

It is both; it is deeply constructive for it is critical not only of first order knowledge claims, i.e. claims about the world as world, but also second order claims, i.e. claims about knowledge.

For example the naïve holy grail of knowledge is correspondence truth—the concept corresponds to the object (with more or less precision); next we could look at coherence and pragmatic ‘theories’. But why should pragmatism be seen as less than pure? And why, especially if it should arise naturally, ought a mixed ‘theory’, say correspondence-coherence-pragmatic theory be seen as impure? Why should giving up on perfect precision, even if perfect precision could obtain, be seen as impure?

Naïve first order doubt may impose these notions of purity and impurity, second order doubt may deliver us from their excesses. The perfect and ultimate metaphysics to be developed is a prime and ultimate example of perfect dual epistemology (according to an argued value).

More generally, doubt or criticism and imagination interact—each infusing the other intuitively and enhancing the other formally.

18. Is knowledge of the object? If it is not how is it possible? Must the nature of knowledge be pure correspondence or pure coherence or pragmatism alone? If not is a dual account possible and ought we to consider such an account ‘impure’?

19. Is knowledge that is beyond the a priori essentially uncertain? Can it be synthetic? What are the realms of certainty? Is there a problem with uncertainty or is its acknowledgement empowering of our possibilities and realizations.

We will see that though Immanuel Kant’s synthetic a priori categories are in fact contingent, there is in fact a priori of immense significance.

20. What is the ultimate in realization?

21. Where does certainty obtain? Not at all? Regarding only the abstract?

We have seen and continue to find that (a) certainty obtains very generally regarding certain abstract though not non concrete concepts, e.g. Being, experience, universe. Existence of the void is on the border between certainty and doubt. That is, its existence may be regarded as and existential (meaningful, risk laden) proposition. Regarding pragmatic certainty vs uncertainty, we find that it is locally an important issue but universally the local uncertainty of the pragmatic does not render it imperfect in a value sense.

22. Do the various dilemmas that arise have only individual force or is there also force derived from the system of dilemmas?

This issue has been addressed in a previous item in the discussion of mutual implications of physics and experience in the section Dilemmas of ontology.

Dilemmas of concept and linguistic definition or meaning

Comment. Examples have already been encountered.

23. Is a word the bearer meaning? Of fixed meaning? Or is meaning something else and flexible?

Here, for metaphysics it is sufficient to consider referential meaning. Analysis of linguistic referential meaning and its necessity and sufficiency for certain purposes is given in the text. For general purposes meaning must balance fixity vs fluidity. However, for a metaphysical system definiteness is essential. Fluidity must be allowed, however, when formulating, modifying or comparing metaphysical systems.

24. Are words and concept-objects rigidly attached? Should they be? Or is the growth of meaning a search in a sign – concept – object space?

25. Should Being be conceived of as that which exists some ‘where’ in extension? Or should it be contrasted to becoming? And should it admit distinctions of higher vs lower beings; and distinctions of entity vs relation vs process and so on?

First, of course the concept should be precisely defined and consistently used. Second, it is crucial that the concept of greatest neutrality be used in the metaphysics. Here, the term will be ‘Being’. We will allow the distinctions by employing modifiers. This is discriminatory ability within abstract generality is immensely empowering.

It would negate this power if we were to now define other concepts at the level of Being (categories) narrowly or as committed rather than neutrality. With this in mind, let us now take up the concept of the universe. In defining all the fundamental concepts (categories) at the same level of neutrality, the metaphysics is open to be developed as ultimately powerful.

26. Should Being be conceived independently or in relation to experience? It is clear from the section on ontological dilemmas that the latter is efficient and necessary for realism.

27. How should the universe be conceived? Should or must the universe conceived of as (1) all that is observed, (2) all that is material or physical, (3) all Being over all extension (sameness, difference, and their absence), or (4) all Being and all non-Being over all extension?

Of course there is a certain freedom of definition. The concepts #1 and #2 empower certain real and pragmatic considerations. However, #3 or perhaps #4 is immensely empowering of and necessary to any complete metaphysics (and to not have it leads not only to incompleteness but also to confusion). Therefore, regardless of the term used, the concept #3 is useful. In this work ‘universe’ refers to #3 (and sometimes #4); I may use the capitalized version ‘Universe’ for this purpose. I will use the terms empirical universe, physical universe, epoch, cosmos, etc. for the lesser concepts.

The broad definition #4 allows the other considerations as special cases as and if they arise; however the narrower definitions do not allow #4 later. This and the consequent power of #4 are reason enough to select it. If we want the broadest and most powerful metaphysics it is necessary to select #4 in concert with the special conceptions where they apply to phases of the universe.

Now let us consider the void.

28. Should the void be defined in terms of physics? For example, it could be defined with reference to Newtonian physics, as empty absolute space and time? Or from General Relativity as the absence of space-time-matter? Or as the quantum vacuum? Or perhaps the void could be defined metaphysically as the absence of the concrete; in this case the void might contain abstract concepts. Or as a final alternative the void could be defined as the absence of Being altogether so that neither physical nor ideal nor formal are found in the void? In this case the void would not contain the abstracta such as logic, and potential Being (which would therefore reside in the real world).

Should we define possibility in terms of the concrete or physical? Or maximally as whatever may obtain in any world—i.e. according to logic-as-minimal-constraint-for-realism?

In line with discussion of Being, the universe, and the void, we define possibility in terms of logic. This of course allows consideration of less permissive and narrower possibility, e.g. physical law.

In summary we have considered efficient and necessary meanings for experience, Being (beings), the universe, the void, and possibility (logic, physical law).

Dilemmas of significance and value; existential dilemmas

29. Is our Being accidental? Are we alone? Essentially?

30. What is the source of significance and value? Is it found or created? Where does it lie?

31. Is experience the core of our Being? of all Being? Is it the place of both significant and concept meaning? Note here the merging of epistemology and value.

32. Is the aim of (human) being to live well in this world? To also aim at the ultimate? To live in this world, the immediate, and the ultimate?

Dilemmas of cosmology

33. Is the universe constrained only by logical possibility—and what is logical possibility? Or are their further constraints? And would the constraint only to logical possibility violate common experience and science? Can we argue to this single constraint heuristically? ‘Logically’? Or is such proof absolutely impossible (some would claim so, e.g. those who argue something from nothing cannot be proved)? Would proof resolve the dilemma of ‘something vs nothing’?

Here is a cosmological approach to universe as logical possibility. Enquire of the next physical theories—the ones after quantum field theory, general relativity, and the big bang cosmology. There are clues and directions of thought—e.g., quantum loop gravity, string theory, and adaptive systems multiverse theories—but no definitive theory. Suppose that new observations suggest hypotheses and a new theory is developed. What next? There is no guarantee that the next theory will be final (and of course universe as logical possibility would show that there will be no final physics). What is the limit to the sequence of theories? We do not know? Well, we do know even if we do not see—due perhaps to paradigmatic blindness: the limit is necessary logic or the logic of necessary relations (i.e. the logical structure of deduction).

But now consider that a current (2018) roadblock is absence of disconfirming observations for our present theories. The situation is likely to become more severe. It is conceivable if not necessary that there may be empirical limits to observation for observers whose constitution is of our cosmos. Is there a way out? Recall that the early Greek philosophers and, later, enlightenment and post-enlightenment philosophers, were able to deduce a priori metaphysical possibility by reason alone. What is a priori metaphysical possibility? Consider Democritus’ argument for atomism. It begins by assuming never ending divisibility. It concludes that then there is no finite smallest ‘object’ (a seeming paradox). It also finds that when the infinite division is complete, if there is no smallest object, there is no way to reconstitute the world. Now the reasoning is erroneous. Only if we expect objects all the way, need we be concerned that there is no smallest object. And, only if we are thinking (a) the world is a continuum like that of the real number system but that the putting together is a sequence like that of the integers (or even algebraic numbers) should there be a problem of reconstitution. For (1) if there is the possibility of division of a continuum down to the individual reals it cannot be a sequence numbered by the integers and (2) whatever that process is, there is a reverse process that is the reconstitution (if we regard the reverse as a numbered sequence, indeterminacies may arise but the reverse need not be a mere numbered sequence but more importantly it is not a process at all: the ‘cutting’ is conceptual rather than sequential and the smallest elements are the reals which already constitute the continuum). That is, Democritus conclusion results only if one makes certain metaphysical assumptions (in Democritus’ case they are tacit). Democritus’ metaphysical assumptions are not at all necessary or even useful (but in different situations it may be reasonable to supplement the bareness of necessity by metaphysical conditions).

This sheds light on what to do if and when the limits of being in this cosmos are limits on observation. The answer is that we turn to the a priori, the necessary, and the rational metaphysical. This may well be at least part of the future of physics. It also shows concretely why logic is the limit of the real—and a limit of all scientific theory.

34. If we can prove that the universe is the realization of the logically possible, does it follow that the hypothetical being that has no effect on experience does not exist? And would experience, then, rather than some mode of experience (substance, matter, relation, process, trope…), be the final measure of what has Being?

Comment. See the discussion of distinctions not recognized by Being.

Comment. In the following it will be useful to admit universe as logical possibility for some purposes (this is proved in the text).

35. Are mind and matter substances or but two sides of Being? Are there further attributes in the sense of Spinoza? Are properties limitless in number?

36. Are space, time, and Identity immanent or external to Being? Is there a universal Identity? Are its limits also the constraints of Logic? And then would it not follow that we are part of it—in fact or potentially?

37. What are the general and efficient cosmologies of creation? Is it essentially deterministic? If ‘logic’ indicates it cannot be, how does creativity arise from the non creative processes of random variation and selection.

38. Is it true that for any realization of the universe there is a higher sentient realization? If so is that alien to us? Or are we part of that universal identity—against materialist and Abrahamic paradigms? And should we therefore not incorporate a non Abrahamic but Vedantic-like notion of God to any ultimate cosmology?

39. Is the real question regarding the ultimate to accept some widespread and perhaps dogmatic version? Or is it to define (discover, create the concept of, realize) the ultimate? Is it to accept limits? Or to negotiate limits on the way to the ultimate?

And what are those concepts of the ultimate? Is it the fiction of Abrahamic religion? The non-God and Karma of Buddhism? Vedantic and Hindu monotheism vs Hindu Polytheism? Received pantheism and panentheism (and what is the meaning of those terms: i.e. pantheism as just nature worship or nature as divine).

Or is it the eternal ultimate of peaks and dissolutions always in process in which we partake? Can the ultimacy of our Being be anything other than necessary?

And limits? Given limitlessness, what should we do with the widespread thoughts “oh we are so limited and humble” and “we should not enquire into the ultimate”?

40. What is the process of formation of our cosmos? Is it efficient and probable or not so but still logical, e.g. a single step? The latter would seem to be extremely improbable relative to the efficient model. This would eliminate the pragmatic but not possible realism of an Abrahamic Cosmology or the five minute prior creation of our cosmos.

PLANNING FOR THis document

This document

1. This is now the resource document for The Way.

2. Absorb what is useful and transform it into the resource. Also use essays.html, the way-pocket manual.html, the way-template.html, and document and database design.html.

3. May merge with document and database design.html.

4. Eliminate all else.

General

See document and database design.html and priorities for the way.html.

Previous plans to be eliminated

► Goal: to complete this ASAP

► What the plan is for
This document, outline, and the portable version
The website

► Net plan for this document
Improve outline and make the way-outline.doc; make way-pocket manual.doc; write main version on the road from this template / outline

TO DO ^&

1. Issues

Resources and contact information—a page in a high level directory! Use main influences etc. Place external links here. To include a reading / study list (from study topics.html).

Canonical dilemmas—combine with canonical dilemmas.html.

2. Write

Make outline document with canonical outline – the way-outline.doc

Short—write the way-pocket manual.doc – with canonical text—a summary of each part so that a reader interested in the ideas can see their relation to the way, and a reader interested in the way can do so with the essence of the ideas.

Long—leave as plan for on the road: further work on the way-template.doc, the way-outline.doc, and the way-main.html, which remains to be made

Stories—narratives—see section Stories in the way-template.html.

Eliminate planning / this item from the document.

EPILOGUE—INTO THE WORLD *

An ultimate vision of the universe and realization has been seen and a path of realization developed.

What remains is to live and improve the vision and the path.