The Realizations of Being

In the text, light blue font marks essential material.

Small capitals mark defined and other special terms.

CONTENTS

Limitlessness | Realism | Cosmology | Metaphysics

Aim

The aim of ‘the realizations of being’ is, as far as it may be possible, to know and experience the range of being and to realize its immediate and highest forms.

This template for metaphysics and realization is scaffolding. Little explicit demonstration is given. As scaffold, one aim of the metaphysics of the document is to frame any possible but realistic system of knowledge and action. The plan for this document is to refine it and to use it together with detailed information as a template for reflection, writing, and realization.

Ideas

An object is and can only be specified by a concept or idea—i.e., by mental content.

The term ‘is’ has two uses. In a definition it means ‘is defined as’. In the second use ‘is’ indicates existence—i.e., that the concept has an object as intended (problems regarding existence are treated in journey in being). Thus when a definition is given, a separate statement of existence is given if existence might be problematic.

Commonly, use of ‘is’ to indicate existence refers to the present time. Here it will also be used in the generalized sense of existence over some ranges of time and the atemporal sense of existence that is not in time.

Being

Being is that which is.

There is being.

Identity is enduring (sense of) sameness.

Self or personal identity is an enduring sense of sameness of self (in the following ‘identity’ will usually refer to personal identity).

An individual is a being with self identity.

Universe

The universe is all being.

The universe has no external creator.

A domain is part of the universe (here, the sense of part is such that the whole is a part).

An individual, a cosmological system or cosmos, and the universe and its parts are domains. Domains, together with processes, relations, interactions, properties, and states of being are examples of objects.

Law

A natural law is a reading of a pattern in a domain, typically in a cosmos; the pattern itself is the Law (note the capitalization: ‘Law’).

A Law is an immanent pattern for a domain.

All Laws have being; all Laws are in the universe.

Void

The void is the absence of being.

As complement to the universe (or any object relative to itself) the void exists.

A void may be considered to be associated with every object (e.g. domain or state of being). Except that there is at least one, the number of voids is without significance.

The void has no Laws.

Limitlessness

From the void, every possible object will emerge. In other words:

The void is equivalent to every possible object.

A proof is as follows. That an object does not so emerge would be a law of the void.

Every possible object or state of being obtains and is equivalent to every other.

This statement just above is named the fundamental principle of metaphysics.

With a limit understood to be a state or object that violates neither fact nor logic but that cannot obtain, the fundamental principle is the assertion that:

The universe has no limits.

The universe is eternal and unbounded; its variety is without limit. There are no universal Laws.

If power is degree of limitlessness the universe is or has the greatest possible power.

Realism

Realism of logic-fact, i.e. possibility, is the only constraint to states of being accessible to any state—including the void, individuals, and the universe.

Logic-fact is a constraint on concepts for realism, not limits to power. For precision the phrase ‘constraint to’, above, should be replaced by ‘constraints to concepts that specify’.

Under realism, the proofs of many propositions—e.g., in cosmology below—are trivial. Yet, realism must harbor much that is hard if not impossible for limited forms (of individual) to intuit and prove. Realism defines the concept and future of logic-science.

Cosmology

Cosmology is study of the variety and extension of being.

The universe has identity and manifestation, without limit, in acute, diffuse, and absent or void phases.

The universe is the void, an ill formed and transient background, and transient forms from the background. Some of these forms are more enduring than others (generally, on account of greater symmetry or articulation—i.e., adaptation); these include relatively enduring cosmological systems and individuals. The fundamental principle implies that there is no universal mechanism of formation; however it is reasonable to think that the majority of enduring forms emerge in incremental variations and selections in which each state is a relatively stable form. The variety, occurrence, and co-occurrence of individuals and cosmological systems and their forms are without limit.

Continuities of identity across death which is real but not absolute and across unmanifest phases define the concepts of individual and universal soul.

The necessity of this continuity seems to require that the universe as a whole is not defined by extensivity (time and space); the continuity would be mediated by the void in communication with the transient background. Within spacetime (or spacetimes) there are high forms, e.g. individuals including local gods, generally the result of increments as described above, which are not eternal or limitless in their being and knowledge. The absolute—the limitless being and knowing which is roughly the Aeternitas of Thomas Aquinas and the Brahman of Indian thought—transcends but is not beyond space and time. The material on the nature of transition across unmanifest phases requires further careful thought and is probably on an indistinct divide between logic and science.

The previous paragraphs in this discussion of cosmology define some hierarchical levels of being.

Since every part is equivalent to every other all domains and:

All individuals are equivalent to the universe and have its cosmology of manifestation and identity.

That different individuals are equivalent to the universe and its manifestations is not contradictory for their identities merge in realization of the equivalence.

Metaphysics

(Knowledge)

Metaphysics is knowledge of being.

Though widely criticized in modern thought, a powerful metaphysics in just the above sense has been established in the considerations above.

Realism, exemplified and elaborated in the cosmology, defines a pure metaphysics—the universal metaphysics, also called the metaphysics.

How has this been possible? The foundation of the metaphysics is in knowledge of being (that there is something that is), universe (that there is all being), Law (that there are patterns), and the void (absence of being). Thus the foundation is empirical but also precise since abstraction has omitted detail whose non distortion is not guaranteed.

This pure metaphysics is literal and perfect knowledge of being where the criterion of validity is faithfulness to the object.

It is obvious from the separation of knower and known and from examples of error and illusion that the literal perfect faithfulness is not universally coherent or realized in everyday knowledge and tradition (the institutions and systems of knowledge and know how of human civilization and cultures, ancient to modern including the abstract sciences such as logic and mathematics and the empirical sciences of matter, life, mind, and society).

The universal metaphysics implies that, for vast realms of traditional empirical and instrumental knowledge, perfect faithfulness is neither possible nor (on account of its impossibility and because our cosmos is an element in a far, far greater process) desirable. However:

There are other criteria or forms of validity such as (a) good enough faithfulness as an instrumental guide and (b) knowing as part of our immanence-in-the-world.

The good enough criterion is exemplified by everyday knowledge and values and by science (which is an extension of the everyday). Immanence-in-the-world is exemplified by the myth-holism of oral traditions and modern thought, e.g. that of Heidegger and interpreters.

It is important that myth-holism is not in opposition to but includes the other modes, especially the literal. These modes constitute a continuum defined by degree of explicitness of concern with criteria from the perfectly literal to immanence.

A great part of our tradition derives its significance from these other criteria of validity.

The universal metaphysics and valid elements of the tradition combine to form a practical metaphysics that inherits the ultimacy and perfection of the metaphysics and the empirical and instrumental character of the traditions.

This join is also ultimate, not as perfectly faithful, but as being the best possible system of universal understanding in the realization by beings of universality as seen in the cosmology.

The practical metaphysics develops as follows. The tradition gives us rough understanding of some forms or categories of being such as experience, real world, identity, spacetime, and mind-and-matter. While these are not perfectly universal and do not exhaust the forms, they may be refined under the universal metaphysics. The metaphysics, which is remote in its empirical and instrumental connection to the details of world, illuminates the traditions and requires that they have significant validity; every tradition is a temporary empirical and instrumental connection to the world and yields to or is simply replaced on the way to the newer and sometimes higher forms of being and knowing. This is possible because the metaphysics and the tradition complement one another: the validity of the metaphysics stems from its conceptual remoteness or abstraction from empirical detail; the strength of the tradition, especially of science, is its approach to empirical detail.

The development of the practical metaphysics deflates any apparent conflict between the pure metaphysics and valid tradition including experience. Speaking metaphorically, it shows that we live in two worlds: the immediate and the ultimate—i.e., the ‘everyday’ world with its real but now seen not absolute limits and the limitless universe.

The separation of the metaphysics as conceptual and the tradition as empirical is not absolute but one of emphasis. The foundation of the metaphysics was seen to include the empirical; the abstract sciences of the tradition are conceptual and the empirical sciences hypothesize concepts over empirical data (which may be rejected if clearly in disagreement with newer data).

There is a further benefit to the join of the metaphysics and tradition: it is the refinement of our understanding of the categories of being and (a) their elevation in many significant aspects to perfect faithfulness and (b) improved understanding in other significant aspects of what is only imperfect andor local.

Realization

While in limited form being is being-in-realization—that is, a relationship between the immediate and the ultimate. What choice limited, e.g. human, form does have is to engage in the process with their whole being; which, it may be reasonably argued, is immensely more likely (than acquiescence) to be enjoyed and effective in realization.

From limitlessness, realization for limited forms must be an endless process in ever freshness, limitless in variety, extension, peaks and their forms and magnitudes, and dissolutions—a journey in being. There will of course be challenges—ennui, pain, difficulty of vision. One overcoming of these challenges is in seeing and finding ways to see, even in process, identity with the ultimate. However, this overcoming—described in the traditions—does not and cannot relieve us of the essential present limitations of form and of the necessity of actual realization. The ideal is to ‘live in two worlds’—the immediate and the ultimate and to find ways to do so.

Ways

The way is engagement of our whole being (‘mind-heart-body’) in realization.

Here there is a manner in which we are each on our own; in which we enjoy and reflect; take risks—perform experiments in being; learn and consolidate or reject increments and other measures of process. We develop our own ways and catalysts of change.

Simultaneously, others are in the same process. Together, we compare learning—develop traditions shared among peers and from generation to generation. There are venerated and charismatic teachers but to think in terms of mastery over transience is stasis.

The ways include catalysts and disciplines of change. A mechanics of transformation further employs experiment and reflection and simultaneously establishes ways or enhances established ways.

Catalysts shake our sense of the real at all levels of ‘mind-heart-body’—they open us to the voice of our unconscious, to casting off limits of traditional thought and views of the world, and to perception. The action of a strong or deep enough catalyst may bring the individual temporarily close or even to death. The established ways, which include catalysts, are established disciplines—(a) intrinsic (of the individual, e.g. yoga, often mediated by a teacher or ‘guru’ via ideas and ‘ritual’ aimed at reaching depth of the individual, often enhanced in a spiritual community or band) and (b) instrumental (e.g., modern science and technology). The distinction of the intrinsic and the instrumental is roughly that of psyche (‘mind-heart’) versus the physical (body-environment) but there is obvious overlap and meshing of psyche and the physical and so of the intrinsic and the instrumental. The mechanics of transformation is: action and risk based in reflexive rationality of values and means, aims (i) at two levels—the entire being but also at the ways and disciplines and (ii) and incremental consolidation in being and knowledge (especially study of psyche and nature in light of the metaphysics and the traditions).

Some elements of transformation are: vehicles (individual and civilization, roughly being and community, in interaction), means (ideas and action), modes (intrinsic and external to identity—e.g., the focus of yoga and the focus of science), disciplines (accumulated-formal and oral-mythic—and their mechanics; also classed as conceptual and active which includes technology and ritual), and places (intrinsic: psyche, and external: nature and civilization—i.e., society).

Path

A pathway is an interaction of be-ing and becoming in light of pure being.

One pathway is of (a) be-ing: daily review and practice of catalysts and ways and sustaining activities are foundation being as eternal and renewal in becoming—individually andor as part of a spiritual community; sustaining activities are part of this and it is sought to infuse them with the practice and to use them toward becoming; (b) becoming with the following phases: ideas (metaphysics), review, and design; transformation of identity (nature, catalysts, ways); shared transformation (civilization, world, community, shared intrinsic ways); artifactual transformation (shared instrumental approach including abstract and natural sciences and technology; and (c) a time of pure being (when satisfied with process in light of the reality of death).