Add dilemmas (there are already some dilemmas for Being and experience—see the “interpretations” section); review and improve these; add more; add some for free will; see canonical dilemmas.html.

See today and immediate.doc for more plans

Notation

All definitions are for the purpose of this document; they are defined to constitute a consistent system, complete in a specified sense. The ‘is’ of definition is marked by bold font—‘is’.

Here, ‘is’ has a three of uses. The definitional use is note above. Another is equivalence or identity—e.g., “Anil Mitra is the author of this site.” One common use, avoided, here is to indicate a property—e.g., “Anil is a man”; this might be confusing; therefore the formal form here will be “Anil has the property of manhood” or “Anil has manhood”. The latter sense of ‘is’ may be used informally or where there would be no misunderstanding. Other informal uses of ‘is’ may occur. In summary, there are three uses of ‘is’ here: definitional, as identity or equivalence, and informal.

In the following the distinctions between main, secondary… are of importance to the way and not of general metaphysical significance.

Main concepts

~~Repeated concepts are crossed out~~

Secondary concepts

Tertiary

Quaternary…

Body text

Normal text (Word Style Normal)

Main text (Word Style Central)

Secondary text (Word Style Central 2)

Critical issues (Word Style Main)

Comment. Comments (Word Style Comment); all comments are temporary and to be executed and eliminated.

Dilemma. Dilemmas (Word Style Dilemma)

Alternate. E.g. alternate title (Word Style Alternate); all alternates are temporary and to be executed and eliminated.

Prologue and Preliminary

Presentation

Ultimate universe; eternal peaks; dissolution; eternal process; individual; merging; inheritance of the ultimate; immediate ground; feasible, effective paths; imperative; realization; enjoyment, process, moderation (verb), diversion, ecstasy, pain, suffering; incomprehensible pain (issue of)

Comment. Designed to present the essential way; and to capture and command readers’ attention by form and content—i.e., without compulsion.

The Way shows

1. An ultimate view of the universe as the greatest possible—with ultimate peaks of Being, dissolution, eternal process.

2. Individuals merge with universal identity in these peaks—they inherit the ultimate.

3. There are feasible and effective paths of enjoyment to this ultimate.

4. Enjoyment is eternal process in moderation of ecstasy, pain, suffering, and other diversions from ground to ultimate; issue of incomprehensible pain; treated in Home > preview > paths, enjoyment, summary.

Origins

Comment. This! is the prologue proper

Comment. See fresh.html > Prologue.

Author

History

Purpose

Destiny

Dilemmas of purpose and destiny

Comment. See essay.html…

Means

Knowledge, reason, practice, action

Knowledge and its putative limits

Secular – its limits

Transsecular – its meaning

Double bind of dogma

The dogmas: (i) the secular-empirical projected to the universe and (ii) the literal-dogmatic transsecular

Comment. For the double bind, see my journey.html, and The Way - Template Outline

Trans-empirical possibility

No necessary rational a priori

Truth

Perfect-abstract, traditional-pragmatic

Tradition is the pragmatic truth in all historical traditions, cultures, and systems of knowledge till and including the present (i.e., tradition is what is valid in those traditions etc).

Comment. See realization in Logos

The rational

The empirical – empiricism and its limits

The rational – here defined to include the empirical, and value, judgment, and emotion; in a limited sense the ‘old rational’ is rather sterile, but in this new and extended sense it is full and potent.

Approach from Being

Why?

Comment. See ‘Being’ below.

Elementary metaphysics

Metaphysics is defined in § Metaphysics.

Being

Existence, Being, verb to be; sameness, difference, absence

In one of its fundamental uses, the verb to be indicates existence. It is so basic, it is incapable of further analysis (which does not rule out explanation and ‘analysis’ at the same categorial level).

Existence is the property in virtue of which the verb to be is applicable in its most neutral sense—

1. It indicates only some region, not necessarily connected, of emerging difference, sameness, and their absence (i.e. the precursors of spacetime-‘stuff’).

2. It does not indicate kinds such as substance, entity, process, interaction and more. It is of the highest categorial level.

Edit point 1

Dilemmas resolved by Being, e.g. dilemmas of substance and essentialism

Comment. See the way - template outline.html…

Neutrality, inclusivity, abstraction, perfection

I.e., the source of the conceptual force of Being.

Particularly, abstraction does not result in abstract objects (existents); with sufficient abstraction, the objects are most real.

A being (plural: beings), power, cause

A being (plural: beings) is an existent—that which has the property of Being (or existence).

The idea of a being without some concept of the being is without meaning. I.e. all beings are conceptual or ‘hypothetical’; those for which the concept is realized exist, otherwise they do not exist—are ‘null’ or merely hypothetical.

Comment. See discussion of experience below for elaboration.

The hypothetical being that affects and is affected by no being does not exist.

Power is a measure of being.

There can be no other measure (other measures later identified are cases of power).

Power is cause in its most general form; it includes but is not restricted to the contiguous and temporal classical cause; it admits action-at-a-distance and over time as examples; and other emerging concepts of cause, e.g. necessity and perhaps possibility.

All, part, null

Thus universe (all), beings (parts), the void (null).

Thus the concepts of Being and beings are maximally rich in what is included but maximally poor in what is specified. This is a source of the force of the concept of Being.

Comment. For richness of specificity and detail, we turn to—

Kinds of Being

Comment. Developed later.

Experience

Experience, pure, attitudinal, agentive; subjective awareness, consciousness

Edit point 2

Dilemmas of experience

Comment. See ~~the way - template outline.html~~…

Place of knowledge and meaning, effective existence, knowledge is Being

Being-universe as effectively non inert, experiential, and relational

Being and universe as effectively experiential and relational

Knowledge and meaning

Comment. Add material from the sources—essay.html, the outline, and others; add links here.

Knowledge; fact, simple and compound; pattern; concept-percept as concept; intuition as conformation, to whatever conscious or extra-conscious degree it may obtain, of the capacity of knowing to the forms of the world; knowledge as concept-object or token concept-concept; sign, simple and compound; linguistic concept as symbol or sign-concept; necessity of the concept; compounding of signs as conceptual; linguistic knowledge as symbol-object; concept and linguistic (referential) meaning as knowledge

Two kinds of error: concept-concept, concept-percept (fact, pattern); logic, science; abstract and concrete science; mathematics and other abstract sciences; the concrete sciences

Logos

Logic seems a priori universal but (i) in pertaining to concept-concept, it is empirical (just as is science when not projected beyond the empirical) and (ii) is universal in principle but the extant logics are not since they refer to definite propositional or sentence forms.

Thus logic and science are on par—the distinction being that logic is particular topic neutral though not general topic neutral and that it seems to be conceptually of higher order because the concept-concept side of science is usually suppressed

Mathematics is knowledge expressed abstractly and is of ideal structures, potentially of some world.

Allowing the potential worlds, then, logic – mathematics – science can be rewritten logic – abstract science – concrete science (where ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’ are not kinds but lie on a continuum and each is susceptible to a different mode of study).

Comment. The fundamental principle will imply that all logical conceptual systems have objects and so no reference to potential worlds is necessary.

I.e., all knowledge is logic in a generalized sense. But this would stretch our use of ‘logic’.

Thus: LOGOS.

A possible limit of logos thus expressed is the discreteness of language; the world is not (necessarily but the fundamental principle will allow the term ‘necessarily’ to be dropped) discrete. Hence essential roles for intuition and/or non-discrete language (what would that be like).

Interpretations, standard secular view, solipsism, world as field of experience, extended standard secular view

Standard secular view or SSV (‘materialism’), incompatible with strict substance ontology—strict materialism is incompatible with the fact of experience

Solipsism: intuitively absurd, ontologically ‘bizarre’, likely incompatible with the laws of physics, logically consistent and logically possible—therefore metaphysically possible from the point of view that there is no experience (mind) without a body (form) for the experiential system is—can be—the form.

World as field of experience or FOE: the most general interpretation for a non inert universe

Extended standard secular view or ESSV (that which has zero experientiality is ‘matter’ or ‘environment’; ontologically distinct from but instrumentally equivalent to SSV

Universe

Oneness, no other being as cause, necessity vs accident as cause, necessity as self-cause, universal possibility is identical to universal actuality.

Constraint, law

Void

Existence of the void.

Proof

Heuristics

Universal law; existential action principle

Metaphysics

Metaphysics

Metaphysics, possibility of metaphysics

Metaphysics is study of the real; by rational and/or empirical (experiential means); it is not one of the many classical or modern conceptions; particularly, it is not merely speculative, necessarily ‘of the object’, or of special beings, e.g. Gods, angels, or speculated cosmoses.

Possibility of metaphysics is possibility of metaphysics-as-defined-here. Impossibility of metaphysics refers to impossibility in one of the other sense of metaphysics.

As Being and other concepts of the Elementary metaphysics are known perfectly (with sufficient abstraction), some elementary metaphysics has been constructed and is therefore possible. An aim of the subsequent discussion is to develop a comprehensive and ultimate metaphysics and demonstrate its truth.

The perfect metaphysics

Abstraction and the possibility of metaphysics.

Possibility, logical and real (the real presumes the logical).

Kinds of possibility

Logical

Real:

Experience-world (includes experience) or

Psyche-world (includes psyche) or

Psyche (intrinsic world)-world (instrumental world, nominally does not include psyche), but

Sentient possibility

Instrumental (world):

Natural (‘matter’, ‘life’, psyche)

Social (and culture and civilization); sociology and social science, economics, politics, anthropology…

Universal (and the unknown but not unknowable); thus

The intrinsic and the instrumental are not fundamentally distinct

The fundamental principle; main proof

Alternate proofs

Heuristics

Criticism and response

Objections, doubts

Comment. See the ‘text document’ and others for doubts; add links here

The perfect metaphysics

The dual abstract-perfect and pragmatic-perfect metaphysics and ontology

That the pragmatic-perfect is relative to the ultimate; it eliminates some traditional epistemological concerns, e.g., purism while altering the significance of others, e.g. precision, knowledge of existents

The intrinsic and instrumental values of the perfect metaphysics

system of human knowledge, reason, practice, and action.html

Reason

Properly understood, the perfect metaphysics needs no ‘deeper’ or ‘outside’ foundation. It’s essential limitation is that it does not provide precise detail of the world. That detail has its uses. However, in relation to the ultimate the pragmatic detail is all that is needed and since no better is available, no ‘better’ is desirable. The perfect metaphysics and ‘Being’ are within one another—and include the system of human knowledge etc: Being—individual and ultimate—are continuous with the metaphysics… it is not a mere representation, symbolic or otherwise.

I.e., that is reason.

For definition of reason and more, see the system of human knowledge etc (link above) and my journey.html > reason.

Development of the metaphysics (consequences)

First, there are implications for the elementary metaphysics.

Second, implications for the way are paramount; it is effective to develop them in a distinct subsection.

Third, the general development of metaphysics may be divided into the metaphysical vs the cosmological or, roughly, the general and abstract vs the particular and concrete. However, the distinction is neither definite nor one of ‘kind’. For convenience, though, the general development will be divided into ‘metaphysics’ and ‘cosmology’.

Reworking and enhancement of the elementary metaphysics

Being and universe as effectively experiential and relational

Universe as dynamically ‘one’

SSV worlds possible but bizarre

For The Way and paths

From beings to Being; the universe and its identity and variety; peaking; merging of identities; existence of paths to the ultimate; imperative to be on shared paths and their discovery grounded in the immediate

Comment. See Presentation for details of peaking etc and issues of enjoyment, ecstasy, pleasure and pain

Given a state or being, there is a ‘higher’ sentient state and a ‘higher’ designed state (i.e. designed by ‘ordinary’ sentient beings)

The immediate and the ultimate; imperative; feasible paths; means; dimensions

means—system of human knowledge, reason, practice, and action.html

Issue of ecstasy, pain, suffering, diversion, and enjoyment

Metaphysics

Comment. See ~~essay.html~~ (document) and ~~the way - template outline.html~~ (document)

Principles

The perfect metaphysics—which includes reason with action; the basis of the perfect metaphysics in abstraction and tradition

Principle of sufficient reason—PSR (but not Leibniz’ classically causal version), resolution of Heidegger’s fundamental question of metaphysics: why there is something rather than nothing; necessity as the non-classical, non-manifest cause of the universe; oneness of the universe (‘universal interaction’)

Identity, sameness, difference (and their absence)

Abstract and concrete objects

Logos

Reason

Metaphysics: implications for a map of (human) knowledge (system of human knowledge, reason, practice, and action.html)

Epistemology; knowledge—the concept; inseparability of epistemology and metaphysics—pragmatically and essentially (see being-experience); incomplete separability of knowledge – beings – action; criteria of knowledge—and issue of purism; values of knowledge; foundationalism and its possibility – and direct approach from Being

Value; ethics and aesthetics

Determinism; absolute determinism and indeterminism; determinism at one level of phenomena is not incompatible with general determinism at another

Generic dynamics of Being (cross over with cosmology)

Comment. As source of knowledge of Being, Human being was originally place here but now it is deferred treatment to a section within cosmology; this seems to be more effective and systematic.

Cosmology

Definition

General cosmology

Principles

The perfect metaphysics (which includes reason with action)

See paradigms below

Variety and extension of Being; peak and process

General vs efficient formation

Place of abstract and objects in cosmology

Dimensions of Being

Cosmology of form and formation

Form, formation, formation vs dynamics (pole or continuum)

Efficient origins of form and dynamics (vs necessary origins)

Determinism, indeterminism, and the block universe

Being, space, and time (Being-space-time)… and Identity

Precursors

Spacetime

Not absolute

Immanent in and of Being

Physical cosmology

Theoretical physics; the theories and the phenomena; determinism and indeterminism; status—empirical and conceptual; interpretation and philosophy are crucial though not determinative; possible foundational aspects in the perfect metaphysics and cosmology

The quantum vacuum is not the void

Physics of our cosmos (‘big bang’; empirical and conceptual development and evidence)

Physical cosmology and life

Cosmological anthropic principles

Life

Life and elements (e.g. physical)

Abiogenesis, evolution

Origin of design—emergent vs essential; accidental vs necessary

Human being, society, civilization, and world

Human being

Comment. See Knowledge and meaning for linguistic-conceptual “representation”.

birth event; growth; reflexive knowledge of the world; death; human being; psychology

Notes

Human being—initially, a question, i.e. what human being is; following are some (partially) definitive considerations; ‘human being’ is taken up again after the characteristics.

Birth event—fact and conditions not a choice or in awareness of the individual

Growth—coming into self-hood and humanness begins outside choice or awareness of the individual; even having achieved humanness, there is a sense that the fact and conditions of birth and growth are significantly not the choice or design of the individual

Reflexive knowledge—“metacognition”—of the world includes discrete and intuitive linguistic-conceptual knowledge which does not become entirely explicit; conscious representation of the entire world and self (this is the reflexive aspect—but note that in full reflexivity every aspect of knowing may refer to every other aspect) and not just more or less unselfconscious knowledge of a local environment; thus the possibility of growing out of being an accident and partial knowledge of the world

The world—used informally in this document; traditionally it has a connotation of the universe and our experience of it; but, here, we see that the distinction is null (in terms of the present definition of ‘universe’)

Death—(i) in a secular-materialist-empirical paradigm: real and absolute; an essential condition of our being; true knowledge of death is recognition of our finiteness and therefore opportunity and occasion to have meaning in the condition of finiteness and bring life and its projects to closure; not a merely random event—conditions of life may be enjoyment and/or usefulness… and death may be chosen even if not entirely under control, (ii) in the paradigm from the perfect metaphysics that self and universe are identical and ultimate: death remains real but is not absolute; it may and should continue to serve existential function but with further awareness; i.e. that while it continues to inform us about this life—it is also gateway to the ultimate and in seeking meaning, purpose, and path, we ought to balance the reality of death with its opportunity.

Human being—defined in part by the foregoing; it is the character of human being, not uniqueness, that is significant; there is interest in whether other beings share this character

Psychology—below.

even in mature human being their being has an at least seeming accidental character as to

psychology (below); linguistic-conceptual knowledge and intuition, capacity for knowing the whole (which includes self and knowledge e.g. this entire production and system of human k) and therefore rising above existence delimited birth – death – and the gross material; birth; death;

Psychology

Comment. See the way - template outline.html.

Essentials

Map

Free will—definition and concept; primacy over paradigm, material, and life science; issue of; conceptual and ideological polarization of; importance of, to Being and human being

Comment. Dilemmas of freedom of will

Society

As studied in sociology, anthropology (cultural), cultural studies (language, knowledge, education), politics and economics(economic geography), (“political economics”)

Culture—human knowledge of our world

As studied in system of human knowledge, reason, practice, and action.html.

Civilization

Human civilization as human, animal, and plant societies, communities and ecosystems across time and continents.

Universal civilization as the movement of the matrix of societies across the universe cycling through the peaks of Being.

The world—Our world I—and human knowledge of the world

Realms or dimensions of the world(psyche… as treated earlier, i.e. PNSU)

Knowledge of our world—summary in the way - template outline.html; and the original system of human knowledge, reason, practice, and action.html.

Logos; logic and the general and abstract sciences as one

Instrumental vs immersive approach

The rest of this section ‘Our world’ picks some

Kinds of Being—what is the level of this?

A repetition and extension of the above.

Comment. Some topics from social science and problems of the world are now noted because they are not mentioned elsewhere in this document.

Our world II—problems and opportunities

While this is emphasized today as a secular concern, it is meant here in an extended sense. See the way - world problems and opportunities.html.

Opportunities and problems

Power (political)

Paradigms

Comment. This might have been placed in or just after the development of the metaphysics; however it is effective to place it here so as to be able to draw from cosmology; it will be clearly seen that paradigm, metaphysics, and cosmology are interactive.

The concept

In common use, a paradigm is a high level way form of the world or knowledge in some of their regions that is projected to the whole by those who support it.

Here, however, a paradigm is just the high level form; it is not projected; a the main significance here is (i) as a tool in understanding the world or a part of it, and (ii) as an ideological slant upon whose criticism truth may be built or approached.

Here are some paradigms, old and new. The treatment will not tarry on the ‘tired’ paradigms such as strict materialism and strict determinism.

The pragmatic and the perfect

The perfect metaphysics is built from a perfect and a pragmatic side.

In Knowledge and meaning and Logos it was seen that the pragmatic and the perfect which were introduced as distinct are not polar but on a continuum.

And that continuum is imperfect in traditional senses but perfect in the new sense above.

The pragmatic and the perfect are one despite the seeming and putative distinction.

As seen, the rational includes and expands upon the empirical; and it necessarily includes value and emotion; the ‘old style rationalist’ might say that the empirical and value and emotion are necessary for judgment.

Let us now focus on the distinction.

Applicability

The perfect paradigms are applicable to their entire realm of reference which, in the general case, is the universe.

The pragmatic paradigms are not universal but probable in their realm of reference; and may be supplemented by the perfect.

Perfect

Yet it does seem that there is a true perfect in the fundamental concepts of the metaphysics that include experience, Being, beings, and possibility.

On the other hand the abstract sciences and logic are toward the perfect side of the pragmatic-perfect continuum.

Comment. Source for the following—Philosophy of Logics, Susan Haack, 1975.

Truth valued logics

Traditional and classical—Syllogism, two-valued sentence and predicate calculi

Extended—modal logics of necessary, contingent, and possible truth… and strict implication; topic dependent (not neutral) but still truth valued modal logics possible and implicative truth) such as tense, deontic, epistemic, preference, imperative, erotetic (interrogative) logics

Deviant logics—many-valued logics, intuitionist logics, quantum logics, free logics

Pragmatic

Logics—conditional truth: inductive, abductive, conductive; scientific methodology (hypothetico-deductive; with testing or, previously, falsification

Science

The two main paradigms of conceptual science are

Causal dynamics of systems, by an element, interaction, process model—e.g., theoretical physics; may be determinist or indeterminist-with-deterministic-behavior-in-some-realms.

Emergent dynamics, by an indeterminist-determinist or variation and selection model; necessarily indeterminist; generically—adaptive and self-adaptive systems, novelty; creation and evolution of form (and dynamics); applies to evolution of life—may apply partially at least to abiogenesis; to origins of physical cosmoses, to other structures—such as the social, to thought…

Cross-over, e.g. in the origin and evolution of life which appears to be physical at root and is yet an emergent dynamics in the present sense.

Paradigms of indeterminism

Determinism as determination of a whole by a part; especially the universe by a part.

Thus the universe is determined from the void; but then determinism is clearly a matter of perspective, for it is also absolutely indeterministic in the question of what emerges next from any part.

To elaborate: the our cosmos may be determinist or indeterminist from its own perspective (it seems that determinism may obtain for some but not all modes of description); the universe is indeterministic from the perspective or our cosmos and its inhabitants; but the universe as a block is determinist relative to itself.

The Way

Comment. See—sources for the concepts for the way the way - template outline.html (“The Way”), fresh.html(“The Way of Being”), the way of being - essential version.html (endnote 74), my journey.html (“The Path” and templates; add ritual)

Aim of Being

The aim

Imperative

Means

The perfect metaphysics

system of human knowledge, reason, practice, and action.html

reason

Path

The immediate and the ultimate; imperative; feasible paths; means; dimensions

Issue of ecstasy, pain, suffering, diversion, and enjoyment

Templates

Immediate - everyday, ritual, ultimate - universal

Resources

Epilogue—The Realm of Being

Alternate. Epilogue—The Future of Being; consider more

The Vision: Being—the ultimate; immediate as ultimate; past, present, and future are one