In a full metaphysical journey, world and text are not finally distinct; text about text and text about world are not distinct; in an account of this journey there is no metatext or text

Metatext may occur anywhere

Especially marked metatext, e.g. this chapter, will be eliminated or absorbed into the text

Symbols, Styles, and Formatting to Mark Text

Symbols and styles are used for various purposes

Symbols Used as Information for Readers

Below are some symbols and their main uses

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

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

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

The first two marks are repetitions from the previous section

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

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

** — Metatext (apply the asterisk two times)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Symbols may occur in combination

Styles

See Preparation (below) and the metadocument

Formatting

See the metadocument for details (font: face, bold / underline / italic, color, raised etc., size; paragraph: indentation, line spacing, paragraph spacing)

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

Planning. Approach. Form. Outline. Writing. Editing. Sources. Site Design

Also see writing plan in the metadocument

Outline of Planning

Planning

Approach

Form

Outline with Central Statements

Writing

Editing. Literary Style

Sources

Site

Planning

Review and reduce in interaction with execution

Approach

Top—Down

The process is always a combination: top-down and bottom-up. However, the present need is especially top-down

General—Special

A Document to Store Detail

Use the metadocument as a dynamic store of detail. 1. To keep this document uncluttered and focused on essentials 2. As a place where in-process and diverse materials are brought together and finalized 3. When this is complete, meta will store data for future versions

Form

Narrative Styles

Emergent, axiomatic, narrative

Langer’s Concept of Presentational Form

Use Susanne Langer’s distinction, from her 1942 work Philosophy in a New Key, of discursive versus presentational symbols and form. Discursive symbolization arranges elements (words and other symbols) stable and context invariant meanings into a new meaning. Presentation symbolization operates independently of elements with fixed and stable meanings. The presentation cannot be comprehended by progressively building up an understanding of its parts in isolation. It must be understood as a whole

Poetry of Form

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

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

Source for Detail on Form

The metadocument

Further sources below

Outline with Central Statements

Outline

Start with outline from JIBFINAL (this); fine tune headings and topics

Import topics primarily from JOURNEY IN BEING-DETAIL, and the METADOCUMENT. However, any current or archived document may be useful

Central Statements

C1 = my engagement with and equivalence to the limitless Universe

Styles. Title, Headings, Central Statement, Boxed Point, Normal…

Marks. Number the central statements andor mark them otherwise (e.g. C1.1, C1.2,…; C2.1, C2.2…)

Write Outline with Central Statements

Enter Central Statements to JIBFINAL

Mark 2^o parts with * and 1^o subparts (primarily within 2^o parts) by ^† (part by part); use other symbols ^&, ^W, ^$, and ^A judiciously

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

At this point I may rework the outline and import and merge swathes of topics from the sources below

Marks. Many and perhaps most of these topics will be marked with a combination of Hidden Text and the marks ^W(to be written later), ^$(to be researched and perhaps written later), and ^A(an alternate section or alternate material)

Writing

Brief Plan

1. Edit outline till satisfied

Import topics

…from meta (store, central statements), detail (very detailed, 2009, catalytic factors including chemicals… also see dynamics, catalysts and catalytic states), in process (with Robin Singh), central statements (a version of central statements), universal journey-ways (ways, spirit), Archive, especially elements

Edit with marks

Save to meta and retain outline

2. Import and mark central statements

3. Write essential version and mega-outline with comments

Use hidden text to combine all documents

Fine Tune

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

Styles

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

Editing. Literary Style

Grammar, spelling, uniformity of capitalization, use of DEFINITION STYLE

Capitalization may be used to indicate Defined meaning while lower case versions will mark informal uses of other meanings. Example are Being, Experience, Logic, Universe, Void, Tradition, Limit, Faith, Yoga, Concept

Capitalization of chapter and section heads and the words ‘chapter’ and ‘section’

Style, continuity… see Form

Check and update links and other fields

Remarks on style. (1) No periods at ends of paragraphs; period is understood; this is most efficient because it is obvious and because the period is the most common ending; other endings to be used: !, ?, etc. and — to mark the end of a paragraph that is not a sentence end (2) Capitalization. It would be convenient to not begin sentences or paragraphs with capitals (some languages do well without capitals at all) for that is arbitrary and looks odd because we are not familiar with it; then a capitalized word with special meaning (not altogether dissimilar from proper names) (e.g. Logic) can be used at the beginning of a sentence without confusion (3) A document that comes with a dictionary of meaning and deviant meaning (and spelling and grammar); and why

Sources

All main information regarding sources is now in this document

General Sources

2011-2012 process dir. Also see the Archive

Initially Journey in Being-final will be kept empty; then sparse; then named Journey in Being or something appropriate

Current Standout Sources

Consider the Following Sources

Journey in being-detail | design for web | priorities and related documents

Site

Simple in appearance, variety of pages, navigation, html, and directory structure; essential; accessible

Tentative Outline with Minimal Central Statements

The following is the document in preliminary form

Motto

I am the master of the obvious revealed as harboring all things

INTRODUCTION

^&Preliminary Comment—Temporary Section Headings in the Introduction

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

Metatext. There is no metatext

Functions of the Introduction

Describe the Journey in Being

Introduce and explain the idea

Introduce and explain the idea of a Journey in Being

Narrate the Origins and Describe Sources for the Journey

Formal

Individual (Personal)

Tradition

Introduce the Framework for the Journey

Framework

Ways and pathways

Explain the Meaning and Significance of Being as Used Here

Provide a description of the Journey

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

Describe the narrative

Concept

Form

Development of the Ideas

Outline of Contents

Implications: Significance of the Developments

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

Human

Human Being and Society

Ideas

Ideas, Thought and The Academic Disciplines

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

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

Includes ‘intellect’

Civilization

To My Audiences

Intended Audiences

Suggestions on Reading the Narrative

Some Essential Concepts (Ideas)

Introduction to the Idea of a Journey

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

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

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

Origins and Sources for the Journey

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

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

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

Framework for the Journey

Metaphysics

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

The metaphysics is universal, unique and ultimate

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

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

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

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

The metaphysics is broadly inclusive of what is

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

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

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

Tradition

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

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

Process

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

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

Doubt and Attitude

The promise is immense

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

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

The Significance of Being

The Power of Being in the Framework and the Journey

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

Being in this Narrative

Being will be defined as what is there

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

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

The Journey

Framework of Understanding

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

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

Ways and Pathways

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

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

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

The Narrative

The Concept of the Narrative

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

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

Form

Development of the Ideas in the Narrative

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

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

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

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

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

Outline of Contents

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

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

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

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

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

Significance of the Developments

Select details from the following which repeat later sections

The Human Endeavor

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

*Ideas, Thought, and The Academic Disciplines

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

^W-Civilization—Its Nature and Destiny

To Audiences

Intended Audiences

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some Suggestions on Reading the Narrative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some Essential Ideas or Concepts

Also see meta: a medley of concepts

Following is a preliminary set and division

General, Human, and the Journey

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

*Academic

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

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

BEING

Introduction

Ideas and Structure of this Chapter

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

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

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

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

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

Being and Experience in this Narrative

Being and Experience are defined and explained below

Being and Experience are fundamental to the metaphysics and its development. The facts of Being and Experience will be seen to exemplify perfect knowledge—i.e., the corresponding objects are clear, definite, and perfectly known; and the concepts of Existence, Law, and Void will inherit these qualities and—later—Logic and Logos will be seen to possess the same qualities

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

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

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

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

Experience

The Concept of Experience

Meaning in this Narrative

Definition

Explanation

Example

*Presence, concrete

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

Related Words

Consciousness, awareness

Other Uses of the Word ‘Experience’

The uses, spelling

Informal use unless otherwise specified

The Givenness or Fact of Experience

Givenness

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

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

The Issue of Robustness and its Significance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Robustness of Experience and the World

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

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

Detailed and more robust responses to the doubts follow

Robustness of Experience

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

*Views that Minimize or Deny Experience and its Significance

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

Consequence: Experience is Real

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

Robustness of the World

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

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

Consequence: There is a Real or ‘External’ World

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

Experience as Central to Human Being

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

The Reality and Extension of Experience

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

Attitude and Action are Duals Within Experience

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

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

Being

The Concept of Being in this Narrative

The Concept

Being is that which is (somewhere and somewhen)

Being is what all beings have in common

Related Words

Existence (taken up below)

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

Other Uses

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

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

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

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

*Duration and Extension

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

Duration, Extension

Meanings of the Verb ‘to be’

*‘Is’—somewhere, somewhen

*Other meanings of ‘is’

The Significance of Being in this Narrative

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

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

The Robustness of Being

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

Response to Doubts that There is no Being

Doubt. There is no Being—all is illusion. Response. Trivial (these words or the illusion thereof)

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

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

Response to Doubts that Being is Ephemeral and Ineffectual

This doubt intersects the previous one regarding robustness

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

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

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

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

*Functions of Doubt

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

There is further discussion of doubt in the chapter on Metaphysics

*Existence

The Concept

What is there. Therefore Being

Being and Existing are not Different

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

Some Problems with the Idea of Existence

Triviality etc.

The problem of the non-existent object

Universe

The Concept of the Universe

This Narrative

… everywhere, everywhen

May switch between global and spatiotemporal description

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

Significance of this Concept of ‘Universe’

This provides a definite concept of the Universe

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

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

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

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

Relation to Eriugena’s Concept of ‘Universe’

The Physical Universe and Other Common Uses

*Domains

The Concept of a Domain

Domain as realm of phenomena

^†Includes spatiotemporal domain

^†‘Is’—some spatiotemporal domain

Complements

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

Pattern, Law, and Law

The Contingent and Therefore Non-Universal Character of Law

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

Laws Have Being

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

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

Universe and Law

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

Possibility and Actuality

Creation

The Universe has no external creator

One domain may be implicated in the creation of another

Void

The Concept of the Void

The Void is the complement of the Universe

Properties of the Void

Essential Properties

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

Existence

Contains no Being

Contains no Law

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

Other Properties

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

Significance

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

METAPHYSICS

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

What is Metaphysics?

Metaphysics is Study and Knowledge of Being

Introduction

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

Metaphysics as a Discipline

Metaphysics is knowledge of Being-as-Being

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

Possibility and Fact of Metaphysics

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

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

Metaphysics as an Activity

As an activity, metaphysics is the study of Being

It is search and research

It develops metaphysics as knowledge, as a discipline

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

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

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

^E-The Perfect Metaphysician

This section, originally titled ‘The Characteristics of a Good Metaphysician’, is continuous with the previous but placement in a separate section gives it its deserved emphasis

Approach to the Measure of a Metaphysician

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

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

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

If the present metaphysics is indeed The Universal Metaphysics then further development concerns (a) Special content within metaphysics, (b) The join of metaphysics and other fields (which are not metaphysics because of imprecision but which may seek to represent what might otherwise be metaphysical content and to find alternate ways to the pure epistemic of being brought under the umbrella of ‘perfection’ which requires understanding or seeking to understand the contextual natures—such as they are—of the received modes), (c) alternate modes of expression, (d) alternate conceptions of metaphysics (e.g., Edward Zalta, The Theory of Abstract Objects, has the following conception ‘Whereas physics attempts a systematic description of fundamental and complex concrete objects, metaphysics attempts a systematic description of fundamental and complex abstract objects’ and ‘Abstract objects are the objects that are presupposed by our scientific conceptual framework’) (e) Metaphysics as action (the way in which this is essentially metaphysics is that it is shown that it is by complementing ideational process by action and transformation of Being that metaphysics may approach completion)

We can eliminate item (d) above, not because it is incorrect but because it is partial; in the present development concrete and abstract objects have been brought under metaphysics. I would rename Zalta’s metaphysics ‘the metaphysics of abstract objects’ and describe physics as an approximate science of concrete objects

The Characteristics for Pure Metaphysics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The only Metaphysician is the Perfect Metaphysician

The only metaphysician is the perfect metaphysician—

This follows, from the earlier points

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

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

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

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

The Characteristics for Applied Metaphysics

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

A broad range of knowledge from ancient and modern disciplines

Serious / specialized knowledge in a representative range of such disciplines

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

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

Willingness to be bold and synthesize; and to criticize

The Characteristics for Action and Transformation as continuation of Metaphysical Activity

Third, living in the light of the above

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

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

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

The Perfect Metaphysician: Summary

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

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

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

What ‘Metaphysics’ shall not mean in this Narrative

It is not Study of the Occult

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

It is not a Speculative Metaphysics

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

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

It is not Systematic by Intention or Imposition

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

These systems had the following characteristics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is not by Design a Metaphysic of Experience

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

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

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

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

Modern Doubts Regarding Metaphysics

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

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

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

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

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

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

Metaphysics is Possible

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Metaphysical Thought May Have Practical Motivation and Consequences

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

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

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

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

Non-Trivial Metaphysics is Possible

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

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

Direct Address of the Criticisms of Metaphysics

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

The Metaphysics of this Narrative

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

The Metaphysics of this Narrative and its Entailments

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

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

A Unique, Ultimate, and Universal Metaphysics

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

Uniqueness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Universal Character

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

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

Ultimate Character

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

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

*Simultaneous Emergence of Metaphysics and Epistemology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Universal Metaphysics

Principle of Being and its Demonstration

Properties of the Void

Principle of Being Stated in Terms of Existence of States

Meaning of ‘Existence of States’: Concept and Object

Statement of the Principle of Being in terms of Limits

Need for Clarification of Meaning

Meaning and Significance of the Principle of Being

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

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

Meaning lies primarily in proof and clarification of the statement

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

Meaning of the Principle of Being

Meaning of Limitlessness

Meaning of the Principle is also Brought out by Alternate Formulations

Need for an Effective Formulation

An Effective Formulation in Terms of Logic

Formulation in terms of logic

Effectiveness of the Formulation

Need for an alternative conception of logic

The Concept of Logic

Other Formulations

Two Equivalent Fundamental Forms

1. The Universe which is all Being has no limits

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

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

Primitive Forms—Givens that Harbor Explicit Forms

3. Being is that which exists over some domain; Laws and Patterns have Being

4. The Universe is all Being and contains all Laws and Patterns

5. The Void which is the absence of Being exists and contains no Law

Alternative Forms

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. Principle of Variety, another form. The Universe Cannot be Greater Than It Is

9. A form based in the concept of Law. There is no Universal Law. The one Universal law is that concepts that refer to Being are limited only by Logic

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

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

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

Some Detailed Consequences

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

Purpose of this Section

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

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

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

Consequences for Cosmology and Identity

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

Remarks on significance and method

Fundamental Doubts

Doubts regarding the fundamental concepts have been addressed in chapter Being

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

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

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

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

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

Existential, Internal, and External Sources of Doubt

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

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

Response to Doubt that the Metaphysics is Empirical

The fact of empiricism—empirical character of the fundamental concepts

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

Response to Doubts Regarding Internal Relations

The metaphysics allows an ultimate definition of Logic

Response to Existential Doubt

Alternate proof and plausible arguments above and below in Alternate proof

Residual doubt—Doubt and faith below

A Unique, Ultimate, and Universal Metaphysics Revisited

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

The ultimate character of the metaphysics can now be made explicit

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

The Metaphysics

Depth and Breadth

The Universe

No Limits, Greatest Possible

On Demonstration and Interpretation

The crucial doubts regarding the universal metaphysics

Doubt—existential, and relational (internal and external) coherence

Alternate Proof

Also see demonstration after all in the metadocument

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

These issues are addressed in the two sections below

Necessary

Plausible

^A-Doubt and Attitude

Alternate title to next

Doubt and Faith

Residual doubt

Faith

Doubt and faith

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

Belief

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

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

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

Topics in Metaphysics

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

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

Problems of metaphysics. Fundamental problem.

Consequences

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

*Logic

^†Conceptual realism

Recapitulation: The Concept of Logic and its Origin

Principle of Being in terms of Logic (conceptual realism)

The logics and Logic

Logos as the Object of Logic

The Logos is the Universe in All its Detail

The Sense of this Statement

On the Nature of Logic

Immensity and Open-endedness of Logic

Deduction and Logic

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

What does it mean that Logic is empirical?

1. Consider the law of non-contradiction

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

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

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

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

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

^†Art and Fiction

*Science

The Concept

Concept of science so far

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

Conceptual Consistency and Deduction

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

An Interpretation of Science as Fact

Science and the Metaphysics

The Normal

Normal Limit

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

Future Concept of Science

Impossibility of Science of the Universe Revealed by the Metaphysics

Consequences and Necessities of Being as Journey Without Limit

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

Participation and immersion

Miracles

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

*Cosmology

Introduction

Concept of Cosmology

Subject Matter

Variety and Kinds of Being and Behavior

…and their Extension and Duration

General versus Special Cosmology

General versus Physical Cosmology

General Cosmology

Method

The Metaphysics and its Methods

Experience (science, exploration…) for raw concepts

Universalization of the raw concepts (as far as possible and necessary via the metaphysics and its methods)

Variety

Cosmological Variety; include cosmos as its own ghost; multiple universes (Everett)

Extension and Process

Being and Extension

No ultimate atoms. From PB: every atom is a cosmos and every cosmos an atom

Principle of Being and Process

Examples of Process

Description

Dynamics

Origins. Evolutionary and Special Processes

Origins of Cosmological Systems

Being, Space, and Time

Note. In discussing the ‘reality’ of space and time we must confront phrases like ‘time is not real’. The real question is not whether space and time are real or not but what they really are and what is the status of the significance that we attribute to them

Immanence of Extension and Duration

Since there is nothing outside Being and the Universe

Patchworks of Space and Time

Is the Speed of Light Absolute

It is not a law that nothing can exceed the ‘speed of light’; rather, the velocity of light is a fundamental property in this cosmos of material interactions: it is the speed at which interactions propagate and therefore there is nothing to go faster, nothing to accelerate another object to a greater speed: an object traveling faster than light outstrips any accelerating influence

Multiple Times and Signal Velocities

Circular Time

Inseparability of Space and Time

Of course they are fundamentally distinct

Mind and Matter

The Ambition of the Discussion

The plan of the discussion of mind and matter is as follows

This chapter

First, we see what can be deduced from the earlier discussions of Experience and the Universal Metaphysics. I may also make suggestions but distinguish them from what is deduced. This is the content of the section Mind, Matter and the Universal Metaphysics

We are interested in a description that captures the nature of human being. The reasons for this interest are of course self-interest and the fact that as advanced beings go, animal-human being is our prime example. Interest is in normal and ultimate capability. We will attempt to ‘define’ individuals in terms of ‘dimensions’. Specifics will come in later sections (sections Life, Human Being of chapter Being in The Universe). There are concerns about what it means to define the individual and whether the individual is definite. To define should be to allow for any indefiniteness. The positive aspect of indefiniteness is freedom. Some people, common folk as well as ‘thinkers’, regard us as deterministic organisms. Others hold that we are quintessentially free. I hold that freedom and determinism remain in balance, in tension, in interaction. In fact I hold that it is in this tension and understanding of its difficulties comes (as one of its conditions) the highest expression of freedom. In this chapter I discuss freedom in the section Freedom and Determinism. The detailed discussion of dimensions (e.g. freedom versus determinism, conscious / awareness / unconscious) and their integration is deferred to the later chapter noted above

The next part of the discussion in this chapter is the section Some Considerations of Mind and Matter in The Universal Case

The discussions so far will be seen to suggest panpsychism. The issue is briefly discussed in the final section on mind and matter in this chapter: How Pervasive is Mind

The chapter Being in The Universe

Then, in later sections (sections Life, Human Being of chapter Being in The Universe) I will focus on mind in our cosmos. Interpreted widely this is part of the subject of modern science and philosophy. I will attempt to draw necessary conclusions and it will be convenient to distinguish logical necessity from my interpretation of the necessities of science (if you are wondering that I allow vagueness then you should read a sampling of the modern literature on these topics and experience each of its divergent views, each confidently stated but each equivocated—obviously—by the others and—perhaps not quite as obviously for this, since it is not admitted and since it follows the ‘lets take a stand’ ego bloating knowledge deflating paradigm, will require analysis of argument—in itself). I will of course pay attention to the concept of mind but it will be especially important to consider matter because I think we do not have a firm grasp on the concept of matter even though the success of science leads us (sometimes) to think that we do and this too confuses issues and dilutes argument

I will then attempt to mesh the strains of thought of the previous two paragraphs: the conclusions from the metaphysics and from science. I will try to distinguish grades of necessity (metaphysical and scientific) and suggestion

Next I will attempt to characterize mind. I will lay out a set of ‘dimensions’, one of which is integration, and will discuss a variety of forms of integration such as personality and consciousness as we experience it

Mind, Matter and the Universal Metaphysics

We saw that Experience constitutes the theater of our Being. It is not everything, not even everything mental but it is fundamental in that (1) It is the workplace of our designs and hopes (even though the sources of these are not at all entirely in experience) (2) It is Experience that gives us intrinsic significance (machine or zombie versions of us that replicated only our behavior but not our inner life, if at all possible, would derive any significance from other Beings with Experience)

Experience is the central aspect of the mental. How that picture is to be filled out—and is our Experience of Experience definitive—will emerge

What is Experience? It is Experience-of, i.e. it is Experience of something. What of ‘pure’ Experience; this seems to contradict the claim that Experience is Experience-of. A single point has no complexity at all and is Logically incapable of representation and therefore of Experience. However, there are no absolute points of Being: every atom is a potential cosmos and every cosmos is an atom. Therefore ‘pure’ Experience, when it occurs, is Experience-of that is internal to the organism. All Experience is Experience-of

We can now see that Experience is the effect of interaction in Being(s). In the primitive case this is purely the case and Experience is effect in the entity of another. In less primitive organisms there is of course the effect of other; however, there are also internal effects that have degrees of tie-in to ‘other’. Via adaptation these are capable of representation of the world; the different degrees of tie-in or binding define a continuum whose extreme points are Experienced as perception and pure Experience. Here ‘perception’ is used in a general sense and includes body perception or feeling associate with sense of one’s body including muscle tension / relaxation, the kinesthetic sense, and pain; ‘external’ perception correspond to perception of environment in the standard sensory modes (the famous five are: sight, sound, taste, smell, touch; this list is probably not quite complete for the feeling of warmth is not the same as the feeling of brushing against something; also note the continuity of internal versus external exemplified by touch which is close to ‘internal’ sensation). Similarly pure Experience is cognitive-emotive and includes freedom of concept formation. Because of integration / integrability pure Experience and perception are always ready for interaction if not in at least low level scanning interaction

In other words we can think of matter as ‘first order Being’, Being-in-itself, and mind as ‘second order Being’ or Being-in-relation (including ‘self’ relation)

However from the idea of equivalence of the concepts of atom and cosmos, there is no final distinction between mind and matter

If we allow the generalized meaning of Experience implied by the discussion then Experience is pervasive. It is not implied that elementary particles have Experiences like ours but that what they do have lies in the same category as Experience (just as their material nature lies in the same category of all first order being including the complex objects of our world). Thus our autonomic and unconscious processes are also mental. We have more than one center of Experience. They are not in perfect communication. One of them, our central consciousness, is our primary Experience of Experience (described in some detail in the next chapter). It is normally never in communication with the autonomic processes; its communication with the unconscious (one whose intensity and focus is less than that of central consciousness) is in tenuous communication with central consciousness

Later we will be concerned with enumeration some basic ‘dimensions’ of mind that can in particular cases be built up into descriptions (though not mere descriptions: we will be guided by considerations that include necessity) of entities such as (human) individuals

What is the most fundamental of these dimensions? It is perhaps that of freedom versus determinism in the life of Being. It is in a sense the source of all significance and all becoming of significance

Freedom and Determinism

Universal Metaphysics requires Experiential organisms of our level and infinitely greater complexity. What is the essence of such organisms and their origin. We hesitate to talk of essence: Universal Metaphysics denies ultimate substance. We can talk only of what is ‘Normal’ and what is ‘Probable’ (as substitutes for essence). The origin of complex adapted organisms does not require variation and selection of necessity; but it seems as though this is by far the most stable and probable route. What is the ‘essence’ of variation and selection? It may be seen as the balance of some mix of indeterminism and selection of stable configurations. This is necessarily allowed and therefore required (in some cases) by Universal Metaphysics; it is also the case for Earth biology and this has some base in the indeterminism / structure balance of quantum theory

The basis of concept formation is analogous to the variation and selection of evolution. The processes within the organism (brain) are not entirely deterministic. There are sparks of indeterminism and these may be amplified perhaps via association into elementary new concepts and by further association / recombination into full blown new concepts for which there is a natural as well as formal selection going on: intuitive realism (which we can sometimes elect to suspend) and formal criticism (logic etc)

This freedom is essential to an organism that has freedom of self determination including freedom of will. This freedom is not that of those humanist and existentialist thinkers who see human being as essentially self-defining. The balance between our ‘given’ nature and freedom (which is also part of our given nature) is a give and take; we learn with difficulty where we can be free, what freedom is worthwhile, and developing and implementing such freedom and change takes emotional investment and expense and may come at some cost. However, it is real and even in the normal case the boundary between the given and the ‘possible’ is not known; its determination is a matter that includes experiment; further, the boundary between the normal and the universal (our ultimate identity) is also tenuous and a matter of experiment and learning and begins and remains in the normal (it remains there because as we assimilate new forms they then become ‘normal’). ‘In the life of the spirit we are always at the beginning’ (The Book of Runes: Ralph Blum, 1982)

Some Considerations of Mind and Matter in The Universal Case

Imagine a cosmos with two kinds of first order Being: two kinds of matter (and therefore, by the way, at least two modes of time and two fundamental signal velocities)

There are two kinds of second order Being or mind

Now all these kinds must interact (universal interaction); the interactions will of course at times be below threshold of awareness and significant cause

Matter₁-matter₂ interactions may be experienced as a-causal; or as ghost interactions

Mind₁-matter₂ interactions may be experienced as sparks of creativity; this is not necessary, for mind₁ has its own spark in indeterminism and its structuring of the creative spark in the patterns originating from the spark and cultivated by deterministic and spark combinations

Mind₁-mind₂ interactions may be experienced as spirit (soul may be identified as the continuity of Identity discussed in sections Identity and Realization and Power)

How Pervasive is Mind?

The discussion so far implies that mind is universal. However, it is not implied that every element of Being has a mind like the mind of a human being or even of an ant. It is implied that what makes for higher mind is found everywhere; more precisely the category of mind is universal

This sounds like panpsychism. In view of the dominance of materialism in western thought today, panpsychism is out of favor and often viewed with scorn

The first tenet of materialism is everything is (made of) matter. However, mind does not seem to be material. The first tenet does not imply that mind is not material but that is sometimes explicitly taken to be the case and its tacit assumption is widespread (perhaps without significant reflection in many cases). Thus the immateriality of mind is at least an effective part of the materialist framework (baggage from the past and or from faulty intuition). When the immateriality of mind is appended to the first tenet, the result is a strict form of materialism: everything is matter and mind is not matter. This is why some materialists deny mind. This position is called the eliminative theory of mind or eliminativism

However, even the non-strict version of materialism has explanatory work to do (and this is also one of the appeals of eliminativism)

On materialism, matter is the only fundamental category of Being and of explanation. There is a weaker version of materialism that would claim, not that matter is the only fundamental category, but that matter is a fundamental category. This is not a dualism for it leaves mind and its nature open; it is not a distinct fundamental category. On this weaker materialism, there appear to be two alternatives regarding the existential status of mind. Either it is co-occurrent with matter or it emerges in complex organization of matter such as brains. The first view is panpsychism and the second is emergentism. However, emergentism has two significant problems. First, how does mind emerge (especially given that on its assumption, mind is not there at root). Second, if mind emerges merely out of organization and structure, then its origin is not necessary and there ought to be non-conscious zombies that are materially and behaviorally equivalent to conscious human beings (which is why some materialists deny consciousness)

Thus panpsychism (or perhaps a lesser psychism that says that mind is present from the beginning in some matter) deserves consideration. Now if panpsychism says that mind is present everywhere and therefore if some version of materialism is true then the result seems to be a dualism and this comes with its own set of explanatory problems and which resulted in thinkers such as Descartes and Leibniz arguing that God intervenes to coordinate the activity of mind and matter. However, dualism is not a necessary result of panpsychism. Mind could be part of matter and not different from it. The objection to this includes the thought that the description of matter nowhere refers to mind. This thought is not true. What is true is that the description of matter makes no explicit reference to mind. However, mind could be part of matter though not part of its explicit description. Strictly this would not be a panpsychism. Now some thinkers would object to this from a materialist perspective. However, it is a view that, among alternatives—emergentism, raw panpsychism—is most congenial to materialism. Another objection is from parsimony of hypotheses (Ockham’s Razor) that says that the minimalist material hypothesis is ‘no mind present in matter’. That is untrue: the minimalist hypotheses is ‘no comment’ regarding mind. Finally, Universal Metaphysics requires mind and matter to be coeval and co-occurrent

However, it should be emphasized that Universal Metaphysics is neither materialism nor idealism nor panpsychism. It makes no commitment to substance and allows the actual case to emerge. It finds that there is no substance; there may be practical substances whose domain is e.g. certain purposes; it finds that mind and matter (not those of this cosmos) are natural and convenient terms of description and discussion

Special Metaphysics and Cosmology

See the discussions in the subsequent sections of this chapter

The cosmologies of fiction, myth, and religion (which do not of essence exclude those of science)

Fantasy and the special cosmologies

Metaphysics and Science

Relationships

Science as Example

Metaphysics as Illumination

Sources in Science

Physical Science

Life Science

Mind and its Study

Implications for Science

General

Topics for Research

*Objects

The Idea of the Object

Perfect and Practical Objects

The Perfect Object

Modes of Practical Object

Non Epistemic Criteria

Particular and Abstract Objects

Terminology: ‘Particular’ versus ‘Concrete’

Particular is a generalization of ‘concrete’ that makes it clear that the idea is not limited to things, it allows interactions and processes which are not entirely thing-like but are in fact in the ‘physical world’ and not abstract

Particular and Abstract Objects—the Distinction

Abstract Objects—The Standard Accounts

Not residing in space and time; a-causal

Platonic versus Mental versus Mere Description versus Symbolic-Formal

The Unified Theory

There is no fundamental distinction between the particular and the abstract

Proof

Interpretation

Perfection Revisited

The Seeming Perfection of Abstract Objects

When apparently perfect, the source of perfection is the symbolic definition

Not all abstract objects are clearly perfect, e.g. when symbolic definition is tied or adjunct to a concrete side, i.e. for ‘mixed’ objects (that we sometimes regard as abstract because of some emphasis on or confusion as the abstract side)

Sources of Imperfection: Limitations of Symbolic Systems

Inconsistency. Not every useful symbolic system is known to be consistent, or more generally, to satisfy Logic

Incompleteness. We know that except for very simple cases, mathematical systems are either inconsistent or incomplete (Gödel). Incompleteness of mathematical systems is not surprising for given any language it is not surprising that the consistent structures expressible in it are beyond the power of any finite system of axioms to generate. Gödel showed that for arithmetic there is a true proposition that is unprovable in arithmetic and the essence of the proof idea is that the language of arithmetic is powerful enough to reduce assertions about arithmetic to arithmetic

^$The Nature of Mathematical Truth

Sources of Imperfection: Some Symbolic Systems are Experimental in Intent

Value, Judgment

A Variety of Objects: Exploration

Exploring the variety of objects via the categories of intuition (see section Exploring Objects via the categories of intuition in Journey in being-detail for the following categories: Existential, Natural, and Social; the Existential includes Humor (and morals?); the Natural breaks down to material, organic, and of psyche; and psyche includes the Symbol)

A Variety of Objects: Particular

Entity

Interaction

Process

Substance

Tropes

…as instances of properties

Ideas and Concepts

…in their instantiations

Values

Values as tendencies; as means

Values as ideas and concepts

A Variety of Objects: Abstract

Mathematics and Logic

Universals

Properties

Concepts and Ideas as Abstract

No Platonic World (from the Principle of Being)

As collections of instantiations

There are no mental objects besides concepts

Form

Value

Values as concepts

Values as ideational tendencies

Duality of Particularity and Abstractness

Note the cross-over that obtains even apart from considerations of the unified theory of objects

Generalize and exemplify

Inhabiting Abstract Objects

And other concrete or particular objects?

Identity and Realization

The Principle of Identity

Consequences

Identity and Cosmology

Preservation of Identity

Nature of Void State

Realization is a Journey

Power

The Concept of Power

Ultimate Power and Inheritance

God as Ultimate Power

No justification of anthropomorphic God

From the metaphysics, however, belief in such a God must be belief in intervention (since existence in some cosmos is given)

Also: to deny an anthropomorphic God is anthropomorphic

We do not appear to live in a God-realm

Mediate Powers

Our Organism and Mind

Society, other Persons and the Institutions of Culture Including Technology

Nature

The Powers

Ultimate and mediate, general and special; include spiritual powers

Access—the role of the spirit, of meditation, of prayer (the Universe as ‘you’ and Being as ‘I’; this is anthropomorphic only on an anthropomorphic account of ‘you’ and ‘I’; but not it is easy to get back into anthropomorphic accounts). Therefore the roles of ‘you’ and ‘I’ in prayer and meditation are (a) Affirmative in the sense of messages to the unconscious (b) Experimental

Special Metaphysics and Powers

God, spirit, soul, ghost…

*Applied Metaphysics

The Object in Pure Metaphysics

Practical Objects and the ‘Good Enough’ Criterion

Context. Practical Object as Perfect

Value

Limit of context

Value and Perfection

The Range of Applied Metaphysics

*Method

Review of Developments

Metaphysics and Logic

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

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

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

Comments on Logic

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

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

Method and Content

General

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

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

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

Epistemology and Metaphysics

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

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

Imagination and Realism

Two Caricatures of Method

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

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

Imagination and Realism

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

Imagination and realism are the keys to method

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

Internal and External Relations

Internal and External Relations are sources of imagination and realism

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

Imagination and Realism: Details

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

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

Positive imagination: iconic and symbolic creation

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

Imagination and realism are interpenetrating

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

The Iconic and the Symbolic

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

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

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

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

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

A Conventional and Convenient Distinction: Discovery and Justification

Heuristic-Plausible Argument and Creation

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

Heuristics—relation to creativity with comments on criticism and creativity

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

Doubt and Necessary or Certain Argument

Comments on Descartes?

Proof / Demonstration

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

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

Functions of doubt. Doubt and certainty are duals. The more we desire or need certainty the more important is doubt—doubt that is essential to the enterprise of an academic discipline may be neurotic in day to day affairs (doubt for its own sake may be neurotic but even neurotic doubt may be useful). In apprehending the nature of Being, doubt is essential. What do we mean by the phrase ‘nature of Being’? It is essential in knowledge that we have ideas, concepts, perceptions and so on and we are concerned with their validity as pictures of the real, of Being (and whether the phrase ‘pictures of the real’ captures the essence of knowing). Therefore doubt has two functions (a) clarification of our ideas and (b) establishing validity or certainty (to whatever degree clarification and validation may be possible and achieved)

^†Observations on Method, Necessity, and Heuristics

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

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

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

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

Knowledge

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

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

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

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

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

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

Science and Metaphysics

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

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

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

Applied Metaphysics

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

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

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

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

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

Philosophy

Logic and Mathematics

Art and Religion

Doubt, Faith, and Attitude

We have seen that doubt remains regarding the metaphysics

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

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

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

*On Meaning

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

I.e., linguistic and theory meaning

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

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

^†General Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Fallacies of Meaning

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

This section repeats some of the content of the previous section

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

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

*Formal Development

Meaning comes in triads: word-Concept-object

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

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

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

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

The possibility via abstraction of perfect Concept-object pairs

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

^†Some Essential Ideas or Concepts

This material is also placed in the Introduction

Also see meta: a medley of concepts

Following is a preliminary set and division

General, Human, and the Journey

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

*Academic

BEING IN THE UNIVERSE

Alternate titles—Our being in the Universe | Human being in the Universe | Intelligent being in the Universe | (The) Human World | Worlds

Introduction

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

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

The applications are nature (organism, psyche) and society

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

^†Review of Metaphysics, Identity, Realization, Power

On Explanation

The Concept of Explanation

The Concept

Given phenomena, to describe them, clarify context (e.g. kind of phenomena), causes, and, possibly, consequences and significance

Clarification and Relation to Causation and Conceptual System (Theory)

An explanation may or may not identify the entire system of cause for the phenomena but, at least in the ideal case, it will evaluate or attempt to evaluate the causal status of the posited causal system (cause, causes, or causal system e.g. as a necessary or inductive conceptual system)

(a) Possible versus probable versus definite

(b) Plausible versus necessary (and kind of necessity: deductive or inductive; note science is inductive but may be regarded as necessary in a context and may be so well established that we think of the context as the best we know so far) and

Explanatory triad

Phenomena

Explanatory Framework—Universal and Particular

E.g. Metaphysics (in this system necessary) and Science (inductive r/t extrapolation, necessary r/t domain of data but otherwise undetermined)

Elements

*Nature

Explanatory triad

Phenomena

Explanatory framework

Elements

Matter

Life

Human Being

Human Organism

Psyche as Organic

*Human World

Human Being and Nature—Psyche and Psychology

Primary Goal

Provide sufficient fundamental characterization (a) That is illuminating of our material, animal, human, and psychic being (b) That is sufficiently non-specific that it avoids the error of over commitment (which while it may not initially capture our favorite characterizations provides a consistent and significant framework for such capture) (c) To see if what may be special about human being (the goal would not be to show superiority over or separateness form other organisms), and (d) To delineate characteristics that would be useful / essential to the journey

Balance Between Freedom and Constraint

We may attempt capture of essential nature but the essential goal will be characterization in terms of general fundamentals that provide a framework for understanding, development, and application (what this means cannot be entirely separate from the actual characterization(s)). The characterization will be in terms of an earlier list of choices from categorial alternatives. Here it will be some essentials and not the complete lists of earlier developments. Some of the essential aspects may be afferent / efferent (presence to and presence in), free / bound, inner / outer (world / body: cognition / emotion…), iconic / symbolic, adaptation / adaptability… and we will be looking to illuminate essentials (essences if any should flow from rather than precondition the development) the freedom and kind of freedom that makes us the way we are: living organisms, symbolic capability for representation and communication, personality, creative in the ways that we are (intellect, artifact, art, spirit, society…); the experience of freedom and constraint

The organization of psyche is important. One way to depict this is in terms of categories of intuition (see A Variety of Particular and Abstract Objects)

Mind, Matter and the Science of our Cosmos

The majority of scientists and philosophers in the universities and similar organizations of the west are materialists of one persuasion or other. Perhaps that is overstatement; however, we are confident in asserting that, if there is one, materialism is our dominant academic western world view. What of non-academics? I do not know the statistics and the demographics for Western Europe are probably different from those of America. However, there are two ‘default’ positions: religious and secular. The dominant secular view tends toward materialism

But what is matter? I want to mention a trivial distinction to push it aside. In the early history of the modern era, i.e. well before quantum theory and relativity, matter was roughly the stuff of Newton’s world view. There were material particles whose interactions (at first gravity and later electromagnetic) were not thought to be material. Then however we found that fields had mass and energy. So there are some modern definitions ‘matter is what occupies space and time and has no rest mass’. The definition attempts to hang on to old ideas but to accommodate modern concepts. This is unnecessary. When two lumps of matter touch are they touching? It is the van der Waals forces etc that are ‘touching’. There is no touching of matter against matter in the old notion of matter. We need to throw out the old bathwater. Materialism is the world view that all that there is in the world (cosmos) is what is described in the physics of today (quantum and relativistic). This is sometimes called ‘physicalism’ but there is no modern reason to not think of it as materialism

Still, what is matter? And perhaps more importantly, what is materialism?

Our best approximation to matter is what is described in modern physical science. However, modern science cannot claim completeness. The dominant view is that it is near complete (except for some asymptotically vanishing regions). This is what many scientists thought of late nineteenth century science. We cannot envision what lies beyond our theories because they are not just theories of what is there but they are also the lens by which we view the world. However, there is nothing in science that implies that what lies in its dark corners is not a door to infinity. And Universal Metaphysics confirms and proves this

We have no estimate whether our notions of matter are anywhere near complete even on science itself. And we have this Universal Metaphysics that demonstrates infinite incompleteness

For purposes of argument we will consider matter to be what we know in physical science. That will be our basis of the idea of materialism

What is materialism?

It is first that everything in the world is matter

Now matter as we normally think of it makes no reference to mental terms. It is not impossible to think of Newton’s particles as having mental properties but it is impossible that they should have freedom (they are deterministic). However quantum objects have both freedom and structure. Quantum objects are more ‘mind-like’. However even quantum objects make no explicit reference to mind

However the strict materialist goes further. He or she says that matter excludes mind

On this strict materialist account a problem arises. If the category of matter excludes the category of mind, then how is it that there are minds? (Because of the tentativeness of science we should not be talking in terms of categories but we are trying to see what we may learn by adopting the view of the varieties of materialist and here we are thinking of the strict materialist.) On the very strictest of accounts there is no mind (this is eliminative materialism or eliminativism): mind is delusion (but having delusions is mental)

I do not want to waste a number of paragraphs on the absurdity of the foregoing point of view

We therefore ask what the possibilities for mind may be on an account that relinquishes the strictness in materialism, i.e. a materialist account that is at least neutral with regard to mind: it neither asserts nor denies that mind is material (strict materialism has sometimes invoked Ockham’s razor but the exclusion of mind is as superfluous as the inclusion; the neutral case as laid out above is the one that is minimal with regard to unnecessary hypotheses). If matter is all there is how / when does mind arise or enter or, simply, where is it? There seem to be two alternatives: it was there in the beginning (it is coeval and co-occurrent with matter) or it arises somehow in the organization of matter (e.g. via adaptation and in brains). (Perhaps mind could arise spontaneously but here we are seeking an account that does not violate the order of the cosmos as revealed in physical science quite that violently.) The former view is a variety of panpsychism. It is out of favor today and the logical reason for disfavor is that it seems to be at odds with materialism (panpsychism also seems to suggest that a very particular phenomenon, e.g. our mind, pervades the cosmos but this is not the case: although some versions of panpsychism do make such claims, that is not necessary to panpsychism, and the panpsychism worth examining is the view that a very elementary form of the mental pervades the physical). The latter view is emergentism. It is in favor for the same sorts of reason that panpsychism is out (it does not seem at odds with materialism and it does not suggest the seemingly weird notion that mind pervades matter). However, emergentism has difficulties. If Experience is not an aspect of elementary matter where does it come from? If it comes from the organization of matter it should, in order to be an argument, show how it so comes. Emergentism has not demonstrated its case

We must look a little more carefully at panpsychism. What does it really say? Does it have to say that mind is present in all elements of matter or just some? Well yes if it is to be pan-psychism. If mind is present only in some elements of matter that be pan but only occasional psychism. But even if only occasional, how does this occur? How does psyche come to be present in either some or all elements of matter? For that ‘matter’ how does matter come to be present (in matter)? On today’s science and philosophy we do not know the answer to either of the previous two questions. It is logically unfair to accept matter but not mind as fundamental (even though it may be reasonable on the bulk of evidence: but this reason is probable and not necessary)

Before proceeding I remark again that mind (Experience) is a given. It is not a delusion (robust arguments have been given earlier; a less robust argument is that if it is delusional then that is paradoxical since a delusion is an Experience)

The explanation that responds effectively to the foregoing difficulties and that is perhaps most efficient and in some ways most satisfying is as follows. It is simple, not complex so do not anticipate ‘depth’. It is that what is mental is also and already physical (here a distinction arises according to whether present science is adequate to represent the mental). We have seen that Experience (human and generalized) is Experience-of: it is the effect of ‘other’ in the Experiencing organism or element. When two particles are in interaction they are under one another’s mutual influence. There is an effect of the other in the one. (Particle theory sometimes pictures particles, e.g. leptons, as structure-less.) However, this is far from being known to be the case; it is simply that there is no evidence of structure and for various reasons conservative thinkers conflate absence of evidence with absence and so help pollute future thought. And Universal Metaphysics shows: no absolute atoms (even leptons). Experience at the elementary level, we suggest, is the effect in the Experiencing element of another element

What view of kind of view is this? It is not quite panpsychism or occasional psychism if by psychism we mean that the mental part of matter is over and above the material part. The claim is that the mental part is part of the material part (earlier we saw that on Universal Metaphysics the two parts are identical). It is rather like mind-brain identity theory but not quite. Mind-brain identity is not inconsistent with emergentism, and it refers to the neurological level of material description. And it is not a ‘theory’ in that it posits something; it shows necessity by arguing its reasonableness and consistency (with materialism and within Universal Metaphysics) and by eliminating its alternatives. It is essentially a neutral account of the revealed ‘dimensions’ the world, of Being, i.e. of Being-as-Being (‘matter’) and Being-in-Relation (Field and Experience). I could call it a Neutral Account of the Fundamental Dimensions of Being. Neutral monism, in so far as it posits a single substance of unspecified kind is not neutral: it is neutral with regard to kind but with regard to the fact of substance. The present account is even neutral with regard to neutrality; the neutrality is reflexive. Whatever the actual case, we find that epistemology and metaphysics are interwoven but that we need not explicitly point to the former being contained in the latter. We could call the present account Reflexively Neutral Metaphysics or Reflexive Neutralism or, simply, Neutralism or, perhaps, Absolute Neutralism

Necessity

What is the necessity of the foregoing suggestion?

It is consistent with physical science. It is the simplest and most efficient of the alternatives (it is not the ‘mind pervades all psychism’ but it is a ‘mind is already physical’ ‘psychism’)

It is required in some (infinitely many cosmoses) by Universal Metaphysics which suggests, together an evolutionary paradigm, this case to be the most stable and enduring

Parameters

The first characteristic for human being is Experience. The forms of Experience are ‘pure’ and in association with attitude and action. Action has little meaning without choice and so freedom of will is important (in balance with normal limits); additionally there is a freedom in attitude that is exemplified by freedom in concept formation (in balance with the limit or constraint of realism). Action raises the characteristic called ‘mental causation’: how is it possible for mind to be causative in a physical world (in terms of the present necessary theory the question is ill formed for mind is physical and so the question itself is a non-question even though of course the details of mental efficacy are immensely interesting). We are particularly interested in consciousness. In our first meaning, Experience and consciousness are identical; however if we generalize Experience to particles and to sub / unconscious states (how this will be done is discussed below) then we should distinguish what we normally mean by consciousness from Experience. The question of the nature of consciousness is interesting (it appears to be on-off but when on to vary in intensity); the relation between consciousness and awareness is also interesting: the two are roughly synonymous but there appear to be cases of awareness without consciousness (there are experimental demonstrations but we are probably all familiar with sudden realizations that we were aware of something before it came into clear consciousness). We are interested in the varieties of Experience: simple feeling and sensation, emotions, cognition (perception and thought in icons and symbols and therefore in language, intuition and its categories). We are interested in a number of elementary contrasts that should be part of the foundation or body of any fuller understanding of mind: free / bound, body / world (awareness) or ‘inner’ / ‘outer’, afferent / efferent / pure, object-awareness: holism and abstraction versus analytic awareness and analytic description, icon / symbol, degrees of intensity, focus / background / scanning / multiple centers of awareness, sensory and feeling varieties, conscious / awareness / unconscious, freedom of recall / association: semi-free, semi-aware. Finally, in addition to object awareness we are interested in complex varieties of object, e.g. states of affairs, identity, personality and so on

Human Mind

We focus on human mind even though some parts of the following describe animal mind generally

Human Mind has the following features

1. Primal Experience

2. Tie in—to ‘the environment’

Strictly the inner / outer distinction is metaphorical and the real distinction is body / rest of the world. Conscious binding to body is largely in the form of feeling including pain; binding or tie in to the environment is perception—conscious and less than conscious (there is feeling of the environment as in warmth and the body / rest of world distinction has blurring)

3. Tie in is afferent / efferent. The root of attitude / action

4. Variety: sensory and efferent multimodality; two way tie of the modes: environment and organism (brain); later source of cognitive-emotive modes

5. Multiplication; perhaps a function of coherence and feedback. The source of intensity

6. Layering: primitive and later, layered, function; root of the autonomous versus central control; connection, association, and reflexivity (all functions of adaptation) (reflexivity allows Experience of Experience and consciousness of consciousness

What is the difference between consciousness and Experience? They are of the same kind. We can think of grades of Experience and consciousness from zero to some finite value. However, it is preferable to have one of these terms be general and the other be the reflexive form. Usage tends to Experience as general and consciousness Experienced Experience. Therefore consciousness is Experienced as on-off and a continuum once on; if we have the language ability we can talk of consciousness and cultivate via language and culture

7. Multiple centers and therefore

Focus / background due to different degrees of intensity / tie in

Distinction of bright consciousness as the (apparent consciousness)

Apparent awareness without consciousness

Apparent subconscious and unconscious

8. The evolutionary advantage of Experience / consciousness is not the fact of it (the fact is a necessary correlate of the fact of Being). Rather the evolutionary advantage is the structure, variety, reflexivity, freedom from and binding to the environment

What is the foundation of freedom and what are its dimensions?

On a material paradigm the foundation must lie in indeterminism. Indeterminism poses a problem of structure. However both quantum theory and Universal Metaphysics allow structure with freedom. In fact, indeterminism is necessary for structure. In determinism the only structure is that which was effectively already present. Indeterminism allows the origin of structure; first from a transient background; then elementary structure one of the factors to which further structure adapts (is stable). This is adaptation in evolution

The mechanism in freedom of thought (concept formation, thinking new thoughts) is similar. Mind, in its complexity arrives at a stage where an indeterminist spark is magnified into a new thought randomly. In creativity this may be rapid fire and various selection mechanisms are at play (intuition, criticism…) It is a source of the altogether new and the freedom of play of concept restructure. This is entirely consistent with quantum theory, entirely inconsistent with the earlier determinist paradigms. It is required by Universal Metaphysics though not universally which allows ‘jumps’ even though it is reasonable to think that incremental adaptation is on the whole more likely and robust

What is the appeal of determinist thought? There is a multiplicity of factors and these probably occur in various combinations. First, the world seems determined in many of its manifestations. Second, many religions encourage determinist thought. Third third, science was almost entirely determinist until the advent of quantum theory. Fourth, philosophy has been significantly determinist: substance metaphysics is determinist (a non-determinist object that can change into another object is not a substance); the sources of philosophical determinism include the first three factors as well as the appeal of simple but foundational explanation. However, determinism is not the order of the Universe as revealed in quantum theory and even more strongly and definitively in Universal Metaphysics. Now, formally quantum theory is perhaps more difficult than Newtonian Mechanics but, given the requirement of realism, it is structurally more sound. Universal Metaphysics as we have seen is far more powerful but yet simpler than substance metaphysics and, further, Universal Metaphysics is a non-relative (founded) metaphysics (it is the metaphysics) without substance or need for substance (substance is untenable)

9. Degrees of tie-in; idling; freedom of recall and reconstruction (memory, thought: first iconic, then symbolic)

10. Abstraction (sign, symbol) and language; note the allure of the apparent perfection of symbol / sign; which perfection has two faults; the apparent perfection shown up as incomplete by the incompleteness of symbol systems; and the incomplete rendering of real objects

Initially the symbol refers to objects via complex icons (concepts). The symbol is the stand-in and lends efficiency to thought and communication. However, our complex icons (including those that lie within the categories of intuitions) are projective and approximate (here the category of intuition is important but unlike Kant we do not project the categories of intuition to the world except in some partial and practical sense)

Thus primitive symbolic thought, though efficient, is intuitive and imprecise. This is the strength of atomism whether logical or empirical. If the world and thought are at root atomic (no structure) then we have precision of thought. Over and above the appeals of materialism as materialism this is one of the appeals of science: physical science at least reduces the world to elementary forms to which atomic symbols refer. If the elemental hypothesis of physical science is valid we then have precise understanding of the world. While the degree to which this is possible in science is impressive and while it gives us great and precise leverage, it does not at all follow that extension to all Experience and Being will occur. What was found in Universal Metaphysics is a reduction via abstract to elements; these elements did not cover the world in the sense of knowledge-of and therefore as k-of, Universal Metaphysics is precise as far as it goes but still far from complete; its completeness and power derive from admission of k-that; this is also its weakness: practical knowledge (Experience: common, science…) are required to make it effective and ‘actual’; however it remains that Universal Metaphysics is immensely revelatory and constitutes elements of inspiration and guide

11. From (6) Experience of Experience and from (10) Naming of consciousness and from (1) Intensity of the experience of Experience (a consequence being the apparent on-off character of consciousness)

12. A psychological account of Objects could perhaps be given from neurology. However an outline also follows from adaptation and development. Adaptation must be (1) Direct blueprint, e.g. the number of limbs of an organism and/or (2) Indirect and outline or sketch with particular form arising in development. The combination of (a) and (b) is efficient with regard to genetic information and adaptability of the organism. Problems of object perception include how it is that an object is perceived as an object when its parts could be seen as unrelated (object holism) and how the same object appears to be the same object under different lighting, rotation, and changing distance (object constancy). Though neurological explanation is theoretically interesting and practically useful, such explanation may be difficult. However, life has evolved in this environment and the individual develops in the context not only of elementary parts but in the context of parts and wholes (chairs as well as arms and legs rather than exclusively in the context of arms and legs) and the individual develops in the context of different shades of lighting and movement and rotation (even though the ‘definition’ of a chair does not include its motions and need not for it is not the motion and lighting of a chair that is part of adaptation so much as motion and lighting and rotation in general. These are sources of ‘object holism’, which includes the fact and possibility of the experienced-object including and ‘object constancy’ which includes the experience of the identity of an object whose aspect (and even form and constitution) are changing (provided that elements of the original form and constitution are retained; and this is fortifies by either uniqueness—we are immensely sensitive to differences between human beings and after exposure, even identical twins no longer seem identical—or continuity, e.g. seeing the airplane in its trajectory gives us the experience of it being the same plane even though it appears identical to others)

13. Emotion, cognition, personality, sociability, culture, and language, the forms or categories of intuition as integrated faculties; which integration is not fundamentally different from Object invariance. The account of Objects extends to feeling and cognition and the essential aspect of their integration (over and above their separability), and persons and culture (and of course the break downs and difficulties with these since here lie sources not only of integrative but also of disintegrative—over and above mere breakdown—because adaptive development). Hence, for example, the apparent dependence according to some thinkers of language on social context and thus its fixity; but since cows do not learn language nor do stones however much exposed to our society, the possibility of language and its structure must lie in our bodies (neurophysiology); and therefore the infixity as adaptability to multiple and even imaginary contexts (the imaginary case is important in adaptation)

Is Human Nature Complex andor Ineffable?

Society

Seek essence

Explanatory Triad

Tradition and Process

TRADITION; culture and knowledge: representation, dramatization, generation, communication, transmission—education in content and process by instruction and paradigm or example; developing at the boundaries—dual to grounding at a center; structure, change, and freedom

Organization of Society

Social institutions including groups and their fabric and dynamics. Social functions and processes:—the following are of course not disjoint but are essentially and dynamically connected: culture as above and special institutions of culture; the state (including politics, government, law, and rule)—patriarchal and charismatic—norm, participation, and immersion; economics, artifact, mobilized forms and mobilization, and technology

*The Human Endeavor

^†The Human Endeavor

The Academic Disciplines

^W-Civilization

Nature and Destiny

Status

E.g. state of the world

JOURNEY

Origins of the Idea of a Journey in Being

Individual

Metaphysics

Tradition

Origins—personal, the Universal Metaphysics. Tradition

Realization is a Journey

Demonstration

Characterization of the Journey

Ways

Framework

Metaphysics

Tradition

Experience and Reflection

Reflection—constructive and critical

Experiment and Transformation

Synthesis. Dynamics of Being

Possibilities for a name

A temporary section?

Dynamics… and Yoga. Possibilities for a name for the framework and system of practice and action

At the present I prefer Dynamics or Yoga. I would avoid meditation; perhaps I can combine ‘being’ and ‘dynamics’ somehow

Yoga, meditation, nosomation, being-practice, being-action. YOGA is simple and established, MEDITATION is English and therefore transparent to English speakers, NO-SOMATION captures it all, BEING-ACTION captures it all in a neutral and therefore better way. Being-action is a stem (Yoga as yoke is etymologically neutral). DYNAMICS may be an appealing but neutral name. It is appealing because it is an English word and because it emphasizes that ways are not prescriptions or formulas or some imported ‘method’ such as stylized meditation but involve (a) a framework—the metaphysics and its revealed goal (b) tradition (c) being-in-the-present of world and self (d) the interaction of these with perception, reflection, experience, and experiment

The Idea of a Dynamics of Being

Approach or Method

Reflexive Cultivation of the Dynamics

Illustrations of the Dynamics

Ideas

Identity or Being-as-Being

Practice

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

Action

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

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

Painting Pictures of the Real

Painting pictures of the real. ‘Science’, literature, ‘art’, and ‘religion’ combine in painting pictures of the real

Future and Past

Why this title? Because the future is also the past in some sense. But I might drop the phrase ‘and the past’

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

Dimensions

Was phases

Being

Was primary

Ideas

Transformation of Being… includes action, experiment, real transformation

Special Modes

Was secondary

Modes—idea and action

Dimensions—organic-mechanical, social and society

Society—with focus on the ultimate (sharing, charisma) and society (issues—nature of society; future of science and religion; problem and opportunity)

Visualizing and Preparing

Meditation and visualization. Reflection, preparation, and planning

System of Experiments

Essence, some practical elements—e.g., space and spirit

Minimal system

Resources

Site and, especially, Journey in being.html—Resources (Contribution, Glossary, How to train your dragon)