The best advice—the best conversation—is the result of listening. Without good listening, assessment is projection. In fact, often we seek another to hear rather than to respond. A good listener gives the other the opportunity for self discovery—the best path of action. The gain is twofold (a) the particular action and (b) self discovery and how to discover good actions.

My response to future advice—If I haven’t thought of that I’ll put it on my list.

9/20

Lessons, aphorisms, maxims, FAQ

The Way of Being is…

The aim of The Way is the way

On Being

Forget what you have read, even Heidegger… for you must look at my meaning.

Why Being?

It avoids the errors and prejudices of the common paradigms—materialism, idealism, Platonism, empiricism, rationalism…

It is ideal for both sides of the aim—knowing and becoming.

It is the introduction of the algebraic approach to philosophy and metaphysics.

Lessons list

What is science? How complete is it? What are its limits—today, ultimate?

What is the size of the gap? How can we think of the gap? Religion, logic, empiricism…

Some fundamental questions

What is the universe like?

What is consciousness?

What is the destiny of the universe? Of consciousness?

What are limits?

What are logic and inference? How and why are they possible?

What is meaning?

What is possibility?

What is our cosmos vs. the universe?

My journey

Beyul does not have to involve ‘wilderness’…

Begin at home

Network, society, civilization, technology…
Fasting, minimize coffee, vision, Beyul

Axiomatization of The Way of Being—9/21

Pure primitives

Difference

The most elementary pattern; DIFFERENCE and sameness are undefined dual primitives

The verb to be

The word ‘is’ is the present tense singular form. There is no English word for the verb to be that is neutral with regard to number, tense, place, or other coordinate of difference, or to absence of such coordinates

We will use the word IS in the above sense.

The word is has another use—it is in definitions where the use may be timeless or not.

Experience and agency

EXPERIENCE is the name for subjective awareness in all its forms. Experience is a given.

There is a REAL WORLD that is known in and contains experience.

AGENCY is intending to and so having an affect. Agency is given.

Experience and agency could have been introduced under Being, below.

Meaning

REFERENTIAL MEANING is a referential CONCEPT (mental content including percepts) and its OBJECT (both concept and object may be compound).

The existence of an object is independent of the concept but the object requires the concept for its specification.

Referential LINGUISTIC MEANING is a PURE SIGN or a COMPOUND SIGN associated with referential concept and its object. A pure sign without an associated concept cannot have meaning. A compound sign can derive meaning from its form.

A CONCRETE object is one that exists in TIME and SPACE and clearly has power or CAUSATION. An object is ABSTRACT to the extent that from its concept it lacks some of the above properties of concrete objects.

Practical primitives

Ordinary language

Cultural paradigms and disciplines

Being

The UNIVERSE is the whole world marked and unmarked by difference.

It is crucial that there is exactly one universe. There is nothing outside the universe.

Here we are beginning with ‘universe’ rather than being.

A BEING is the universe or a part of it.

We ascertain beings only in KNOWLEDGE. What has being? This is a fundamental issue—generally and of this development.

BEING is what is—the property—common to all beings.

That there is being is known perfectly. Experience, the world, and the universe have being.

Beings are not being; rather beings HAVE being. To have being is to EXIST.

We generally think that a concrete objects exist. We are typically ambivalent about the existence of abstract objects for even when we have good reasons to think that they exist we still have the questions of where and when they exist and how we know of their existence.

When direct knowledge is questionable, we may ascertain it indirectly via POWER—the ability to have an affect. Thus POTENTIAL has being without being manifest (we are not assuming universal causation) and NONBEING as referring to the quality of having being at another time and the ability or potential to REMANIFEST has being.

The VOID is the null being (or absence of being). It is not clear so far whether the void has being.

Given a conceived state for a being, the state is LOGICALLY POSSIBLE if there is nothing in the concept that proscribes realization of the state. It has REAL possibility if its obtaining would be consistent with / not violate the constitution of the being. Real possibility presumes logical possibility and a possible state for a being is therefore one that does not violate the constitution of the being.

Comment. Now define UNIVERSAL, COSMOLOGICAL and NATURAL possibility. Also define the term ACTUAL. An alternative to the above is as follows.

A conceived state is POSSIBLE for a being if its obtaining would be consistent with the constitution of the being. If the consistency inheres only in the concept, the consistency I logical. REAL possibility inheres also in the constitution of the being.

Realism

Logical possibility = universal possibility >> cosmological and natural possibility.

General cosmology

The variety, extension, duration, and peaks of the universe and its identity.

Every being is ultimately the universe.

While in limited form, this ultimate is an eternal journey.

The immediate and the ultimate are in essential mesh.

Cosmology of form

The common forms

There is no universal mechanism of origins.

Mechanistic origins require indeterminism for novelty and determinism for form.

Single step origins re very improbable, steps that are too small are inefficient. This mechanistic origin for a preponderance of population results in a mechanics of the way.

Beings are adapted in their form which includes intent to negotiate the local cosmos. But their origin and destiny are universal. This results in tension and balance between the immediate and the ultimate and is a source of ethics.