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Introduction
This very brief account is of
a journey—a quest—for
Discovery, revelation, and realization of the Universe
In its greatest form—the greatest destiny of Being—
And the place of human being in the process.
The narrative endeavors to
show in simple form
What is essential to discovery and realization
But not to suppress essential challenge.
The Journey in Being
Site, http://www.horizons-2000.org,
Links to narratives with greater detail.
The Précis Version will be
useful in pursuing
Further acquaintance with the ideas of this text.
The Complete
Edition is an instrument of action
And has material of academic interest.
…
Ideas recounted in the text often came as flow
outside my
Volition. The experience has been as if stepping
without
Expectation into an alien continent of great beauty.
It is
Thus that I sometimes think of the ideas as received.
…
Meaning is sometimes seen as
fixed
But has no final determination outside process.
New experience and established use balance fluidity
And fixity in determining meaning.
Many ideas and ways of this
narrative are new.
The new builds on the old—on familiar themes
But readers may be unfamiliar with what is new.
Understanding will be best
when it is appreciated that
The new meanings are often carried by familiar terms
And that the ideas form a connected system with
meaning
That is greater than the collection of individual
meanings.
To specify meaning where it
may lack definition is
Always important. To help address issues stated above,
I have been especially careful in specifying
Meanings of significant terms employed.
Prologue
The Idea of a Worldview or Cosmology
To know and appreciate greatest being requires
Depiction of the Universe and our relations to it.
Metaphysics, cosmology, and worldview
Are common terms for such depictions.
The Standard Cosmologies
The common ‘standard’ cosmologies are secular and
Trans-secular. The secular appeals to common
experience,
Especially science. The trans-secular posit worlds
‘Beyond’ and its standard kinds are mythic and
religious.
The philosopher David Hume pointed out the absence
of
Necessity to science as defining the entire universe.
Secularism sees science reach far into all niches
and concludes:
Probably, science nearly captures the universe. This
does not
Allow for undiscovered niches.
Therefore, from necessity and probability, science
allows
Metaphysics to be wide open in the region beyond the
Valid domain of science which, as will be seen later,
Is limitless.
Mythic trans-secular cosmologies so conflict realism
and
One another that they have no purchase on metaphysics
Except a goal of metaphysics to insist on openness
where
We may have been shut down by positivist secular
dogma.
Any metaphysics that agrees with standard
cosmologies
In their domains of validity is allowed by those
Cosmologies and their principles of reasoning.
One aspect of secular thought is significant—all
valid
Metaphysics must be founded in experience.
Journey in Being
A ‘universe’ of narrative has no definite beginning
or end.
A discrete text, however, has a nominal beginning.
It is effective to begin the core of this text with
experience
Which is the place of our relation to the Universe.
Experience and Foundation
Experience—awareness—is the place of knowledge of
Things—the core and theater of our being.
Its forms are pure, receptive, and active. These
combine
As ideas—pure and creative—and action.
Experience is the rock of knowledge of things—
Knowledge that something ‘is there’,
For even if all is illusion, there is illusion
Which is experience.
It is thus shown that there is experience. Is there
more?
One response is ‘of course’ and that the issue has no
real
Pragmatic interest. However, showing this—that there
is—
More than experience will yield benefits. What
benefits?
Grounding in the real will replace reasonable doubt
in
Reliability of the world. Common experience will go
beyond
Itself with what certainty there may. Skill in
foundation—
Particularly ultimates in the present—will be
sharpened.
Demonstration is as follows. If there is only
experience then
Experience is either the whole world or limited. The
former claim
Would relabel the world; the latter would contradict
itself.
Therefore, there is experience which is part of the
real world.
‘The World is Experience’ would relabel this
conclusion.
Such foundation is no guarantee we will find the
world to be
As we think. We may find it to be far greater—or
lesser.
In either case we will have found truth. In fact, this
Preliminary care in foundation will have limitless
return.
Such, in general, is a value to care in foundations.
The process is not single step. Here the foundation
has been
Revised incrementally and repeatedly in interaction
with
Development and use of a metaphysics. Incremental
Revision is typical in development of foundations.
Existence
The word ‘exists’ refers to ‘what is there’. To
exist is
To be. The reflections above show that existence is
not an
Empty concept and it has a robust and discriminating
Foundation in experience.
‘Exists’ shall denote any mix of ‘existed’,
‘exists’, and ‘will
Exist’ and more according as time and space are but
two
Local measures or coordinates of difference
associated,
Respectively, with same and distinct identity.
Being
Being is that which exists. The power of the idea of
Being is its neutrality to hypothetical kinds and
kinds
Commonly thought of as real. Examples are space, time
Matter, mind, state, force, process, spirit, soul, and
Word.
Mention of these special kinds is not essential
To the present development. Whatever is real—named
And unnamed—is already in Being.
Universe
The Universe is All Being.
There is one and only one Universe.
Whatever has Being is in the Universe.
The hypothetical being that is not in the Universe
Does not exist—it is no more than a hypothesis.
‘Being’ discriminates only existence from
non-existence.
It does not distinguish kinds of Being.
Whatever is real exists in the one Universe. There is
no other
Universe—e.g., of fact or of kind such as idea or
form.
The Universe contains all creation
But is not created.
Any creator is part of the Universe—
The Universe has and can have no external creator.
Laws
Knowledge of the natural world is
Coded in laws and natural histories.
Natural history may be written as law,
Legend, myth, or ancient cosmology.
The laws of natural science are
Familiar modern examples of laws.
A law is a reading of a pattern;
The pattern itself is the immanent Law.
All Laws have Being.
The Universe contains all Laws.
The Void
The Void is the absence of Being.
Therefore the Void contains no Law.
As complement to the Universe
The Void exists.
The Void which is the absence of Being
Exists and contains no Law.
The Universal Metaphysics
All states emerge from the Void
For the contrary would be a Law of the Void.
It is thus shown that the Void—and, so,
Being and the Universe—have no limits.
If power is degree of limitlessness, the Universe is
ultimate
Power. Every state of being, including the Void has
this power.
Ultimate power is immanent in the present. Those forms
are
Limited for which ultimate realization is only in
endless process.
The Universe has no limits.
This demonstrated assertion
Is named the ‘fundamental principle of metaphysics’.
The worldview that results is called
The universal metaphysics
Or, simply, the metaphysics.
It is crucial to use of the metaphysics that its
meaning shall
Be understood. Let us now further develop this
requisite,
First taking up explicit meaning.
Meaning of the Metaphysics
Consider concepts that purport to have objects; such
concepts
Are referential in form. In this section ‘concepts’
will refer only
To such concepts.
Freedom in thought allows formation of concepts that
are
Inconsistent with fact or with one another—that is, it
Allows concepts for which it is impossible to have
objects.
From the limitlessness of the Universe the only
concepts
That do not have objects are the impossible concepts.
This constraint on concepts for realism is
Not a limit on the Universe.
This minimal Realism constitutes
An explicit meaning of the metaphysics:
Given Realism, concepts have objects.
Another term for Realism is Logic: the Universe is
the
Object of Logic (thus related to Logos). In this form,
which
Includes agreement with fact (science) Logic, is not a
limit
But a constraint on the useful free play of concept
formation.
The object of Logic is the Universe. All valid science
and
Systems of science lie within Logic.
Agreement with fact includes agreement with the
knowledge
Claims of human culture, e.g. science, religion, and
lore in their
Valid domains. Consistency among concepts includes
agreement
With systems of logic where they are valid.
The vastness and Forms of Logic await discovery—The
Known logics are but forms of and within Logic.
And while the forms may be rough and seen as
Constraining, Logic is the true and most liberal
realism.
The account of explicit meaning should be
complemented
By discussion of implicit meaning which lies in
implications
Such as are the focus of sections beginning with Cosmology.
Cosmology
The universal metaphysics implies what follows
And it is especially the implications
That bring out its implicit meaning.
Natural science and experience have domains of
validity
But the Universe—the object of the metaphysics—is
Greater without limit than those domains.
The Universe is limitlessly greater than our cosmos.
The Universe has neither beginning nor end.
The Universe is.
The Universe has and must have manifestation and
Identity
In acute, diffuse and absent or non-manifest phases.
Every state or element of Being is equivalent to
every other.
That something must come from nothing is a trivial
corollary.
At the deepest and most general level
The question of foundation is forever resolved and
closed.
The extension, duration, variety, summit, and
dissolution
Of manifest phases of Being in the Universe
Are without limit. Subject to Realism, systems of
physical
Law are without limit.
Every Law, every cosmos is repeated without limit.
‘Ghost’ systems every passing through our cosmos.
In comparison to the limitlessness, our cosmos is a
Speck—infinitesimal in quantity and variety.
Individual and Identity
These powers of the Universe are conferred on
individuals
For the contrary would entail a limit on the Universe.
Individuals realize the Universe—All Being: its
Identity,
Extension, duration, variety, summits, and
dissolutions.
Though individual identity may seem a concrete unity
‘Individual’ and ‘group’ are relative terms, for
Every atom is a cosmos, every cosmos an atom.
However, the individual-group distinction is not
relative.
Apparent limits are part of
the constitution
Of the forms of Being—
Though temporary, limits are of the form of beings,
Normally a result of origin and adaptation.
Such, too, is the nature of human limits
And experience of limits.
The givenness of realization does not negate
The value and challenge of endeavor
Or the facts of pain and death
But gives meaning to pain, death, and challenge.
While in limited form realization is endless
process—
And ever freshness in variety—A Journey in Being.
For limited Being the forms of knowledge and Being
Are ever open—an eternal challenge.
The oneness, connection, and continuity
Of these forms lie in Identity—
In experience, idea and action.
In unlimited form realization is Aeternitas—
Eternity in a moment—
To which life and death—and pain and joy—are gateways.
That realization for limited form is endless
Requires that the empirical and symbolic sciences
For such forms remain ever in process and
Be complemented by immersion for their full
expression.
A Perfect, Unique, and Ultimate Metaphysics
In foundation in experience and Being the
metaphysics
Is perfect. From expression as Logic it is unique—as
container
Of all special metaphysics; and ultimate—in complete
but
Partially implicit capture of the variety of Being.
The universal metaphysics resolves foundation of
Being but
Shows the variety of experience and Being to be ever
open:
While in limited form the variety of realization is
Unbounded, experience is limitless and eternal.
Civilization and Realization
Our civilization is the web of human culture
Over time and continents.
Greater Civilization is the matrix of civilizations
Across the Universe.
Individuals foster Civilization;
Civilization nurtures the individual.
Civilization is the hearth of realization;
The individual is the manifestation of realization.
Civilization provides ways of ideation and action—
Disciplines of thought, discovery, and transformation.
The standard forms of the disciplines—
Secular and trans-secular—
Are marked by incompleteness and error
But their core constitutes ground on which to build.
Our apparent limits are Laws or
Expressions of Law
Which also constitute initial ground on which to
Transcend limits on the way to universal realization.
The apparently stable initial ground
Is transient and incomplete,
But knowing and living its transient incompleteness
Is on the way to the ultimate.
Ultimate realization for all beings is given
By the metaphysics. However, efficiency and enjoyment
Are immensely enhanced in occurrence and quality
By commitment and engagement.
Sacred scriptures talk of divine magnificence. An
example:
The Bhagavad-Gita compares the splendor of Being
To the brilliance of a thousand suns. Yet the means of
Realization of the Gita are squarely in the present.
The Universe and the place of individuals in it are
limitlessly
Greater than in common secular and trans-secular
cosmologies.
Especially on this knowledge, realization for limited
forms
Begins in the present, touched and illuminated by the
ultimate.
A Way of Realization
What now flows from the ideas so far is basis for a
Program of
Realization that is further founded and outlined in
the
Précis
Edition and detailed in the Complete
Edition
Linked from http://www.horizons-2000.org.
Action is distinguished from material process in
having
Ideas as partial guide. Thus the modes of realization
are
Ideas and action.
Realization begins with ideas;
Transformation requires action.
Since the range of the ultimate is not immanent in
limited
Forms, realization is indeterministic. Its way must
lie in
Step-wise risk and selective consolidation. This is
the core
Of a mechanics of realization.
The development of the ideas has been in break down
and
Rebuilding. The way of realization lies
In break down and experiential rebuilding of ideas and
Being,
Which includes thought, experiment, and correction.
This process is appropriately named
Analysis and Synthesis of Ideas and Being.
At the front of realization the final resource is to
take the next
Step of thought or action—thus there can be no perfect
masters
Of realization. However, to share learning is
effective—there may
Be teachers and ways but no Perfect Master or Final
Discipline.
The vehicles of realization are individual and
group—
Being and Civilization and their transformations are
Among the dimensions of realization.
Transformation of Being has been seen to be via ideas
and action.
Transformation of Civilization is intrinsic—via
transformation of
Being, and extensive, i.e. inhabitation and population
of the
Universe via exploration, and instrument or
technology.
From the destruction of Earth by human population,
Any value of populating the Universe seems doubtful.
A few lonely outposts might be a good idea.
Perhaps that will constitute population of the
Universe.
Realization derives inspiration from the disciplines
in
Interaction with the powers of Being and thought
Revealed above. It derives effectuality
From the interaction.
The disciplines suggest catalysts of transient
change—
Of mind and body—e.g., yogas, meditation, shamanic
way.
Incremental change in being, disciplines, and ways is
secured
In experience and reason; and recollection—memory and
culture.
The places of realization are the Ground (nature)
and
Fabric (society and culture) of Civilization
Which link the immediate to the ultimate.
Transience and Arrival
Realization begins in the present, perhaps with
the disciplines,
But requires risk—experiment, splitting, and
rebuilding—and
Increment may be secured in experience, reason, and
recollection.
Living in transience, its joy and anxiety, is on the
way—is
Essential to realization, ever a flux of transience
and arrival.
While in limited form realization is endless process—
And ever freshness in variety—A Journey in Being.
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