As long as I can remember I have loved being outdoors. When other aspects of my life have been negative, being in nature has been lovely and sustaining

I seem to have had a sense of independence from social rules and authority. I do not recall any desire or intent to flout norms but I did disregard those rules that I thought unnecessary and this led to interesting consequences. One consequence is my grades did not always reflect the proclamation of school authorities that I was ‘very intelligent.’ If a teacher aroused my interest, my performance would excel. Otherwise I did not listen to lectures. This was not by choice: I could not listen. Therefore, until I was about sixteen I had been an indifferent student. Around that time teachers in mathematics and physics were excellent. My performance in these areas excelled. The chemistry teacher was adequate but boring and I therefore read chemistry books of my choosing while the instructor droned on. My results in chemistry were the best that that school had ever had. Within one year I was transformed into the best student in my high school and in the entrance exam to the Indian Institute of Technology I placed in the top 0.1%

There is perhaps one other passion—a passion for passion itself. In University the outlet for passion was ideas—mathematics, physics, and philosophy (and the subdivisions of philosophy of which the main are metaphysics or study of the Universe as it is, epistemology or theory of knowledge, logic, ethics and aesthetics)

My passion has been sustained by people. There has been romance and it has been lovely but I think that that is an area of disappointment in my life. The sustenance has been more in the nature of everyday interaction and friendship. Supportive friendships have encouraged my adventures in ideas[1]. It is also interesting that antagonistic relationships or encounters have challenged and so stoked my thought

My formal education did not include evolutionary biology. In 1962 Julian Huxley’s popular account of evolution[2]. I read it in dim light on the night train to boarding school (St. Xavier’s High School, Hazaribagh, Bihar, India.) The phrase ‘could not put it down’ applied. A world of understanding of the world around me was opened up. I know that some readers will disagree with the thesis of evolution but I was persuaded. In the last forty years, evolution has been one of my passions and I have read and talked to others and nothing has persuaded me that the essential process of life on earth is that described in modern evolutionary ideas (of course there remain aspects that ought to be explained but I know of no successful positive argument against evolutionary theory)

Nature and ideas have been mutually sustaining. Much of my best thinking and many of my best ideas have occurred while in wild areas (especially the Trinity Alps of California)

Around 1983, I had been using evolutionary thought to explain the world around me. In other words I was using the paradigm of evolution to build up a worldview—a metaphysics: a picture of the Universe. I wrote my thought in an essay Evolution and Design

Although my thought was based in science I was not and had never been convinced that the end of science is the end of the world. I allowed that there are or may be things not seen in science

I explored the idea of the scientific and the common as well as the extra-scientific or beyond common knowledge in thought and nature. I thought that I should manifest these explorations in my life. However, I am rather rational by nature and did not get particularly far. I am open to contemplating ‘anything’ but to admit something into my accepted world of ideas it is necessary that they satisfy appropriate standards of reason (passion and reason are not contradictory; if passionate about ideas we want them to be valid and hence the importance of reason)

I came to think that I should and wanted to manifest my thought in my person; this is one source of my use of the idea of ‘Being’

I became dissatisfied with the evolutionary paradigm. An ideal of a system of understanding is that it be ‘absolute.’ That means that while the things it explains be dependent on the core ideas (which correspond to core elements of the Universe) the core itself should not depend on other ideas (and the core elements should not depend on other things.) It is also an ideal that the absolute be uniform and unchanging for that appears to provide the simplest of explanations. Therefore I experimented with a number of ‘paradigms’ of what is absolute or most fundamental—with what is the sub-stance of the Universe: matter, mind or ideas, process, relationship, consciousness, and various others. This stands in the philosophical tradition of metaphysics: a sub-stance is posited because it avoids certain problems of explaining the world and because it provides positive conclusions (and should provide no negative conclusions or disagreements with what is clearly true.) However, these ‘paradigms’ all suffer from the defect that what is posited to be the sub-stance of the world has not been so demonstrated. I became dissatisfied with my systems—and you may now see why I came to think of myself as in a Journey: it was a journey in ideas and you will later see why that came to be a Journey in being. There is a further defect with the paradigms. Not only did they posit or assume, what they provided in terms of positive explanation was not particularly powerful and they were not entirely successful in removing doubts and problems of understanding and explanation

Consequent upon my dissatisfaction, instead of positing some fundamental ground I decided to search for ‘that which is most fundamental.’ There is a tradition in Western Philosophy in the study of the idea of Being as, roughly, that which is fundamental. My idea was to use ‘Being’ as a container term that would allow search for the fundamental, the basic, the core… Plato reflected on Being as that which has power—i.e., the ability to have an effect (on something else.) Aristotle regarded the study in terms of Being as study which focused on no special aspect such as the physical or other. He thought of metaphysics (that was not his name for the study) as the study of first causes or of things that do not change. Heidegger made a powerful point in rejecting substance metaphysics; his study of Being was via Dasein: Dasein as the Being that can ask the question of its own Being. The empiricists study Being via the physical universe. It is easy to think that one should move away from substance theory but not easy to do so

Around 1999 I had the insight that an absolute but non-substance understanding would emerge if I could show the equivalence Void or absence of Being and the Universe which is all Being. If the equivalence should hold, the Being of the Universe is given (and he famous question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ would be answered.) The insight was based in part on theories of physics. It was also based on a mystical experience had one day hiking in the mountains: I felt ‘mystic union’ and had at the same time the thought that 0 = ¥ (zero is equivalent to infinity.) Of course neither explanatory utility nor mystic insight nor analogy from science are not proof and so the insight remained insight (and I regarded 0 = ¥ as perhaps metaphorical but not as literal)

I was trying to prove that the Universe is somehow equivalent to the Void

In 2002, I had the insight to focus on the Void and its properties. This was the point of transformation and as a result I was able to demonstrate the equivalence of the Void and the Universe

This fundamental result enabled the development of a metaphysics of immense consequence

One of the consequences is that Being should be thought of as, most simply, whatever exists, or that which has existence, or the plain what is there (somewhere and somewhen)

Metaphysics

I used the term ‘the fundamental principle of metaphysics’ to describe the now demonstrated equivalence of Void and Universe. I also demonstrated the following equivalent forms of the principle

1. The Void is equivalent to every state of Being (and therefore every state of Being is equivalent to every other state of Being.) Particularly, Void and Universe are equivalent

2. Being has no limits. For example there is no limit to the variety, extension (space) and duration (time) of Being in the Universe

We cannot do very much with the foregoing forms. To be able to use them we think in terms of concepts (here interpreted as mental content that may refer to something in the world)

Item 2 has the following tentative form: Every concept has reference. However, that cannot be because while the world cannot contain true absurdity or contradiction our concepts can. Therefore, concepts must satisfy ‘logic.’ Education teaches that logic is prior to thought and is the only absolute truth. However, modern thought has shown that logic itself has an empirical side (the testing of symbolic systems) and the question then arises How can we have trust in logic? My response is as follows. Define Logic (capitalized to distinguish form what we have called logic) as That which our conceptual systems must satisfy in order to have reference in the world (Universe)

The fundamental principle can then be formulated

3. Subject to Logic, every concept has reference

The consequences are immense

Forms and consequences of the metaphysics

A. There is an infinity of physical laws (in addition to those of our cosmos) and to every such law there is an infinity of cosmological systems

B. There are ghost cosmological systems passing through ours

C. Subject to Logic, every work of literature, every scripture, and (insofar as works of art have reference) every work of art is realized in the Universe. That different fictional accounts may contradict one another or what is in this world is not a contradiction: each obtains in some cosmological system (the more robust accounts are more likely to be realized

Relation to science. Defusing contradiction

D. There seems to be contradiction with science and common sense but there is not. Our paradigmatic views seem to have necessity because that is our experience and because we can empirically see no further. However, the laws of science may be seen as local patterns that obtain so far as they go (and in that they are factual rather than hypothetical) but there is no contradiction in there being other laws and so on beyond their local application. We think, perhaps, of gravity as necessary and an objection to the system developed here may be: if gravity is not universal, why not jump of tall buildings. The response is twofold. (1) What we think of as physical necessity as simply a local pattern that even in its domain of application holds with immensely high probability and (2) Since every conceptual system must have application the system developed supports science and common sense. Note that the local laws of science are not local only with regard to time and space. For example, Newtonian Physics is also local with regard to speed which must be small compared to the speed of light. All science holds over what it explains but may not apply to what is not observed (ghost cosmological systems.) Note that I am not using the fact that a phenomenon that does not contradict science as proof of the phenomenon. The proof comes from the metaphysical system I have developed. What I am showing is that any apparent contradiction to common knowledge and science is merely apparent

Relation to traditional metaphysics and thought regarding metaphsycis and its possibility

E. The metaphysics developed is the metaphysics. If metaphysics is knowledge of the Universe as it is, there can be only one metaphysics (which can vary with regard to detail of development and form of expression.) The philosopher Kant argued that metaphysical knowledge of things not in experience cannot be known. The speculative systems of the Hegelian type have been rejected by analytical thinkers precisely because they are speculative rather than demonstrated, rejected by empirical thinkers because they do not apply without exception, and by historical thinkers because of the failures of Hegelianism and the related Marxism. However, the metaphysics developed here is demonstrated, its Logical form shows that it cannot contradict observation, and the historical objection is not refutation of metaphysics per se but merely rejection of certain systems

Identity. Individual and Universe

F. The identity of the individual is, as in the Indian system of Vedanta, the Identity of All Being—of the Universe. Death is not absolute but a door to the infinite. It is not given, however, that this realization will not occur in ‘this life’ but will require transformation in form. Again the ring of the absurd arises (although I suspect that for some there will be the ring of re-cognition.) What are we to do with the apparent limits to human being? It is to see the limits as opportunity. The transformations of science may be seen as the patient working with limits that may have been thought to be but are not absolute. Thus it came about that in inert matter we found immensely active atoms, and within atoms we found immense amounts of unimagined energy. The search for realization may or may not occur for an individual or a civilization but it is not impossible and its realization will occur via working with (a) our traditional systems of knowledge including science which will not be taken as absolute, (b) the positive learning of traditional spiritual systems (meditation, shamanism,) (c) the individual and civilization undertaking experiments in light of the foregoing as well as (d) the Universal metaphysics here recounted as showing what is both possible and necessary and as framework for the traditional systems. There is no guarantee that there will be realization in ‘this form’ but there will be realization (for us) in some other and related form. There may or may not be an imperative for action in this form (depending on individual inclination) but it seems reasonable to devote some energies to realization (according to inclination) and it also seems reasonable that intelligent search will immensely increase odds of ‘success’

The nature of the realization

G. What is the nature of this realization? Since Being has no limits, no realization is truly ultimate. There are peaks and dissolutions. And there are greater peaks and greater dissolutions… without end. There no final realization. There is no end to the variety of Being that we shall experience regardless of whether we try or do not try. The picture is one of infinite adventure. It is not all ‘rosy;’ pain will be there as well and cannot be avoided

A Journey in Being

H. The process, then, is an unending Journey in Being (what began as a personal search comes to be seen as Universal)

Science and a possible future for Science

I. We saw that the laws and theories of science are tentative if regarded as Universal but factual if regarded as local. What the Universal metaphysics shows is that there is likely no universal science of the detailed patterns of behavior in the Universe but that there may be an unending sequence of local sciences. Can we conceive science so that it will be universal? The metaphysics suggests: only as process and perhaps as a process in which the individual and civilization are engaged as Being rather than as dispassionate intellectual. This notion of Science is developed in greater detail in other writing

Religion

J. And religion? We see that the idea of a religion in which we live in this world but look to some other static world (or no other world) is limited; the value systems of the religions have power but their metaphysics are extremely limited and, because of dogma and dogmatic belief, extremely limiting. The notion of religion as subscription or belief is itself limiting. But there is potential for religion to become a shared Journey in Being. What has been found becomes ground for further becoming rather than for dogma. I do not know whether mankind shall follow this path in present form. What formulas do I prescribe? Except to follow and accept or reject my thought, I prescribe more or less nothing. I like the teaching of Krishnamurty because he said the truth is available to you, don’t come to me for it (he still managed to say a lot.) Rather than static belief, Religion may become the search, the Journey in which Being (individual, civilization…) uses all dimensions of their being (thought, feeling, body, tradition including science and art…) in the realization of Being

Three Foci

The three foci of the narrative are the Metaphysics, Knowledge of and in our local cosmos, and the Journey in being

Proof

The plan is to prove the fundamental principle of metaphysics: Being has no limits

Being is that which exists (explaining the concept)

It is sometimes convenient to think of Being as that which exists somewhere and somewhen rather than in the traditional present tense sense of exists somewhere but now

This notion of Being is pivotal in the present development

The paradigm of our knowledge of Being is Experience as in immediate experience and demonstration that there is an external world (meaning that the existence of the world is independent of its being experienced.) Such developments are very useful and illuminating and are available online

There is Being (a truth)

I omit all detailed explanation that is available in detailed versions (online, upcoming in print.) Especially if you have an interest in the underlying concepts and issues you will recognize that numerous problems are here neither mentioned nor addressed. The value of the problems is not that they are mere intellectual exercises but that they sharpen understanding. This sharpened understanding has been essential to the developments and may be essential to anyone who wishes to critique or work with the systems discussed here (developed by me.) What is omitted here is available online at http://www.horizons-2000.org

The Universe is all Being (and only Being; definition)

It is essential to think of the Universe as all Being over all extension (space-like) and all duration (time-like.) Various definitions / conceptions of ‘universe’ abound; this is the one used here and the one that is pivotal to development of the metaphysics

If a Creator / Destroyer / Sustainer (God) is regarded as external to what is created / destroyed / sustained, the Universe has and can have no creator etc.

Since Being exists, the Universe exists (result)

A law is what we read (e.g. a pattern) in the Universe. A Law (capital) is pattern itself

The type of law of which we think is scientific law. Ethical law may be considered. At present I do not include law in the legal sense

A Law has Being (result; proof: nothing is outside the Universe which is all Being and only Being)

The Universe which is All Being exists and contains all Laws (result; proof: from the foregoing)

A Domain is a part of the Universe (definition)

Domains exist (result; from the definition and existence of the Universe)

A Complement of a Domain is the part of the Universe that together with the Domain constitute the Universe (definition)

A Complement is a Domain (result; obvious)

If a Domain exists it has a Complement which also exists (result; since the Complement is a domain)

It is not a contradiction of the Being of the Universe and its conception or of Domain and its conception for one Domain or local God to be implicated in the creation / destruction / sustenance of another Domain or local God or demigod

The Void is the absence of Being (definition)

The Void contains no Law

The Void is the Complement of the Universe (result; since the Universe is all Being)

The Void exists (result; since the Complement of an existing Domain exists)

This is the crux of the proof

The Void which is the absence of Being, exists and contains no Law (result; combining some of the above)

The Void has no limits (result; because a limit on the Void would be a Law in the Void)

Being has no limits (result; since the Void has no limits it can ‘effect’ any transformation upon Being; a limit to Being would therefore entail a contradiction; end of proof)

Some consequences including but not limited to technical material

General and Physical Cosmology

The Void can be regarded as creator and annihilator of manifest states of Being

Since the Void is equivalent to every state of Being, any state of Being has also the capability of creation / annihilation

The Universe cycles through manifest and un-manifest phases

The Void mediates between these states. Universal Being has meaning

Existence of domains implies existence of extension. Space, however, especially in its specialized (geometric) forms cannot be Universal. Space is a patchwork of un-given dimensionality or even of definite dimensionality. Regarding the Universe as a whole, any spatiality is immanent and therefore ‘relative,’ i.e., does not constitute an absolute grid. Locally, however, space may be as-if absolute

Becoming and unbecoming require duration and process. Uniqueness and uniformity of time are however not required. Coherent behavior of local domains may result in coalescence of multiple loosely and / or occasionally connected times into a single dominant time and, likewise, multiple signal speeds into one. As for space, we may conclude that there is no Universal absolute time but that time may be locally as-if absolute

The role of the Void in the Universal metaphysics is analogous to the quantum vacuum. That any state of Being may transit to any other state (if not there would be a limit to Being) shows that Universal process is (in a sense absolutely) indeterministic—a further analogy to quantum theory

A counterargument might be: indeterminism and randomness cannot create structure. The argument is incorrect in physics because the laws of quantum theory show how ‘random’ states may perform mutual capture into stable structured quantum states. Similarly, because any state is accessible from any other in the Universal metaphysics, structured states must emerge. A structured state is likely near symmetric but cannot be perfectly symmetric because such states would disallow process

The issues of classical and modern metaphysics

Heidegger called the problem of why there is something rather than nothing the fundamental problem of metaphysics. The problem has trivial resolution. There is either something or nothing. If there is nothing (the Void) manifest Being must emerge; if there is something, manifest Being has emerged

Similarly numerous problems, essentially all, of classical and modern metaphysics have resolution (space and time above.) I indulge some further problems

Substance and the classical problem of mind and matter—a problem of classical metaphysics. The Universal metaphysics shows that no substance is problem: ‘substance’ could not be permanent; but it also shows, via becoming from the Void, that substance is unnecessary. The Void is conceptually simpler than substance in that it has no conceptual restrictions. Classically, a substance, in its purest form, is that unchanging uniform ‘Being’ that generates this world (all worlds) and change and structure. When matter became regarded as a substance, the question of the nature of mind arose. Is mind a manifestation of matter or another and distinct substance? These are rendered forms of non-problems by the Universal metaphysics. However, if we think of ‘matter’ as first order Being or being-as-such and ‘mind’ as the impression of other Being in ‘this’ Being, then mind is second order Being. Problems of scientific explanation remain but they are not fundamental. It is not necessary to think of mind as second order because that posits relationship as secondary (and there is no reason to think of it as so

The nature of concrete and abstract Objects—a problem of modern metaphysics. The idea of a concrete Object is our common notion of the thing, e.g. brick. There are two problems regarding the nature of these Objects. First, if knowledge is in the mind, it is not the Object and is implicated in the definition of the Object, so the meaning and being of Objects is in question. In the Universal metaphysics we focused on simple entities: Being, Universe, Domain, Void (and will add Logic or Logos.) While we do not know the Universe in all its details with full precision we know the Universe without reference to detail and we know of the fact of its detail. I call this kind of knowing abstraction and it is via abstraction that we know the Universe as a perfect Object. Similarly, Being, Void and Domain are also perfect Objects; and it is this that allows the perfect Metaphysics. What about the ‘Objects’ of our daily and scientific acquaintance? We do not know these with precision and we do not know precisely what ‘Object’ means in these cases. However, we do know that we are adapted to the environment and in that we are able to negotiate the environment we have a sufficiently adequate meaning and perception or conception of what we label practical Objects. There is significance to the search for more precise knowledge but there is no significance to the projection from, say a rather precise science of physics in its local setting, to all Objects (in fact the significance may be negative.) We cannot expect, therefore, to have precision for all Objects and it is counter to the logic of the metaphysics to expect this and to the spirit of the metaphysics to want it. That is our account of ‘concrete’ Objects (there is more in that the perfect frame the practical which in turn inspire but do not demonstrate the perfect whose demonstration is the independent affair given above.) The second concern regarding the ‘concrete’ is what are we to do with things like process and interaction? The fundamental principle provides the resolution in that ‘every concept has an Object’ and therefore the distinction between ‘concrete’ and ‘ethereal’ is empty (much more can be said and is said online.) In modern thought a variety of ‘things’ such as number are regarded as abstract and the question of the nature of the abstract arises. Whereas the concrete exist in time and space the abstract are thought to not there reside. Here again the fundamental principle informs us that to our concepts must correspond Objects and therefore that (a) abstract Objects including number and form are not other than concrete but it is the approach to their study or status in our knowledge that is different (symbolic for the abstract and perceptual for the concrete but note that, e.g., the concept of number started as concrete, became abstract via abstraction and axiomatic treatment and becomes partially concrete with the emergence of proof by computer program and (b) abstract Objects are not non-spatial but have had their spatiality abstracted out. Much more can be and is said online about many other related issues—e.g. there are Platonic Forms but these are immanent in the world and not in another world: there is no other world

Logic and Method. Note that the metaphysics has allowed an essentially new conception of Logic. The idea is not essentially and occurs roughly in prior thinkers but the metaphysics enables the rigorous development and conception. What of Method. Detailed discussion would result in there being no dinner at Phyllis and Michael’s. I’ll say but a few things. Method is the how of something. Logic is a method in that Logic chains conclusion to premise. How so if I defined Logic as the requirements on concepts (or propositions) to have the possibility (and fact) of reference? For two related propositions to have reference there may be a condition on their mutual form that constitutes ‘implication.’ But what of a method of deriving a logical system? Since Logic is (related to) reference the study of Logical system becomes overtly empirical but not in the way that science is empirical over the material world. Instead Logic is empirical over the occasion for its being: relations among our concepts including propositions; therefore, while artifice may be one practical approach to Logic, the empirical study over symbolic forms is perhaps more fundamental. I can talk briefly of science. The scientific method as recognized today is roughly Data—Hypothesis including consistency checking—Empirical checking—Tentative acceptance if no disconfirmation but rejection and back to hypothesis and data evaluation if apparent disconfirmation. We have seen a way in which science need not be regarded as merely hypothetical (and another way in which it is hypothetical.) The Universal metaphysics suggests, we have seen, that a Universal physics of detail may never be achieved but the approach to greater achievement may be in the integration of the modern view of science with the immersion of individual and civilization in the Being larger and larger domains (with retreat as well.) The treatment online is far more systematic and comprehensive

[1] Adventures in ideas, published in 1933, is the title of a book by Alfred North Whitehead

[2] Evolution in Action, 1953, Julian Huxley. Huxley had views on eugenics that made him a controversial figure. He thought that the lowest classes in society are genetically inferior and advocate the practice of eugenics in this regard. However, Huxley was a pioneer of evolutionary biology in the twentieth century. The ideas of Darwin and Wallace published in 1858 and 1859, were revolutionary but very incomplete. Consequently, while evolution was widely accepted as fact by the scientific community, the theories or explanations of evolution of Wallace and Darwin were not. It was the work of a group of scientists around 1930 – 1940 that resulted in the ‘new synthesis’ that resulted in evolution by variation and selection becoming the accepted paradigm of evolutionary process in the world of academic biology (of course there were and remain dissenters of various intellectual colors.) Huxley was one of the central architects of the new synthesis in evolutionary biology