Principles and Variety of Being

Foundational issues are difficult. An indirect logic begins from a worldview or categorical statements that require foundation; a direct logic begins from being or phenomenology needs elaboration and construction. Instead, there is no final foundation: all systems are experimental, remain in process; there are foundations but these evolve in interaction with systems - perhaps at a different rhythm and pace. This is consistent with the concept of the nature of Being to be developed including the ideas that Being and its knowledge are in non-deterministic evolution and that that system has no absolute anchor

2 Nature of Being

Being is that which can ask such questions… including the question of the nature of its own being and of the ultimate. Thus, in the first place there is being and there is knowing which is regarded as including the asking of questions and therefore is not an end result such as justified true belief

Knowledge of being and of knowing inform each other by analogy from form and process; then there is conceptual integration and identity. This identity does not imply absence of variety

Being subsumes the elements of matter, nature and mind such as they are

Nature is the form or aspect of being that lacks inherent agency. Mind has feeling and agency. Feeling includes quality, extent and duration and thus, in prototype, cognition and emotion; and agency includes action

3 Being, Meaning and Action

Becoming or process and being interact in relationship which completes a circle of dynamics. [Note that “relation” is open to the same Humean criticism that have been made of the concepts of cause, space and time, the object. Matter and idea are also open to that criticism.] At the level of Being, relationship is interpreted as meaning and process as action. Thus the elements of the fundamental dynamics are being, meaning and action or B, M, A; further, knowledge / knowing and process find a place in this scheme

4 The Elements of Being

The further transformation of being, below, and the creation of niche, hierarchy of relationship, being, action and the filling out of the same is the creation of variety of being which must transcendentally be interpreted as nature, society, mind and the universal / unknown… or N, S, P, U

This is a pseudo-derivation of B, M, A; of N, S, P, U; and of DETERMINISM WITHIN INDETERMINISM as of STRUCTURE + VARIATION + SELECTION as the creative principle of which a special case is NOTHING --> BEING

5 Entities

Being / Entity. Being can be discrete or continuous; in the continuous case, accumulations are approximations to entities. Distribution includes both possibilities. Discrete and continuous cases can approximate a general distribution and so each the other. There is a duality between relation and entity which requires to be worked out; in the discrete case must be a form of entity; and in the continuous case, being includes relation. In classical physics relationships are spatial. There are temporal effects; they are causal or genetic. In special relativity, spatial relationships are local. What is the form of these considerations in quantum field theories and relativity/gravitation?

Monads and Groups. Discrete entities are monadic and in relation they form groups. Societies are groups. Groups may be monadic for some purposes and not for others. Monads may be found to have structure. Being is integral over monads. In the continuous case, the universe is a group and also a single monad

A project is to elaborate the pseudo-derivation as a derivation in which due regard will be given to: the in process, constructive aspects of knowledge; grounding in systems of knowledge and being in our civilization; alternate systems. One such system, in which B = B-M-A, removes the distinctions knower / known and subject / object as fundamental. Regard will also be given to the following

6 The Dynamics of Being

Here is a beginning to the derivation. The BODY is described scientifically / objectively in terms of state, relation and process or S, R, P. From quantum theory, from the theory of evolution, and from numerous other sources, S, R, P covers the physical and living worlds and the creative principle STRUCTURE + VARIATION + SELECTION . This creative principle also follows, as counterpoint to any determinism, from any account that allows true origins and true newness. Now, INFORMATION is the mapping WORLD --> BODY… this is the primal concept of information whose digitization, if possible, is contingent. Information elaborates to cognition and emotion and action is the elaboration of informed motor activity. In this way, S, R, P elaborates to B, M, A together with the creative principle STRUCTURE + VARIATION + SELECTION . The derivation is completed through the following identification: N is the realm of the body; S is the realm of communication; P of information / knowing / presence; finally U as universal / unknown requires no interpretation

6.1 Plan

The dynamics is to be further refined in information from general relativity, quantum theory, biological evolution, creation as a fundamental mode of process… Causal and creative dynamics and their interaction / mutual inclusion are to be incorporated

The issue of change and dynamics of a compound / complex being in interaction with the world is to be considered

7 The Absolute

Behind all being, knowledge, history, system… lies the noumenal or noumenon or absolute that is immanent in the world

PRINCIPLES AND VARIETY OF BEING AND KNOWING

The above incorporates the following aspects which provide foundation for knowing

1 Being

1.1 Process: Becoming

Determinism and indeterminism. Structure and variation

1.1.1 Universal: The origin of being

Being from non-being i.e., from no-thing

1.2 Elaboration: Being

B, M, A; STRUCTURE + VARIATION + SELECTION ; N, S, P, U

1.2.1 The further transformation of being

Elaboration. The dynamics of reality. Limits and boundaries. Going beyond modes and scales of the present world. In flow into and out of being there is an edge and a center. The center is concrete and implies the validity of categories. The unlimited: it is not that I am not limited or not finite…but that I do not truly know what or where the boundaries are. What is a person? Start here and now. The unconscious and the universe. Depth of self and reality. Heroism in inner and outer vision. Esoteric vs. exoteric vision. Origin of truth in common experience. What is common experience?

The origin of motivation…the hypothesis of being and the principle of ontological psychology. The individual partakes of all being. Pleasure and pain are modes of contact. Emotion is not just important for intelligence but is part of the nature of being and knowledge. But…what are emotion, cognition, motivation? Are they separate functions?

1.2.2 Action

Indeterministic phases [Includes deterministic phases, variations from them]

….With agency - “Action” Exploration, Learning and induction, “Creative” act or action, Design

….Agency absent or latent - “Mere Process” Creation, Evolution, Stochastic dynamics

Deterministic phases

….With agency - “Action” - Law, Logic, Deduction, Institution

….Agency absent or latent - “Mere Process” - Conservative ecology,
….Function, Mechanism, Newtonian dynamics and classical field theories

2 Knowing

2.1 Basic questions

The nature of being and existence

Why are we here? To answer the question “Why are we here?”? This is a somewhat trivial response but consider that a being that knows why it is here may be considerably evolved. On the other hand it may well be that all beings know at some level why they are here. I have answered a preliminary question - why is there something rather than nothing. It remains to review that answer and explain the nature of our [my] own conscious presence

2.2 Modes of knowing

See modes of being

2.2.1 Body

Animal
Explorer

2.2.2 Mind

Shaman
Mystic
Poet philosopher: from homer to Thales
Priest
Scholar

2.3 Modes of Subject

B: Monads, groups and modes
….Of All Being
….….A World, a Universe
….….….A history. Civilization
….….….….The variety of cultures…a culture
….….….….….Institutions
….….….….….….Academic disciplines

2.4 Nature of knowing and knowledge

Body: knowledge is not merely symbolic - so we look at being

Knowledge is not static, final or finally covering in the sense of a “theory of everything” - so look at a being moving out in dynamic relation or communication with the world. A start is the generative principle that includes: F --> B and, trivially, all knowledge. The generative principle automatically includes indeterministic processes and their deterministic phases. A convenient starting point: a being in relationship with the world…or universe of beings

Perceptual and symbolic. Includes conceptual and theoretical

2.4.1 Propositions

Also reason, judgment, values - ethics, aesthetics…

What is said and why is it said?

2.4.2 Intuition and creation

Body, perceptual and symbolic combine to give the intuitive. The intuitive has a number of related meanings. One here is the in process mode of knowing in which life is “not a picnic on a Sunday morning” nor is it an academic exercise or a seminar on a Friday afternoon …or on a crisp Monday morning. Knowledge is not something that is in and of itself and does not define its own criteria or nature such as exactitude, rigor, icon theory…Rather, knowledge is a mode of relating in the flow of process when one cannot always wait for rigid criteria, inter-subjective agreement and so on. This is where the present meaning of intuition comes in. After, though not necessarily after, one is familiar with the terrain one does not always go through the explicit and “methodical” process. There is a communication between the explicit and the implicit. And the communication does not completely occur explicitly. When one becomes comfortable with this process it engages at a implicit level. The result is not always “right” but even then it may occur within a framework that is right. And even though not always right, the total process is better than one in which 100% rigor is insisted upon. For there is a balance between rigor and action: this is always implicit in action - I propose it as an explicit principle. Further there is no such thing as 100% rigor…the appearance of that is an illusion. The places of rigor and explicitness are: [1] the possibilities of knowledge, [2] the possibilities of spirit, and [3] preparation for action…and in a phase of action. It remains, however, that action must include intuition for its full expression

A related meaning of intuition is that of direct knowledge without intermediate perception, reason…The meaning above is an explanation and broadening - and thus bridging - of the idea of direct knowledge. It is a clarification. And in the case of irreducible direct knowledge [this is not an assertion that this exists] it points to a mechanism for its cultivation. The meaning of the previous paragraph remains even if “direct knowledge” fails. Without intuition knowledge does not progress and learning does not occur

These meanings of intuition are related to creativity

2.4.3 Grounding

In the common. What is it? What principles?

Common is not “bathroom”, boring, the metaphors of a given culture or sub-culture, experiential or non-experiential, unimaginative, merely empirical, merely inter-subjective…Once we introduce experiments in fact, idea and being, there is no limit at all whether in matter, life, culture, idea…except the limitations of the real

2.4.4 Variety

Of the many studies under the umbrella “science” why one label?

2.5 Process…and Principles

In generating [understanding, as whole, of] the universe…that is in telling of the universe…the account begins here-now as a story and recounts “facts” and “connections” and builds up to a 1 = unity

2.5.1 Process

2.5.1.1 Evolution

2.5.1.2 Dialog… and social action

2.5.1.3 Exploration and action

2.5.1.4 Pushing limits of paradigms and being

2.5.1.5 Hierarchies of heuristic, intuition, logic

2.5.1.6 Socratic method or principles

Dialectic

2.5.1.7 Criticism

Skepticism as openness…to a proposition A and to not A
Conflict among systems is positive
An excellent way to criticize a theory is to criticize it
An excellent way to appreciate authors is to criticize them
True criticism is creative

2.5.2 Principles - Some principles of knowledge / knowing…and so of being / becoming

2.5.2.1 Some of the B principles

2.5.2.2 Paradigmatic systems

Projections to the world…and incorporation of the [perception] of the world

Use of partial modes

2.5.2.3 Accumulation and integration

2.5.2.4 Field of concepts and being

Ideas and being in process

The whole…is there such a thing

There is no rock on which we sit. The very seat upon which we sit is fluid. The primary social delusion, the source of so much “meaning” and stability…and of confusion and backwardness…is this

Field of concepts

Although the idea of a field of concepts is simple, and related the idea of an axiom system, few pursue the idea systematically, completely…Whitehead did so in Process and Reality

A field becomes dynamic, fluid when it is malleable, correctable, learning, and conversational

…and organic when it is rooted

2.5.2.5 Covering and embedding principles

Embedding a question or issue in its universal context…takes indirect, brilliant accounts and renders direct and simple ones. The singular and the brilliant may then be applied at a higher level. This may continue. Related to the transcendental method of Kant

Forms are many, forms of forms are few

2.5.2.6 Inversion of perspective

Related to the foregoing comments

An example - the Anthropic Principle. The starting point is a common perspective in science where one asks, for example, “How is life possible?” Or, one could ask how is mind, knowledge, earth, being possible? And we have amazement at these possibilities. And we have critics no, such things are not possible. Witness behaviorism which denies mind - the kind of denial depends on the strain…radical behaviorism denies the existence of mind. Anyway consider life and invert the perspective. We [life on earth] are life - life is obviously possible. What does this imply for the nature of the universe at various levels and in various domains. This is the starting point for the Anthropic Principle which, in essence, says that the universe is such that life is possible and is old enough that life has developed at this by this point - or about 4 billion years ago

Kant’s transcendental perspective is an inversion upon prior epistemology in the European tradition up to his time. Instead of asking “How is knowledge possible?” Kant says “We know that knowledge is possible. He now asks what does this imply for being.” From History of Western Philosophy, Anil Mitra, 1988: Kant’s formulation of the transcendental method is perhaps the first attempt in modern philosophy to devise a distinctively philosophical method…The argument from experience to its necessary presuppositions is the crux of the transcendental method…”although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises out of experience”…The critical problem is: What are the necessary conditions of the very possibility of an experience, the formal features of which are space, time and the categories? Kant’s reply: Experience is possible only on the assumption that the formal features formed in experience are a priori conditions of existence

The evolutionary perspective can be regarded as an inversion of what would be the “normal” perspective. In the normal, the direction of focus is from present to past. In the evolutionary it is from past to present; however the founding of the evolutionary perspective is from present to past. These are related to the inversion in the anthropic principle…in some ways identical

2.5.2.7 Perspective mapping

In which perspectives are compared, and beyond comparison mapped or interpreted in terms of other perspectives

2.5.2.8 Map of mind…map of being

Logic and mind. Logic vs. the ability to be logical

Logic and language

2.5.2.9 Naming the unnamed

2.5.2.10 Measures of knowledge: intrinsic and external

Cumulation vs. real knowledge

2.5.2.11 Conceptual utility of symbolic and shorthand approaches

2.5.2.12 Multifunction of knowledge

2.5.3 Principles of study and exploration

I cannot read all the literature. Even if I could this would be point-less. There are two reductions. The first and trivial one is the elimination of information. The second is experience and discovery with extrapolation so that I find the best combination of reading, conceptuation and extrapolation to construct an essential view

Similarly…and with similar resolution:

I cannot think all thoughts…I cannot even record all thoughts even the ones that seem deep

I cannot have all experiences

3 An Example of Variety Seen Through and in Influence on a Modern System of Knowledge

Psychological Preliminary: cognition

Cognition is in part the ability to anticipate. This derives from stimulus-response, memory and the ability to [re-] create possible futures from memory and the given scene,…and to select and act upon [toward] likely and preferred futures:

COGNITION --> CHOICE --> ACTION

This already includes [1] an account of motivation which can be seen as being entering time or temporality as a dynamic agent…and [2] In the details to follow, the elements of choice or selection and preference-feeling

The following diverse elements have a unitary character

Sensing and perception

Having impressions - internal [includes feeling], external [visual…], temporal and kinetic… complex, structured and multi-modal. Cognition and emotion, though distinct, have a common base and form a category. This despite their differential physiological basis

Thinking and Knowing

“Spark”…internally generated stimulus by neurological “noise” etc. Genesis of absolute newness in ideas; recombination is the basis of relative newness

Simple symbol: remembered relation between and action or production and an element of the world. Recall also that the world includes symbols; therefore symbols may also refer to symbols

Symbols include the complex and the compound including compounding of relations

Icon: representation in awareness of impressions or sensations and perceptions, sparks, symbols, collages [structured, sparked or random]

Filter and attention

Filtering is prior to awareness…attention is “weighting” in the cognitive field

Knowledge Is an Icon System for Being/Elements

Icon modes include: icon and symbol

Symbol modes include: the descriptive [language…] and the generative [logic, mathematics…

This and the following focuses on the “modern” symbolic aspect…but this, as is clear from the foregoing, is integral with and therefore grounded in the relation b - B or meaning. [Alienation is partly due to exclusive attention to icon-knowledge…or exclusive definition of knowledge in terms of free symbols especially those of the specialized senses sight, hearing, taste, smell and, of these, especially sight-hearing over the body-kinetic senses and relations.]

Kinds of Knowledge

In the following K = knowledge

K[B] = K[W] = K[Icon-World] --> Development and specialization--> » K[Icon] & K[World]

K[B] includes humanities

K[Icon] includes theory or concept of imagination and of: language, logic and mathematics. The example of mathematics is attached

K[B] = K[W] » K[U] and K[N, S, P]

K[U] = [In icon-symbol mode] » Religion, art…[language/symbol mode] » philosophy…

K[N, S, P] = [In icon-symbol mode] » Science, history, technology, theory and examples of institutions…in experimental-empirical and conceptual-theoretical aspects

Mathematics…as an example

The logic includes the following: collection [sets] --> symbolic reference [algebra] --> discrete [number…] --> metrical relationship [geometry] --> global properties of spaces [topology] --> local properties [continuum, analysis…]

Sets	Collections
Algebra	Abstraction and symbolic reference and relations, naming the unknown
Arithmetic	Number, counting…and combinatorics
Geometry	Space, time
Topology	Global properties of spaces
Analysis	Continuum…study by analysis of arbitrary small regions and generalization to arbitrary collections. Real number system. Study of complex and global properties by methods of analysis. Includes calculus.

Table 1 The Mathematical Disciplines

Compound and complex disciplines in mathematics

By combining the disciplines above e.g. algebraic topology.
Study of mathematics
Foundations and metamathematics. The distinction between mathematics, foundations and metamathematics is not clear-cut. The topics can be “mathematicized”. The methods of set theory and axiomatics are heavily drawn on.
Philosophy of mathematics…includes nature and foundations of mathematics
History of mathematics
Para-mathematical fields… applied mathematics