THE MAIN CONCEPTS FOR THE WAY
OF BEING
Detailed
Version | To the Essential Version
Anil Mitra, © May 13, 2019—May 23, 2019
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CONTENTS
Plan—a temporary division
Notation
Main
concepts
Body
text
Prologue
and Preliminary
Presentation
Origins
Purpose
Means
Approach
from Being
Elementary
metaphysics
Being
Edit
point 1
Experience
Edit
point 2
Universe
Void
Metaphysics
Metaphysics
The
perfect metaphysics
Development
of the metaphysics (consequences)
The
Way
Aim
of Being
Means
Path
Templates
Epilogue—The
Realm of Being
The
Vision: Being—the ultimate; immediate as ultimate; past, present, and future
are one
The
Way
Sharing
my truth (, publication—the site…)
Plan—a temporary division
Add dilemmas (there are already some dilemmas for Being and
experience—see the “interpretations” section); review and improve these; add
more; add some for free will; see canonical dilemmas.html.
See today and immediate.doc for more plans
Notation
All definitions are for the purpose of this
document; they are defined to constitute a consistent system, complete in a
specified sense. The ‘is’ of definition is marked by bold font—‘is’.
Here, ‘is’ has a three of uses. The definitional use
is note above. Another is equivalence or identity—e.g., “Anil Mitra is the
author of this site.” One common use, avoided, here is to indicate a
property—e.g., “Anil is a man”; this might be confusing; therefore the formal
form here will be “Anil has the property of manhood” or “Anil has manhood”.
The latter sense of ‘is’ may be used informally or where there would be no
misunderstanding. Other informal uses of ‘is’ may occur. In summary, there are three uses of ‘is’
here: definitional, as identity or equivalence, and informal.
In the following the distinctions between main, secondary… are of
importance to the way and not of general metaphysical significance.
Repeated concepts are crossed out
Secondary
concepts
Tertiary
Quaternary…
Normal text (Word Style Normal)
Main text (Word Style Central)
Secondary text (Word Style Central 2)
Critical issues (Word Style Main)
Dilemma.
Dilemmas (Word Style Dilemma)
Alternate.
E.g. alternate title (Word Style Alternate);
all alternates are temporary and to be executed and eliminated.
Prologue and Preliminary
Presentation
Ultimate
universe; eternal peaks; dissolution; eternal process; individual; merging;
inheritance of the ultimate; immediate ground; feasible, effective paths; imperative;
realization; enjoyment, process, moderation (verb), diversion, ecstasy, pain,
suffering; incomprehensible pain (issue of)
The Way shows
1. An
ultimate view of the universe as the greatest possible—with ultimate peaks of
Being, dissolution, eternal process.
2. Individuals
merge with universal identity in these peaks—they inherit the ultimate.
3. There
are feasible and effective paths of enjoyment to this ultimate.
4. Enjoyment
is eternal process in moderation of ecstasy, pain, suffering, and other
diversions from ground to ultimate; issue of incomprehensible pain; treated
in Home > preview
> paths, enjoyment, summary.
Author
History
Destiny
Dilemmas
of purpose and destiny
Knowledge,
reason, practice, action
Knowledge
and its putative limits
Secular –
its limits
Transsecular
– its meaning
Double
bind of dogma
The dogmas:
(i) the secular-empirical projected to the universe and (ii) the literal-dogmatic
transsecular
Trans-empirical
possibility
No necessary
rational a priori
Truth
Perfect-abstract,
traditional-pragmatic
Tradition is the pragmatic
truth in all historical traditions, cultures, and systems of
knowledge till and including the present (i.e., tradition is what is valid in
those traditions etc).
The
rational
The
empirical – empiricism and its limits
The
rational – here defined to include the empirical, and value, judgment, and
emotion; in a limited sense the ‘old rational’ is rather sterile, but in this
new and extended sense it is full and potent.
Why?
Elementary metaphysics
Metaphysics is defined in § Metaphysics.
Existence,
Being, verb to be; sameness, difference, absence
In one of its fundamental uses, the verb to be
indicates existence. It is so basic, it is incapable of further analysis
(which does not rule out explanation and ‘analysis’ at the same categorial
level).
Existence is the property in virtue of which the
verb to be is applicable in its most neutral sense—
1.
It indicates only some region, not necessarily
connected, of emerging difference, sameness, and their absence (i.e. the
precursors of spacetime-‘stuff’).
2.
It does not indicate kinds such as substance,
entity, process, interaction and more. It is of the highest categorial level.
Dilemmas
resolved by Being, e.g. dilemmas of substance and essentialism
Neutrality,
inclusivity, abstraction, perfection
I.e., the source of the conceptual force of Being.
Particularly, abstraction does not result in abstract
objects (existents); with sufficient abstraction, the objects are most real.
A being (plural: beings), power, cause
A being (plural: beings) is an existent—that which
has the property of Being (or existence).
The idea of a being without some concept of the
being is without meaning. I.e. all beings are conceptual or ‘hypothetical’;
those for which the concept is realized exist, otherwise they do not
exist—are ‘null’ or merely hypothetical.
The hypothetical being that affects and is affected
by no being does not exist.
Power is a measure of being.
There can be no other measure (other measures later
identified are cases of power).
Power is cause in its most general form; it includes
but is not restricted to the contiguous and temporal classical cause; it
admits action-at-a-distance and over time as examples; and other emerging
concepts of cause, e.g. necessity and perhaps possibility.
All,
part, null
Thus universe (all), beings (parts), the void
(null).
Thus the concepts of Being and beings are maximally
rich in what is included but maximally poor in what is specified. This is a
source of the force of the concept of Being.
Kinds
of Being
Experience,
pure, attitudinal, agentive; subjective awareness, consciousness
Dilemmas
of experience
Place
of knowledge and meaning, effective existence, knowledge is Being
Being-universe
as effectively non inert, experiential, and relational
Being
and universe as effectively experiential and relational
Knowledge
and meaning
Knowledge;
fact, simple and compound; pattern; concept-percept as concept; intuition as
conformation, to whatever conscious or extra-conscious degree it may obtain,
of the capacity of knowing to the forms of the world; knowledge as
concept-object or token concept-concept; sign, simple and compound;
linguistic concept as symbol or sign-concept; necessity of the concept;
compounding of signs as conceptual; linguistic knowledge as symbol-object;
concept and linguistic (referential) meaning as knowledge
Two kinds
of error: concept-concept, concept-percept (fact, pattern); logic, science;
abstract and concrete science; mathematics and other abstract sciences; the
concrete sciences
Logos
Logic
seems a priori universal but (i) in pertaining to concept-concept, it is
empirical (just as is science when not projected beyond the empirical) and
(ii) is universal in principle but the extant logics are not since they refer
to definite propositional or sentence forms.
Thus logic
and science are on par—the distinction being that logic is particular topic
neutral though not general topic neutral and that it seems to be conceptually
of higher order because the concept-concept side of science is usually
suppressed
Mathematics
is knowledge expressed abstractly and is of ideal structures, potentially of
some world.
Allowing
the potential worlds, then, logic – mathematics – science can be rewritten
logic – abstract science – concrete science (where ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’
are not kinds but lie on a continuum and each is susceptible to a different
mode of study).
I.e., all
knowledge is logic in a generalized sense. But this would stretch our use of
‘logic’.
Thus: LOGOS.
A possible
limit of logos thus expressed is the discreteness of language; the world is
not (necessarily but the fundamental principle will allow the term
‘necessarily’ to be dropped) discrete. Hence essential roles for intuition
and/or non-discrete language (what would that be like).
Interpretations,
standard secular view, solipsism, world as field of experience, extended
standard secular view
Standard
secular view or SSV (‘materialism’), incompatible
with strict substance ontology—strict materialism is incompatible with the
fact of experience
Solipsism:
intuitively absurd, ontologically ‘bizarre’, likely incompatible with the
laws of physics, logically consistent and logically possible—therefore
metaphysically possible from the point of view that there is no experience
(mind) without a body (form) for the experiential system is—can be—the form.
World as
field of experience or FOE: the most general
interpretation for a non inert universe
Extended
standard secular view or ESSV (that which has zero
experientiality is ‘matter’ or ‘environment’; ontologically distinct from but
instrumentally equivalent to SSV
Oneness,
no other being as cause, necessity vs accident as cause, necessity as
self-cause, universal possibility is identical to universal actuality.
Constraint,
law
Existence
of the void.
Proof
Heuristics
Universal
law; existential action principle
Metaphysics
Metaphysics,
possibility of metaphysics
Metaphysics is
study of the real; by rational and/or empirical (experiential means); it is
not one of the many classical or modern conceptions; particularly, it is not
merely speculative, necessarily ‘of the object’, or of special beings, e.g.
Gods, angels, or speculated cosmoses.
Possibility of metaphysics is possibility of
metaphysics-as-defined-here. Impossibility of metaphysics refers to
impossibility in one of the other sense of metaphysics.
As Being and other concepts of the Elementary metaphysics are
known perfectly (with sufficient abstraction), some elementary metaphysics
has been constructed and is therefore possible. An aim of the subsequent
discussion is to develop a comprehensive and ultimate metaphysics and
demonstrate its truth.
Abstraction
and the possibility of metaphysics.
Possibility,
logical and real (the real presumes the logical).
Kinds of
possibility
Logical
Real:
Experience-world
(includes experience) or
Psyche-world
(includes psyche) or
Psyche
(intrinsic world)-world (instrumental world, nominally does not include
psyche), but
Sentient
possibility
Instrumental
(world):
Natural
(‘matter’, ‘life’, psyche)
Social
(and culture and civilization); sociology and social science, economics,
politics, anthropology…
Universal
(and the unknown but not unknowable); thus
The
intrinsic and the instrumental are not fundamentally distinct
The
fundamental principle; main proof
Alternate
proofs
Heuristics
Criticism
and response
Objections,
doubts
The
perfect metaphysics
The dual
abstract-perfect and pragmatic-perfect metaphysics and ontology
That the
pragmatic-perfect is relative to the ultimate; it eliminates some traditional epistemological
concerns, e.g., purism while altering the significance of others, e.g.
precision, knowledge of existents
The
intrinsic and instrumental values of the perfect metaphysics
Reason
Properly
understood, the perfect metaphysics needs no ‘deeper’ or ‘outside’
foundation. It’s essential limitation is that it does not provide precise
detail of the world. That detail has its uses. However, in relation to the
ultimate the pragmatic detail is all that is needed and since no better is
available, no ‘better’ is desirable. The perfect metaphysics and ‘Being’ are
within one another—and include the system of human knowledge etc:
Being—individual and ultimate—are continuous with the metaphysics… it is not
a mere representation, symbolic or otherwise.
I.e., that
is reason.
For definition
of reason and more, see the system of human knowledge etc (link above) and my journey.html > reason.
First, there are implications for the elementary
metaphysics.
Second, implications for the way are paramount; it
is effective to develop them in a distinct subsection.
Third, the general development of metaphysics may be
divided into the metaphysical vs the cosmological or, roughly, the general
and abstract vs the particular and concrete. However, the distinction is
neither definite nor one of ‘kind’. For convenience, though, the general
development will be divided into ‘metaphysics’ and ‘cosmology’.
Reworking
and enhancement of the elementary metaphysics
Being
and universe as effectively experiential and relational
Universe
as dynamically ‘one’
SSV worlds possible but
bizarre
For The
Way and paths
From
beings to Being; the universe and its identity and variety; peaking; merging
of identities; existence of paths to the ultimate; imperative to be on shared
paths and their discovery grounded in the immediate
Given a
state or being, there is a ‘higher’ sentient state and a ‘higher’ designed
state (i.e. designed by ‘ordinary’ sentient beings)
The immediate
and the ultimate; imperative; feasible paths; means; dimensions
Issue of
ecstasy, pain, suffering, diversion, and enjoyment
Metaphysics
Principles
The perfect
metaphysics—which includes reason with action; the basis of the perfect
metaphysics in abstraction and tradition
Principle
of sufficient reason—PSR (but not Leibniz’ classically
causal version), resolution of Heidegger’s fundamental question of metaphysics:
why there is something rather than nothing; necessity as the non-classical,
non-manifest cause of the universe; oneness of the universe (‘universal
interaction’)
Identity,
sameness, difference (and their absence)
Abstract
and concrete objects
Logos
Reason
Epistemology;
knowledge—the concept; inseparability of epistemology and
metaphysics—pragmatically and essentially (see being-experience); incomplete
separability of knowledge – beings – action; criteria of knowledge—and issue
of purism; values of knowledge; foundationalism and its possibility – and
direct approach from Being
Value;
ethics and aesthetics
Determinism;
absolute determinism and indeterminism; determinism at one level of phenomena
is not incompatible with general determinism at another
Generic dynamics
of Being (cross over with cosmology)
Cosmology
Definition
General
cosmology
Principles
The
perfect metaphysics (which includes reason with action)
See paradigms
below
Variety
and extension of Being; peak and process
General vs
efficient formation
Place of
abstract and objects in cosmology
Dimensions
of Being
Cosmology
of form and formation
Form,
formation, formation vs dynamics (pole or continuum)
Efficient
origins of form and dynamics (vs necessary origins)
Determinism,
indeterminism, and the block universe
Being,
space, and time (Being-space-time)… and Identity
Precursors
Spacetime
Not
absolute
Immanent
in and of Being
Physical
cosmology
Theoretical
physics; the theories and the phenomena; determinism and indeterminism;
status—empirical and conceptual; interpretation and philosophy are crucial
though not determinative; possible foundational aspects in the perfect
metaphysics and cosmology
The
quantum vacuum is not the void
Physics of
our cosmos (‘big bang’; empirical and conceptual development and evidence)
Physical
cosmology and life
Cosmological
anthropic principles
Life
Life and
elements (e.g. physical)
Abiogenesis,
evolution
Origin of
design—emergent vs essential; accidental vs necessary
Human
being, society, civilization, and world
Human
being
birth
event; growth; reflexive knowledge of the world; death; human being;
psychology
Notes
Human being—initially, a question,
i.e. what human being is; following are some (partially) definitive
considerations; ‘human being’ is taken up again after the characteristics.
Birth event—fact and conditions
not a choice or in awareness of the individual
Growth—coming into self-hood and
humanness begins outside choice or awareness of the individual; even having
achieved humanness, there is a sense that the fact and conditions of birth
and growth are significantly not the choice or design of the individual
Reflexive knowledge—“metacognition”—of
the world includes discrete and intuitive linguistic-conceptual knowledge
which does not become entirely explicit; conscious representation of the
entire world and self (this is the reflexive aspect—but note that in full
reflexivity every aspect of knowing may refer to every other aspect) and not
just more or less unselfconscious knowledge of a local environment; thus the
possibility of growing out of being an accident and partial knowledge of the
world
The world—used informally in this
document; traditionally it has a connotation of the universe and our
experience of it; but, here, we see that the distinction is null (in terms of
the present definition of ‘universe’)
Death—(i) in a
secular-materialist-empirical paradigm: real and absolute; an essential
condition of our being; true knowledge of death is recognition of our
finiteness and therefore opportunity and occasion to have meaning in the condition
of finiteness and bring life and its projects to closure; not a merely random
event—conditions of life may be enjoyment and/or usefulness… and death may be
chosen even if not entirely under control, (ii) in the paradigm from the
perfect metaphysics that self and universe are identical and ultimate: death
remains real but is not absolute; it may and should continue to serve
existential function but with further awareness; i.e. that while it continues
to inform us about this life—it is also gateway to the ultimate and in
seeking meaning, purpose, and path, we ought to balance the reality of death
with its opportunity.
Human being—defined in part by the
foregoing; it is the character of human being, not uniqueness, that is
significant; there is interest in whether other beings share this character
Psychology—below.
even in mature human being their being has an at
least seeming accidental character as to
psychology
(below); linguistic-conceptual knowledge and intuition, capacity for knowing
the whole (which includes self and knowledge e.g. this entire production and
system of human k) and therefore rising above existence delimited birth –
death – and the gross material; birth; death;
Psychology
Essentials
Map
Free
will—definition and concept; primacy over paradigm, material, and life
science; issue of; conceptual and ideological polarization of; importance of,
to Being and human being
Society
As studied
in sociology, anthropology (cultural), cultural studies (language, knowledge,
education), politics and economics(economic geography), (“political
economics”)
Culture—human
knowledge of our world
As studied in system of human knowledge, reason, practice, and
action.html.
Civilization
Human
civilization as human, animal, and plant societies, communities and
ecosystems across time and continents.
Universal
civilization as the movement of the matrix of societies across the universe
cycling through the peaks of Being.
The world—Our
world I—and human knowledge of the world
Realms or
dimensions of the world(psyche… as treated earlier, i.e. PNSU)
Logos;
logic and the general and abstract sciences as one
Instrumental
vs immersive approach
The rest
of this section ‘Our world’ picks some
Kinds of
Being—what is the level of this?
A repetition and extension of the above.
Our
world II—problems and opportunities
While this is emphasized today as a secular concern,
it is meant here in an extended sense. See the way - world problems and opportunities.html.
Opportunities
and problems
Power (political)
Paradigms
The
concept
In common use, a paradigm is a high level way form
of the world or knowledge in some of their regions that is projected to the
whole by those who support it.
Here, however, a paradigm is just the high level
form; it is not projected; a the main significance here is (i) as a tool in
understanding the world or a part of it, and (ii) as an ideological slant
upon whose criticism truth may be built or approached.
Here are some paradigms, old and new. The treatment
will not tarry on the ‘tired’ paradigms such as strict materialism and strict
determinism.
The
pragmatic and the perfect
The perfect metaphysics is built from a perfect and
a pragmatic side.
In Knowledge
and meaning and Logos it was
seen that the pragmatic and the perfect which were introduced as distinct are
not polar but on a continuum.
And that continuum is imperfect in traditional
senses but perfect in the new sense above.
The pragmatic and the perfect are one despite the
seeming and putative distinction.
As seen, the rational includes and expands upon the
empirical; and it necessarily includes value and emotion; the ‘old style
rationalist’ might say that the empirical and value and emotion are necessary
for judgment.
Let us now focus on the distinction.
Applicability
The perfect paradigms are applicable to their entire
realm of reference which, in the general case, is the universe.
The pragmatic paradigms are not universal but
probable in their realm of reference; and may be supplemented by the perfect.
Perfect
Yet it does seem that there is a true perfect in the
fundamental concepts of the metaphysics that include experience, Being,
beings, and possibility.
On the other hand the abstract sciences and logic
are toward the perfect side of the pragmatic-perfect continuum.
Truth
valued logics
Traditional
and classical—Syllogism, two-valued sentence and predicate calculi
Extended—modal
logics of necessary, contingent, and possible truth… and strict implication;
topic dependent (not neutral) but still truth valued modal logics possible
and implicative truth) such as tense, deontic, epistemic, preference,
imperative, erotetic (interrogative) logics
Deviant
logics—many-valued logics, intuitionist logics, quantum logics, free logics
Pragmatic
Logics—conditional
truth: inductive, abductive, conductive; scientific methodology (hypothetico-deductive;
with testing or, previously, falsification
Science
The two main paradigms of conceptual science are
Causal
dynamics of systems, by an element, interaction, process
model—e.g., theoretical physics; may be determinist or
indeterminist-with-deterministic-behavior-in-some-realms.
Emergent
dynamics, by an indeterminist-determinist or variation and
selection model; necessarily indeterminist; generically—adaptive and
self-adaptive systems, novelty; creation and evolution of form (and
dynamics); applies to evolution of life—may apply partially at least
to abiogenesis; to origins of physical cosmoses, to other structures—such as
the social, to thought…
Cross-over,
e.g. in the origin and evolution of life which appears to be physical at root
and is yet an emergent dynamics in the present sense.
Paradigms
of indeterminism
Determinism as determination of a whole by a part;
especially the universe by a part.
Thus the universe is determined from the void; but
then determinism is clearly a matter of perspective, for it is also
absolutely indeterministic in the question of what emerges next from any
part.
To elaborate: the our cosmos may be determinist or
indeterminist from its own perspective (it seems that determinism may obtain
for some but not all modes of description); the universe is indeterministic
from the perspective or our cosmos and its inhabitants; but the universe as a
block is determinist relative to itself.
The Way
The aim
Imperative
The
perfect metaphysics
The
immediate and the ultimate; imperative; feasible paths; means; dimensions
Issue
of ecstasy, pain, suffering, diversion, and enjoyment
Immediate
- everyday, ritual, ultimate - universal
Resources
Epilogue—The Realm of Being
Alternate.
Epilogue—The Future of Being; consider more
What
that truth is
Attitude
Publishing
Talk,
media, print, website, social media and blog
Planning
|