Categories and cosmology

I have consulted a number of sources including a range of AI agents, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Categories, and my article History of Western Philosophy, which is not original but derivative of other sources.

Introduction: Categories in history and The Way of Being

Origins—categories in TM: dimensions and categories

In developing and using TM, I found effective to recognize what I called dimensions of being—levels of abstraction and inclusivity, and aspects of the dimensions at each level.

It became apparent that the dimensions were similar to what, in metaphysics, are called categories.

So, since there is a history of reflection on categories, I decided:

1. To use the term ‘categories’ rather than ‘dimensions’,

2. To enhance the study of dimensions and received thought on categories by synthesizing the two.

However, there are differences between the dimensions and received thought on categories, particularly,

1. That whereas dimensions emphasized explicit multiple levels, received categories are said to be at a level just below that of being,

2. I sought to integrate the dimensions with patterns and paradigms, e.g., of form and behavior or dynamics at each level,

3. Whereas received categories tend to be realist or conceptual, TM, particularly the idea of the most general being as a concept-relation-object (shortened: concept-object, contracted: conject) enabled synthesis of the realist and conceptual approaches,

4. TM enabled perfect faithfulness at the highest level and pragmatic (in-process) and a synthesis of the levels with pragmatic in-process perfection.

It is effective to begin with a brief review of received thought on categories.

Aristotle

Aristotle—the idea

Start with the idea of the most general way to say things about the world—per Aristotle

1. Analysis of language—since Aristotle thinks predication is necessary for intelligibility, he asks about kinds of predicates and arrives at… quality, quantity, relation, place, time, etc

2. Logic—what kinds of terms must exist for syllogisms to work—substance, quantity, quality, relation.

3. Metaphysics—what else must exist from substance as primary (which he held)—accidents, states, activities, passivities.

Aristotle—his best known system

Assertion 1. As conceived by Aristotle, the doctrine of the categories (also part of his metaphysics): categories are the fundamental, indivisible concepts of thought: the most fundamental and universal predicates that can be affirmed of anything, not mere forms of thought or language but also predicates of reality. Further, a system of categories is, by intent, a complete and perhaps unique list of categories and would therefore embrace, in principle, all that can be said about reality and no more.

Ten questions and ten categories—

1. What? Substance (e.g., man)

2. How large, how much? Quantity (e.g., four foot, five people)

3. What are its characteristics or properties? Quality (e.g., loud, white).

4. What are its relations? Relation (e.g., double, faster)

5. Where is it? Place (e.g., here, on Earth)

6. When does it occur? Point in time (e.g., today)

7. What is its configuration? Posture (e.g., is standing)

8. What is its state or condition? State (e.g., has shoes on).

9. What it does? Action (e.g., crushes, burns)

10. What is done to it? Passion (e.g., is crushed)

Kant

Kant—the idea

Assertion 2. For Kant, bare reality is not apprehended. Rather, in an interpretation of Kant, reality-as-experienced (as conceived, where conception is understood to include perception), is reality-as-best-understood, especially where ‘as-experienced’ includes reality-as-experienced. Kant, in the interpretation, then analyses reality-as-experienced / as-best-understood, into the forms of space and time (which he thought rendered necessary by Euclidean Geometry and Newtonian Mechanics), and the forms of fact, i.e., judgment in propositional form. For the forms of judgment he appeals to Aristotle’s fact as subject-predicate or subject-judgment, and his forms of judgment to yield a system of categories as follows.

Kant—the system

JUDGMENTS	CATEGORIES
I. Quantity	I. Of Quantity
1. Universal	1. Unity
2. Particular	2. Plurality
3. Singular	3. Totality
II. Quality	II. Of Quality
4. Affirmative	4. Reality
5. Negative	5. Negation
6. Infinite	6. Limitation
III. Relation	III. Of Relation
7. Categorical	7. Inherence and Subsistence (substance and accident)
8. Hypothetical	8. Causality and Dependence (cause and effect)
9. Disjunctive	9. Community (reciprocity)
IV. Modality	IV. Of Modality
10. Problematic	10. Possibility—Impossibility
11. Assertive	11. Existence—Nonexistence
12. Apodictic	12. Necessity—Contingency

Husserl

Assertion 3. Husserl distinguished categories of meanings from categories of objects; he drew out connections between the two kinds – which can be seen as a synthesis of Aristotle’s and Kant’s approaches. He also distinguished formal categories (formalized—i.e., emptied of content—from syntactical groups of terms, with ‘objects in general’ at the highest level then a next highest level, e.g., entity, state of affairs, property, relation, number etc) from material categories according to their nature and arrived at by generalization of content (nature, culture, and consciousness).

Husserl reserves the word ‘categories’ for the formal categories (above) and calls the three highest level material classes ‘regions’.

In Husserl’s work, the formal and the material constitute two independent ‘dimensions’.

Husserl, Aristotle, and Kant – an essence for this work

Note that I say ‘an’ rather than ‘the’ essence.

In thus extending and combining Aristotelian and Kantian thinking, Husserl arrives at a tentative synthesis of the two approaches and the layers within.

This has in-principle anticipation in the development of TM, and will be explicit in what follows.

Extension by Roman Ingarden

Assertion 4. Roman Ingarden recognized a third dimension—existential categories, a complement to Husserl’s two dimensions—“those describing an entity’s mode of being”: real (spatiotemporal being), ideal (abstract), absolute (completely independent, atemporal), and purely intentional (consciousness dependent).

Modern systems

The Stanford Encyclopedia article takes up a range of modern systems, that combine various modes of difference, and one with just one category (at the top) and concludes that reasons for skepticism regarding a true categorial system (in fact or in possibility) remains.

Category differences

~~Assertion 5.~~ ‘Category differences’ are a twentieth century idea based in (i) doubting that we can have a realist and complete system of categories (ii) that confusion and error arise by conflating different categories, e.g., thinking that having mental activity implies that mind is a separate substance or thing.

~~The topic is implicit in this work and some examples are avoidance of:~~

1. ~~From as-if substance to universal substance and from form to particular substance.~~

2. ~~From concept – relation – object as a unity to mind – relation – matter as objective of being.~~

3. ~~Content and method as essentially distinct.~~

4. ~~Temporal distinction among beings (or worlds or beings-and-words) as absolute.~~

5. ~~Limits of our experience as absolute limits (and the related trivial but frequent fallacy of conflation of possibility and necessity).~~

6. ~~A tacit tendency to conflate levels of description in received systems as absolute (this needs to be worked out).~~

Summary of the history

A category is a valid form of fact(s); or an aspect of such a form in which case the inclusive form may have the relationship among the aspects either specified or implicit.

The aim of the categories is to be able to talk validly about reality or use concepts of reality validly, whether in simple facts or in systems of metaphysics as explanation / understanding / theory building.

To achieve this aim, the categories should (i) have a level of generic of reference just under being (other levels are often explicitly or tacitly present) (ii) be a complete system (with regard to being).

Realism in categories is exemplified by Aristotle’s notion of categories being about the world.

Conceptualism (‘idealism’) is exemplified by Kant’s system in which the categories correspond to aspects of judgment (of fact).

Husserl relates the realist and idealist sides of categories; he divides the categories into categories of form (syntactical) and categories of content (material). Ingarden extends Husserl’s multidimensional system by adding a third dimension—existential categories.

Sources for the categories are (i) in Aristotle, language, logic, and metaphysics (ii) in Kant, building upon the forms of perception, the forms of judgment yield categories (iii) in Husserl a relation between the ideal (meaning) and real (object) sides; and a distinction between formal and material sides, the material being of the world and the formal being the form of the material.

The concept of categories in this work

The concept

~~Definition 1.~~ A ~~category~~ ~~is a valid form of fact—or aspect of such a form—at some level of abstraction or generality (and facts are neither concepts nor objects but concept-objects).~~

~~Definition 2.~~ A ~~categorial system~~ is (i) a complete system of categories at a given level of abstraction (it is not possible for limited beings to develop complete systems at all levels), enhanced by patterns (limited data sets for the level that capture the whole) and constitute understanding and enable projection (e.g., across space and time) or (ii) a complete system of categories at all levels.

~~Definition 3.~~ A ~~paradigm~~ or ~~dynamic~~ (as the term is used in this work) is system of understanding for a class of beings (up to all being), which includes methods of argument and means of transformation such as technology—particularly technology of exploration, being, and intelligence—and unition or yoga (defined below).

~~Definition 4.~~ A ~~categorial metaphysics~~ is a synthesis of categorial systems at a comprehensive range of levels that constitute effective understanding of the universe and enable effective action and negotiation in and of it. It therefore includes paradigms and dynamics. Particularly, the lower levels include the sciences.

Characterization of categories in this work

In addition to characterizations in The concept, above—

1. Whereas received categories are putatively at a level just below being, here they are at multiple levels.

a. In addition to the level of being there is a more inclusive level of experiential being and nonbeing; this makes for synthesis of the realist and conceptual approaches at the highest level of abstraction but not at the lower levels (but as noted below, TM makes for the synthesis at other levels).

b. There are lower levels of (i) form and formation (ii) worlds or cosmoses, particularly, our world.

c. The levels are mutually informing. Thus while logic is the pattern at the higher levels, generally the patterns instantiate logics (if tacitly). Lower level patterns, e.g., incremental evolution, inform the higher levels, particularly the level of form and formation. Further the higher level, via fp, require occurrence of lower level dynamics / paradigms, they also require other, e.g., transient, behavior, which, since it does not support higher consciousness or extended duration, is of lesser significance.

2. From TM, language, logic, and metaphysics are synthesized (and not, e.g., as in Aristotle, rather distinct).

3. I sought to integrate the dimensions with patterns and paradigms, e.g., of form and behavior or dynamics at each level,

4. Whereas received categories tend to be realist or conceptual, TM, particularly the idea of the most general being as a concept-relation-object (shortened: concept-object, contracted: conject) enabled synthesis of the realist and conceptual approaches,

a. But, after all, fact as concept-object is not a synthesis for concept-object is ‘the real thing’; rather, distinction between concept and object is the result of taking some concepts as objects and others as concepts while (implicitly) ignoring the object altogether.

b. Agency embraces all levels; in embracing, the universe is seen to have direction; however to say that is not to say that the universe is a directed ‘arrow’; rather the universe is both directed and directionless, which, given that there is no substance, is neither a contradiction nor puzzling.

5. There is a join of ethics and precision which, by TM, are perfect and separable at the highest level of being, while the join has in-process pragmatic perfection for beings while limited and living in a limited world.

The aim of the categories in this work

The aim of the categories is to build a categorial metaphysics, which is system / theory building at all levels of being; the approach is, particularly, a dual approach to metaphysics and categories rather than one preceding the other.

Construction of the categories

We build from the top (being) and the bottom (difference); but we begin with relatively immediate experience and language (which entails logic, e.g., as a grammar of compound fact).

Further extension

Further extension is discussed below.

Categories in history of metaphysics vs this work

Aspect	Categories in history of metaphysics	The categorial system (dimensions) in this work
What categories are	A common conception is that categories are highest level genera of existence (being) or understanding, just under the level of being itself. In fact, levels of genera are at least implicitly admitted in some systems. One of the aims of categories is to provide at the highest level (just below being) of the forms of what can be said about beings. Thus a demand that is often made that the systems be complete and occasionally that, if they are to be categories of the real, they should perfectly capture the real. Some systems aim at completeness and articulation.	The same, extended up and down to multiple levels, justified and integrated from TM. The level of being itself may be included for, as we have seen, it too has articulation as the concept-object. Being and understanding are integrated via beings as concept-objects, integrated with experience (and agency and action) and derived from analysis, thereof. Interaction among the levels renders improved effectiveness and articulation individually and of the system. The levels are associated with laws, dynamics, or patterns, which explicitly enables explanation and prediction.
Comment	The significance of categories in the received narrower sense – the level just under being itself – is not minimized, for the narrower categories are but an aspect of metaphysical study.	In integrating the levels (i) value, epistemology, and dynamics are incorporated, (ii) the power of metaphysics is enhanced, and (iii) philosophy and knowledge are given unification.
Open vs closed (Openness is in the sense that the categories are definite and known)	Open for Aristotle because his metaphysics is open. Closed for Kant because he chooses a given system of kinds of judgment (Aristotle’s) as the basis of the categories. Knowledge as open in what it is vs closed parallels the case for categories—it is open for Aristotle but closed for Kant (Kant was in error, in part because he held geometry and dynamics to have been determined by Euclid and Newton, respectively).	At the level of being, closed in principle, but open as long as we are limited beings; open at the level of our world, insofar as the world is not determinate and the meaning of knowledge and our capacity for it is limited. Knowledge as open vs closed parallels the above—knowledge and its disciplines are both closed and open… closed in that knowledge is part of the world but open in that explicit self-reference of world / knowledge is limited for limited beings. This is relevant not just to knowledge but also its inherent or ‘organic’ and symbolic expression, e.g., language. Open in that knowledge expressed in discrete symbolic terms may point to but fail to capture the entirety of (i) inherent knowledge (innate and acquired) (ii) the universe. Note that this incompleteness points to possible to probable needs for devolution and re-evolution (destruction and creation) of organism, knowledge, and worlds.
Language and logic an aspect	No, insofar as categories are at least in part derivative from language and logic. But, then, there is of course, reflection back onto language, logic (and metaphysics) in philosophy, east and west. Further, in formulating some systems, e.g., as in Aristotle, there is interaction between metaphysics and the categories.	Yes, as seen in earlier development. Logic is given new interpretations including one of logic as a grammar of compound assertions or facts. Which is an aspect of fusion of language, logic, and metaphysics.
Dynamic, law, or paradigm part of systems	No, for dynamic may follow or be in addition to the categories.	Yes, as noted above. What are different layers in received metaphysics are integrated here.
Level of abstraction	Putatively and generally, a level just under being itself that is pure, i.e., free of distortion. Being itself is typically not seen as a kind and therefore not a categorial level. In fact, many categorial systems are mixed.	Multiple levels from pure to pragmatic. Specifically, (i) a level above being – relational or experiential being and nonbeing (perhaps with being as a sub-level) (ii) an intermediate level of form and formation (e.g., of worlds) and (iii) worlds, especially our world (iv) sub-levels may be entertained. The higher is a realm of pure grammar and logic (but via IM / TM, also realist); the lower are expressions of the higher, and so satisfy any logic or grammar of the higher. Lower levels are ‘our world’ (the lowest) and ‘form and formation’ (intermediate). Details are given later. The dynamic of the lower levels are as in or as suggested by ordinary experience and as refined in science and reason. As closer to ordinary experience, the lower provides (suggests) provide analogy for the higher, to go beyond analogy will require justification, which where it is given, is typically in the form of – (i) the analogical case must hold for some realms (ii) such realms are realms of dominant meaningful significance but other realms do have instrumental significance.
Interaction among the levels	No interaction in that the categories are regarded as at the same (highest) level. However in some systems, e.g., Aristotle’s, the categories are not all at a given level of abstraction or inclusivity.	Yes, (i) lower levels cannot fail to exemplify logic, which is the ‘dynamic’ at the level of being-as-being, (ii) the laws or paradigms of our world serve as analogy for higher levels, where they must obtain with significance (significant cases) though not with necessity (i.e., not in all cases).
Alternative approaches, e.g., given putative limits of human knowledge—“Category Differences”	From skepticism about the possibility of systems, in the twentieth century, some analytic philosophers focused on avoiding errors due to categorial conflation, e.g., thinking that having mental activity implies that mind is a separate substance or thing.	Though we have not explicitly taken up conflation of different semantic categories, some categorial errors have been avoided. Examples include (i) from as-if substance to universal substance and from form to particular substance (ii) from concept – relation – object as a unity to mind – relation – matter as objective of being (iii) content and method as essentially distinct (iv) temporal distinction among beings (or worlds or beings-and-words) as absolute (v) limits of our experience as absolute limits (and the related trivial but frequent fallacy of conflation of possibility and necessity) (vi) conflation of levels of description as absolute (this needs to be worked out).
Sources	Western thought, ancient through contemporary. Aristotle for kinds of being, interactively with language, logic, and metaphysics. Kant forms of judgment regarding fact, pure concepts of understanding, derived general kinds of attribute that objects may have.	Western science and philosophy. Eastern thought, especially Advaita Vedanta with its reflections on Brahman. I find that world thought – Asian, African, Western and more – is rife with Brahman like ideas, however my source is Indian thought, which is not limited to Advaita Vedanta. Real metaphysics (TM) as in this work, which reveals the highest level as pure perfection while the entire system (also) has a value based pragmatic perfection.
What categories are for—i.e., what we do and hope to do with them?	Establish ways to describe or conceptualize the world and secondarily understanding and action in the world. Action is explicit with some systems, e.g., that of Hegel.	Realist and conceptual description, explanation, and prediction (so far as it emerges). Integrated with the metaphysical system, TM, which, with foundation, are developed in this work. ‘Categorial metaphysics’ is / as scientific metaphysics with logic / logics as high level paradigm(s) supplemented by Whitehead style rational-speculative metaphysics. Applied to and integrated with cosmology and realization in a broad sense, which rounds out the categories.
Role of experience	Suppressed in realist systems, experience is explicitly present with Kant.	The universe is relational, with the kind of relation being the same as that of experience and all relation being experiential in an extended sense. That experience includes feeling (emotion), cognition, and agency and intersects value and ethics is significant.
Role of agency	Explicitly present with Plotinus, Schelling, Fichte, Hegel, Whitehead, and Heidegger.	Explicitly present as most significant; without experience, the universe (being) has no meaning (as in the meaning of life / significance); without agency the universe is listless. However, agency and experience need not be assumed—they must emerge. Thus, while agency is of crucial significance, it need not be assumed, for it arises out of nothingness (it must do so); however intelligence and agency make the universe ‘more efficient and more significant).
Role of value	No, for object and value are separable at this level (unless value or imperative is taken as categorial). However, the significance of value to knowledge – and vice versa, at least instrumentally, go back to early philosophy, west and east.	Yes, which renders TM perfect in a value sense, which is pragmatic. The integration of value and knowledge – and thus of the philosophical and scientific disciplines – is not just instrumental: it is intrinsic.
Role of cognition	Conceptual (in a limited sense that excludes perception). In standard treatments, perception may be treated prior to the categories.	Conceptual and perceptual (i.e., conceptual in the sense that includes perception).
How to generate a system of categories (i)—general	High level appeal to language, logic, and metaphysical knowledge. Many thinkers hold method and content to merge, at least in process.	As for the received approach categories supplemented by analysis of perception and conception at an elementary level. Also supplemented and integrated via various considerations above, especially TM. From reflection on what we want to do with categories, what we (have decided that we) want is a ‘Categorial metaphysics’, a system of a range of levels of abstraction of being / beings and their patterns which enable understanding, summarization in terms – especially – of patterns, and so of prediction (inter- and extra-polation). Fundamentally, method and content are one.
How to generate the categories (ii)—questions to ask	What are the categories and how can they be generated? With Aristotle and Kant, there is appeal to language, logic, and metaphysical thought.	The first questions to ask are not about listing the categories, but what they are in principle – the concept sharpened by placing it in systematic context, in which analogy with science, ordinary experience, language, and reason may be relevant, which suggests a more principled and inclusive approach emerges, from / to which further details may be extracted / added. The concept of the categories is further refined by asking we intend / do with them.
How to generate the categories (iii)—the levels, their order of consideration and interactions	There is interaction among the Aristotelian levels, but it is rather ad hoc. Some modern systems have tree like structure.	To begin, each level is developed abstractly. While it is perhaps natural to place the most inclusive / abstract level at the ‘top’, to place the lowest level at the top is especially instructive. Both orders of placement are useful, here we begin at the ‘bottom’— iii. Low-level – our world and cosmos – basis: elementary experience and ordinary language > sameness-difference > identity > property > quality, extension (quantity, space-time-being implicit) Analysis of experience > analysis as relation shows that there is no mode of being beyond the experiential (with a being in abstraction being prior) > subject-relation-object is exhaustive of as-if substance By extending the subject-relation-object to primitive being, the universe is effectively experiential. Form, mechanism, causation, (residual) indeterminism-with-selection are among the paradigms for laws. Provides for higher levels by analogy, which from TM obtains at the higher for the significant population of objects in the universe. ii. Intermediate level – formation of worlds – (a) pure transient (b) incremental with selection for near symmetry and stability is both explanatory and more probable and its recognition is enhanced by evolution of higher level experience (named ‘consciousness’). Supplements the higher level by showing mere transients to be of lesser significance but incremental transient with selection of essential significance (for experiential beings). Source of lower level ‘worlds’ which inherit both form and transient (formlessness). i. High level-(experiential) being and nonbeing, Being itself may be seen as a sub-level. The most general being / existent / object is a concept-object. The most general law / paradigm is that of necessary logic. Is inherited by—applies at—lower levels.

In developing an effective account toward the purposes of knowing and realizing the ultimate in, for, and from our world, the word ‘categories’ will be used in an extended sense to embrace the dimensions. The system that follows is designed to reflect the extended sense.

About categories, cosmology, and ethics

From TM, and earlier development, metaphysics (and therefore categories) and ethics have a synthesis; and the present development of the categories enables development of cosmology (as more than just the physical cosmology of our cosmos)

Experience, categories, and cosmology

Why experience and cosmology are in the title will emerge in this section.

This section begins the actual system of categories in this work, preceded by their generation.

Generating the categories

General

The categorial system

1. Is at three main levels – (i) experiential being and nonbeing (with ~ one sub-level, bare being vs concept-object or concept-relation-object), where the proven paradigm is sound logic or argument (with the logics) (ii) form (and formation), especially from the void as base, where the paradigms are saltations and incremental variations to forms of near symmetry and stability, cycles of formation and dissolution as well as mere transient worlds (iii) worlds / our world, where the base paradigms begin with ordinary experience (starting with sameness and difference, through identity-space-time, and patterns, e.g., as in science), language, grammar, and sound logic as grammar of compound facts.

2. Is not just a classification of genera or kinds (it emphasizes the function – functions – of categories, i.e., what we – want to – do with categories). Rather (i) at each level the kinds are kinds or aspects of judgment, i.e., forms that go into (statements of) fact (ii) patterns of fact, necessary and / or contingent and thus (iii) the system constitutes a (rational-sound argument based / scientific-hypothetical categorial) metaphysics.

a. Thus differences from the received concept of categories are (i) there are multiple levels (which, though it is not typically recognized, is also found piecemeal in some received systems) (ii) extends from forms of judgment to use of the forms to describe (and use) patterns / details of the universe (iii) synthesizes the realist and idealist approaches to the categories (while paying heed to avoiding categorial confusion).

b. The levels interact – are mutually (in) forming (i) from above: logics are inherited by the lower levels (ii) from the intermediate: there are co-implications, both ‘up’ and ‘down’ (up: that we can talk of being and beings, below: formation from levels above the void as base (iii) from below: the approach described above for worlds is formalized at its own level and, with (appropriate abstraction), applies (based in criticism) at higher levels.

3. It avoids the realist / idealist and the rather ad hoc / formal divides, e.g., that distinguish Aristotelian and Kantian approaches, (i) by real / ideal as aspects of the concept-object, i.e., of experience (ii) by appeal at a high level of inclusivity / abstraction to the more inclusive notion we have of logical systems (and of logic itself) that we have today.

4. It is grounded in and developed in interaction with the already developed metaphysics, TM, in which the levels are already integrated, is not ad hoc or approximate in its net approach but allows the same regarding our limited being within the larger picture; and all this goes toward building a categorial metaphysics.

5. While so much twentieth and twenty-first century metaphysics and philosophy proceed rigorously and formally, while holding in the background a tacit standard view of the world, the present approach allows those limited standard views a place within the large and ultimate pictures of IM/TM.

6. Is closed in that it contains the concept-object of the (one and only limitless) universe, but open in that for limited beings, knowing-becoming is always in process.

The fundamental questions and aims

What are categories (how adequate are the historical approaches to the question of categories in the context of metaphysics as knowledge of the universe) and most importantly What do and should we want to do with categories, i.e., what would their function be?

That is, do we want a categorial metaphysics or a categorial soup (Aristotle) / formula (Kant etc)?

How shall we generate them—from systems of metaphysics and reflection upon the immediately above and other issues raised?

Do we want a delineation of the categorial metaphysics? Or do we want a basic set derived from the principles of generation?

Generating

Refer back to TM and the general description in the two sections just above.

Recognize that we want a rational-scientific, layered, structured, synthesis with idea-world as base object kind; we do not want a categorial soup or one that is otherwise ad hoc (and will work toward this).

Begin at any level and, working through the levels, note their aspects.

Have a ‘level’ labeled all levels, which abstracts the common aspects of the levels.

Works through (a) so far as is reasonable, making the levels uniform in structure (b) interactions among the levels.

Comment on cyclic process

Multiple levels are recognized and their understanding is enhanced in repeatedly cycling through the mutual implications; the process is cyclic but not circular.

All levels and their mutual implications

The levels

The levels: multiple levels from abstract being (experiential being as being and nonbeing) to form (and formation, e.g., of worlds and other kinds of beings, e.g., taxa), to worlds, particularly our world with its levels of entity from natural and more (the essential though not necessarily received kinds, e.g., physical-mental-universal, biological-conscious, social-cultural-technological, where technology is that which extends the basic kinds)—‘the chain of being’. In the received version, the chain is linear, but here we find it to be cyclic in terms of mutual implications among the levels.

Experiential hierarchy

There is an experiential hierarchy from primitive to peak, which could be placed separately, here, or in any one of the levels. We place it in the lowest level.

Source / conceptualization

Metaphysics: TM. Thus possessed of TM’s perfection, and integral with TM, rather than “one more aspect of metaphysics”.

Existents

Fundamental existents: the being or object as concept-object. Details—

1. The object can be decoupled with perfect faithfulness if the kind of being has sufficient abstraction, but is otherwise rough and may be adequate for some (local) purposes.

2. The lower kinds, e.g., physical or biological beings are not other than, but contained in or instances of the higher.

Proxy existent: a being—the view from “nowhere”—the being decoupled from the concept. Precision: as noted above.

Proxy existent—special cases: As noted above, decoupled from the concept (which is still present, but implicit), which is precise where the given level of abstraction allows decoupling. At lower levels this proxy may be adequate – sometimes with great precision – for some purposes. The proxy existent is that of beings in the abstract, i.e., as seen from “nowhere”, allowable in that at this highest level, concept and object are decouplable (at lower levels, the decoupling is imprecise but may be pragmatic or locally adaptive).

Fundamental categories

Common: the conject (or concept-object or concept-relation-object).

Particular: categories at the various levels, of which all inherit the common form.

Dynamic and paradigm

IM/TM.

Particular forms of the categories

While the categories themselves have a source in levels of description, particular (sub) forms are generated from special forms of description within the level.

Ethic

In TM, ethics and metaphysics are interwoven.

“Fact-value” integrated; but there is no loss of precision at the highest (sufficiently abstract) level while no compromise at lower levels, given value and process. That is, of course particular situations and reflections upon them may be improved, but that is part of the (nonlinear) process toward the ultimate.

Mutuality among the levels

Integrated and embraced via experiential agency.

The levels are mutually informing.

High to low

The high are inherited by but incompletely specify the lower.

Low to high

The lower provide paradigms for the higher by analogy. While the paradigms are not universal, (i) they necessarily have instances at the higher level (ii) they indicate what is probably robust, predominant, and significant at the high (it is understood that probability estimates are knowledge relative).

Experience and its categorial nature begin at the lower levels.

Mutual

Our world is a place of beginning. Thus, relative to our knowledge, the mutuality is cyclic (“P”) without being circular.

Outcome

~~The outcome is a categorial (“scientific”) metaphysics that joins rational metaphysics (~~IM) with hypothetical (“speculative”) metaphysics at lower levels, bound together by value (ethics, aesthetics); the rational metaphysics is perfect in the sense of faithfulness of concept to object, the lower levels may be imprecise, and the whole is pragmatically perfect with regard to the ultimate value of realization.

The highest level—experiential being and nonbeing

The level

The level: experiential being-as-being and nonbeing.

Source / conceptualization

Metaphysics: IM (value decouple-able from metaphysics in that ultimate realization is given, and the coupling enters regarding questions of effective and quality shared living in the world – itself and toward the ultimate); universe as an experiential-relational field.

Existents

~~Fundamental existent or category~~~~: the being (or a being) as a concept-relation-object; details—~~

Details

i. We will contract the description ‘concept-relation-object’ to ‘concept-object’; this is more than a convenience—it says that concept and object are bound together; similarly, in intending more than just binding but intentional wrapping together, we will consider further contraction to, e.g., ‘conject’.

~~ii.~~ Precise when the abstraction is at the level of being-as-being or any level with sufficient abstraction, in the sense that concept and object may be decoupled such that the concept is perfectly faithful to the object (at levels where abstraction is not sufficient to allow this, the decoupling may allow approximate decoupling and faithfulness, which may be adequate for some local but generally not universal purposes.

~~iii.~~ It includes the case of beings that are nonexistent in the sense that an intended object is contingently or necessarily absent as well as the pure concept in which case there is no intended object (these cases will also obtain at lower levels).

~~iv.~~ ~~The whole – part – null (or zero) beings in relation to any being including the universe (‘mereology’).~~

~~Project 1.~~ ~~Mereology.~~

v. Note that with abstraction, contra Heidegger, being is a being; and, also, contra-Heidegger, being is shallow, and that in shallowness lies the conceptual power of the present conception. Further, depth lies within being but is not of being (as being).

~~Proxy existent~~: a being decoupled from the concept (which is still present, but implicit), which is precise where the given level of abstraction allows decoupling. At lower levels this proxy may be adequate – sometimes with great precision – for some purposes. The proxy existent is that of beings in the abstract, i.e., as seen from “nowhere”, allowable in that at this highest level, concept and object are decouplable (at lower levels, the decoupling is imprecise but may be pragmatic or locally adaptive).

Fundamental category

~~Fundamental category~~ ~~and its form (i.e., form of the category): as for the fundamental existent, the concept-object (proxy: the object).~~

~~Note: the concept-object may be defused as concept and object, but the concept is not necessarily that of higher experience.~~

Dynamic

Fundamental dynamic(s): from IM, logic as that which determines which concepts can have objects (inclusive of particular logics, which correspond to forms of symbolic expression, and (perhaps, abstraction from) forms of intuition-in-the-sense-of-Kant).

Special forms of the category

~~Some particular forms of the category~~:

i. The ‘bare’ concept-object form (or atomic fact, i.e., atomic in the sense that the form has no structure, either at all, or that the structure is relevant to the deliberations being considered). Its dynamic is the propositional or sentence calculus.

~~ii.~~ The case in which the form of the object is the subject-predicate (here ‘subject’ is the object minus predicates or properties and does not have the sense of being subjective). Its dynamics are the predicate calculi.

~~iii.~~ ~~Other forms arising in logics (including non-symbolic logics),~~

Some particular forms

~~iv.~~ Not strictly a logical form as the term ‘logic’ is used in this chapter on categories—the varieties of forms in the lower levels, which are the logical, with further extra-logical form, e.g., the forms of science, especially, symmetry, stability, and formation – incremental, saltation, and transient. Particularly, the Aristotelian categories arising from physics and ordinary perception may be recognized—as-if substance (but not substance), of perception – quantity, quality, relation (one and multiple place predicates), and possession (what it has); from physics – position, location in time, orientation, shape (as well as subjective aspects such as posture); and agency (doing to vs done to),

Why do we include these forms here? It depends on the criteria being used—if we include only what is given by logic rather than allowed, they would not be here; if we include only what is known to be precisely known, they would not be here. They are discussed here (a) to clarify criteria of inclusion (ii) for their significance in relation to the logical forms—these forms are of significant duration which, compensates for their population count relative to the merely logical forms. Further, where these forms are such that they give rise to beings with ‘higher’ experience, they are the forms with significance.

Fundamental ethic

~~Fundamental ethic~~~~: from~~ IM, acceptance and modulation of experiential process (cognition, feeling – especially pleasure and pain, choice, agency…) on the way to peak being (it is implicit that at our level, the process is shared, and that this is one source of ethics at our level).

An intermediate level—form (and formation)

~~Note: formation is in brackets because it is an aspect of form.~~

~~Fundamental existent / process~~: form and formation in general (of cosmoses, worlds, and beings), in ranges of robustness and significance. Form and formation may be particulate (discrete), a continuum (of various levels), or both. Thus particles and fields are allowed as are incremental selection and saltation.

~~Inherited categories~~~~: those of the higher level (necessarily) and those of the lower level (contingently, but robust form more likely via incremental process)~~

~~Fundamental category~~~~: form (and formation).~~

~~Fundamental categorial process~~: transient; emphasizes: formation as increment, selection of near symmetry for relative stability, from simplicity to complexity, from complexity to self-reference and intelligence. Sub-cases

1. ~~Formation without heredity~~~~—generally transient and low in robustness and significance.~~

2. ~~Formation with heredity~~—

a. ~~Vertical heredity~~—beings with micro-coded and inherited coding, but no direct inheritance of form. Paradigm of emergence— dominated by incremental variation and selection but single step origins possible and real.

b. ~~Horizontal heredity~~—form is propagated in the field of relational being. It may occur, given a region, e.g., a cosmos or pre-cosmos, of interacting elements, an emerged form in a sub-region may propagate because, from common origins, the entire region is receptive to the form emerged in the sub-region.

~~Vertical vs horizontal heredity~~—it appears that formation begins without heredity, that horizontal heredity dominates at simpler levels (e.g., physical), while vertical heredity may be essential for complex forms with significance, which also have horizontal heredity, e.g., of populations.

c. ~~Mixed heredity~~~~—if heredity means influence, then where one kind appears paradigmatic, the other kind may also be present.~~

~~Base level~~~~: begin with a primitive element or elements…~~

~~Paradigms and dynamics~~:

1. ~~Single or a few steps / pure / transient formation of near symmetric, stable forms (ssf)—as allowed and required by~~ IM.

2. ~~Incremental variation and selection; origin of, not just in space and time, but of identity (recognizable or at least conceptualizable beings)-spacetime; origins mechanism and causation (~~fp ~~as cause of causation) with indeterminism for worlds; origin of physics and the natural classes (categories).~~

~~Note: while form and its recognition (object<concept) have origin beginning in the top level, their conceptualization has source in minds of beings in our world, the lower level.~~

~~Note: these paradigms are to be recognized in worlds.~~

~~Can pure mechanism be given an incremental formulation (e.g., path integral)?~~

3. ~~Formation by incremental variation and select from~~ ~~ssf~~ to ~~ssf… dominates #a (probably).~~

4. ~~Selection for significance by experiential beings > dominates significant population.~~

~~Examples~~

1. ~~Most inclusive base level – the void as primitive (see high level above)~~

2. ~~Intermediate base level for cosmos formation – proto cosmos and evolution of cosmoses~~

3. ~~Base level for life in our world – physical, chemical, and geological elements with cosmological and solar input.~~

Low level—worlds, cosmoses (general, ours) with their forms including process

General

Emphasis: our world and cosmos.

Fundamental existent: recognition of sameness, difference, built up to space-time-identity (being) or matter-relation-process for our cosmos.

Proxy existent: a being, for which concept and object are decoupled, which is approximate but has an adaptive function.

~~Preliminary or given~~~~: sameness, difference, elementary language with grammar, logic as the grammar of compound facts (propositions), refinement, and formal languages and logic~~

~~Fundamental dynamic~~~~: recognition of difference, change or duration; identity, extension (size), duration of beings; property (shape, quality).~~

Paradigms (science is a major source): causation, mechanism, indeterminism (variation and selection for near symmetry and stability); value (ethics – what or who is the object or objects, fact and value interact, aesthetics).

Categories: inherited—concept-object, facts – predicates (pragmatic but perfect in abstraction) – features of other logics, no substance but as-if substances (in part a descriptive issue), form and formation in the natural world; at this level: causation, mechanism, indeterminism (variation and selection for near symmetry and stability); value (ethics – what or who is the object or objects, fact and value interact, aesthetics).

Particular—our world

~~Approximated by an experiential field describable by as-if matter in primitively experiential relation, i.e., approximated by (as-if) matter that is primitively experiential.~~

~~Consequently the emergence of (as-if) high-level matter and mind is not substance emergence but emergence of form.~~

The experiential field ranges in quality and magnitude from nil and minimal as in bulk (as-if) matter, to complexity (molecules), to elementary life, to plant life, to animal including human being, to higher forms and peak being(s).

The physical or material level

Behavior

~~Field, atoms, bulk matter and its behavior as in quantum, relativistic, statistical, and condensed matter theories. Chemistry and nuclear physics~~.

Paradigms or dynamics – mechanism and its origins – determinism and indeterminism, residual indeterminism and quantum theory; sameness – difference – identity – extension – duration – cause – property.

Paradigm or dynamic – the object side of experience as seen in the natural and social sciences and their paradigms or dynamics (e.g., evolution by variation and selection, mechanism, causality).

Extension and duration

Cosmos, origins, history; cosmological structures (galaxies etc), solar system(s) and planets.

Multiverse theory.

Mathematical and logical universe (not restricted to physical theory).

Complexity and life

Complex molecules, abiogenesis; replicators, coding, and genetics.

Life and its kinds and levels through conscious and intelligent organisms.

Function—life as it is

Paradigms or dynamics—~~functional chemistry of complex compounds, principles of biological organisms and ecosystems~~.

Origins and evolution

Paradigms or dynamics—~~emergence of complexity, evolution by variation of hereditary factors and selection.~~

Domains and kingdoms

~~With ‘kingdom’ as the highest level of classification, two kingdoms, animals and plants, were recognized early in biology (this is what I learned in school).~~

But then, more kingdoms were, recognized, depending on criteria. With the idea of a kingdom as a major branch with a common ancestor, today it is common to recognize five or six kingdoms (in textbooks around the word), but as many as eight are recognized.

Today, a higher level than kingdom, the domain, is recognized by some biologists, as in the three domain system—archaea, bacteria, and eukarya—devised by Carl Woese, Otto Kandler and Mark Wheelis in 1990.

~~Commonly recognized current taxonomic divisions are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.~~

Project 2. Since this work is not one of biology, and the distinctions are neither absolute nor static, further conceptual discussion of the divisions of life is deferred to a possible future.

Experiential hierarchy

As-if material, dominated by physical law.

Mid-range and human, both experiential and physical.

Paradigm or dynamic – the subject side of experience and its transformations as in unition (yoga) and meditation and as seen in psychology of experiential being.

As-if spiritual, dominated by ideas as container and propagater of hereditary form.

Societies

~~Comment 1.~~ ~~The content is at present suggestive.~~

Primitive molecules and organisms

~~A paradigm or dynamic of synchronous cooperation.~~

Plant

~~From societies of organisms to rooted entities.~~

Animal – primitive through higher

~~From societies of organisms to mobile entities.~~

Human

~~Site source 1.~~ ~~little manual.docm~~.

~~Intelligence and physiology as preliminary to elements of culture, communication, and cooperation.~~

Higher

~~Transcending our beings, societies, and cosmos.~~

Universal

~~Comment 2.~~ ~~Work this out via imagination, synthesis of foregoing elements, and criticism.~~

~~Paradigm or dynamic~~ – integration of the subject and object sides in understanding and means of realization—particularly transformations of self, as in unition (yoga), aided by technology (space exploration and artificial intelligence).

Special

Cosmoses, worlds (our world)

1. ~~Natural~~

a. ~~Physical level~~

b. ~~Complexity, reproduction, and life~~

c. ~~Mind or psyche and universal~~

i. ~~Place of being, meaning, and value (though not source),~~

~~ii.~~ ~~U-map.~~

2. ~~Society~~

a. ~~Culture~~

b. ~~Technology~~

Unition (yoga)

~~It would have been natural to have placed this section experience. However, since it should address all categories, it is placed here.~~

Yoga has an historical origin in thought and practice in India, where ‘yoga’, related to our ‘yoking’, had one use as union with being-as-universal-experientiality. Yoga had a long history in India (~3000 BCE to the present time) and has spread worldwide in a range of adaptations to modern cultures

~~Thus yoga is an appropriate term to capture the system of~~ TW as a practice that recognizes the truth that beings are experiential with as-if matter and mind sides with manifestation in the world and destiny to cycle through limitless peak and dissolved being and seeks effective ways (paths) to the ultimate beginning in our world.

~~The original insight in India was of yoga as the metaphysical insight of the identity of experiential beings—local and universal. Practice of action, and (as-if) body and mind, came later.~~

Nomenclature

Use of ‘yoga’ and related terms such as ‘meditation’ to refer to what is intended here may be misleading if they are interpreted as very specific activities or if they are seen as being religious or merely spiritual.

~~Therefore, in addition to the introduction above and the definitions below, we shall consider a term that can function as alternative to ‘yoga’, especially with western readers in mind.~~

Having considered a number of possibilities (e.g., binding) and consulted with others, a neologism emerged – unition (suggested by Microsoft Copilot). I shall write ‘unition (yoga)’, except where just one of the terms is appropriate.

The concept of unition (yoga)

~~Definition 5.~~ ~~Unition~~ (~~yoga~~) is (i) the metaphysical insight of identity of all experiential beings, their as-if physical and psychic sides, local and ultimate (ii) an emerging system of knowledge and categories, practice, and action for ultimate realization that begins in (and for) the immediate, where realization may occur in the present but is more likely in the ultimate, i.e., across the patchwork of form and the void. It may be immersive and instrumental, individual and cultural. It may select from any aspect of knowledge, culture, and experience according to what is found effective and efficient. ~~Unification~~ (~~yoking) is unition (yoga)-in-process-and-action.~~

~~The as-if material and the mindlike sides of being are significant to ways of realization of the ultimate. Thus—~~

~~Unition (yoga) as binding of beings to being has no ‘sides’ but two apparent experiential sides meditative and physical – mind and body.~~

~~As we are experiential beings, the meditative might seem supreme, but since the sides are not distinct, the physical is as essential (it being thought that experiential being must have a body).~~

3. Creation of maps of the universe.

Categories and cosmology

Categories and cosmology

Contents

categories and cosmology

Origins—categories in TM: dimensions and categories