The way of being

1. The secular view of the world—the world is essentially as it is seen in experience, which includes science—has truth, but it does not show what is not in the world. That is, from the secular view, it is not valid to conclude that the secular world is all there—that all that exists is anything like the experiential world.

2. The secular view is—at least tacitly—the dominant view among educated areligious and nonreligious persons. Why? It is a natural default to see the world as the experiential world. It is the most common nonreligious view and is therefore affirmed by common culture. We are inculcated into becoming indignant and being dismissive toward more inclusive views (ones that do not reject the truth of the secular but go beyond it). The religious and many common metaphysical alternatives range from fantasy to the irrational. This tends to shut down imagination and questioning of the secular view (of course we are encouraged to question within the secular view).

3. It is consistent with the secular view that the universe is the realization of logical possibility (this assertion has been named the ‘fundamental principle of metaphysics’). Since our experiential world is one possibility, to say “but we do not experience all possibilities” is not an objection.

4. Can the assertion that the universe is the realization of logical possibility be proved? Yes. The very simplest proof is (i) the laws of nature are real—that is, they exist (ii) therefore, the void (nothingness) has no laws (iii) if from the void a logically possible state did not emerge, it would be a law (iv) all logically possible states emerge from the void (v) that is, the universe is the realization of (all) logical possibility.

5. Are there objections to this principle? Yes. There are many. They are addressed at http://www.horizons-2000.org. If you, the reader, are a truthful objector to the view, you will regard it as a challenge to articulate and criticize your objections (rather than have vague and nagging concerns).

6. What does the fundamental principle entail? What methods are available? The method is that of (a) imaginative formulation of possibilities (the history of ideas will be helpful) and (b) critical evaluation. Critical evaluation will have two stages (i) logical analysis (our logics, criticism of our logics, search for ‘new’ logics) (ii) analysis and use of paradigms from science. The second point has the objection—but our sciences are approximate and hardly universal. The response is (1) the fundamental principle implies that the ultimate real is given and far greater than secular and even common religious ‘reality’ (as seen next) (2) we have no better pragmatic paradigms than our common ones, especially those from science (3) we will use our paradigms judiciously to tentatively evaluate the likelihood of realizing different scenarios that arise in imagination and survive logical criticism. We now proceed to the entailments of the fundamental principle in two stages.

7. Stage 1—logic. The universe has identity; the universe and its identity phase between the manifest and non-manifest and are limitless in extension, duration, variety, and peak of being; thus, the universe has arrays of cosmoses in more and less transaction with one another and the void; the cosmoses have limitless variety of physical law and logics (one source of the varieties of logic is the many possible modes of expression); every cosmos is an atom, every atom a cosmos.

The individual realizes and is, over time, the ultimate; this is given. However, there are efficient paths and ways to the ultimate, which involve intelligence as negotiation for the world and not just in the world; there are pleasure and pain, both unavoidable, neither to be excessively sought or avoided; enjoyment is the appreciation of all elements of experience and the world; if enjoyment is a value, realization of the ultimate is an imperative. Path negotiation ought to be not just following of developed pathways but developing pathways and responding to context as well.

The aim of being and the way of being is shared discovery and realization of the ultimate. Realization is intrinsic or experiential and instrumental or ‘physical’. Degrees of intrinsic realization are very possible in ‘this life’; instrumental realization is less likely in this life, but is given over the multiplicity of lives—it occurs, not necessarily by alteration of our laws of physics, but by return of awareness to the womb of the world and emergence in other worlds; there is also the instrumental possibility (and therefore necessity) of individuals and civilizations migrating from cosmos to cosmos on the way to the ultimate.

The logics are discovered, but they derive from a principle—the principle of possibility and relative to that principle the impossible is absolutely unrealizable (on other, lesser, accounts of logical possibility, the logically impossible for one world may be realized in another).

Is all logical possibility realized? Yes—thus an account in any religious text, no matter how unlikely it may seem, but stripped of its inconsistencies, is realized somewhere-and-when in the universe. What is the significance of this realization—is it ‘robust’ (as defined below)? What are the more robust modes of realization and what are their ways? We now turn to this question. Whereas the conclusions of this stage, ‘logic’, are given, those of the next are generally characterized by probability.

8. Stage 2—pragmatic and paradigmatic. In this stage the concerns are means or how of things (i.e., general objects, which include relationship, process, and system) and probability. Formulating means and judging probability are characterized as hypothetical and speculative, even though the ‘things’ are possible and necessary.

Here is an example. Our cosmos is characterized by deterministic mechanism (e.g., Newtonian Mechanics), probabilistic determinism, i.e., mechanistic determinism in balance with indeterminism (some interpretations of quantum theory), and a similar balance in incremental evolution (evolution of life, for which variations in inheritance are indeterministic—on some accounts—and natural selection is deterministic). How did our cosmos come into being and what sustains its ongoing being so far? Or did it come into being—and if not, what sustains it?

The general mechanisms or paradigms are provided by the previous italicized phrases—deterministic mechanism, probabilistic mechanism, and incremental evolution (by variation and selection—regarding which a key aspect is that of seeming design without design aforethought).

We now suggest that it is highly likely that our cosmos came into being by a mix of mere transient and evolutionary formation from the void (this of course is interpretation, it may equally be seen as having come into being by evolutionary transition from another cosmos). The ‘mechanism’ would be transients from the void occurring and decaying until a more stable transient emerges, its stability being due to its form and near symmetry, from which, an incremental evolution has a base. Of course, it may have come into being by a single improbable but not impossible step—void ® cosmos.

The mechanism is not necessary in that it does not obtain for all structured cosmoses but rather, most cosmoses, if our paradigm has universality, emerge incrementally; at the same time, it is necessary that some cosmoses emerge in a single step (Bertrand Russell’s observation that it is possible for our cosmos to have done so, say, five minutes ago); however, the incremental emergence is robust and characterizes robust systems.

What of the occurrence of the ‘religious cosmoses’? Many of them would seem to be improbable, therefore infrequent, less stable, and less significant (the frequency may be extremely low, yet in a limitless universe, there will still be limitlessly many). However, others, e.g., the universal being of some religions and philosophies is necessary in its occurrence.

A second example. What is a mechanism of pathways from limited being to ultimate being? As we are both experience and formed, so there is intrinsic and instrumental realization. Here, I will say no more than (i) the intrinsic ways have been investigated in various ancient practices such as yoga; however this implies that the discovery of yoga is at a beginning rather than an end (ii) the instrumental ways may be based in our modern sciences and technologies, which, too, are at a beginning (iii) even if the realization is incomplete for our beings in our cosmos (iv) the signature of our beings is eternal (v) and is and will be manifestly taken up, e.g., in other cosmoses.