In growing into awareness 3 from obscure origins, in an immediate world apparently not of their making or under their control, humans grow to have a significant concern with the entire world 4—the immediate present and the ultimate 5 world; the relations between those worlds; and their place in the entire world.

There arises a concern with destiny. In plain terms—

In human emergence and history, there arises a deep a concern with the immediate world and paths of realization of the ultimate 6.

Origins of the way—stories, dogma, and openness

So—we tell stories about the world that enable us on paths of destiny. In plain terms—

We tell stories 7 about the world that enable us on paths of realization.

Two kinds of dogma arise—stories of limited success taken as true 8; and successful stories as entire truth 9. Prime illustrations are dogmatic religion and positivist science, respectively 10.

If religion is dogmatic and science seen as defining the universe, the emergent world view is sterile and limiting.

Individuals and cultures face a double bind—the narrow space between liberal scientific humanism and religion—even liberal religion for it is difficult in religion to avoid the shadow of a limiting cosmology.

The stories of how the world should be—for example, what a good society is like—may further and unnecessarily limit our view of options of thought, worldviews, and action.

How shall and ought dogma to be countered? In both cases, a function of conservatism is stability; dogma is a negative side of conservatism. For positivism the counter is to see that the universe as the possible 11 is consistent with experience 12. The counter to dogmatic religions is to regard their myths as allegory and pointing to possible higher truth and Being 13.

It is later shown 14 that the universe is the realization of the greatest possibility 15.

… and that the universe has peak identities in which we participate and for which there are ways binding our world to the ultimate.

An open attitude to our stories is essential to realizing destiny.

Eternal openness has ‘limits’—there are times for judgment and action. That too is approximation. What is sought is living in openness, judgment, and action as one.

The truth of empirical science is that it is consistent with the universe as the possible 16; then religion ought to be exploration of that universe.

An imperative

However, humans 17 feel an imperative to the whole truth.

The metaphysics to be developed reveals an ultimate universe of which we are a necessary part and paths 18 to the ultimate. The metaphysics shows that there is an ethical imperative—

To know the truth, to explore it, and to be on the way to in the immediate to the ultimate19.

The fundamental question 20

From the concern and experience with destiny a fundamental question arises—

What shall we do with our Being 21?

The question is fundamental in that—

A reasoned answer would be a source of all meaning, knowledge, ethics, action, and exploration.

What should we do in any situation 22? What is the most effective question 23? Effective answers need situational knowledge. The largest context 24 requires a philosophy 25 or worldview 26.

Contexts for the question are the universe and the greatest possible universe. Let us first consider the greatest possible universe as framework for discussion.

Foundations of metaphysics

The foundations of metaphysics are essential to understanding the world and therefore to destiny—to realization of the ultimate. However—

In this foundations section the main statements are red.

The detailed development is followed by a summary of the foundations of metaphysics.

Experience

Experience 27 is subjective awareness 28.

There is experience 29.

The abstraction 30 of experience-as-just-experience entails that ‘there is experience’ is perfect knowledge.

The range or map of experience is as if of a world whose contents include contains selves with experience, others, and the environment 31. Experience itself is experienced as attitudinal, pure, and active 32—i.e. as relational for even the pure is found to be mapped as internal relation.

Is this map real?

On a substance view, a standard view of environment as material but populated with experiential selves leads to contradiction or incompleteness 33. Without a substance view—without some definite metaphysics—the reality of the map is indeterminate, for the ontologies of common experience and science are naïve.

However, an extended view of all Being as experiential 34 in principle is consistent with the above map.

The most inclusive interpretation of the map is that the world is an experiential field—a metaphorical sea of experience; that individuals are focal centers of experience; that body and matter and environment are among the forms that experience takes 35; and all this is part of the field, which, even if we do not experience it, may coalesce as one ‘high’ individual in which we participate.

It remains a possible interpretation but its truth can not be established without some definiteness of metaphysics. The fundamental principle of metaphysics proved below is foundation (ground zero) for a definite and ultimate metaphysics.

What, then, is the truth of the standard view? As seen above it is untenable, but with the environment (etc) as possessing nil to little experientiality, it is tenable as a special and local instance within world as field of experience. This is an extended standard view which is categorially different from but which for some practical purposes may be taken to be the same as the standard view.

The fundamental principle of metaphysics—demonstrated later—shows that interpretation of world as field of experience obtains and that the standard view of world as persons or selves, others 36, and environment is a pragmatic approximation 37 for some locales or worlds.

In this view, what is my experience? In ‘my’ field of experience there is as noted above a self that has distinction from environment and others. Others communicate their experience intentionally and otherwise by (i) reporting it and (ii) by their appearance—facial expression, action and so on. In the second case my feeling for or of their experience is via empathy and not by their report. Let us consider the not impossible idea that we are part of one organism despite the obvious distinction above. Perhaps the distinction is only partial. Another question—What is happening when I sense a dead family member’s presence in the environment? Thus in missing a person it is a valid question to ask whether that missing may be more than a present feeling in response to a recollection. Perhaps it is only that something in the environment triggers an old thought or feeling. Again let us consider the not impossible idea that there is a continuation of the dead. In this paragraph these non-standard possibilities are not argued to be real. Rather, the point is to show a way from the standard to non-standard views. Then, when the non-standard views are shown to have reality, the present reflections may show how they make sense even from the standard point of view.

Now a valid question at this point is to ask how there can be more than one reality. Obviously there can be more than one sense of the real but does the proposition that there is more than one real make sense? I think not; however, that is not what is being claimed. If the field of experience is taken to be the real, then the view of my self as distinct from environment and others is one interpretation—at least a pragmatic one for immediate purposes, while the idea that we are merged is a possible interpretation—later seen to have reality—from a less immediate point of view. Thus the seemingly different ‘realities’ are different senses or interpretations of the one real.

It is later shown that world as field of experience obtains—to which world as selves, others, and environment is a pragmatic approximation.

There is a sense in which we do not ever get outside experience 38. Yet both pragmatically and perfectly in-the-pure-abstract we do 39.

For pragmatic purposes it is useful to see the world in terms of the (extended) standard view; but for ultimate purposes, world as field of experience is essential—which frames the consequence of the fundamental principle that our ordinary identities are within and become ultimate identity.

Experience is relational.

Experience is seen below to be the effective measure of the world.

Being

A being 40 or existent 41 is 42 that which is 43; and Being 44 is the defining quality of existents; i.e. Being is existence 45. Briefly—

A being is that which is or exists; Being is the quality of existents: Being is existence.

The hypothetical being that interacts 46 with no being does not exist.

Power 47—interaction—is the measure of Being.

Being is relational.

The hypothetical being that affects no experience at all 48 is non-existent 49.

Experience, pure or attitudinal or active, is 50 the measure 51 of Being.

Power is experience 52.

Being is experientially relational.

Being is relational experience 53 of Being 54.

But in the abstract, to refer to Being as Being is effectively perfectly faithful.

Universe

The universe is all Being 55.

There is precisely one universe 56.

The universe has no extension 57 beyond itself; particularly it has no outside, before, or after.

The universe has and can have no creator 58 or material 59 cause 60.

A natural law is a reading of a pattern immanent to a being 61. The laws may be seen as the patterns.

Natural laws or patterns 62 have Being 63.

The void

The void is the absence of Being.

The void exists 64.

There are no laws in the void.

The greatest possible universe

The universe as the logically 65 possible universe would violate neither reason nor experience 66 (the thought that experience—science so far—defines the universe is a kind of circular reasoning 67).

The logically possible is part of the greatest possible or maximally rich universe.

A state or being whose concept violates logic cannot exist.

The greatest or maximally rich universe is the logically possible universe 68.

As seen above, far from contradicting the fact or nature of our cosmos—

The greatest universe is one that necessarily requires the Being or existence of our cosmos.

The fundamental principle of metaphysics

Since the void exists and has no laws, every logically possible state must emerge from it 69. That is—

That the universe is the greatest possible follows of necessity from existence of the void.

Which implies the fundamental principle of metaphysics—

The universe is the logically possible universe.

Some preliminary consequences—

The cause of the universe is necessity 70.

The void or any state or being may be seen as the cause of all Being and beings.

The fundamental principle has alternate foundations as universal law 71 and as an existential principle 72.

A summary of the foundations of metaphysics

Experience is subjective awareness.

It is later shown that world as field of experience obtains—to which world as selves, others, and environment is a pragmatic approximation.

Experience is relational.

A being is that which is or exists; Being is the quality of existents: Being is existence.

Power—interaction—is the measure of Being.

Being is relational experience of Being.

The universe is all Being.

Natural laws or patterns have Being.

The void is the absence of Being.

The void exists.

There are no laws in the void.

The greatest or maximally rich universe is the logically possible universe.

That the universe is the greatest possible follows of necessity from existence of the void.

The universe is the logically possible universe.

Consequences

The Universe and its Identity

The universe has identity; its identities, variety, and magnitude are limitless 73.

The Individual and the Universe

Individual identity meshes with and is ultimately universal identity. That is given. However, realization is most effective in shared engagement 74.

Individual and group identity are ultimately the same as greatest universal Identity.

A fundamental conclusion

Preliminary

The world may be seen as union of the local 75 and the universal 76.

Local—some main contents of the world are selves with conscious experience and bodies, other selves with experientiality or ‘minds’, all located in a ‘material’ environment.

Universal—the world is a field of experience with intense and focal centers or ‘persons’ in an environment that is not strictly material; rather the environment is experiential with an intensity and focus are in the range of nil to very little in comparison to intensity and focus of persons.

The union of the universal and the local—the universal is an identity 77 or world field of experience with peaks of limitless magnitude, variety, focus, and intensity; persons are part of, continuous with, and become that universal Identity.

A fundamental conclusion

Or—

The universe is limitless Identity; persons are part of, continuous with, and become that universal Identity.

The Way of Being develops paths to that Universal Identity.

Perfect metaphysics

The foregoing considerations constitute a universal metaphysics 78 which meshes with tradition—both described above—to form a perfect metaphysics 79.

The developments so far constitute a perfect metaphysics that is a mesh of pure ultimate with local pragmatic metaphysics.

Realization and existence of paths

From the universal and perfect metaphysics, it is seen that realization is given and that there are effective or feasible paths 80 to and in the ultimate.

The means

The means are the perfect metaphysics understood to include and stem from reason.

It should be emphasized that this includes instrumental 81 and intrinsic 82 means.

The western and eastern systems of knowledge and realization are included 83.

Path

The perfect metaphysics enables derivation of paths rooted in the immediate—the worlds of nature and society—meshed with and on the way to the ultimate 84.

Realization

The paths are to and in the ultimate; for we are already of necessity—of the real.

Yet 85, we are always at the beginning—a metaphor that reminds us that we seek and are always ever freshness, never a final peak of achievement.

The absolute is not distinct from the potential for neither is static.

No philosophy or higher insight is needed to know this lack in explicit knowledge (‘ig-norance’) is the result of the adaptations of natural and cultural form seen only as static.

Endnotes

1 The purpose of this work is to show the essentials of The Way of Being (“the way-outline.html”). For analysis and argument, comprehensive formal development, and special topics see The Way of Being.

2 Destiny is interest and participation in the immediate present and the ultimate; their relations; and aiming, building, and acting toward the ultimate. Though not all individuals have such concern, it arises everywhere and everywhen.

3 Conscious awareness.

4 Or just the world.

5 Over all extension or everywhere and everywhen or its generalization as sameness, difference, and their absence.

6 As explained above, “Over all extension or everywhere and everywhen or its generalization as sameness, difference, and their absence”.

7 The ‘stories’ include religion, philosophy, science, and the ethical or way the world should be. An inclusive account is a system of human knowledge, reason, and action.

The stories—myths and other projections on experience—also perhaps help to relate to the world and to feel belonging.

8 Dogmatic religion is an example. Non-dogmatic systems and even dogmatic ones taken non-literally may contribute to the imperative.

9 Positivist and reductive science and equating cumulative experience to the real are examples. Science is futher confirmed and ‘spiritually’ shored by humanism—resulting, too often, in a dogmatic scientific humanism. The dogma is that a theory may be taken as true beyond the empirical region. One reason this happens is that the theory is taken, perhaps sub-consciously, as defining (away) the trans-empirical region. A further but infrequent dogma is taking a theory as absolute truth in the empirical and / or trans-empirical regions.

10 The foregoing footnotes provide greater detail.

11 Naïve use of ‘the possible’ may lead to contradiction, which may be avoided by substituting ‘logically possible’ for ‘possible’. But how does this restriction avoid the potential contradiction that ‘it is possible that the world is not the way it is’. The response is that the immediately previous assertion in single quotes violates any reasonable meaning of possibility—i.e. it is not possible that the facts are not the facts. Further, it is possible that there are other worlds and some of those worlds are like ours but with different facts.

12 I.e., with the empirical and therefore with science; for the possible includes the empirical—the actual—and therefore disagreement with the theories or models of science is not disagreement with science.

13 The concept of ‘Being’ is defined later.

14 In The fundamental principle of metaphysics. The demonstration is the result of imaginative but critical thought. Thus proper conservatism and liberalism are together productive of the good.

15 The greatest possibility is shown to be logical possibility. It cannot be greater than the logical for that would entail contradiction. It remains to be shown that it cannot be less than the logical and this is done in a later footnote.

16 With care taken to conceive possibility so as to avoid contradiction.

17 I.e., some persons; this arises ‘everywhere and everywhen’.

18 I.e. unavoidable paths.

19 The immediate and the ultimate are interwoven and so the thought of emphasizing only one does not arise.

20 At this point the question might be “What shall we do in our individual and collective lives and the world?” The concept of Being is defined and its fundamental significance explained later in the text.

21 This is implicitly a question of meaning—and the treatment of is present throughout in the discovery of self, universe, and experimental path.

22 “What shall I do with my life?”, “How and in what direction ought we to direct civilization?”, and “What is the greatest we can do?”—effective answers require a true view of the universe (answers—even laissez faire—depend constitutionally on at least a tacit view).

23 A reflexive and perhaps more fundamental question is “What is the essential question?”

24 The context of Being in the universe.

25 Philosophy and life should be intimately related—“philosophy and life are one”. It would not be just stand alone knowledge but coupling with action would be essential to it.

A system of concepts for an adequate philosophy for a worldview is centered on Being, as explained in the main text below, rather than substance. While a system is not necessary for the central conclusion of this outline—the fundamental principle of metaphysics—as will be seen below, a well chosen system grounds (founds) and motivates the development and its absorption to intuition and, further, provides preparation for formal application to philosophy and knowledge in general and deployment to living effectively and maximally. One such system is—

Experience (subjective awareness in its pure, attitudinal, and action modes), interaction (and relation), sameness and difference and their absence (as generic and precursors to spacetime-Being), world (as field of experience, of which the standard secular view of selves and other minds in a material world is a factual and rough conceptual approximation), worldview(s)—primal – secular-transsecular and traditional-progressive,

Being (existence as relation), power (as interaction or relation, measure of Being, of which experience is the prime case; equivalent to experience in an extended sense),

Universe, the void (nothingness),

Possibility (with logic and logics as the kinds of necessary relation between experience and experienced, natural law, science—fact and pattern, and Logics as integration of logic-logics-and relative fact in an indeterministic and block universe—as given rather than unfolding),

Fundamental principle of metaphysics (universe as realization of logical possibility, derived from properties of Being – universe – the void, its self-consistency and consistency with science,

And consequences—

(1) The universal metaphysics—including: the universe has Identity and is conceptually limitless – and the individual inherits and merges this identity and limitlessness… which merging may be understood in terms of intersection of multiple histories in the block universe), the abstract and the concrete (and abstract objects and concrete objects),

(2) Perfect metaphysics (perfect union of the universal metaphysics and tradition with progress, leading to perfect dual epistemology), derivation of experience-experienced as the fundamental attributes of Being (which negates Spinoza’s infinitely many attributes),

(3) Derivation of spacetime-Being, realization of the ultimate (its necessity),

(4) Engagement (intelligent and passionate search and transformation lead to efficiency, meaning, and ecstasy or enjoyment), and

(5) The way or path of realization (experimental, reflective, optimally risk taking, derived from the perfect metaphysics, with templates).

26 Such a view or philosophy will include the nature of things and individuals, knowledge, and values; and their extent and history. The issues are: The question of Meaning-Knowledge-Values-Sharing-Action. That is, it will include metaphysics – science – reason – art – intuition – knowledge-itself and cosmology. Values are integral to reason; they are rooted in tradition and reason-with-feeling; they include the aesthetic and the ethical. As noted above in this footnote, action and sharing are essential to—perhaps non-conventionally, even part of—reason.

A broad division of the outline is The Real and Given Universe—items 1 – 4 below, and Artifact and The Created Universe—items 5 – 7 (note the arbitrary divide between the given and the created). An outline rendered from the perfect metaphysics of this and its parent document The Way of Being (the way-outline.html) is

The Real and Given Universe (1) Humanities with philosophy, knowledge, tradition, and religion; (2) General and Abstract sciences with metaphysics, method, the real and the artifactual, and symbolic systems for abstract science: logic, mathematics, linguistics, and theory of digital systems; (3) Concrete sciences, particularly physical sciences, biology, psychology, social science and sciences, and their application or the Applied sciences (physical, the biological and psychological, and social); (4) History.

Artifact and The Created Universe (5) Art, (6) Technology, and (7) Transformation of Being—intrinsic (of psyche—e.g., yoga with emphasis on meditation as refining the experience-world relation, art, and select parts of the humanities), instrumental (of the relation between psyche and the world—e.g. science and technology), and their integration. A detailed account would be a system of human knowledge, reason, and action.

27 ‘Experience’ may be used in other senses, especially cumulative experience.

28 That is, experience in this sense is consciousness. One reason ‘experience’ is preferred is that, as stated below in the footnotes, it connotes—and gives emphasis to—the attitudinal, pure, and active modes of relation to the world.

29 It cannot be an illusion for illusion is experience; this is the essence of Descartes’ and Samkara’s arguments. Further in its attitudinal, pure, and active ‘modes’ it is the medium of our existence and not just an element within experience.

30 Abstraction as used here is omission of detail that might be subject to distortion. Thus what is sufficiently abstracted is most real; it is not remote as in another sense of the abstract.

31 The universe which is defined below in the main text.

32 And these include the range of psychological functions such as perception, feeling, emotion, thought, will, choice, and action.

33 The materialist view is contradictory for strict materialism excludes mind—i.e. experientiality (a strict monistic substance view is that the chosen one is the substance, which generates or constitutes all Being and beings, and that there is no other substance; reasons for the necessity of monism are discussed under dualism below in this footnote). Similarly, strict idealism excludes matter. Substance dualism is untenable because strict substances do not interact.

Of course the insistence on strictness might be questioned for without it materialism, idealism, and dualism are tenable. The reason for strictness is that without it ontology and therefore the nature of the world is indefinite (perhaps the world-and-knowledge-of-the-world are indefinite but we will find that the perfect metaphysics undercuts this for purposes of transition from the immediate to the ultimate while there are particular local purposes for which the issue of substance remains open).

Strict monism is tenable regarding ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ in a possible world like ours for it does not insist that either is real but that both are present as aspects of the one substance (which may be interpreted as but is not necessarily property dualism). The relevance is that monism may be an approximate description for a stable world such as ours (while no further explanation for the origin of such a world is necessary under the perfect metaphysics, an adaptive model would provide mechanistic understanding of origins and. perhaps, preponderance of such worlds).

But monism is incomplete as no substance theory can found the substance itself—e.g., what are its origins or necessity or otherwise of existing? Thus substance must always be a posit or require recourse to another substance.

A further restriction of substance is that it is potentially limiting to the kind of being in the universe. The foundation to be developed finds that substance is limiting with regard to the real and overcomes all such limits.

In the following we cut out substance foundation altogether to find a foundation in Being that is secure in being ontologically valid from its neutrality and inclusivity; and final in neither referring nor needing to refer to another kind (there is no real other kind for Being is the inclusive kind).

34 The common experience of the environment as experientially inert is recovered by seeing its level of experientiality as zero to low (rather than null).

35 Further while this interpretation is perhaps seemingly non-robust—for we tend to think of our experientiality as immaterial and unconstrained by material ‘necessity’—it is indeed robust for the solidity of the ‘material’ as well as the apparent freedom of some aspects of experientiality, e.g. imagination, lie within its range. Though it is robust we may still question whether it is ‘real’. Of course we can never assess what is real without showing truth in terms of a definite concept of the real. This is done just below in the main text in showing truth of the interpretation from the fundamental principle and its realism in terms of Being rather than standard ontologies that are incomplete and / or entail contradictions.

36 Differentiation of self from other has the significance that, on a standard empirical account, the self of a person does not directly know the self of the other. This has a standard philosophical consequence—the skeptical question regarding the existence of ‘other minds’. Note that while we do not normally doubt other minds, the skeptical doubt is entertained because it leads to clarification of self, other, world, and mind. A non or less standard philosophical consequence is insight into the nature of the relations among minds and minds and world. Are minds ultimately distinct? A worldview is possible in which the minds are one and the view of many minds populating a world is a particular case. Though possible in that the view can be formulated so as not to violate experience and reason one may ask—is it true? The perfect metaphysics of the narrative shows that it is and must be so.

37 The standard interpretation of a world that contains selves, others, and environment can be shown to obtain only if it is allowed that the environment is also experiential in nature but perhaps too low in value to normally register. Such standard worlds may obtain and per the fundamental principle must obtain, would be part of the higher world.

38 As noted the world is mapped within the range of experience. Consider the concept of a mountain; there is the visual image that functions as the preliminary concept; but then when it is thought ‘but the mountain has reality outside experience’, that reality may be seen as further experience—different views from different places and at different times, walking to and up the mountain, touching it—falling on it, others’ reports of experiences of the same. Yet both pragmatically and in abstraction there is a mountain that has a reality which is itself an abstract of experience. Thus ‘everything lies within the experiential map’ and ‘there is a reality’ are consistent and this is further confirmed

39 And the pragmatic and the pure will later join in the perfect metaphysics to be developed.

40 The world ‘being’ may also be used in other common ways, e.g. as in the phrase ‘that being the case’.

41 ‘Existent’ is preferable to ‘object’ for the latter suggests ‘entity’ while the former includes entity, relation, interaction, process, quality or property, trope and more; thus ‘existent’ is neutral to these distinctions and further, to kind of existence, e.g. ‘material’ vs ‘mental’ and any others. It is often preferable to use object in this sense; however this does not seem to be standard.

42 This ‘is’ is used as ‘is defined as’.

43 This ‘is’ is used as the most general form of the verb to be. Its use is that of existence unqualified and is particularly neutral to region or regions in sameness, difference, and their absence (as primitive to space and time). Note that a region need not be connected and thus a collection of distinct regions is (may also be regarded as) a region.

44 Capitalized.

45 The concept of Being has been criticized as being trivial and even, since it applies to ‘everything’ and therefore makes no distinctions, not a concept at all.

We address the latter criticism first for if it is valid, ‘Being’ does not have meaning.

‘Being’ it is a concept even if it should refer to ‘everything’ and the objection that it makes no distinctions is categorially wrong for it is a distinctor whose value is zero (we might say it is a non-zero for it distinguishes concepts that have objects from concepts such as ‘square circle’ which can have no object but, since there are no such objects, it remains a zero distinctor).

We might say that ‘Being’ is an identifier—i.e. its content is not nil—but how? This is addressed below in this footnote.

Regarding the charge of triviality, the claim is positively admitted for it is precisely the triviality that is the source of the power of the concept (e.g. to make metaphysics real and possible—which may be seen to be due to the abstraction inherent in the concept).

Another criticism of existence is that to not exist is meaningless for an immediate question is What is it that that does not exist? A standard resolution is to regard ‘existence’ as a second order property. A better one is to appeal to meaning as a concept and its objects. Then ‘tigers exist’ means that there are objects corresponding to the concept of a tiger; while ‘unicorns do not exist’ means that there are no objects corresponding to the concept of a unicorn.

But ‘Being’ may be seen as a second order concept—as a concept it applies to concept that have objects but not to those that do not. In this sense ‘Being’—the concept—is an identifier, even though Being—the object—is not.

Note that in the previous paragraph single quotes are used to indicate a name and concept while the absence of quotes indicates the object. This is a slight variation of a common convention that uses single quotes for names.

46 To interact is to participate in causation though not necessarily in any classical sense of mechanistic causation that is contiguous in space and time.

47 Power falls under causation—causation not restricted to classical causation that is thought to be locally contiguous, explainable, or mechanistic.

48 I.e. that which affects the experience of no experiential being at all. This does not require awareness of the being but only that the being has affects experience.

49 The term ‘non-existent’ ought to be written ‘effectively non-existent’ but there is no loss in the world or experience of it in omitting ‘effectively’.

50 I.e.—Experience is effectively the only measure of the world.

51 The qualification ‘effective measure’ is unnecessary.

52 In the now established extended sense of experience.

53 In the sense of experience as extending to all Being in principle even though nil to low in value for what is called ‘body’, ‘environment’, and elementary ‘matter’.

54 It is not being said that Being depends on experience, that experience ‘creates’ Being—rather Being-in-experiential and Being are the same. It is not said that the falling tree unperceived does not exist but, rather, the falling tree is part of an experiential field that, for relatively inanimate objects is of too low a focus or intensity to count as explicitly sentient.

55 I.e. over all sameness, difference, and their absence.

56 From the concept of ‘universe’. Note the conceptual power of Being beginning to emerge. This would seem to be a ‘logical’ oneness. However, we have seen that being is necessarily relational, and we will see this to be founded in necessity and not just semantics. Further, the perfect metaphysics may be seen as making the boundary between logic and science as diffuse.

57 I.e., in sameness, difference, and their absence.

58 An external creator is impossible for it would be outside the universe. Self-creation is impossible because meaningless—in the beginning there is no self or being to do the creating.

59 In the sense of another being—for there is no other being.

60 It will be seen that the cause is necessity which of course is not a cause in the common experiential, scientific, or philosophical senses.

61 E.g. a region of the universe—classically, our cosmos.

62 The pattern has Being and saying that the law has Being is metaphorical for this fact. However the metaphor may be rendered real (a) by regarding the law as true within bounds of precision or (b) by regarding the law to refer to a true Law.

63 The power of the concept of Being continues and will continue to emerge.

64 First argument or proof—for the void and only for the void, existence and non-existence are equivalent; this is a metaphysical argument. Second argument—from the properties of the void, it exists as the complement of every being relative to itself.

65 We should enquire into the nature of logic. Given a hypothetical conceptual fact about the world, there are two ways it can be in error—i.e. not correspond to an actual ‘material’ fact. (1) If it is a compound fact (more than one unanalyzable fact, i.e. two or more independent facts, e.g. a theory in its domain of validity), its individual facts may stand in contradiction and thus not be realizable in any world. (2) The hypothetical fact, even if consistent in itself, may be contradicted by an actual fact. To avoid error is in the requirement in the cases, respectively, (1) of logic, and (2) of science. Science need not be universal. What of logic? It is not universal either for the forms of logic, e.g. the propositional or predicate, may apply only in a sufficiently complex world. On the other hand for a sufficiently complex world, further systems of two valued non modal logic may be required. Further, logic is empirical in the following way. Since all knowing is a relationship between a knower and known, while science is empirical over the known, logic is empirical over the truth functional forms of relationship between knower and known which is a factual aspect of the experiential field that contains knower and known.

66 It is obvious that it would not violate logic. Might it violate the empirical—cumulative experience and science? No, for the empirical universe is logically possible. The empirical universe would be embedded in the logically possible. Outside the empirical, patterns of behavior may be other than our physical laws but that would not be a violation for the laws are not known to be immanent beyond the empirical.

67 How? We form an intuitive view of the empirical universe from science. It, then, becomes hard to picture anything outside the scientific model. For example the scientific model is often thought to imply—

(1) There can be nothing outside the big bang model (which assumes from the possible precision and consistency of the model, that not only does it describe the empirical cosmos well but since the model cannot explain ‘outside’ there can be nothing outside the empirical cosmos) and

(2) The niches of nature—the physical, the mental, the living, the social—are all there is, which of course may be true but even so it hardly covers the possible variety of these niches in the entire universe.

Thus the intuitive form of the view is used to justify the formal view (and this is sometimes thought to be rigorous). Clearly, though, the procedure is circular.

68 While ‘logic’ suggests austerity, while what is required by logic may be austere but what is allowed is maximally rich.

69 Demonstration—There are no laws in the void for laws are immanent and the immanent is real. If from the void all logical possibility did not emerge, it would be a law and therefore entail a contradiction. Thus the universe is at least the realization of logical possibility. It was seen in an earlier footnote that it cannot be greater and therefore the universe is the realization of logical possibility.

There are also a number of heuristic arguments whose function is not proof but elaboration of meaning and development of intuition.

Some heuristics are—

(1) From the progress of science the future advances are next to impossible to predict but logic is the limit of all theory.

(2) From assuming an explanation of the existence of the world. As seen earlier the explanation cannot be another being. Possibility is not an explanation for under possibility the universe could be non-existent. The only satisfactory explanation, therefore, is necessity (note that the given proof is a proof of necessity) However, from symmetry if one possibility exists then all logical possibility must also exist.

(3) From intuition—East and West. Such intuition may begin in the sense that the secular world view of transience of identity as absurd (transience of identity is distinct from transience of this current identity).

(4) On Ockham’s Razor applied to what does not exist.

(5) Since doubt may remain about the fundamental principle from questions regarding the void as existing and the immensity of the principle, perhaps the proof itself ought to be regarded as a heuristic (keeping in mind its consistency with the empirical and the rational). This is further motivation for the fundamental principle as universal law and existential principle, below in the main text.

70 As explained in the heuristics—but derived from the fundamental principle—in the footnotes above.

71 I.e. as an axiom (i) whose inconsistency is unprovable, (ii) that is reasonable from multiple perspectives, and (iii) that is hypothesized for conceptual and testing (it is not beyond all testing for to say that is to make assumptions about the universe).

72 Since it is not inconsistent internally or with experience; since it is reasonable; and since it reveals an ultimate to which we belong; it is proposed as an existential action principle—an ethical imperative—that promotes the greatest value.

73 The variety and extension (sameness-difference and its absence, e.g. spacetime) of the universe are without limit. This includes peaks and dissolutions; the identity of the universe accumulates power the peaks. The universe and its identity manifest, e.g. in cosmoses—relatively stable islands—limitless in variety and number, in at least weak transient communication with the void and one another. It may be objected that ‘the cosmos cannot realize contradictory possibilities’; however this would be a simple violation of the meaning of ‘possibility’; but since there are limitlessly many cosmoses—and more—of which some are of the same kind as ours but with different histories and so on while others are varied in limitless possible ways, it follows that this is one sense in which all possibilities are realized—including the coalescing of some but not all ‘systems’ of cosmoses.

74 Realization is more effective, enjoyable, and ecstatic, when individuals share intelligent-feeling engagement. The process is ever fresh. Pain is unavoidable but its optimal though incomplete overcoming lies in that engagement (which is not to deny the direct address of pain but to point out its optimal synthesis with engagement). Generic, flexible, and adaptable path templates derived from the perfect metaphysics follow (see The Way of Being for details).

Everyday template

Activity	Detail
Rise before the sun	Dedication to The Way; affirmation of the aim
Review-meditate	Reflect on realization, priorities, and means
Realization	Work; relationships; ideas and action; yoga-meditation in action
Tasks	Daily, long term; meals
Experimental yoga	With meditation… in nature; posture
Exercise–aerobic	In nature, photography, explore
Evening	Rest, renewal, planning and review, realization, and community

Universal template

Action	Dimension	Detail
Being	Pure Being, community	Everyday process
Ideas	Relation, knowing	Reason; art
Becoming	Nature with psyche	Nature as ground: Beyul—the universal in nature
Becoming	Civilization and society	Shared immersion; intrinsic and instrumental social-political-economic philosophy and science
Becoming	Artifact	Artifactual Being as Being (realized) and as adjunct; science and technology of advanced civilization on the way to the ultimate
Becoming	Universal, unknown	Transformation aimed at the universal
Being	Universal	Being in the universal

An essential and comprehensive knowledge resource for the templates is outlined in the footnote “such a view or philosophy”; details are in system of human knowledge and action.html.

75 Or immediate.

76 Or ultimate.

77 Noted earlier.

78 Which via abstraction, is a perfect as-if representation of the universe. This is not abstraction in the sense of remoteness. It is abstraction that omits features of detail that might be incapable of being known directly and precisely. Thus the abstract in this sense is immediate and perfectly known. An example is Being or existence—even if we do not know particular things perfectly, that there is existence is known perfectly (sources of the power of the concept of Being are its abstraction and thus perfection, and that it need refer to no other concept or substance for its definition). The abstract universal metaphysics acquires further purchase on concrete detail by mesh with pragmatic knowledge. The mesh is perfect in the following sense. The universal and perfect metaphysics show ultimate realization; pragmatic though not merely material knowledge is the best instrument in realization.

79 …with perfect dual ideal-pragmatic epistemology

80 Let us repeat that “The universal and perfect metaphysics show ultimate realization; pragmatic though not merely material knowledge is the best instrument in realization.”

81 Roughly ‘material’, of the body and environment, of the natural sciences seen as strictly empirical and related technology.

82 Roughly of the entire being though emphasizing the experiential aspect and the entire field of experience and its inclusive peaks; includes the material aspect.

83 See a system of human knowledge, reason, and action.

84 Societies—traditional, transitional, and open; secular and trans-secular—invariably reinforce their ways. Negotiating conflicts of individual and social purpose is part of any true path.

85 —the classic spiritual maxim.