First, a picture of the Universe1 i.e., a picture of all Being. The picture of the Universe is written as a metaphysics 2 whose basis is Experience 3. The metaphysics will be called the Universal metaphysics

It is shown that there is and can be one and only one true metaphysics which is the Universal metaphysics which may, therefore, be called, simply, the metaphysics; the name and the abbreviated form will be explained and justified in the narrative. The metaphysics is shown to be ultimate 4

Second, some snapshots of our cosmological system; these are based in experience—immediate experience, ancient and recent traditions including modern science—and critical thought. The metaphysics forms a framework for this study

A consequence of the metaphysics is that our cosmos or cosmological system (the one of the modern Big bang and related stories) is infinitesimal in relation to the Universe

Third, travels in those worlds—Being, Becoming as a journey. These are the three foci of the narrative; the idea and development of the journey is derived from and guided by experience, the metaphysics, and the traditions. In the journey through worlds, the foci are woven together as threads

It is shown that experience of the worlds is necessarily in the nature of a journey—Being in the ‘worlds’ is necessarily in the nature of process of transformation. This provides a trans-personal reason to describe the development of the three focal subjects

The Journey begins as an individual process. The metaphysics picture of the Universe, i.e. of all Being, reveals that realization has a universal character as a journey and as transformation of the individual and Civilization

Status of the development. The metaphysics is essentially complete

The study of the local cosmos in terms of the metaphysics as framework for the (local) sciences of our cosmos is substantial but naturally only a scratch on the surface. Because what will be useful in the ‘journey in those worlds’ is not entirely clear, much detail 5 is omitted in this account

The ‘journey in worlds’ is in an early stage. The process depends on Ideas but requires experiment. Some experiments are described here. The outcome of experiments, useful local studies, and other interesting material omitted here may appear in a later volume

The contents. The first part, Journey in Being, is tailored to non-specialist readers. This part describes a journey and the ideas that Ground it

The second part, Demonstration of the Fundamental Principle of Metaphysics, isolates careful demonstration to one place. This part is essential to greater understanding and to use the ideas. The metaphysician may have an especial interest in this part and its later consequences

The third part on Further consequences of the Universal metaphysics and other special topics, has two kinds of material. The topics of Consequences are selected as likely to be useful in the process (journey) laid out in the earlier section A Journey in Being. Here proof is generally not as essential as in the previous section since most of the consequences follow rather easily from the metaphysics. However, imagination and some familiarity with the topics will be useful. The Special topics discuss details of foundation or development that may improve confidence in or show ways to the process of realization. Where they contribute to foundations they add to the robustness the system of ideas of the narrative. Where they show ways to the process they are intended as examples and not specifications of the way

The final part, Resources, will be useful in reading and evaluating this narrative. The first section, Contributions, lists what I think may be some contributions of the work to human thought and endeavor. The section, How to train your dragon6, provides information helpful to (re) creating the experience of the narrative

This work does not fall under any standard genre. The following comments address the question What kind of work is this?

It is interesting that we live in a time where we think of ‘genre.’ This suggests that we are not in a stage of nascent society. This work shows that there is immense occasion for return to a nascent state

In some parts of the narrative the need for care (rigor) is greater than in others. Accordingly, level of rigor is not uniform. I have excluded material of narrow interest and placed material of academic interest in footnotes

A significant reason that even the specialist will not anticipate the content lies in the nature of the metaphysics. The idea of the metaphysics is not new. However, metaphysics is not merely argued: it is demonstrated and demonstration is new. It is also shown that the metaphysics overcomes traditional objections to metaphysics (that metaphysics is not fully grounded in Experience, that metaphysics has merely speculative elements, and that metaphysics may be plausibly argued but not fully demonstrated.) Finally, as a result of demonstration there results a greater understanding of the metaphysics and confidence in and tools for development, elaboration, application, and interpretation of significance, all of which are new. There seem to be limits to the clarity that may be obtained regarding metaphysics by talking about metaphysics. Clarity is immensely enhanced by demonstrated development (rather than speculative development)

The ‘story’ weaves together formal and individual elements that are both important in to the narrative. The individual elements are brief and selected to contribute to the narration of a journey and to give context to what might otherwise be merely abstract. The metaphysics underscores the importance of narrative and journey in the future of Being

A short version… This version of the narrative is the shortest that I have written; a still shorter version is possible but this version is the one that contains the essentials. In the present version I have emphasized material that is primary to the journey. Details are available in longer versions 7. The metaphysics is, I hope, a contribution to thought. The methods of the metaphysics have enabled much development of the system and its power has been the occasion for application to the spectrum of disciplines; inclusion of this material has been minimized

I have been planning for sometime now to write a short version. I felt that brevity would enhance communication. I enjoy writing but have written so much that I thought it would be good exercise to reduce the narrative to its essentials. In addition to closure, I want to move on to the next stage of realization (journey in worlds.) This account is the short version

Sources. I have not provided a detailed list of sources. There are references, especially in the footnotes. These represent a small fraction of the studies behind the work. They will provide a general sense of my sources of influence and provide a start for investigation. I do not include them as citations of authority but to show where and what I have learned from and to suggest sources to readers; the sources may also show that while demonstration etc. is essentially new, my thought would have been at least improbable without what I have learned from the literature where, from antiquity to the present, there are innumerable glimmers of what I have seen. This is in the ‘order of things.’ While our myths of genius have truth, we depend on what came before. Who of our writers created language, who created science?

To readers—I want you to know that I am interested in your thoughts8. Do you have criticisms? What did you appreciate? Are you interested in sharing in the processes of which I write?

The work has been tailored to expedite a number of levels of reading experience. (1) The first part, Journey in Being, is the most casually written of the parts. If you read no further you will absorb the main narrative and ideas. This part deemphasizes definition and proof. (2) Reading the second part on proof will enhance your experience by grounding the earlier part and by exemplifying some tools of thought. This material will enhance your ability to conduct an independent ‘journey.’ I do not, however, wish to give the impression that there is one road to realization and that it is the way I have followed (that is what it is; I do not call it my way or a way.) (3) The third part provides additional grounding and special information. This is amplified in footnotes. (4) The fourth part includes material on construction of an approach to realization

Here are some suggestions on reading this narrative. The first part, Journey in Being, is the most casually written of the parts. If you read no further and do not look at the footnotes you will absorb the main narrative and ideas. This part deemphasizes definition and proof. In the subsequent parts, meanings of terms are crucial to understanding. Other meanings or shades of meaning may add to your experience, but absorption will require attention to the stated meanings. The system of relationships among the ideas is important; it is crucial in Proof or Demonstration. The system of the narrative, especially the metaphysics, presents a view of the Universe that is exciting and unusual. A word that I use is ‘ultimate;’ I think you will find this use to be justified

Some readers may find the use of terms such as ‘Being’ and ‘Logic’ foreboding. In this work, almost every term has a sense that is new or modified in relation to current and previous use, technical or common. The present meaning of Being has no esoteric connotations and has perhaps the simplest possible meaning of the term. Here the sense of Logic 9 is quite different from its traditional one and I mention it because its present meaning may be exciting to general and academic readers. The non-academic may find the ideas challenging because of unfamiliarity. The academic may find the ideas challenging because meanings may fall outside their domain of comfortable familiarity. In this narrative there is a careful development in ideas. This development is necessary to and is used in the service of Being-in-the-world. The result, a new and in some ways ultimate picture of Being-in-the-world may be interesting, exciting, and transformational for all readers

There may be two intrinsic sources of difficulty in absorbing the ideas: understanding the change in view—an expansion rather than a shift—and resolving apparent conflict with earlier (and often tacit views.) I experienced these difficulties—intuitive and formal—in thinking through the developments. Material with which I struggled with some time ago now seems obvious to me. You may experience such difficulties as well. If you do, you will know that there is resolution. I had to think through the ideas many times over the period of their development. Your understanding may benefit from an initial rapid reading whose goal is to absorb the net picture and in which detail and address of questions, difficulties, and objections may be deferred. Subsequent reading may fill out the picture and address the concerns

Journey in Being

The Idea and its Origins

The personal origins of Journey in Being are in my passions 10 and Inspiration—Ideas, nature, and people. These were contained within a larger Inspiration originally in intuition 11 and unnamed but later named Being

As long as I can remember I have loved being in nature. When other aspects of my life have been negative, being in nature has been lovely and sustaining. When life has been good, being in ‘wild’ places, waking up to a mountain cirque dusted by snow, has been inspiration. That inspiration is not just one of beauty; it is Being in the presence of something greater than myself

I have had a sense of independence from ‘what everyone believes,’ and authority regarding ideas, conduct, and morals but not from real ideas and morals. It is a questioning attitude and core independence—not an antagonism. It is not immunity from the judgments of others—but a resolution to follow what is right as it emerges (which is open to influence.) A consequence is that while I am keenly interested in the ideas of others—and the history of human culture—I do not feel bound to paradigms of thought and belief, especially those of today… especially those widespread paradigms that are generally accepted, even well argued, but not demonstrated even if widely thought to have conclusive demonstration. I believe that this attitude is one that has been necessary to this work

Another consequence of the independence is that I was indifferent to teachers who did not spark my interest. If a teacher aroused my interest, my performance would excel—seventh grade World History remains vivid. Otherwise I did not listen to lectures—I found that I could not. Generally, instructors in the lower grades were without inspiration. I enjoyed reading—fiction and science; I would read during lectures, spare time, and study periods—homework would be dashed off just before class. My sustenance was in friends, sports, quietude, and nature. I loved walks in rain, bicycle rides in the country, looking at trees, hills, skies, stars—this remains an everyday practice. Beginning ninth grade teachers in mathematics, physics, literature, and language were excellent Performance in these areas excelled. . In subjects where the teacher was not interesting I did my own reading 12, and I excelled in these areas as well. I also began a habit of daily visits to the small high school library and of browsing for material of interest; this habit remains to this day; an assumption is that while of course one does not know everything, one does not even know all of what there is to know. The tenth grade Ethics instructor, a learned Jesuit Priest, The Rev. Father John Moore, S.J. used class time to lecture on a panorama of the history of ideas. Within a year I had found interest, ability and excitement in ideas

There is perhaps one other passion—a passion for passion itself—i.e. passion in engagement in Being rather than passion in some particular aspect of things. In University an 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.) It is a characteristic of my life that I have cultivated my interests and passions over set curricula and patterns of activity

My passion has been sustained by people—by Humanity. There has been lovely romance but ‘relationship’ has been an area of disappointment. Sustenance has been more in the nature of everyday interaction and friendship. Supportive friends have encouraged my adventures in ideas 13. Through their humanity, others—individuals—reinforce my connection to the human world, to my own humanity and to my psychic resources. Criticism has not merely been a source of improvement: it has suggested new lines of thought and action (even when I have resented criticism.) It is interesting that the experience of antagonistic relationships and encounters as challenges has stoked and sharpened my thought

My formal education did not include evolutionary biology—my recollection is that evolution was not taught in the Indian schools of my youth. In 1962 I borrowed Julian Huxley's popular account of evolution 14 from my parents' bookshelves. I read it in dim light on the night train to boarding school 15. The phrase ‘could not put the book down’ applied. A world of understanding was opened up. Some readers will disagree with the evolutionary theses; I was persuaded by the argument. In the last forty years, evolution has been one of my passions and I have read and talked to others and nothing has (yet) persuaded me that the essential process of life on Earth is other than that described in modern evolutionary thought. (Of course there are aspects of life still unexplained and of course evolutionary explanation has sometimes overreached its limits, especially with regard to society and culture. However, I know of no successful positive argument against evolutionary theory 16)

Nature and Ideas have been mutually sustaining. I have had excellent inspiration in ideas and Being during extended periods in wild areas (especially Barranca del Cobre or Copper Canyon, Chihuahua, Mexico and the Trinity Mountain Wilderness of northwestern California.) It was especially in Barranca del Cobre over about ten trips, half of them solo, from 1979 to 1982 that confirmed nature as a source of psychic depth 17 (and, I anticipated, also of transformation of entire Being 18.) This experience was confirmation and reconfirmation of earlier experience in the Adirondack State Park of New York State, in Big Bend National Park in West Texas above its South Rim (peaks seen as islands in seas of mist,) the Guadalupe Mountains also in West Texas, the Santa Elena Canyon of the Rio Grande on the border with Mexico, the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico, and the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado. Central insights of this work occurred in the Trinity Mountain Wilderness

After high school, I studied engineering and mathematics at the Indian Institute of Technology: I obtained a Bachelors degree in engineering and a Masters equivalent in mathematics. There was an intense amount of technical and geometrical drawing that seems to no longer be part of the engineering curriculum in the West (it is studied more in industrial technology programs where computer aided design have largely supplanted the draftsman.) For me one of the uses of geometrical drawing was the training of my spatial intuition: much of the creative side of my thought is in terms of spatiotemporal intuition. The programs included fundamental physics which I supplemented by reading in modern theoretical physics and later, at the University of Delaware, by taking—out of interest—all the courses required in a doctoral program in physics as well as a number of the courses required in doctoral level mathematics. This was the early 1970’s; the physics which included analytical mechanics, electromagnetism, special and general relativity, and quantum mechanics emphasized mathematical techniques but not concepts or their general significance. Still I learned much and enjoyed and probably gained from immersion in academic science and mathematics. The metaphysics developed in this narrative and modern science have mutual implications and it is the exposure that helps me to see those implications and will help develop them when I have time and inclination

For significance and general matters, I supplemented the courses in science and mathematics by reading in the philosophy of science and mathematics and in studies in logic and abstract mathematics. I felt a thirst for broad experience in the ideas of our culture—and more: the tradition was an approach to understanding the universe. At Delaware I was enrolled in mechanical and aerospace engineering and I obtained a doctoral degree. The course material in engineering mechanics and thermodynamics (energy) have been useful in having a practical understanding of technology and energy issues. Although I may wish that I had greater exposure to the humanities, I maintained interests in poetry, music, philosophy, and literature. I had other interests: friends and fun, athletics—I was on the college track and field team, and I continued to seek experience in the natural world, especially in wild areas which seemed to offer contact to what is real

After graduating from the University of Delaware I taught and did research and the University of Texas (Austin, Texas) and California State University (Humboldt.) This covered the years 1978-1985. The wide range of interests continued. In Austin I was part of a group started by Diana Latham who had a wide range of interests in what was then called the human potential movement. The group had a formal structure: we met 7-9pm every Sunday; there would be a talk, a brief time for informal and social interaction, and then the speaker would lead a discussion, practical or hands-on session. The topics ranged from various kinds of established and emerging therapy, to massage techniques, to philosophical significance of quantum theory, to therapy or spiritual work with prison inmates… what I took from the group was an opening up of my attitude to viewpoints outside mainstream. I have a critical side which is reflexive and therefore I am also critical regarding the nature and role of criticism; i.e. I do not doubt that there is a role to criticism but I want to evaluate clearly what it is (which is a process rather than an end.) As result I simply absorbed the alternative views without mere acceptance or mere rejection. They might be useful later but mostly what was later useful was the variety of ideas and travel through a stage of development of a reflexive creative constructive attitude

I enjoyed the careful study of detail and of analytic critical thought. Analysis was balanced by poetry and synthesis. I seem to have enjoyed two aspects of ideas—to have the widest vision that I could and to develop my own picture

Around 1983, I had been using evolutionary thought to understand and 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

In 1985, I left teaching and technical research. I had deep regrets. I enjoyed teaching and had achieved recognition in research. Later, I realized that it was a transforming move. Always open, the option of return remained but as time passed the desire waned. I had savings that permitted me to live independently for four years. I thought I might come back to engineering and teaching but I wanted to explore options. A project I set myself was to explore the role of engineering in the world as well as the role of human values in engineering. The project did not materialize because it soon turned to much wider interests. I embarked on program of study and reading in everything that might be helpful in understanding the world and in criticizing such understanding. This was an exciting period of reading in mythology, evolution, philosophy, knowledge and its nature, design and other topics 19

I wrote my thought in a 1987 essay Evolution and Design (20; the essay remains very tentative and incomplete and, since I later abandoned evolutionary explanation as a paradigm of metaphysics, it is unlikely that I will ever write the essay in improved form.) However, writing Evolution and Design was one of great the romantic periods of my life. Just as I had found evolution to be intoxicating, I found evolutionary thought 21 to be exciting. In September 1986, I spent two weeks of thinking, hiking and breathing in the mountains East of Home. I pitched my tent at a mountain lake where I thought out Evolution and Design and its logic. My routine was that on one day I would hike to a select destination, perhaps to endurance’s end, and on the other I would reflect and write

Although my thought included basis 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 so far. I would not yet claim that there are things that are seeable though not seeable in science (we think we know what science is)

I explored the idea of the scientific and the common as well as the extra-scientific or the 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 at that stage of development. 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 mutually exclusive; if passionate about ideas we want them to be valid and hence the importance of reason. Passion stokes ideas; and without reason, passion is mere heat. At a subtle level, integration of cognition and feeling keeps from dissolution into free wheeling thought and feeling without significance. Perhaps reason can be overemphasized because some persons have made contributions by adhering to tentative ideas. This however does not negate the utility or importance of proof and reason

I wanted to and came to think that I should to manifest my thought in my person; this is one source of my use of the idea of ‘Being.’ The Universal metaphysics developed later shows that thought-as-conventionally-understood is an incomplete and form of Being: what is transformed via ideas is fraction of the Being or Identity (see further discussion in the section Identity. Individual and Universe. Process of realization) of the thinker. Therefore the highest in realization must transcend or be more than thought or ideas (in the limited sense that is typical of materialism.) It must (logically) be in the Being of the individual which includes Body and Identity

From 1987 to 1992 I did a number of philosophical studies. An essay on the History of Western Philosophy 22 was one result

In 1990 I began work as a psychiatric worker at Sempervirens, the Humboldt County inpatient facility in Eureka, California. The work was demanding, but rewarding in many ways. I learned much psychiatry, I learned about people and the art of interaction, and it was without doubt the most real work environment that I have had. The clients were often immensely challenging but there was much reward and much simple and pure enjoyment. I surprised myself by being good at that work—not losing caring or warmth, being understanding and accepting, defusing potentially dangerous situations with good but not perfect success, being supportive of other staff. The learning is relevant to my outlook. I discovered multiple levels of giving (and that giving is getting.) I did not take work home. The employment was very generous with vacation time and retirement. All of this provided material, occasion, and opportunity for involvement in the journey whose parameters emerge in the narrative

I became dissatisfied with the evolutionary paradigm. The transition was gradual. I was in four to six weeks in the Trinity Mountain Wilderness each year of 1991-1993 that concrete ideas for alternatives began to emerge. As explanation it lacked rock bottom. Even if the idea of a rock to Ground all explanation is illusion, I wanted it at the time (and there are degrees of firmness of Ground.) Growing philosophical awareness suggested better paradigms. (I seem to find that there is no end to awareness, later the metaphysics that is developed will confirm the infiniteness of realization in some directions but finiteness in others.) An ideal of a system of understanding is that it be ‘absolute.’ That means that while the things it explains shall 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 (I thought and has been thought) is absolute or most fundamental—with what is tentatively the substance (sub-stance) of the Universe: matter, mind or ideas, process, relationship, consciousness, and various others 23. This stands in the philosophical tradition of metaphysics: a sub-stance is posited and in a ‘good’ metaphysics the choice is not arbitrary: it is made because it avoids andor resolves 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 ( I may add that the naming of a paradigm occupies very little space, e.g. materialism, but the working out of such thought takes serious effort over a period of time.) 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—that appears to be inherent in the idea of a paradigm or sub-stance: what is but exemplary is taken as paradigmatically generic. Lofty metaphysics remains speculative in some aspects. 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 thought came to be the thought of 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

I do not want to leave the impression that I think that no philosophical thought should contain elements of speculation. Some philosophers have emphasized positivism, the idea that thought should be firmly based in positive knowledge and only in positive knowledge. For many this positivism is empiricism. However, consider that the sum of human knowledge is far from complete. Knowledge is not merely of empirical details but also of patterns expressed in terms of concepts. A first step when on the boundary of the known and the unknown is to formulate a hypothesis which can then be subject to various kinds of test on the way to becoming reliable knowledge. Hypothesis is a polite word for speculation. This is one of the functions of philosophy which those who think that the only knowledge we can contemplate is certain knowledge either disregard or do not know. When knowledge that was once considered to be philosophy and therefore tinged with the unknown and the speculative becomes more empirically rooted and mainstream and reliable it becomes science

Consequent upon my dissatisfaction, I decided that instead of positing some definite kind as fundamental Ground I should search for ‘that which is most fundamental.’ That is, metaphysics would not be forced—it would emerge from investigation. There is a tradition in Western Philosophy in the study of the idea of Being as, roughly, that which is most fundamental. My idea was to use ‘Being’ as a container term that would allow search for the fundamental, the basic, the core… I came to think of the role of Being in metaphysics as similar to the role of the unknown variable, the famous symbol x, in algebra

Plato 24 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 the mental. He thought of metaphysics (‘metaphysics’ was not his name for the study) as the study of first causes 25 or of things that do not change. Heidegger 26 made a powerful point in rejecting substance metaphysics—in seeing substances as kinds of ‘high level concepts’ rather than as Being per se; 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 and despite their proclamations, the seminal thinkers did not make a complete break with substance thought (e.g. Plato’s power, Aristotle’s first cause, Heidegger’s Dasein, the physical universe of the materialistically / empirically / scientifically oriented thinkers, and the ideal or mental world of the rationally oriented thinkers.) There is good reason that in human history thought so far has been not completely eliminated or perhaps even been able to completely eliminate substance. It will turn out that to make the break it is perhaps essential to have already developed the metaphysics of all Being rather than have at hand metaphysical systems that retain merely hypothetical elements even if paradigmatic or to have no explicit metaphysics at all

It may be observed that thinking in paradigmatic terms is not necessarily paradigmatic thought. Thus materialism is paradigmatic when I think of matter as defined only in terms of my senses or only in scientific terms. But if while looking at a rock I think That apparently inert piece of stone has within it things that I may not even dimly know, I am then opening a door to a non-paradigmatic stance. One useful aspect of the paradigmatic studies has been such learning as a result of which later non-paradigmatic stances become possible not merely as posited but with foundation

My thought and writing was far from limited to ‘paradigm.’ One of my interests was the result of reading in the growing field of consciousness studies. In the wake of the behaviorism of the early twentieth century it became considered unscientific (in science) and speculative (in philosophy) to talk of the subjective world of our consciousness. How, the rhetorical argument went, can we be objective about that which is the private preserve of the individual? The grip of behaviorism weakened in the 1950’s and 1960’s and by the 1970’s publications in the field of consciousness began to appear. One of the realizations was that even though consciousness or Experience may be subjective the fact of consciousness is objective (and as we shall see that it may be subjective does not mean that it invariably lacks objectivity.) Even if we think that everyone’s consciousness is distinct from the consciousness of everyone else, we agree that we all have consciousness (there are of course a number of nonbelievers in consciousness who seem to think that the rest of us are heretics.) I studied and wrote an essay on consciousness 27. Later in this narrative we reflect on the fundamental nature of Experience. Just above, I mentioned some alternative paradigms to the evolutionary one; these include materialism and idealism. Implicit in the such questions is the nature of mind and matter; whether one or other is fundamental or whether the fundamental is both or neither. What I learned in my studies in consciousness was valuable in my approach to such large questions as well as to many matters of detail (and the careful attention to detail is important to large pictures)

Around 1999 I had been having the insight that an absolute but non-substance understanding would emerge if I could show the equivalence of the Void or absence of Being and the Universe which is all Being. If the equivalence should hold, the Being of the Universe would be given (and he famous question ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’, the question that Heidegger called the fundamental problem of metaphysics, would be answered)

This insight was based in part on simple conclusions from classical theories of physics 28. It was also based on mystical experience had hiking in the mountains—the Stuart Fork Trail toward Emerald, Sapphire, and Mirror Lakes in the Trinity Mountain Wilderness—e.g., I felt, one day, ‘mystic connection’ with the brown earth / warmth of the day / trees with sunlight filtering through / a hawk flitting among trees / open spaces filled by blue sky / the thought of Morris Meadow ahead / my experience of effortlessness where I should be feeling effort and heat and sweat… and while in that state of feeling the thought presented itself: 0 ≡ ¥ (zero is equivalent to infinity 29.) Of course neither explanatory utility nor mystic insight nor number mysticism nor analogy from science is proof and so the insight remained but insight (and I regarded 0 ≡ ¥ perhaps as metaphor but not literal truth)

I was trying to find a way to show that the Universe is equivalent to the Void. The direction of proof was from Universe to Void. From 1999 to 2002 I searched for demonstration without result

In October 2002, I had the insight to focus on the Void and its properties (it should be trivial.) This insight occurred at dawn in ‘the shadow of mountains’ (near Weaverville, California.) An essential aspect of the insight was that laws, e.g. of physics, are not mere fabrications even though we may experience them as such: laws are ‘things.’ Therefore, while we may think of a vacuum as devoid of matter but not of laws, the Void has no laws 30 (the point regarding laws and the Void is subsequently stated and developed in clear terms.) This was the point of transformation and as a result I was able to demonstrate the equivalence of the Void and the Universe. The proof is given later in Demonstration of the Fundamental Principle of Metaphysics

This fundamental result enabled the development of a metaphysics of immense consequence; the fact that there are no laws in the Void was instrumental in the development. The development goes against the grain of modern mainstream western thought on metaphysics that holds this kind of metaphysics to be impossible 31. Although the development is conceptual in nature one of the attitudes that made it likely is the independence of thought I mentioned earlier. It is not mere independence but it combines with attention to the thought of others and care in thought. Other valuable attitudes include passion with patience, imagination with reason, breadth and depth of experience and learning

One of the consequences of the development 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.) Thus, although I had begun the search with the thought of Being as that which is most fundamental, it the plain concept Being as that which is there that, when used incisively, emerges as pivotal to the powerful metaphysics that was developed. The profound is found in the trivial. Metaphysically, then, there is no thing or idea that is most fundamental. Equivalently, all Being is equally fundamental (in metaphysics.) What is profound in Being is not found in Depth but, as will be seen, in Breadth or variety (of kinds of Being.) What I had arrived at was understanding without paradigm 32

It was the beginning of an epoch in my life and in Being

The metaphysics

It was mentioned earlier that metaphysics based in Experience is possible, that there is one and only one metaphysics, that it is developed here and called the Universal metaphysics or, simply, the metaphysics. The system is now described. It is demonstrated later in Demonstration of the Fundamental Principle of Metaphysics

The Universal metaphysics and its forms

I use the term ‘the fundamental principle of metaphysics’ to describe the equivalence of Void and Universe that was demonstrated in 2002. The following are demonstrated forms of the principle

First form of the fundamental principle of metaphysics. The Void which is the absence of Being contains no Law; the Void exists

Second form. The Void is equivalent to every state of Being. Therefore every state of Being is equivalent to every other state of Being; Particularly, Void and Universe are equivalent

Third and fundamental form. Being has no limits33. For example there is no limit to the variety, Extension (34space) and Duration (time) of Being in the Universe

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

The third form has the following tentative alternative expression: Every concept has reference (if a concept did not have reference, there would be a limit on Being.) However, that cannot be true because while the world cannot contain true absurdity or contradiction our concepts can 35. Therefore, concepts must satisfy ‘logic.’ Education tends to teach 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 and hypotheses regarding symbolic systems) and the question then arises How can we have trust in logic? Here, the response is as follows. Define Logic 36 as That which our conceptual systems must satisfy in order to have reference in the Universe. Since introduced via definition, it is valid to ask whether this conception may be empty. Given two related propositions, the requirement that both have the possibility of reference may result in relations between the propositions; this is the source of the traditional idea of logic as deduction and therefore the classical and modern logics are at least approximations to parts of Logic

The fundamental principle can then be formulated

Fourth and effective form of the fundamental principle. Subject to Logic, every concept has reference. This form empowers deployment. The second and third forms may be deployed similarly but that use will involve at least intuitive and perhaps less than aware reference to the fourth form

These are four forms of the fundamental principle of Universal metaphysics. Other forms are omitted here 37

I am especially surprised when others appreciate my ideas. This is partly due to doubt but it is primarily because it seems that the system and the proof that follows is transparent and should have been transparent since the beginnings of ‘logic.’ Perhaps, in fairness I should say that doubt has been useful, and that doubt has been matched a combination of pragmatism, idealism and enthusiasm (that I occasionally find surprising.) Perhaps I should not be surprised at the attitudes of others because, generally, those who appreciate will and those who do not will not

Concerns about the value of metaphysics

Some individuals will say that the development of the metaphysics is a waste; that consequences are minimal at best

What are the values of the metaphysics? (1) It illuminates the Universe and its nature. It provides occasion for wonder—that such understanding should even be available, and that even such understanding does not show the actual variety of Being. It is Breadth rather than Depth that is fundamental. Although the necessity of Being has been shown, I feel no loss of wonder. (2) The metaphysics is empowering in realization, action, and knowledge (philosophy, metaphysics, science…)

The consequences are immense in magnitude and range. They include the ultimate and the local

Questioning the Universal metaphysics

The consequences of the Universal metaphysics appear to be immense in content and significance. This will be brought out more in what follows. Immensity of consequence is, if not a direct reason for doubt, a reason to cultivate doubt. If an idea is of significance, we would like to have confidence in it and doubt and criticism may reveal flaws which may (or may not) be corrected

One source of questioning or doubt is the assertion Being has no limits. We are accustomed to limits and the idea of limits and this suggests doubt, even paradox. It is therefore important to address this concern. First, however, Some straightforward consequences of the metaphysics, will be developed in the next section. These serve to, first, further show the power of the metaphysics and, second, to amplify the doubt of this paragraph. This doubt will then be addressed in the section Relation to science. Defusing contradiction

A second source of doubt concerns the proof of the fundamental principle in the next part of the narrative, Demonstration of the Fundamental Principle of Metaphysics. Discussion of and response to this doubt is deferred to the section Doubt and Faith, in the next part—after the demonstration

Some straightforward consequences of the metaphysics

The following are direct consequences of the fundamental principle Being has no limits

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 (in building a picture it is natural to have one start with a modern picture such as that from the cosmology of the day.) This work is 38 written before and is written again. This work, the writer, his friends, this cosmos are repeated infinitely in Extension and Duration

B. Every cosmos is an atom, every atom a cosmos

C. There are ghost cosmological systems passing through ours

D. Subject to Logic, every concept, every science, every work of literature, every scripture, and (insofar as works of art have reference) every work of art is realized in the Universe. Subject, again, to Logic each is realized with infinite recurrence in Extension and Duration. Imagine two stories each about a man named Ashok. In one, Ashok dies at forty; in the other he dies at fifty. If they are about the same man there is a contradiction; if not there is no contradiction. Apparently contradictory accounts (stories, myths of creation…) need not be contradictory if they pertain to different contexts (cities or countries, cosmological systems…) That different accounts of creation that are apparent contradictions may be realized in different cosmological systems (the more robust accounts are more likely to be realized—i.e. it is likely that they are realized in a much greater number of cosmological systems.) There are no absolute fictions except Logical fiction (an absolute fiction is a concept etc. that is realized nowhere.) Note that the consequences regarding variety of cosmological systems and ghost systems are examples of the realization of all concepts

E. We are accustomed to the idea that to conceive the Universe in man’s image is an error called anthropomorphism. The modern secular educated man or woman may tend to model their picture of the Universe after the pictures of modern physical cosmology (singularity or big-bang, inflationary theory, bubble ‘universes’ to explain the otherwise apparently improbable character of our cosmos.) This too is an error that may be called cosmomorphism. The Universe is absolutely non-cosmomorphic (if ‘cosmomorphic’ means modeled after a limited cosmos)

Responses to criticisms from science and critical thought

Relation to science. Defusing contradiction

F. There may seem to be contradiction with science and common sense 39 but there is no actual contradiction. Our paradigmatic views seem to have necessity because it is in the nature of a paradigmatic view that it is the-world-as-I-see-it. 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 can we not jump off tall buildings without fear of harm? The response is twofold

(1) What we think of as physical necessity is simply a local pattern that even in its domain of application holds only with immensely high probability and precision—therefore even though gravity is not and cannot be truly universal it is locally inadvisable for non-suicidal persons to jump off tall buildings. An individual coming from a scientific perspective may say ‘Look, science has penetrated more and more into the heart of things. It is very improbable that there are things in the Universe that are essentially different from what we see in science.’ The assertion is incorrect. It assumes that the realm outside science so far is small. However, as far as science is concerned we have precisely no knowledge of the size of that realm—science allows that it may be infinite in size, past and future, and in variety of Being. Another argument is that it is practical to believe that science sets the limits to our knowledge. A generous response is that that may be true but only for certain practical purposes

(2) Since every Logically sound conceptual system must have application the metaphysics developed here supports science and at least reflective 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 (e.g. 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 (demonstration is part of that development.) What is shown is that apparent contradiction to common knowledge and science is merely apparent

Relation to critical thought regarding metaphysics and its possibility

G. 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… and there may of course be patches of metaphysical development just as there are special topics within physics but if independently developed such metaphysical patchwork is unlikely to have the Logical coherence that derives in part from metaphysical study of all Being.) The philosopher Kant 40 argued that metaphysical knowledge of things not in or derived from Experience cannot be known (it is implicit here that I can sometimes trust and sometimes reject the experiential claims of others and that there are experiential criteria for doing this.) 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 are grounded at most in some experiences (and some reason,) 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 valid observation or valid inference from such observation, and the historical objection is not refutation of metaphysics per se but merely rejection of certain systems that had been entertained perhaps because of their grand character and perhaps because of significant insight but despite their clearly suspect character when claimed as universal truth

However, it may be asked whether the metaphysics violates the condition that knowledge-as-knowledge requires roots in Experience. It does not violate this condition for the basic entities (which include Being, Universe and so on) are known in Experience or derived from Experience. Logic, as we saw, is derived from Being, Universe, Domain, and Void (in this conception, as seen earlier, Logic is not empty because the classical and modern logics are at least approximations to parts of it.) The Void was derived from Universe and Domain. Universe was derived from Being and Domain from the idea of ‘part.’ The natural objection is that the Universe is not and (likely) cannot be known in all its detail. The response is that the knowledge claims regarding the Universe do not regard precision or detail (and such claims are not necessary to the development.) That I have Experience labeled ‘whole’ and Experience labeled ‘detail’ are the constituents of knowledge of ‘Universe’ that are necessary to the developments. Likewise, even though I do not penetrate to the core of Being it is in Experience that I have secure knowledge of (the Being of) Being

There is further discussion in The nature and possibility of metaphysics

Identity. Individual and Universe. Process of and nature of realization

H. The identity of the individual is, as in the Indian system of Vedanta, the Identity of All Being—of the Universe; this oneness of identity may be called unity of Identity. Death is not absolute but a door to the infinite. These are trivial consequences of the metaphysics. 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 (for some it 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. Realization may or may not occur for an individual or a Civilization (in present form) but will be enhanced 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. Although there is no guarantee that there will be realization in ‘this form’ it is given that 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 likelihood of ‘success’

I. 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 present interest, intention, attempt, or effort. 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

Journey. Phases of realization. Design

J. The process, then, is an unending Journey in Being (what began as a personal search comes to be seen as Universal.) The sense of ‘Journey in Being’ has emerged as Universal. When we seek other forms of Being (to become) we seek what we do not yet know; the term Being is therefore appropriate as container for that that we do not know; for whatever is more fundamental. ‘Journey’ appeals to me as a process that is individual as well as Universal but whose destination is not given and as one whose revelation is part of the process. The process is conceived as four phases, Ideas, Transformation of Being and Identity and Identity, Civilization and Destiny, and Creation of Being. The first two are primary and essential, the latter are secondary

K. Ideas. I conceive an individual journey that is part of the Universal. The first phase is that of Ideas: this phase culminated with the Universal metaphysics. From the present perspective this phase is essentially complete. In the future I may refine, elaborate, and apply the ideas—though, certainly, I am open to revolutionary and reformatory thinking; there is, as noted earlier, doubt regarding the fundamental principle of metaphysics: these are addressed in the section Doubt and Faith. Specific possibilities for elaboration and refinement of the ideas include application to specific problems and disciplines as laid out in the parts Further consequences of the Universal metaphysics and other special topics, and the later section Contribution

Practical concerns include intrinsic critical evaluation of the work, critical evaluation relative to other thought including superiority and deficit, publicity, publication and other communication and networking

L. Transformation of Being and Identity. I have long felt that there is the following connection between experience, reflection and Being: Ideas are incomplete except when realized in Being. This feeling has some origin in my experience in (what in modern American Culture is called) the wild. It is here more than in a designated ‘spiritual’ environment or practice that I have felt connection with ‘Being.’ (Religion does provide connection but it I experience it as incomplete and mediated by ‘words’ with meaning that is sometimes elusive and at other times has interpretation only as metaphor. The secular picture, e.g. Secular Humanism as an overlay on the material and scientific, is, as seen, immensely limited even while it cultivates much that is valuable)

Design. The realization of the connection between ideas and Being is in a second phase (that overlaps and is continuous with the ideas.) This phase, transformation, seeks the realization in individual identity of Identity. This phase is shown possible and necessary by the Universal metaphysics which also illuminates it. It is a phase of experiment whose approach shall be rooted in the human traditions—including elements from traditional ritual and religious practice 41, mystic practice, yoga, shamanism, and modern psychologies of depth. In longer versions of this narrative 42 there is catalogued a variety of catalytic practices (and systems) that open the individual to the real. These include physical isolations and deprivations, meditation and mantra, the Yogas which include meditation and Samkhya, mystic practice, altered (wild) and more or less extreme environment (whatever turns out to being transformational and the resulting transformations will be described in a second volume to or edition of the work.) It is here that the phase of experiment and transformation whose distant aim is the ultimate begins. Transformation of Being and Identity is transformation of entire Being without loss of identity

In the next part of the narrative, the section Doubt and Faith, includes a discussion of attitudes that are or may be appropriate to a journey in transformation of identity and realization of Identity

Is there a Method to this phase of transformation whose goal is ‘realization?’ The metaphysics implies that there is no ultimate realization—that for every realization there is further realization 43 as well as dissolution. Also implied: Being is already in this process—i.e., we are in the process. We have choice over whether to positively engage. It is reasonable to think that intelligent engagement (enormously) improves directness and efficiency and enhances enjoyment. Intelligence implies use of what we know: the local disciplines and traditions and the Universal metaphysics. Rationality does not prevail though it may assist (prevalence of perfect rationality without experiment is unlikely.) I have found in preliminary and local experiments (in health, awareness, identity and human relationship, general process—discussed shortly) that process is iterative and experimental. Additionally, we may learn about the process. One observes a phenomenon, say healing. On a future occasion, we train our mind to observe enhancing factors which include attitude. Some weak observations are made. On further occasions observation is sharpened and experience and knowledge of the process is heightened: one is transformed and transforming (even if in micro-ways.) I labeled this process Fluid-Transformation (earlier: the Dynamics of Being.) Now, however, this process enters awareness and experiments with the process itself—the process is reflexive

A minimal system of experiments concerns identity, body, and society and may be conducted via experiments in experience (the Yogas and so on,) Body awareness (in nature, including experiments in attunement, conditioning, and shamanic practice) and social action and persuasion 44. The Universal metaphysics shows that such experiment must result in entering into trans-individual trans-human dimensions but does not guarantee outcome in ‘this form’ (in its conventionally understood limited sense)

Method and feasibility. Risk is important and too much worry about feasibility may be limiting. However, the approach above is one that includes consideration of feasibility

M. Civilization and Destiny. There are two other phases. In the first, Civilization and Destiny, I seek influence in society. Involvement is transforming. The idea of Civilization is not that of civilizing the wild or nature but that a connection or matrix beyond merely local habitation. The cultivation of Civilization is not one that abandons connection with nature and pre-Civilization. I shall invite others (individuals and groups) into a process and be open to what I may learn. I (we) would work in the areas of the immediate—this world, problems and opportunities—and the ultimate: realization through and of Civilization. I shall also seek transformation and understanding via realization of the meaning of science as defined below; it is natural to this process to seek practical intervention as well as the Good. The Universal metaphysics sheds light on the Good (I speak in general terms because the process lies ahead.) We cannot expect that our present notions of the Good shall be ultimate even in the present or that they shall reign over all Being. We will be guided by intuition, feeling, reason and practice regarding ethics and value, including the moral and philosophical tradition, but value may continue to emerge. Perhaps, however, we may state that the highest Good includes realization of ultimates and emerging understanding of value-ultimates 45

N. Creation of Being. The remaining phase is ‘Creation of Being.’ Here we seek artifact-as-Being. I.e., it will be sought to design and construct artifice; design will include considerations of and allowance for guided and independent evolution. Dual aims include independent Being (artifact) and enhancement of (Human) Being; therefore design and fabrication will be from ground up as well add-on Obvious candidates for consideration are artificial intelligence, artificial life, technology, systematic as well as tinkering approaches, symbolic as well as material implementation, design that is supplemented by variation and selection. ‘Method’ will not be limited to the modern cognitive approaches. I have had this interest but I cannot conclude from modern work in the relevant fields that I should have great expectations. It remains interesting to me; something of worth may be learned; I do not rule out significant outcome to the endeavor

O. Three Focal Points of the story narrated were identified in the preface. They may re-identified as the perfect Objects, the practical Objects, and (their continuation in) the transformations of Being

An Open Life

P. An open life. There is a counterpoint the process of the discussion so far. It is simply the familiar idea of Being-in-the-present 46. Process and Being-in-the-present are not exclusive. ‘If by eternity is understood not endless temporal Duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present 47.’ There are numerous ways of Being-in-the-present in the traditions and many of these go under some other name. Some that appeal to me are discussed in this narrativef48. One may want to live a life of purpose as well as enjoyment. There are practical philosophies that counsel against attachment to sensual enjoyment and the fruit of action; I think the counsel is against excess—and, of course, about living in what is real. The real comes in layers. Some philosophies uncover layers, to the root—they argue. Universal metaphysics suggests that the layers of the onion are infinite and / or that there is an infinite number and variety of onions. In this life I have been and want to be open to the centers and ends of Mind and Earth and Being as counterpoint to and synergy with process

Science and a possible future for Science

In the following discussions you will find new views on the possibilities of science and religion. These views are not ad hoc. They are the result of reflection on the subjects in themselves and in the light of the metaphysics. There is no overturning of a cart. What is valid in the established finds a place in the new. What is ‘new’ is new and is occasioned, in part, by the power of the metaphysics. What is new is a reasoned vision of how these institutions may survive and weave into a process of infinite variety

Q. We saw that the laws and theories of science are locally factual; the metaphysics blocks even this unless ‘locally’ is defined very restrictively. In the early history of science, the theories were often regarded as necessary even though inductive consequences of data. A modern body of opinion is that theories are tentative, perhaps essentially hypothetical if regarded as Universal. A reasonable mid-ground is that there is an extended domain of factuality (the extent of the domain would be unknown.) Thus a scientific theory may appear as if Universal. 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 continued in Science and scientific method

Religion

R. Preliminary discussion. We see that the idea of a religion 48 in which we live in this world but look to some other static world (or no other world) is limited in extreme measure; the value systems of the religions have power but their metaphysics are extremely limited (relative to ultimate process) and, in the case of dogma and dogmatic belief, extremely limiting. The notion of religion as subscription or belief—where it occurs—is itself limiting. An essential limiting character is the painting of a static, dogmatic, too slanted, too contained picture of Being and Universe (religion which in its origin may have been revolutionary becomes reactionary.) 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 (understand) and accept or reject my thought and example, 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; (that teaching is significant but neglects that truth is shared, that some individuals have greater sensitivities and energies for it, and that there are practitioners skilled in sharing and training)

Rather than static belief and worship that is relatively fixed in place, 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 in its fullness—all its dimensions and varieties. There will be occasion for organized religion as sharing of resources and sharing in search and realization. The functions of shared practice—named or unnamed—may include (a) encouragement received in shared activity, (b) cumulation of insight, and (c) the insight of individuals with special resources of psychic (and physical) energy, psychic insight, and time to devote to psychic (spiritual) aspects the world. Such religion may absorb appropriate elements of the tradition. It is likely that if ‘written’ the author(s) of any new religious process will be persons other than me. I may add that my view of the ‘spiritual’ is not that of another or otherworldly dimension but that of an orientation that enables a view of dimensions that otherwise tend to remain obscure. It may include not only seeing more but also seeing less

What kind of religion or psychic (spirit) process may the developments of this narrative found?

S. Discussion of what kind of religion and vision may derive from the metaphysics and related ideas

First, the individual is not required to believe in any given picture. Mere belief would be discouraged. There is no dogma. What can be shown is far greater than anything that is merely believed; and what can be ‘shown’ must be discovered in endless process rather than ‘said 49’

Second, any system would be more about action and transformation of Being than static ideas. I recognize that I have not said much about the problems of this world. These concerns are widely addressed in traditional and modern systems. Individuals may derive support from such systems. The enterprising may weave together the ancient and the modern; I hope that they will have poetry in their voice, truth in their heart. In my thought this world is also one anchor to a bridge and the quality of this life, lovely and painful in itself, acquires further meaning as anchor to the bridge (meaning that endless process and its engagement gives further meaning to this finite form of Being)

Third, there is no esoteric formula; the individual or Civilization use their individual and shared resources

Fourth, we do not talk merely of vision or experience in this or other dimension, nor is it merely about bringing back gifts. Individual and Civilization may travel to the depth and come back or move on. It is a journey through the worlds, about depth and forward movement rather than Return (alone.) In moving on they will be different in ways unseen because they may be ways yet unimagined and yet unimaginable. I.e. transformation is Transformation of entire being

Finally, the process revealed is transparent—it is therefore also robust; it may lack appeal to those who wish that the Universe shall remain obscure and our understanding essentially esoteric: the place and process is exoteric, not Occult

Demonstration of the Fundamental Principle of Metaphysics

Introduction. Importance of proof or demonstration

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

Proof is important (1) In itself, (2) It enhances understanding and alternative forms of the fundamental principle of the metaphysics and therefore of the metaphysics itself, (3) The confidence derived from the proof together with enhanced understanding encourage the development, elaboration and application of the metaphysics, (4) It provides occasion and tools for this development, elaboration and application, and (5) It is occasion for general reflection on and development of the idea of Method (taken up later)

On demonstration

In an axiomatic system there are, typically, undefined terms, axioms, and methods of proof

The demonstration below will depend an the idea of a given and will not require undefined basic terms. In the present meaning, a given is so basic that its Being neither has nor requires demonstration. This meaning does not imply that there are givens; and it does not imply that a given is an absolute given. What is an absolute given? It would be one that has to be the given (or among the givens.) It may be possible for a given to be founded in something else; to be a given, such foundation should not be necessary to secure the given. It is this that shall be shown for any Object that is taken as given. In metaphysics a substance may be marked by an undefined term; a given is marked by a name. The foregoing comments preclude any need in the present context to enter into debate regarding the concept of the given

An axiom is not a fact but has the role of a basic fact. Proof suggests deduction from premise to conclusion and a conclusion may be called a theorem. Are there any evident facts—facts whose factuality is beyond question? We will see below that there are. A theorem is open to question in so far as premises and methods of proof are open. Therefore when proof proceeds from evident fact, the term result is preferred to theorem

Some methods of proof are open to question. The transparency of the development below raises the level of proof to that of demonstration. When a result is the outcome via demonstration from evident facts in terms of givens, it is a demonstrated result or demonstrated fact. When a prima facie axiomatic system deploys givens, names, evident facts, and demonstrations it may be called a metaphysical system. In this sense a metaphysical system is knowledge of a phase of Being-as-it-is. In the system that follows the phase of Being of concern is the Universe

The foregoing discussion sets a stage for but is not prerequisite to the demonstrations that follow

The demonstration

Being is that which exists 50—or which has Existence (explaining the concept of Being)

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. ‘Being’ may be used in this atemporal or trans-temporal sense (I think ‘trans-temporal’ may be better in not asserting that time is absent but that it is not relevant to a particular context)

This most simple notion of Being is pivotal in the present development. Here, Being has no especially religious or spiritual connotation; its meaning is not ‘what is most fundamental.’ The present meaning neither includes nor excludes what may be valid in religion (or any other context.) If there should be any mode of Being that may be called ‘most fundamental’ it is naturally (and obviously) included in the extension of ‘Being’ (in this paragraph extension is used in the sense of the range of things to which a language element may refer 51; in contrast, the intension of a language element is its sense; some writers think that there is nothing but extension, i.e. that although there may seem to be intension it reduces to extension; together, intension and extension constitute meaning.) The present meaning of Being may be criticized as trivial. The charge is correct. It turns out that it is precisely that trivial character—that it makes no distinction among the things in the Universe—that makes the idea fundamental

That which is there. Does that sentence refer to anything? It is pertinent to ask the question because I may think that I perceive a chair or a world but the perception may be illusory. At least, there is illusion or illusion of illusion (and so on.) In talking of ‘what is there’ one is not asserting the existence of any specific thing. Therefore, Being may be taken as a given 52. Alternatively, Being may be founded in the given character of Experience (in fact the given character of Being as in this paragraph makes tacit reference to Experience)

A 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.) Experience is used in the sense that includes immediate experience, e.g. of the color of a sky or the feel of a soft blanket. Some writers, especially recently, deny that there is Experience, others demand demonstration that there is Experience. There are thinkers who, in the development of a system of thought, demand that everything be demonstrated or else, in their view, the system remains insecure. Further, it is clear that since proof requires premises, not everything can be proved 53 and it is therefore perhaps the common view that a philosophy must begin with postulates or with a statement that it depends on infinite regress and therefore there are no well founded systems of thought

However, it is a contrary view that not everything should require proof. It is my view, and I hold that it is basic, that Experience is so fundamental to our Being that it need not be questioned for the sake of a secure system 54. An elaboration of such considerations and a demonstration of the fact or Existence of the External world is developed below 55 and in 56. You may wonder What is the point to this proving of the obvious, this proof that contributes little if anything to our lives? I respond with agreement regarding direct contribution to day to day living. However, the uses of the development include: provision of insight into the most elementary constitutional level of sentient Being and therefore our Being; a grounding of the abstract metaphysics; and a sharpening of tools of analysis. These, in turn, contribute to our understanding and development of knowledge regarding the world around and the world of psyche within; these are indirect contributions to the day-to-day; and the insights may be regarded as direct contributions. The development of the metaphysics (this is what we are doing) could proceed without reference to Experience of things but, in addition to pointing out its fundamental nature, a practical value to introducing the idea of Experience is that it raises the idea of the possibility of error 57 and is therefore important in thinking about knowledge, e.g. fact, science, and Logic

There is Being (a given truth or fact rather than a result)

Being is that which exists and There is Being may seem circular. The circularity is merely apparent. In the first statement is means is defined as. The is of the second statement is used to assert a fact

I omit detailed explanation that is available in longer versions 58. Especially if you have an interest in the underlying concepts and issues you will recognize that numerous problems are here only briefly addressed (in the main narrative or in notes.) The value of such problems—even when they appear to be merely intellectual or sophist—is not that they are mere 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 developed and discussed here

The Universe is all Being (and only Being; definition; note that given Being, there must be all Being)

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 59; 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 (demonstrated result; in the remainder of the demonstration ‘result’ will be used in place of ‘demonstrated result’)

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

Here, the type of law of which I think is scientific law. Ethical or moral law may be considered. At present I do not include law in the legal sense but I mention this sense because it may later turn out to be pertinent

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

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

On the idea of the possible. Think of possibility as relative to a context: if a state of affairs does not obtain, it will be said to be possible if its obtaining would not alter the constitution or definition of the context (even though it’s obtaining might alter the state of the context.) A state of affairs is logically possible if and only if it does not violate logic; it is physically possible if and only if it does not violate laws of physics; and we might think of it as practically possible when we are reasonably sure that we could effect the state (perhaps without undue effort or damage.) Since the Universe is all Being—i.e. there is no state of affairs that is not in the Universe—a state that does not exist (and therefore has not existed and will not exist) cannot be effected without changing the constitution of the Universe. I.e. the only possible states are the actual states. But, under any notion of possibility, what is actual must be possible (this completes the definition of possibility.) Therefore, with Universe as context—The possible and the actual are equivalent

A Domain is a part of the Universe (definition)

Domains exist (result; proof: 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; proof: 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 there to be local Gods or demigods or 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; proof: 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; proof: combining some of the above)

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

Being has no limit 60 (result—the fundamental principle of metaphysics; proof: 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)

I.e. there is no limit to the actual and therefore to the possible

It is a consequence of the fundamental principle that there are local Gods and demigods; and that Domains and local Gods or demigods may and will be implicated in the creation / destruction / sustenance of other Domains, ‘worlds’ or cosmological systems

The fundamental principle does not change the earlier conclusion that there is and can be no external God or external Creator / Destroyer / Sustainer of the Universe

However, a local cosmos and its inhabitants may have the experience of being as if 61 Created / Destroyed / Sustained by an as if Supreme God. With application, however, the inhabitants may recognize the ‘as ifs’ of this paragraph as illusion. In many cases they will make this realization; this is implied by the fundamental principle

Knowledge of the simple Objects of the metaphysics, e.g. Experience, Being, Universe, Void, and (later) Logos, Extension, and Duration, is direct. From the fundamental principle we may conclude the Being of Objects (Gods, and others seen later) that are suggested by imagination or by partial Experience; these Objects are known indirectly—by inference. The distinction between perfect direct knowledge and perfect but indirect knowledge corresponds to the distinction, made by some writers, between general metaphysics and special metaphysics 62

Relative to the Universe, what is actual is necessary. In this largest of contexts the possible, the necessary, and the actual are equivalent

The consequences of Some straightforward consequences of the metaphysics, Identity. Individual and Universe. Process of and nature of realization, as well as of subsequent sections now stand demonstrated. I enjoy the reminder that The writing of this work has eternal recurrence. The magnitude of the metaphysics and the force of demonstration are such as to carry themselves, to make my experience of it, at least occasionally, as if revealed. Various traditions suggest and the metaphysics confirms that a thought is the Universe having a thought and a writer is the Universe writing—ut not only because the thought is part of the Universe but also because its power is expressed through the thought

The suggestion that the ethical or Good life lies in relations between the present and the Ultimate—and the meaning of the suggestion—is elaborated in what follows

Discussion. Importance of careful definition. Further development

It now becomes apparent that careful definition of concepts and careful selection of an articulated system of concepts are essential to development of the metaphysics. The system of concepts, their definitions, and the present order of development (Being, Universe, Domain, Void…) were arrived at iteratively. The process was slowed but also enhanced by the fact that with each iteration further insight and implications would emerge and require attention (an insight may emerge via thinking about the metaphysics and some special problem interactively; however, arriving at and demonstrating a concrete conclusion requires careful formulation and painstaking development of proof)

Doubt and Faith

The value of doubt has been discussed in general terms earlier. Concern here is doubt regarding the proof of the fundamental principle. A first doubt, one that has already been addressed and resolved, is the apparent contradiction of science and common sense or common knowledge

The significance of the fundamental principle is immense. It is therefore important to subject it to criticism. Numerous doubts are catalogued in longer versions of the narrative on the Internet 63. These doubts are there addressed. One means of address is to provide alternative proof. Following is an interesting plausibility argument that does not constitute proof but may provide insight. ‘Ockham’s principle’ is the idea that hypothesis formation should be as simple as possible while retaining realism. It is usually applied to ‘positive’ hypotheses that concern what is being described. Suppose instead that it is applied to what is not in the Universe. The simplest hypothesis that no thing is not in the Universe—i.e. there is no concept, subject of course to Logic, that is without reference. This is a form of the fundamental principle

The main source of doubt regarding the demonstration is the conclusion from the Existence of the Universe that, as complement to the Universe, the Void exists. Is it not necessary for Existence that the ‘thing’ claimed to exist should be non-empty? I see no reason for necessity but that does not imply that non-emptiness is sufficient for Existence. Another possible proof—that Existence follows because there is no difference between Existence and non-Existence of the Void—does not remove all doubt because, after all, there is a difference (though devoid of Being, the Void allows power)

Doubt remains. It is important that the fundamental principle is not absurd and that its assertion is not known to contradict fact or logic. Because it supports what is known to be true we may say that it cannot violate fact or logic

In the face of doubt I have introduced the following concept: faith is the attitude that is conducive of the greatest outcome. A Civilization in which every action is based on application of the fundamental principle would fail from inattention to basic needs even if it were not self-destructive. Another Civilization that attended only to the most practical of detail would suffer death by lack of imaginative response to challenge and opportunity if not by boredom. A Civilization that should know of the metaphysics but forego the opportunity would also forego intelligent realization of what may be ultimate. The attitude of faith in relation to the metaphysics is therefore to devote some resources to its study and to action in its truth (as though it is true.) This attitude is not one of compulsion for there is not known to be any absolute imperative to such action; and there is not known to be any punishment to inaction

Further consequences of the Universal metaphysics and other special topics

Consequences

The topics of this section are selected because they are likely to be useful in realization

The development here is a continuation of consequences in Journey in Being. For full appreciation, some material will benefit from still further development 64. As noted in the Preface, the developments are straightforward consequences of the fundamental principle of metaphysics (those that are not are argued) three foci

General and Physical Cosmology

Creation, destruction, and interaction. The Void can be regarded as creator and annihilator of manifest states of Being

(The Void is not outside the Universe)

Since the Void is equivalent to every state of Being, any state of Being has the capability of creation / annihilation (destruction.) A particle may initiate annihilation of all manifest Being—of a cosmological system (and more)

The Universe cycles through manifest and non-manifest phases

The Void—as non-manifest—mediates between manifest states. Universal Being has meaning even across non-manifest states

Every state of Being has interaction with every other state 65. Interactions may of course be weak andor temporarily suspended

Mechanism of creation. From an unmanifest state, manifest Being arises inevitably; and such Being must occasionally have structure—and there is no necessary mechanism to the origin of structure. A possible ‘mechanism’ is as follows (that it is possible implies that it is also actual but not that it is Universal.) There are infinitely many emergences of which all are indeterministic. Of these a few will be near symmetric, i.e. structured, and therefore relatively stable. And of these a few will have complex structure. The often given argument against structure from indeterminism does not apply to the Universal metaphysics (or in quantum physics)

Being-Extension-Duration; similarity to physics of space-time-matter. Existence of domains—of difference—implies Existence of Extension. Space, however, especially in its specialized (geometric) forms cannot be Universal. Space (generally) is a patchwork of un-given dimensionality or even of definite or uniform dimensionality. Regarding the Universe as a whole, any spatiality is immanent in or part of the constitution of the matter or Being of the world and therefore called relative space, i.e., does not constitute a grid that is independent of the matter or Being of the world. In other words there is no grid whose Being or Existence is independent of the matter or substantial Being of the world—i.e., there is no absolute space. Locally, however, space may be as if absolute space and as if Universal space

Becoming and unbecoming require the Being of 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 (e.g. light / electromagnetic or gravitational wave speed) into one. These thoughts are clearly suggested by Einstein’s special theory of relativity and also suggest possibilities for interactive development of the special theory and the metaphysics. As concluded for space, we may conclude that time is relative time and that there is no absolute time or Universal time but that time may be locally as if absolute time and as if Universal time

Becoming from a non-manifest phase, suggests simultaneous emergence of Being (e.g. matter,) Extension, and Duration. This is suggestive of analogy to Einstein’s theory of gravitation also called the general theory of relativity

Indeterminism and structure; analogy with quantum theory. The role of the Void in the Universal metaphysics is analogous to the quantum vacuum 66. 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 indeterministic—a further analogy to quantum theory. In that the outcome or ‘next’ state from any given state is absolutely undetermined, the Universe may be said to be absolutely indeterministic 67. Newness or novelty is that which is not within the constitution of what came before. Therefore, where there is true newness (creation of an idea or a cosmos) there must be indeterminism (deterministic outcome is determined by prior constitution)

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 (and the time independent ‘bound’ states are stable and structured, e.g. atoms, which, interestingly, would, as a result of radiation, not be possible in the classical theory.) The often given argument against structure from indeterminism does not apply to quantum physics. The argument from the Universal metaphysics from absence of structure to structure via indeterministic process has been given above

Evolution. In evolutionary biology the combination of random variation and selection by pre-existing structure is far more ‘efficient’ than mere chance or determinism acting alone. Evolutionary process has been extremely suggestive in the early development of the metaphysics as has physical cosmology. In turn, the metaphysics may have implications for evolutionary theory. The metaphysics suggests that that there must be evolutionary process in other cosmological systems; that their mechanism shall at least often be like the mechanisms seen on Earth; but that, though perhaps immensely less probable, non-incremental development may occur in some cosmological systems

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, foundations, mind-body, Objects, abstract Objects, universals, identity, below.) I indulge some further problems

The problem of foundations of metaphysics. Generally, a metaphysics is thought to require substance or axioms for a secure foundation. However, posited substance is not a ‘real’ foundation. The alternative is a relative foundation in which every ‘foundational’ level is referred to a deeper level. Foundation without substance, is generally thought to necessarily be relative, and is again not a ‘real’ foundation because of the need for Depth without end (the conceivable case where the infinite regress effectively truncates is not true infinite regress but is a kind of substance.) The present metaphysics finds a foundation without substance and without infinite Depth. It may be therefore called a metaphysics of ultimate but finite Depth; it is a foundation without substance and without the need for Depth without end. It is a non-relative foundation without substance; the possibility of such foundation goes against conventional thought which holds that every foundation must be axiomatic or referred to something else

The metaphysics shows that the variety of Being is without limit. However, while it captures the fact of limitless variety, it does not show or provide a systematic way to show this variety. It may be therefore called implicitly ultimate with regard to Breadth while the foundation with regard to Depth may be seen as explicit

Substance and the classical problem of mind and matter—a problem of classical metaphysics. The Universal metaphysics shows that there is no metaphysical substance of or to Being—to the Universe: ‘substance’ could not be permanent; but it also shows, e.g. via becoming from the Void or from the equivalence of all states of Being, that substance is unnecessary in metaphysics. The Void is not a metaphysical substance but could be seen as taking on a role similar to that of substance; further the Void is conceptually simpler than substance in that no restrictions are placed on the Void—it is not defined to be simple, or uniform, or unchanging, or deterministic… or otherwise. However, it is not necessary to regard the Void as substance and metaphysics can do without substance and still, as seen, have foundation without regress. 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 68. 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 practical rather than fundamental. It is not necessary to think of mind as second order because that posits relationship as secondary (and there is no metaphysical reason to think of it as so)

Objects. Concrete and Abstract Objects and their Nature—a Problem of Modern Metaphysics. The first idea of a concrete Object is our common notion of the thing, e.g. brick. Here are two significant problems regarding the nature of such 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 Logic (whose Object is the Universe in all its variety that we may call Logos 69.) While we do not know the Universe in all its details with full precision, we do know the Universe without reference to detail and we know of the fact of its details and of its details without limit. Abstraction was introduced earlier to refer to 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; Logic is perfect via definition and derivation; and it is this that allows the perfect Metaphysics 70

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 71 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 the practical Object

In the perfect as well as the practical case there is precision of meaning sufficient to the case that we can talk of the idea and meaning of Object without hindrance by the worry of possible distortion that may arise from the fact that concept and Object are distinct (it is necessary to remember, however, that unless perfection has been established there may be approximation and limit to knowledge and claims of knowledge.) 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—since we have difficulty in this world we expect much greater difficulty regarding the limitless variety—expect this and to the spirit of the metaphysics to want it—since there is so much more to explore (this is not an objection to search for local precision.) 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. See the section Applied metaphysics)

The second issue of the ‘concrete’ concerns how we may regard 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 and such Objects may be labeled particular 72

What are abstract Objects? 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 is critical: it informs us that to our concepts must correspond Objects in the one Universe 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 returns to partial concreteness in the case of proof enhanced by computer search) and (b) abstract Objects are not non-spatial but have had their spatiality abstracted out

Here are some related developments 73. First, consider the idea of a mental Object. There has been reflection in the literature that, perhaps abstract Objects are ‘mental Objects.’ Here, however, it is seen that there is no such thing as a mental Object unless that term refers to Experience or concepts but these are very real concrete Objects and are not stand ins for the Objects—concrete or abstract—to which, as concepts, they refer. Thus the idea of a mental Object as the nature of an abstract Object is ruled out by the present development. Now consider the idea of a Form. There are Objects that may be regarded as Platonic Forms but these are immanent in the world and not in another world: there is no other world. The Platonic Form is related to a concept of substance due to Aristotle 74. Here, Aristotle analyses substance in terms of form—the kind of thing that an Object is, and matter—of what it is made

According to the Universal metaphysics, form is immanent in the world. What is its source? The metaphysics itself requires no source for form and that is because every concept has an Object. However, in some cases form can be explained as shape (used somewhat metaphorically) in which matter lies in stable relation and which may have been built or originated in a process of coming to be (though explanations are metaphysically unnecessary for form, they may be useful to local / scientific understanding; and the explanation in terms of shape / coming to be is an explanation, e.g. of the form of a horse or cosmological system)

The foregoing treatment is a solution to the dual metaphysical and epistemological problems of Objects

Some further examples of Objects follow

Properties. Is a property an Object? The redness of a tomato does not seem to be concrete: I can touch the red tomato but there is at least doubt that its redness can be touched. Still the redness of the tomato is a concept and therefore there is a corresponding particular Object. Is redness an Object? It would seem to be abstract. Redness is what has been called a ‘Universal’ because it obtains of all red things. Is redness an Object or is it merely a name: this is the classic problem of Universals: are they real or are they merely names (it is the problem of realism versus nominalism.) The theory of reference (every Logical concept has reference) shows that properties are Objects (and though abstract in not referring to a specific redness it is particular in referring to all instances of redness.) Thus redness is an abstract Object while the redness of a tomato is a particular Object of a kind that has been called a trope

Values. As a tendency of set of tendencies to behavior and choice, a value is an Object

Identity. Although I have spoken of identity above, little has been said about the philosophical concerns of identity of Objects and of personal identity. However, the philosophical or metaphysical problem of the identity of an Object is not other than the problem of what constitutes an Object. Therefore, no further discussion of general metaphysics of identity is needed to complete the subject

Inhabiting abstract Objects 75. Via earlier considerations on identity / Identity abstract Objects are ‘inhabitable;’ this includes having experience of Being an abstract Object. The metaphysics shows the necessity; questions of what it might mean to Be and abstract Object and of feasibility are open. In another cosmos two Beings are being introduced Number One meet Number Two; Two, meet One; Two communicates I’m two times as big as you; One responds I’m unity. A reader thinks The writer is crazy; The writer thinks: I’m not just playing

Applied metaphysics

The Universal metaphysics may be called pure metaphysics in that it develops perfect knowledge of perfect Objects. The directly known perfect Objects are few but the entire Universe is indirectly known. It is inspiring to contemplate this thought. It also shows us Be-ing as an unending adventure

How does this ‘pure’ knowledge mesh with our practical knowledge in this world? We have already seen examples in earlier discussions of mind, and of space and time. When discussion is at sufficiently general, the practical is perfect and the framing of the practical by the perfect is perfect. When it comes to detailed knowledge of the world, that knowledge is unlikely to be perfect and the framing is not perfect. Still, the metaphysics provides metaphor and inspiration for the practical and defines limits and freedoms. As seen, the mesh of the perfect and the practical suggests developments in science. It suggests that local science will not become perfect and universal, that knowledge in contexts has intrinsic limits, but that this is not an occasion for regret. This entire interaction of the perfect with the practical may be called Applied metaphysics 76. Some aspects of Applied metaphysics fall under the pure. This part is metaphysics. Strictly, it is not general because it is suggested by our experience of the world (strictly therefore, there is no general metaphysics.) Since the idea of special metaphysics concerns those Objects known metaphysically but not directly, this part of Applied metaphysics carves out a portion of special metaphysics such that the label ‘special’ need not be attached to it. The remainder, the detailed aspects of the mesh of the pure and the practical, constitute useful but not perfect knowledge. Even though we may label them as belonging to Applied metaphysics they are strictly, not metaphysics at all, except in those senses (including the arena of faith) where concern with strict metaphysics to the exclusion of all else may become an impediment (e.g. to Be-ing)

Method in metaphysics, philosophy, logic, and mathematics

Method. The present developments have implications for Method. The idea of Being is pivotal to Method in the following way. In metaphysical understanding thinkers have sought to mediate understanding by positing something conceived to be ‘most fundamental.’ The history of Western Philosophy begins with substance 77 which has a long tradition. It was seen in a historical discussion of Being, that other thinkers formally go beyond substance but did not eliminate it entirely. In the lead up to the present development, Being was first posited to be ‘that which is most fundamental’ (an implicit rather than explicit position) but it was then recognized that whether anything is most fundamental should be allowed to emerge: this resulted in the neutral, position-less, conception of Being as that which exists (it is neutral except perhaps that non-existing Objects are admitted to have Being and such an admission need not entail contradiction if the ‘amount of Being of non-existing Objects is zero;’ however, this admission will not alter the metaphysics.) I have employed this kind of approach—Neutrality and Emergence—in numerous situations

One example of such an approach occurs in the discussion of Concrete and Abstract Objects. The problem of that discussion is one of modern philosophy with general origins perhaps in Descartes’78 distinction between the physical and the mental and specific origins that include Frege’s 79 insistence that numbers are neither concrete nor mental entities but abstract. Having introduced this nomenclature it is perhaps most natural to think (to posit at least tacitly) that the ‘concrete’ are concrete and the ‘abstract’ abstract—i.e. that the abstract are somehow less material than the concrete. However, we found that this thinking was erroneous; and the error lies in confusion of our relations with things with the status of their Be-ing. The nature of the ‘concrete’ and the ‘abstract’ and their relation was not posited but allowed to emerge. The dual pair, Neutrality and Emergence, emerges as a deep element of approach or method. In the developments of the narrative we find elements of method emerging, some of these developments are described next

Via a conceptual process called abstraction, we found foundation of perfect knowledge of perfect Objects (Being, Universe, Void and others.) This is seen to be foundation in Experience / Intuition (Immanuel Kant.) In other terms, the present conception of ‘abstraction’ is one that is intensely and directly empirical (the term ‘directly’ is inherent in the idea of empirical but is used as emphasis)

We were also able, via abstraction of the idea of logic, to draw it into perfect knowledge: Logic becomes a perfect Object: we know of its perfection but our realizations of it may be imperfect. There is reason to believe (from modern studies in logic) of the perfection of some elementary logics but not of higher logics; this suggests that even the in-principle knowledge that we obtain of Being from Logic must be unfolding (we know already that actual knowledge and Becoming is and must be unfolding)

Another aspect of method that has emerged is careful analysis of meaning; this includes, first, the meanings of individual terms and, second, the iterative formulation of articulated systems of concepts such as in the metaphysics (there is no guarantee that the perfect will emerge but, if the constituent terms are perfect, a perfect system may, as in the present case, be found.) The Universal metaphysics emerged via abstraction, analysis of meaning, and experiment with articulate systems and was seen via abstraction to be empirical and to lie within Intuition (Immanuel Kant.) It has been thus that there emerges a metaphysics whose application to all being and whose elimination of speculation has arisen

Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Method. Thus a method for metaphysics includes abstraction, analysis, and formulation of articulated systems (conceptual analysis.) This thought is not entirely new but its present realization is a significant enhancement. We may now conceive Metaphysics as the study of the limits of Being which suggests conceiving Philosophy as the study whose limits are the limits of Being. Conceptual analysis, especially as analysis of meaning, is therefore important in philosophy—it is a method of philosophy. As seen, it is an error to think that conceptual analysis is only about language (interpreted narrowly as the surface form of language) or that such analysis, even in the narrow case, does not include Experience and its analysis

Some details of an analysis of meaning. (1) The elements or components of conceptual-linguistic meaning. In Two problems of the concept of Existence, the elements of meaning are identified as word, concept and Object (2) Analysis of meaning. It has been seen in setting up the metaphysics, that Experience (the empirical) is at least implicit in meaning. Therefore analysis of meaning is not a separate topic from knowledge-via-experience; the narrative explores ramifications that need not be repeated here. The development, i.e. the ongoing pathway, of meaning and meanings must be an interplay between use and creative-critical exploration in meaning. Use and the fixing of neural pathways stabilize meaning. However, the changing and growing set of local and global contexts together with a certain freedom of neural pathways (those that allow and encourage creation) require and make for the creative-critical exploration. Earlier, the Object found a very general interpretation. With sufficiently liberal interpretation of linguistic element and Object, stability in use and meaning as sense and reference 80 are not exclusive

On articulated systems of concepts. Roughly, the world has ‘shape;’ some aspects of shape are captured in what we may think of as single concepts; other aspects of the shape of the world may be captured in relations among concepts, which may be seen as compound concepts (most concepts experienced as single are compound; those experienced as compound may, after familiarity and intuitive absorption, become experienced as units.) Thus systems of explanation of the world or patches of the world are-not / should-not-be-mere soups of concepts but are / should be articulated; and the individual concepts are or may be already related by some common or complementary aspect

Here are some examples of ‘already relatedness’ (1) There is Experience; an External world is an aspect of the Object of Experience; Being is Existence and includes Experience and External world (2) The Universe is all Being and includes all Law; the Void is absence of Being and includes no Law (3) Extension is an aspect of the constitution of Being—without Extension there is no possibility of a single Experience; Duration is an aspect of the Becoming of Being that is necessary from the nature of the Void

But how can it be known that any system is perfect? There are cases or contexts in which perfection as precision is impossible; and there are contexts in which regardless of possibility, perfection may not be desirable. However, for the Universal metaphysics, and some sub-contexts, perfection is possible via abstraction from Experience / Intuition

How is Experience incorporated into an articulated system? In the first place via the Experience inherent in the individual concepts via abstraction and analysis of meaning. Second, via experiment with concepts we form a coherent system that such that logic does not rule out the possibility of reference (even if individual concepts have reference the system may be put together incoherently or illogically.) But is the fact that reference is not ruled out sufficient for reference? This sufficiency was neither implied nor intended by the earlier sentence!

Reference arises in the way the system is built up from the already referring concepts: Being is that which Exists; the Universe is all Being; the Void is the absence of Being… It may now be asked But is not the idea of All Being laden with paradox? That depends on how the detail all Being is specified. Here, it is specified as detail of which we know rather than that which we know directly. Therefore the ongoing discovery within all Being is partly the discovery of or living in Logic. Thus, the metaphysics is in Experience and covers the entire Universe / range of experience

How is reason incorporated into an articulated system? This is the ever open question concerning the discovery of the details within Logic. In the case of the Universal metaphysics it is built in via the idea of logic in intuition that becomes an implicitly specified Logic but which we know is not empty because the extant logics are at least approximations to it. The questions so far concern foundation and grounding. Now ask How is the Universal metaphysics applied in the practical case? Relevant discussion is in Applied metaphysics

Finally The metaphysics is powerful but trivial; how is this possible? Conceptually, it has been seen that ‘trivial’ or ‘simple’ and ‘deep’ are not exclusive. Depth is not always simple but it may and can be simple; and when it is the simplicity depends on the choice of concepts and articulation. Practically, although the system of the metaphysics and its foundation is trivial the background work—required in some cases to see and in other typically practical cases to bring out—has been significant if not immense

A reflexive approach. The background to the developments in metaphysics of this narrative includes breadth of experience in the spectrum of disciplines. It also includes criticism at a variety of levels; as well as the questioning of approaches. In longer versions of the narrative 81 these thoughts are elaborated into a ‘method’ that I called a reflexive approach. The idea of a reflexive approach is used in a number of disciplines, especially sociology; the present meaning of ‘reflexive’ is distinct from other meanings and similarities should not be an occasion to require that other meanings intrude into present discussion

In the present context, the idea arose as follows (the actuality was of course complex and the multi-faceted process is told as a simple story.) Consider the assertion There are no absolutes in knowledge. Since it is a negative assertion, it is critical. However, it seems to be absolute itself. It is easily modified, for example, There are no absolutes in knowledge of the physical world. The modified form does not obviously apply to itself (i.e. at least superficially, knowledge is not part of the physical world.) The point to the example is that a critical theory should itself be regarded critically. Often, the uncritical attitude to the critical is naïve; this may be due to insufficient care or a sense of power in sweeping away prior thought with a single stroke. However, there are critical approaches whose lack of ‘self criticism’ is subtle

An example concerns the role of Experience in knowledge. Here, we consider two examples of the role of Experience. One interpretation of that role is that we know nothing that is not in Experience. If we accept modern physics as knowledge, we see that there are definite roots in experience but the ‘great’ theories of physics are not themselves seen in experience. Rather they are hypotheses and / or constructs that have immense explanatory and predictive power and have not yet been contradicted by experience. As the range of explanation and prediction expand, and contradiction has not yet come in, confidence in a scientific system of explanation / prediction grows and comes to be regarded, at least by some, as knowledge. As a second example, consider metaphysical knowledge. It could be argued with validity that science is not true knowledge 82 and that what is sufficient in science is not sufficient in philosophical metaphysics where, an argument goes, the ideas things-in-themselves and Experience are mutually exclusive categories (the argument is not that some future contradiction may occur but that science is already not true knowledge by virtue of hypothesis / projection in the realm of concepts and by virtue of the data not being the Object.) Similarly, the argument might go, our metaphysical claims cannot be true knowledge—i.e. what we might think of the highest purity / perfection in knowledge is not knowledge at all because, even if the idea has meaning, it has no reference: i.e. there is no such knowledge. The case sounds reasonable; however, we saw in the development of the metaphysics that if Experience, Being, Universe, Void, Logic, and Logos are understood appropriately we do have perfect knowledge of them: the sweeping away of such knowledge with a single stroke would be based on careful but not sufficiently careful analysis

Method is often thought of as having a creative phase and a demonstrative phase 83 (the application of reason which may in the symbolic disciplines of logic and mathematics be deductive.) The reflexive approach falls, initially, under the creative phase. However, due to interpenetration and interaction of criticism / demonstration / justification and construction / creation, both reason and creation fall under reflexivity. ‘Interaction’ occurs when criticism and construction are successively applied in developing knowledge of the world; and the confidence in the outcome depends on the kind of criticism employed: in science regarded as an approach to universal knowledge theories remain tinged with the hypothetical; in metaphysics as developed here this kind of hypothetical color has been eliminated (questions of the nature of Logic and of the necessity of the demonstration remain.) Descartes’ use of doubt suggested that there is some point in analysis where sufficient doubt frees us from doubt; the analysis of the present narrative shows that, while that may be true of certain important analyses, in ongoing exploration regarding what has true significance, doubt is perhaps never completely eliminated. However, if that is true, we should not want to eliminate all doubt and as the idea of the ‘journey’ has revealed we may even revel in the unending adventure. ‘Interpenetration’ of criticism and creation occurs when the subject of ‘interaction’ is method which includes criticism and creation; i.e. creation is essential in the development of criticism (and creative approach) and criticism is essential in creation as subtle-criticism which prevents mere free wheeling of a mind; criticism is also essential in self-evaluation (evaluation of a critical system) and to suggestions regarding creativity (in any specific endeavor, much of this occurs at an intuitive level.) The reflexive approach is, therefore, the careful use of all facets of knowledge and experience with regard to breadth and depth

The idea of reflexivity is relevant to more than formal content. It includes stepping outside or above or below a task on which one is focusing and asking What am I doing? Why? What is its worth? How am I using my resources? Perhaps I am thinking too hard! Perhaps I should cultivate flow over force—or, perhaps, flow and force in delicate and interactive balance! Perhaps I should think less, intuit more! Perhaps I should do something else—visit a friend, hike up to a mountain lake! Perhaps a little dissipation would be good—would clear the mind (I seem to have no problem with this thought!) Perhaps I should not attempt to specify too many options in this paragraph and leave options up to the moment, to a general awareness and occasional drawing in of awareness regarding process, content, extra-content, and reflex. Reflex and stepping back occur every day

This approach is immensely useful in philosophy where thought often regards synthesis of many ‘disciplinary areas’ at the boundary of the known and the unknown. It seems to me that my deployment of this ‘approach’ has been essential to the present developments in metaphysics. The approach does seem to be immensely useful but I do not say that it is necessary to the present development. However, even if not necessary it should be conducive to enrichment and goal development / achievement in broad fields of endeavor where, at outset, the parameters of study are not clear. It is not true, however, that the approach shall be useful only in soft fields; in mathematics, for example, the solution of an unsolved problem in one field may be found via ideas from a not clearly related field. It has been thus that there emerges a metaphysics whose application to all being and whose elimination of speculation has arisen

Logic and Method. Note that the metaphysics has allowed an essentially new conception of Logic. The theme of such a conception is not new to thought; it occurs roughly in prior thinkers 84 but the metaphysics enables the rigorous development and foundation of the conception. What of Method? I will keep discussion brief. Method is the how of something—of an activity, especially activities intended to produce a result. In the common meaning logic is a method or aspect of method in that it chains conclusion to premise: this is the traditional notion of logic as argument (which includes deduction.) How is this the case in terms of the present definition of Logic as the requirements on concepts (or propositions) to have the possibility (and, in view of the metaphysics, fact) of reference? For two related propositions to have reference there may be a condition on their mutual form that constitutes ‘implication’ and therefore the present conception as Logic entails the common notion of logic

But what of a method of deriving a logical system: is or can there be such a method? In using standard logics, inference is deductive. But can a logic be deduced? Creative power and intuition are necessary to arrive at a system of logic; however, can the system shown to be valid? The propositional calculus can be shown to be sound (only true propositions can be derived) and complete (all true propositions can be derived. Truth is a semantic property, derivability is syntactic.) However, such results cannot be shown for all logics. However, mapping (syntactic-semantic or among alternate systems) is a semi-method. 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—symbolic experiment—is perhaps more fundamental (language already incorporates some logic via syntax; the roots of such logic may lie, in part, in the time before recorded thought.) This method cannot generally (it seems) be deductive for, as in science, a new theory enters into uncharted domains

Mathematics. Every Logical concept has reference. Therefore, except when illogical 85, mathematical systems have reference in the Universe (e.g. to forms which as seen, lie in the one Universe.) This confirms or at least suggests a kind of Platonic realism: in which mathematics describes reality though not an abstract one (in the typical meaning of ‘abstract’ that has been rejected in this development.) If this and related thoughts are true, it may follow that the traditional notions of certainty in mathematics and logic hold only in certain areas of those disciplines. Regarding ‘method’ a possible conclusion is that in these disciplines experiment may be important (it is not clear how such experiment may be more than the obvious idea of experiment with symbols and computer experiment)

Science and scientific method

I can talk briefly of science and its method. The scientific method as recognized here is roughly Data—Hypothesis including consistency checking—Empirical checking—Tentative acceptance if there is no disconfirmation but rejection and back to hypothesis and data evaluation if there is apparent disconfirmation

Science is so many things to so many people that repetition is not out of place. Regarding any significant word there is likely to be contention. Someone says Science is X! Others respond No, It is Y or But X is impossible or Science is much more complex than just X or X is a privileged meaning used by the ruling class…! Regarding the final of these objections I may say that of course there is truth to the claim but science is a variety of activities and has range of functionalities and the criticism does not, I think, apply uniformly over the variety and range. Regarding the remaining kinds of objection I may say that I simply present one mainstream view—a functional view that, since this is not a work on science or its philosophy I shall not argue the view except to say that reflection, reason, and the history and practice of science lend significant support to the view…

At minimum, science it is about explanations of data and consequently of (domains of phenomena in) the world. The importance of the word ‘explanation’ is that it is a conceptual system that, while it explains data, may be suggested by but does not follow from the data; therefore, as explanation, further data may prove invalidating. I use the word ‘data’ rather than ‘fact’ because data, too, is subject to error and invalidation. To be science both data and explanations must be subject to and survive ongoing use and test. The data may be retested and the ‘explanations’ are used to make predictions—which may be either application or specific critical predictions designed to evaluate the conceptual system; if the predictions are incorrect we begin to suspect data or explanation or both. This picture of science is one in which a body of science is accepted, not because it is proved to be true but because, instead, it has not so far been proved false. In this view, a scientific theory is never proved true. An explanation of this view is that while science may aim at universality it depends on limited and local data and is therefore always subject to the possibility of improvement. What I endeavor to show is that while many scientific laws and theories are not Universal they are somewhat more than this rock bottom—the hold as fact in their established but local domains and, after surviving extensive experimental and conceptual testing, it is reasonable to think that even if they are not universal their domain may extend significantly beyond their so far known domain of application. In other words a good scientific theory is more than ‘only a theory’

We have therefore seen ways, immediately above and earlier, 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 of larger and larger domains (with retreat as well)

This aspect of approach—immersion or participation—has already been suggested in application of social sciences in small and traditional communities 86. Comprehensive treatment 87 is more systematic and comprehensive and includes detail on the following thoughts. One reason that the approach is thought to be useful for traditional communities is that due to lack of specialization, many individuals are repositories of traditional knowledge (in the modern world the typical individual has little knowledge of the economic, manufacturing and other processes that lie behind daily life and its artifacts)

The argument that I give, however, is that we are already immersed in such a process via the confluence of government, information distribution, economy, specialists, and populace; the approach is then to recognize, understand, refine and use this process (which is already in place.) Since we are in part the creators of the social world and its artifacts (cultural and technological) it is natural that our entire Being should be involved in such process and its recognition and refinement (we do not expect complete control)

In the standard wisdom of the scientific era we are, however, not creators of the world of life and matter. However the elements of our Being are the elements of creation and we are not as alien to the Universe or it to us as some nihilist thinkers hold. The arguments already given from the Universal metaphysics are that we may (and will) enter into the process of creation even if we do not yet know how we will do this. In the development of science (local knowledge) the Universal frames and illuminates the local while the local inspires but does not prove the Universal which (in the case of the metaphysics) has independent demonstration

The metaphysics shows that though precision in science may have value, we are satisfied with the thought that in local knowledge every context of knower and known may have an intrinsic limit of precision that we neither need nor want to exceed

The twentieth century saw rapid and impressive advance of a conceptual physics that is intensely mathematical in nature. Today, in the early twenty first century, this advance has slowed. It is perhaps a block though perhaps not. It seems as though the block may have two sources. First, there may be a limit on how deeply experiment can penetrate the small scale structure of matter: great depth seems to require large scale experimental devices such as ‘supercolliders.’ Second, the mathematics, e.g. of string theory, has become immensely complex in relation to the returns—i.e., predictive capability. I recognize that it is probably too early to judge but it is also true that such thoughts are surfacing within the physics community. It may be useful to consider that the qualitative approaches seen in the development and deployment of the metaphysics and the approach of immersion discussed immediately above may be a way of advance. This way may be independent or interactive with other approaches to knowledge (science and traditional approaches—see A Journey in Being88) and becoming (engineering, technology, psychiatry, medicine, and traditional approaches)

Religion

‘Religion’ is perhaps not typically associated with Method. However, the religions have ‘paths.’ Perhaps the first question to ask is What is Religion? An associated question is How shall we answer this question? Is it necessary to study the Religions of Man? The answer to the latter question is undoubtedly Yes! Is that study sufficient? The response is that it is not sufficient but requires interaction with a conception of Religion. The metaphysics provides a context for such concerns whose discussion is otherwise without Ground—it shows directions in which there is a ground and other directions in which there is openness without end. The development is in the earlier section on Religion; openness without end reveals Becoming, Transformation, and Realization as a journey

Journey and method

Journey. There is (one may say ‘of course’) no Method other than engagement. There are pieces of method that are useful but that provide no guarantee (perhaps we should not want it to be otherwise—the Universal metaphysics and consequences make the word ‘perhaps’ unnecessary.) Aspects of method are discussed in the section A Journey in Being, specifically in a discussion labeled Method

Special topics

These topics discuss details of foundation or development that may improve confidence in or show ways to the process of realization

The nature and possibility of metaphysics

There are various concerns regarding metaphysics. What is metaphysics? Many metaphysical systems of the past are speculative. This does not mean that they are mere speculations. Rather, they are systems that are designed to address significant concerns and may be argued but may lack necessity—the concerns may be addressed but the system retains a speculative element—it may be posited, for example, that all Being is matter. So, even though imagination, depth, usefulness, such systems cannot be judged as possessing universal truth. In order to judge that a metaphysics is true, it would seem that its fundamental elements should be known directly. In science we are satisfied that there should be good reasons that the system captures part of reality and that predictions so far are good. In metaphysics such criteria are insufficient

Perhaps the central concerns have been two degrees of speculation: traditional systems are not fully based in Experience and are hypothetically projected onto rather than necessarily derived (e.g. from Experience.) These concerns have been addressed in the development. Particularly it is shown that metaphysics is possible, that there is one and only one metaphysics and it is the Universal metaphysics which is therefore also referred to as the metaphysics (of course innumerable tentative systems are of course possible.) This metaphysics is demonstrated from Experience. Some writers on metaphysics introduce their works with a discussion of the difficulties in defining metaphysics. It is reasonable to mention the difficulties in introducing the subject but effective to defer discussion till after development of the Universal metaphysics. This is because the process of development and the developed system will constitute answers to the traditional difficulties and clarify the nature of metaphysics. The strategy of the narrative has been, in part, to remark and resolve some concerns in parallel with the development of the metaphysics and to perhaps remark but defer resolution of remaining concerns till after the development. A significant theme of this work is that in understanding the world, the meanings of the relevant concepts should not be specified in the beginning for they are part of what is to be understood (tentative and perhaps rough specification is of course useful and even necessary so that thought may proceed and error corrected)

In the developments of this narrative, the concerns are overcome. A key to this development is that certain ‘perfect Objects’ are shown be known precisely in virtue of their simplicity and these Objects constitute foundation. Then, as discussed in the next paragraph, it turns out that, the careful conception of the nature of metaphysics loses crucial importance but it may be taken to be knowledge of the Universe as it is. How may that be possible? Metaphysics as knowledge of the Universe-as-it-is is possible because, roughly, direct knowledge concerns very simple aspects of the Universe while also allowing detail without requiring that the detail be known directly. It is shown that there is precisely one metaphysics and that it is the metaphysics of this narrative (there can of course be infinitely many tentative systems of metaphysics and it is also true that the one metaphysics can be developed in greater or lesser detail, in different forms, and it can be rendered in patches corresponding to different ‘kinds’ of Being)

Why does careful conception of the nature of metaphysics lose crucial importance? Given the careful attention to the conception of metaphysics throughout the history of thought and the absence of definitive conclusion, this assertion might seem to lack validity. The essential reason that the elimination of the question is possible is that here a definitive, non-speculative, and truly Universal metaphysics is developed (it is truly Universal in that—it is shown that—all Being falls under it)

It is interesting that Wittgensteinf49 argued from the emptiness of metaphysics to the resolution of metaphysical problems in showing that they are meaningless (it is famously regarded as somewhat paradoxical that Wittgenstein permitted himself the luxury of metaphysical remarks.) The contrast with the critical elimination of the problems with the development in the present work is interesting and remarkable. A later argument of Wittgenstein 89 was that in metaphysics we go beyond the use of words that gives them meaning; the argument in itself is insufficient because context and therefore use are ever changing; an extended argument would then address the question of Experience; this question is positively addressed—i.e. the demonstrated metaphysics of this work has the necessary base in Experience. The metaphysics of this work eliminates a swath of metaphysical problem and conundrum by rendering them trivial as a result of demonstration of the metaphysics and its uniqueness and necessity. Why the earlier speculative systems do not eliminate the problems of metaphysics includes (a) Necessity—the speculative character of the systems and (b) Contingency—that the speculative systems are incomplete even where valid (and the incompleteness is in part due to their speculative and non-demonstrative character)

Here, as noted, metaphysics is roughly knowledge of things as they are—quite the opposite of the occult. The present use is akin to the use of ‘metaphysics’ in philosophy; however, the development of the metaphysics permits elimination of much of the uncertainty and vagueness that surrounds metaphysics in its philosophical form. The reactions—But we now know that metaphysics is impossible… or Here is merely one more metaphysical system are anticipated above and addressed in what follows. As noted, I show that metaphysics is possible, that there is and can be exactly one metaphysics, and that the metaphysics of the narrative is the one and only metaphysics and that it may therefore be referred to as the metaphysics. It is shown to be the metaphysics of the Universe and is therefore also labeled the Universal metaphysics

Some notes on the theory of evolution

The ideas of Wallace 90 and Darwin 91 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 and political colors. Huxley was one of the main architects of the new synthesis in evolutionary biology. Evolutionary thinking is often criticized by referring to inadequacies in Darwin’s thought; such criticism lacks validity because the new synthesis has cleared up most if not all essential lacks in Darwin’s writing. In order to be valid, criticism must be directed at the best version a system of thought

One cannot, of course, anticipate all counterarguments including those of scientific, creationist, and intelligent design. I have read a number of counter-evolutionary arguments and publications as well as rebuttals. There are and have been many critics of evolution who may be called internal or external. The external critics of science are those whose critical thought concern the uses of science and attitudes toward science and may wonder at what level science should be funded and whether it is a valuable activity. Internal critics are concerned with the truth or validity of the claims of science. I think it is not widely known outside science that the greatest critics of the theories of evolution have been internal—generated by biologists who have seen flaws or gaps in the system of explanation; it is such criticism that was responsible for the new synthesis

One should, perhaps, always allow a window of doubt and the Universal metaphysics developed earlier opens up the following window. It shows that there is an infinity of cosmological systems and there is the possibility of infusion of life and mind from one cosmos to another; that however would does not address the question of origins and evolution but places it in another cosmos. The metaphysics also shows, interestingly, that there is an infinity of cosmological systems with Gods and saltations (greater than incremental advance) but reflection, in part based in knowledge of evolution on Earth and its theories, suggests that this infinity is of an immensely lower order than the infinity of cosmoses in which natural evolutionary process obtains. I find evolutionary thought immensely useful revealing a natural order on Earth and a paradigm for life elsewhere (and even as a selection process among cosmological systems.) I find anti-evolutionary thought useful as a reminder that there are cosmological systems whose forms of Being will constitute what are probably exceptions to the evolutionary paradigm. I have found that it is helpful to my thought to listen to even those whose ideas may seem absurd. (I seem to have an internal compass that requires no effort to prevent useful listening from becoming preoccupation—and part of that listening is listening to the deep behind the superficial and the humanity behind the ideas.) It occurs to me that (some) evolutionists and anti-evolutionists may take umbrage at these thoughts (developed in greater detail in online sources 92

On intuition in metaphysics

One generic meaning of ‘intuition’ is knowledge or the capability for knowledge in which the knowers do not know how they know. One special use belonging to this generic meaning is that of intuition as an unusual or special capacity to know remote things or events. In another use, Intuition is a very normal capacity to know very immediate things. An example of such Intuition is perception in terms of space and time: we know that the capability is an aspect of adaptation of the neural processing system but knowledge of neural processing in perception is far from complete. When we consider that we are able to perceive in terms of space and time via the complexities of perception and neural processing, the latter meaning is perhaps the more remarkable meaning; it is this meaning that is used in the following paragraphs

Kantf40 attempted a foundation of the Newtonian and Euclidean science of his time in Human Intuition 93. At that time those sciences seemed to many to be final and necessary. This was in part a result of their success in absolute terms of internal coherence and range of phenomena explained and in terms of comparison to the piece meal and limited aspect of previous mechanics. Kant argued that perhaps even though we cannot explain how, space and time and cause which are the fundamental categories of those sciences are also the fundamental categories of Intuition and it is this that makes experiential knowledge of necessary but not merely analytic science possible. That something is a fundamental category of Intuition means, simply, that we see in terms of the ‘category,’ e.g. space, time, and cause. Kant added that the derivation within those sciences proceeds by logic which is also necessary 94—and therefore that the entire structure of science was necessary and based in experience and logic. Today we know that science is not at all logically necessary 95 and logic itself is perhaps necessary only in certain simple cases. Therefore, even though widely regarded as one of the great philosophical systems of thought, Kant’s program is equally widely recognized as overturned. However, Kant’s insight regarding Intuition remains significant

The development of metaphysics in this narrative may be seen as its foundation in an Intuition of Experience, Being, Universe, Void, Extension, and Duration which we label perfect Objects because, as is shown and in a prescribed sense, we have perfect Knowledge of these Objects even though there is an obvious categorial divide between knowledge and known—between concept and Object. How can this perfect knowledge be secure? Here are two examples of earlier argument. Being is that which exists; although I may not know what exists—that topic was left for later development—I know that something exists—there is Being. You may accept that argument but now object But the Universe is infinitely complex; how can you claim knowledge of the Universe? The objection has already been addressed: I have perfect knowledge of the Universe as a whole, as all Being, and in that although I may not know all its details, I know that it has detail: I may not know the detail but I know of the detail; and that is all that was necessary to develop the metaphysics. Although we doubt Kant’s intuitive categories, knowledge of these perfect Objects is secure on account of their supreme simplicity

Additionally, Logic was also reigned in under Intuition. Again, you may object But logic is extremely complex. The response give earlier is that Logic is simply the requirement on concepts so that they may be able to refer—and, therefore, as a consequence of the Universal metaphysics to actually refer to something. Although the working out of the logics may be complex, the concept of Logic is supremely simple. Thus Logic, too, may be regarded as being reigned in under Intuition and as the subject of perfect Knowing. As result, in the development of the metaphysics it has been seen that by going below Kant’s categories to simpler ones, it has been possible to go beyond Kant’s system of the scientific-intuitive interpretation of human knowledge of his time to a powerful and secure metaphysics

Notes on Religion and its practice

Religion is far too many-faceted to do it justice here—and I am a traveler rather than an expert, scholar, or teacher in ‘this’ realm. Traditional religions refer to this realm as well as a realm beyond; some religions emphasize and the metaphysics confirms that the distinction is apparent even when practically important: Earth and Sky are One. Religion is not limited to ‘sacred’ texts and includes sacred rituals, practices (ways,) and places (artifact and nature.) Except in fundamentalism, the meaning of the sacred text is not limited to the literal (however, to having a fundamentalist attitude does not eliminate the metaphorical, the allegorical, and the overt meanings; and ‘meaning’ is not the only significance of the word.) Some religions and spiritualities emphasize another higher world. However, Religion per se is not emphatically about but may be neutral toward another world. In some religions, e.g. original Buddhism, the higher world is a realm of psyche. If a religion emphasizes another world there is a spoken or unspoken psychic image—a meaning—of that world; examples are the Abrahamic religions. The Universal metaphysics shows that the consistent psychic image is real: the psychic is also real; this gives no particular support to the realms described in the scriptures. Hinduism, which is probably not a single religion, refers to actual and psychic realms. In all cases, religion speaks of values, thought and conduct in this world and their relation in bridging to the other world

Different ways are appropriate to different individuals (and for different stages of life.) The Bhagavad-Gita 96 identifies four ways or Yogas. Jnâna yoga (Gnâna yoga) is the way of knowing—especially direct knowing or apprehension the absolute and is not (limited to) linguistic expression of knowledge which I think of as an aid; the idea of apprehension approximates to the meaning of knowledge in Jnâna yoga. I attempt to maintain contact with the depth behind the words of this narrative and appeal via ‘informal’ practice to intuitive, meditative and dream states

In Rāja Yoga dhyana is meditative connection with an Object (the Yogas lie on a continuum) one of whose formal goals is liberation from the cycle of suffering (samsara.) This idea of release is based in a metaphysics of Karma which is contained in but is not the whole of the Universal metaphysics (and related values) and therefore the goal may the more primitive one of awareness (in a preface to The Bhagavad-Gita, 1985, as translated by Eknath Easwaran, the translator writes, ‘Karma is sometimes considered punitive… But it is…illuminating to consider Karma an educative force that teaches the individual to act in harmony with Dharma—the essential order of things.’ And Karma may be lifted from its metaphysical meaning and applied to the ordinary psychology of ‘this’ life)

Tibetan Buddhism talks of Beyul—remote lands whose access may involve journey and hardship. The process is not merely physical; attitude is important. Travel and arrival transformation our experience and frame of experience of self and world. ‘In Buddhist tradition, the goal is not so much to reach the destination as to awaken qualities and energies of the site which ultimately lie in our own minds’ —the Dalai Lama 97, in an Introduction to Ian Baker’s work above. My original personal Beyul is not a specific place but if there is one, Copper Canyon, Chihuahua, Mexico where it is called Barranca del Cobre, 1979-1982 is it (I learned the Tibetan concept later.) In my experience Beyul abound; ‘small’ ones—the beach, the morning view of hills from my balcony… And larger ones—Inspiration Lake that lies nestled 1500 feet deep in the bowl of a cirque near Mt. Hilton in the Trinity Mountain Wilderness; treading lightly and mindfulness are significant; there seems to be a matrix of connections among the Beyul

The process of—behind—this narrative is some subtle fusion of the Yogas, the Beyul, and Human influence (people.) My relation to these traditions is complex—I have absorbed much, much at a less than conscious level. However, I have not followed any single prescribed practice. I have direction and experience and occasionally find that my process coincides with elements of the prescribed. The likely sources are (a) common human constitution, (b) suggestion, and (c) personal experiment and experience. I am learning

Here is something that has developed over a period of time. When I lived in Austin, Texas I would ask (in irritation over traffic) Where are all these people going? I have not forgotten that questioning and I have asked What was I really asking, and Why, and Would it not be good to get over that irritation and How? Should I live elsewhere or, somehow, get over the irritation? Later, my home in northern California is in a decent apartment. There is a nice view from my balcony. I sit there in a comfortable chair every morning and look at the trees, skies, clouds, distant hills, gulls, crows, hawks, vulture, sparrows, and shades of morning light. But I live near a freeway that leads to the East (and mountains.) The freeway noise is sometimes a distraction. It depends on my mood and on atmospheric conditions (they affect the transmission of sound.) I sometimes think But these are drivers going to work or play, transporting goods—part of the great process of America, of the world. The thought sometimes helps my feeling of general good attunement to the world—I assumed that the word ‘great’ in the previous sentence enhances the feeling and it does

One day, I was going for a walk. I saw a man at the bus stop adjusting his pants. I thought He is not just adjusting his pants; he is living his life; adjusting his pants is a part of his life, part of this world (I did not seem to need to think ‘great world.’) The walk was pleasant, the skies were lovely. But, in the first part of the walk, there is traffic (later the way leads to quieter places.) I thought The traffic and the drivers are part of the world—of Being: the skies became lovelier. Earlier a friend had driven by and enthusiastically sounded his horn in greeting. A passerby was disturbed and scowled. I now thought: That too is part of life! In the mornings the experience from my balcony, always tinged with loveliness, has become lovelier with this attitude It is part of Being

Are there exceptions—times when this attitude would be problematic? What if I am being attacked? I imagine that the appropriate attitude should, perhaps, help (a) defuse the attack and / or (b) better respond (I have had some success in this—and failure which is not ‘losing’ or injury but not activating all one’s resources.) In the Bhagavad-Gita an aspect of the realized person is empathy with others—their joy, their suffering. In conflict the maxim ‘empathize with your enemy’ has the potential to be defusing and energizing. These thoughts are akin to the aspect of Tantra in which fear / revulsion are overcome / transformed by exposure to the Object of negative feeling. A man adjusting his pants is not an occasion for revulsion but mundane; seeing Being—here used in the sense of more than merely mundane—in the mundane, is an education in seeing Being in what is fearful or reviling. I imagine that there is subtlety to all generality but a general sentiment for any necessary or important task is even if conditions are not right, do it now… embrace the conditions

Two problems of the concept of Existence

Here are two important problems regarding Existence. First, a distinction has been made between Existence that is dependent versus not dependent on other Objects (‘Being’ has sometimes been reserved for the latter meaning.) The development of the metaphysics of the narrative shows that the distinction is empty

A second problem of the concept of Existence arises in talking of things that ‘do not exist’ for if I say ‘unicorns do not exist’ what is it that does not exist? A tentative solution in the literature is to introduce orders of concept

This is unnecessary. To see this observe that the problem arises even for existing Objects. Suppose I say There is Mount Everest. If you have no iconic concept of either ‘mountain’ or ‘Mount Everest’ then, even if the mountain is clearly in view as the most commanding presence you will not know what I mean. (I may point or talk in hushed tones but these are forms of concept.) Linguistic meaning lies in the triad of abstract linguistic element, concept—at least partially iconic which does not mean non-linguistic, and Object. The word ‘mountain’ is abstract because its ‘shape’ has no resemblance to a mountain (‘There is a mountain’ is mixed because the words are abstract but their combination has shape.) In using language there is a mental association between the abstract and the concept (mental content with shape) as a result of which when I say There is Mount Everest, you know what I mean. An advantage of the abstract side of language is the economy and utility in representation and communication (especially when linear.) Note: not every ‘meaning’ has all three elements mentioned above

An abstract concept is one whose shape is without significance and cannot have meaning (in isolation.) A word may be an example of an abstract concept: in English, the word ‘mountain’ bears no relation to the shape of a mountain. The shape of the written word ‘splash’ has no resemblance to the shape (including sound) of an actual splash; but the spoken word Splash! has a sound-shape that suggests the sound-shape of a splash. The written ‘splash’ reminds us of an actual splash because we are habituated to associating the written word with the spoken. An iconic concept, via mental imagery and memory, is similar to the percept (which we identify as Object.) Thus an iconic concept may refer. Instead, via recall and reconstruction, an iconic concept may be a construct that has no actual or intended reference but (provided Logic is satisfied) has potential reference. A linguistic element as seen may or may not have a (partially) iconic character. Non-iconic images, including linguistic elements, cannot by themselves refer. They refer only in association with the iconic. Then their reference is actual or potential. The ‘pure iconic’ (if there are pure icons) have actual or potential reference. The value of the linguistic, as noted earlier, is efficiency in representation and communication

Poetry is too complex to analyze here; in its entirety, poetry is perhaps beyond all analysis. However, it is a simple observation that one aspect of poetry is the putting together of linguistic elements to suggest physical and feeling shapes not inherent in the shapes of words, sentences and other (formal) linguistic elements

Explaining non-existent Objects is now simple. Regarding Unicorns, the word is the combination of letters, the concept is pictures you have seen or descriptions (like a horse but with a horn) and ‘Unicorns do not exist’ means there are no creatures that correspond to the word-concept

The Being of Experience and the External world

One goal of this section is to show that Experience and the External world are real

Reflect on the occasional assertion all is illusion. An illusion, however, is Experience (though, as illusion, we are mistaken in thinking that it is Experience of what it appears to be.) Even if it were an illusion it would not detract from the richness of (the illusion of) the world. However, we would like Experience and the Being of the world to be more robust than just illusion. Therefore there may be occasion to show that there are Experience and an External world, i.e. that Experience and External world are perfect Objects. Perhaps we ought not to worry about such robustness for the world is what it is and we can rejoice even in illusion. However, such demonstration also gives insight into the nature of demonstration and method and of Being, Experience, and the World

René Descartes 98 wrote the famous line ‘I think therefore I am.’ This line could be rendered ‘Whoever has Experience exists.’ Or ‘Experience is a mark of Being.’ This is one place to begin a discussion of Existence and the idea of an External world

Discussion could also begin with the thought of the Indian philosopher Samkara 99 who describes Experience as the essential given

There are some modern writers who doubt that there is phenomenal Experience (Experience-as-immediate-Experience, e.g. of a sunset or the fragrance of a rose—although this sense of Experience is immediate, it is not necessarily Experience of the immediate as in recollection or as in cognitive process regarding the world.) A common argument of such writers is to give Experience another meaning and say that this other meaning is the effective one and that the original meaning is ineffectual (epiphenomenal) or non-existent. Such thinkers generally come from materialism. Their error stems, I think, from a dualism in which ‘Experience’ is regarded as fundamentally distinct from material interaction. They trust their strict materialist ideology, which includes in its strictness the thought that if it is material it cannot be mental, (which they think is fact rather than ideology) more than their Experience (if any)

Experience is so close to the heart of Being-in-the-world (Experience is the seat though not the source of meaning: without Experience there would be no joy, no suffering, no hope, no disappointment, no wonder, no significance… for these are all forms of Experience) that there is neither proof nor need of proof of its Being (and we are perhaps misled if we demand proof of all things) but contemplation of the possibility that Experience is illusion gives us insight into its fundamental character

The skeptical thinker asks whether all is illusion, i.e. whether Experience has any Object. The refutation of that ‘solipsist’ doubt is that the individual has not the capacity to create the richness of the world in his or her mind. More precisely (1) If the ‘individual’ has that capacity, ‘world as Experience or illusion’ is an alternate labeling to or expression of ‘the Object of Experience is an External world in the sense of external-world-as-Object and not as outside something.’ (2) If the individual lacks the capacity in question then, given the richness of Experience, world-as-illusion is impossible

There are alternatives to the skeptical argument from solipsism. One is the Evil Daemon of Descartes who is a demon, evil or otherwise, who presents to Descartes a complete illusion of the world including the illusion of having a body. A modern version of the Daemon scenario is that we are brains-in-vats that are fed electrical impulses that result in the Experience of the world. The simplest response to these skeptical scenarios, in view of the response to solipsism, is that if the mind or the brain-in-vat cannot distinguish the truth that would imply that even if we are as we think we are we can never know that we are or are not, and it (our Being-as-brains-in-vats) would therefore have no significance to our Experiential Being. I could say Yes I am a brain in a vat. Or, Yes I am a brain in a vat that is wired into a computer called the Universe (which includes of course the brain and the ‘vat’)

A purport of the brain-in-vat argument is that since I cannot distinguish ‘normal reality’ from ‘brain-vat-reality’ I am ignorant of the nature of the world and, for example, the computer might shut off giving me a rude shock—or, simply, turning off all the lights in my cgi 100 universe. But, I am ignorant of the (full) nature of the world and the Universe might shut off my power / information feed at any time…

Skepticism, whose extreme version is that we have no real knowledge at all, is hardly a practical attitude but has its uses in sharpening understanding. The critical approach is an improvement upon skepticism and doubt is one of its tools. In the critical approach to knowledge the intent is to know what we know, know what we do not know, and what lies in between (the further layer of degrees of certainty.) In the critical approach the thinker is mindful of application—e.g., what is acceptable in daily life may be unacceptable in engineering, what is acceptable in engineering may be unacceptable in science, what is acceptable in science may be unacceptable in metaphysics

Continuity of identity across unmanifest states

That every state of Being has interaction with every other state suggests that there are no fully unmanifest states. There is perhaps local dissolution but the global case would be one of minimal manifestation. I have not worked out this idea. One thought for an approach is that ‘the Void contains no Law’ seems to have the character of law; paradox is avoided by modifying the statement to ‘the Void contains no physical Law;’ then, in some sense, the Void is minimal with regard to Law. These considerations are important to continuity of identity across dissolution and creation. I think the working out may be difficult

It seems that these considerations may be occasion to develop mutual consequences with quantum theory (Universal metaphysics is more fundamental.) This continuity of identity suggests that interactions are non-local which of course an obvious conclusion of the metaphysics but violates the until fairly recently time honored principle of locality of physical theories. The principle states roughly that an event or ‘cause’ at one place cannot have an immediate effect at another place—that effects do and must propagate through space at a finite speed. The fist comprehensive and scientific concept of gravitation was that of Newtonian mechanics 101. Newtonian gravitation, as is well known, was non-local and, despite the success of Newtonian Mechanics, this was a point of contention because the theory provided no explanation of the action-at-a-distance of that concept of gravitation in familiar causal terms

In 1915, Albert Einstein 102 gave an account in which gravitation is propagated locally at the ‘universal’ speed of light. As far as action-at-a-distance is concerned, Einstein’s theory rather than Newton’s that is compatible with reflective common sense as well as other theories of physical forces and fields such as electromagnetism as first formulated by James Clerk Maxwell 103

A 1935 paper of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen 104 showed that according to the quantum theory measurement of the state of a particle at one location instantly influences another particle arbitrarily far away. This became known as the EPR paradox

In 1966 John Bell published a famous result that has come to be known as Bell’s theorem 105. The assumptions of Bell’s paper were (1) Reality— microscopic objects have real properties determining the outcomes of quantum mechanical measurements and (2) Locality. In his paper Bell proves a result, an inequality, ‘Bell’s inequality’ that must be satisfied as a consequence of the assumptions. Bell also proves Bell’s theorem: quantum theory requires the violation of the inequality and therefore cannot satisfy local realism

A number of Bell type inequalities have been published and experiments have been done showing that ‘Bell test experiments to date overwhelmingly violate Bell's inequality’ (Bell's theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.) The general interpretation of theorists appears to favor quantum theory and non-local realism; however, theory, experiment, interpretation are far from closed. An aim here has been to show another connection between the Universal metaphysics and quantum theory

A discussion of the constitution of Being and the nature of mind

Begin by entertaining a soft materialism in which in which, for definiteness, matter is as described in modern physics and the Universe is our cosmos; it is soft in that while matter is admitted as fundamental, it is neutral with regard to mind as fundamental. The coherence of this view with the behavioral side of human beings is clear. Its coherence with phenomenal Experience or consciousness is not so clear. Of course the material elements have no Experience of the degree that human beings do. Think of the relation between macroscopic material properties—they are the result of microscopic material elements. What is the source of human and animal Experience? If the materialism is a strict materialism, i.e. there are no microscopic level experiential elements, the source must be (a) the result of varieties of organic though material tissue in interaction and layering or (b) infusions from another source. Case (b) requires that the other source be analyzed in terms of another material / organic source and therefore case (a) is the only option. This case provides, at least in principle, an explanation of behavior. Can it explain or ground Experience?

Strict materialism is untenable—insofar as we interpret our Being in terms of mind and matter, the material and the mental coincide in the microscopic elements but we interpret some situations as material and others as mental. The strict materialism of this account then faces the following options. (1) There is no Experience—not even epiphenomenal Experience or (2) The strict materialism is untenable and the microscopic elements have some property that lies in the category of Experience. Being microscopic, this is of course not human Experience or human mind even though it lies in the same category. The die hard strict materialist ‘bites the bullet’ and opts for ‘no Experience—not even epiphenomenal Experience’ but we have seen the error of this casef55. Case (2) remains—The microscopic elements have some property that lies in the category of Experience. Now, these microscopic elements must be either coincident with the microscopic material elements or something else—i.e., mental. If the elements are something else, the result is a dualism. However, in a true dualism there is and can be no interaction of ‘matter’ and ‘mind’ else the dualism is a dualism of nomenclature but no more (the same argument applies to property dualism.) The starting assumption was materialism which has not been ruled out. Therefore, the microscopic Experiential and material elements coincide (on the original assumption of materialism.) In other words, the materialism is a materialism only in name. What we are left with is a monism but not a neutral monism; the fundamental elements are simultaneously mental and material

Characterizing the material versus the mental interpretations. Now while the Being of the material elements is simply, if roughly, their Being-in-themselves, the Being of Experience is Experience-of-the-other (even Experience of self and ‘pure’ Experience are Experience of other at the microscopic level.) At the micro level, then, category of Experience for a material element is the effect in it of another material element—i.e. the result of interaction which is (typified by) force. Two objections arise. First—how can the material have anything in the category of Experience? The response is, first, the case has been demonstrated and, second, it is only our prejudice that entertains the objection (which prejudice was shown invalid above.) There is nothing in the theories of physics that says that the material elements are merely material. Second—the charge of absurd pan-psychism. Regarding the objection to pan-psychism as a fact or assertion, the response is essentially as in the foregoing argument because it simultaneously concerns pan-materialism and pan-psychism in which the loci of material and mental elements coincide. Regarding absurdity, the response is that the absurdity is that of thinking that atoms are or have ‘little minds’ or that the degree of mind is the same in the elements as it is in human and animal Being; however this is not the claim and the elements are no more little minds than they are little animal bodies

These explanations are not essentially atomistic. The foregoing may seem to be an atomism but the ‘elements’ may be fields that are occasionally manifest as though atomistic

Considerations from the Universal metaphysics. We now contemplate the question—How are the foregoing considerations affected by the Universal metaphysics? Since the metaphysics allows and requires so much more, perhaps ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ can be different things. Perhaps however this depends on what should be meant by mind and by matter. What would a disembodied or non-embodied mind be? Surely it would not be merely ethereal but if there are two modes of first order Being (‘matter’) then there may be, correspondingly, two modes of second order Being (‘mind’) and it seems conceivable that, even in the absence of (strong) first order-first order interaction there may be first-second, second-first, and second-second interactions which may correspond to apparent dualism (first-second and second-first) and something like spiritual interaction (second-second.) However, first-first interactions must always occur (no absolute non-interaction) despite temporary suspensions; such interactions between the modes may appear strange. Therefore there may be apparently different modes of first and second order being—i.e. different modes of ‘matter’ and ‘mind’ but, in the large scale and over long enough time such would perhaps reduce to one mode of matter (first order Being) and, correspondingly, one mode of mind (second order Being.) Thus it seems as though there may be as if multiple modes of ‘substance’ with a single mode at root—i.e. the modes of first order Being (matter-like) are not absolutely distinct, the modes of second order Being (mind-like) are not absolutely distinct, and ‘matter’ and ‘mind’ are not distinct but are, talking roughly, Being-in-itself (first order) and Being-in-relation (second order) which are not distinct because Being-in-itself and Being-in-relation are aspects of (the same) Being

But talk of substance is ‘as if’ talk. We know from the equivalence of any two states of Being, e.g. the equivalence of the Void and the Universe, that there is neither substance nor need for substance in explanatory efficacy

Attributes. Spinoza 106 suggested infinitely many attributes of Being (God) of which Extension and thought are the ones we know. The Universal metaphysics requires infinitely many as if modes of first order Being (matter / Extension or that which has Extension) but it also requires that there are not any actual and absolute modes; and the as if modes are, in any case, Extension, thought or matter, mind which has no further terms to it (interaction of interaction is still interaction) and, further, mind as interaction is not without Extension. It is has been shown that there is neither need nor fact of absolute substance; the situation can however be seen in which every element of Being or Object may be seen as the substance of Being (with a variant meaning to substance.) In this paragraph, however, we see room for all kinds of local variations on a theme of substance (recall that we may regard our cosmos as local.) Here we see the possibility (and therefore necessity of infinite realization) of as if pluralism of primary Being (matter-like and the corresponding second order Being or ‘mind’) and spirit like occasions (the first-second or second-first interactions)

There are consequences for creativity. It was seen earlier that creation of the new—in ideas, a cosmos, in Being—requires indeterminism (the objection that indeterminist process cannot result in order was addressed.) In a second-second interaction, however, one mind may become infused (organically or by communication) with the creations of another. Therefore, creative thought may on such occasions appear to or in the infused system to be as if deterministic

The elements of mind. These considerations suggest an approach to building psychology from microscopic elements of mind. What follows is an initial, very speculative and incomplete outline. The elementary interactions are the elements. The element may be labeled ‘feeling’ which is of course remote from what we ‘feel even as primitive feeling’ but lies in the same category. Coherence results in intensity, attunement to the physical modalities (light, sound…) of the world results in varieties of feeling, and structure results in ‘shape’ or primitive perception. At root, feeling and perception are without fundamental difference: what we call feeling is perception of internal body states, what we call perception is feeling of states of the environment. Afference and efference are probably not originally distinguished in evolution but become specialized. Genetic control of development allows greater complexity than genetic definition of the organism (details of evolutionary path to be filled in.) Learning and memory arise. A specialization of memory as Experience later results in control over ‘free imagery.’ This is the source of thought and later of language. Although obviously very incomplete and very tentative, here we see the partial binding of emotion and cognition, the relative bound character of emotion and perception, and relative free character of thought and perhaps some aspects of emotion

Applications in the field of mind and consciousness—as contemplated in philosophy. The foregoing system considerations may resolve a number of problems such as the fact of consciousness in a physical world (the physical and the mental coincide—a resolution not only of the conceptual problem of consciousness that is called the ‘hard’107 problem in the modern literature but also of the mind-body problem,) the phenomena of awareness without Experience that anyone can notice ‘after the event’ but especially marked in experiments with brain damaged individuals (such awareness is not devoid of Experience but lacks focal or intense or self-referential Experience—i.e. the Experience of Experience,) the nature of consciousness (our conscious is constituted of root elementary feeling that is variegated as above, layered, focused, concentrated, and has bound and free aspects as well as afferent and efferent and neutral-self-referential aspects and therefore it is Experience but not Attitude or Action that is fundamentally material while the latter are special kinds of Experiential state—it is commonly held in the modern literature that Experience, Action, and Attitude are the three axes or dimensions of the mental, and is unified as a result of adaptation which also explains the perception of constancy and identity of Objects and selves even though such constancy and identity is not absolute and is subject to breakdown,) language (roughly as above,) and what is called the on-off nature of consciousness—that consciousness is experienced as on or off that there is no gradual continuum from the unconscious to the definitely conscious (the explanation is that Experience lies on a continuum but awareness of Experience requires that it be sufficiently intense and focal and may be especially enhanced by naming and cultivating consciousness in language)

Form and substance—the occasions for origination and infusion of form and substance are manifold but these are practical modes of explanation. In view of the Universal metaphysics they are not fundamental. There is one fundamental category. All practical categories are an aspect or part of the one fundamental category—Being or The Field of Being

Adaptation, Evolution, and Mind

I stated earlier my confidence in the local source of adaptation as evolution as understood in modern evolutionary theory (certainly evolutionary theory is a superstructure upon a more basic level: local material Being.). Therefore, I think of evolutionary variation and selection as the source of adaptation. This suggests that Experience is not the only source of knowledge for the ability to have knowledge of the local world is not the result of my Experience and is certainly not my creation (as this form, this Human Being.) Therefore evolutionary adaptation may be included in a generalized meaning of adaptation. It is interesting that one of our human adaptations is adaptability: we adapt to different environments without having to have evolutionary change and we create artifacts of adaptation. Surely, there is something in the nature of our physical constitution that enables Experience (it is not being said that our specific physical elements are the only elements capable of allowing Experience.) Thus the root of Experience, i.e. of mind goes deep (I seem to so far lack explicit awareness of past lives; still there is a less than explicitly factual but more than merely metaphorical sense in which when I see I see with or through the eyes of ancestors from recent to distant past.) The Universal metaphysics shows that there is no limit to this depth. There are those who do not believe that our constitution arose in the processes of ‘this world’ but were created by another being, e.g. God. They may prefer to think of that other being as the source of adaptation. However, unless they think of that being / God as rooted in the Being of the Universe they must think of the being / God as cause without cause (or explanation.) In the scheme of the Universal metaphysics there is neither possibility nor need of the first cause in the present sense. Here it is emptiness that may be rationally thought to be the source of elaborate Being. No further, e.g. mechanistic, explanation is necessary or universally valid (local mechanism may prevail locally: evolution over time explains more than adaptation that is merely given or the result of ad hoc creation) The idea of the pure metaphysics and Applied metaphysics as metaphysic of experience is taken up in Metaphysic of experience

Psychology of Objects. A neurological account of how we perceive Objects as Objects would be complex. However, it is a simple explanation that life is thus adapted. Further, especially in the case of an animal that is capable of adapting to various environments and contexts, even to ones not yet encountered, the ability to put together Objects in different ways would be an adaptation. I.e., adaptability, in this case of cognition, is an adaptation. How is it that Objects that are made up of parts are seen as wholes? Adaptation gives us the ability to so perceive Objects; in development we encounter wholes and it is therefore equally valid to ask how we perceive parts and properties. The response is the same: adaptation. The response would be the same for the ability to see the same Object regardless of perspective, and for the ability to perceive the same Object differently. The response would also be the same regarding introspection, i.e. perception of our own Experience: thus the fact and experience of the unity of consciousness as well as the fragmentation of consciousness and the fracture of mind (the latter has additional layers of explanation that are omitted in the present account)

A metaphysic of experience

The pure metaphysics has been seen to have perfect base in the aspect of Experience that is the perfect Object; in the pure case, therefore, there is no difference between metaphysics-as-metaphysics and metaphysic of experience. In applied ‘metaphysics’ knowledge (which includes science, and is in part the result of framing-inspiration-interaction-interpretation interactions between the pure and the local) is not perfect where ‘perfect’ means perfect picturing or modeling of Object by concept (here even the meaning of the term Object is not precise.) Applied metaphysics may be seen as having some basis in Experience though significant parts of it are not what is normally meant by ‘metaphysics of experience.’ If we loosen the meaning of ‘basis in experience’ then not only pure but also Applied metaphysics may be seen as metaphysics of experience: i.e. with this interpretation, metaphysics and metaphysics of experience are not different in the pure and the applied case. The Universal metaphysics shows that in the larger picture this should not be important: that even the limit of faithfulness in a context is not of ultimate significance even if it should have local importance. With this alternate interpretation which has dual basis in epistemic and value concerns, metaphysics and metaphysics of experience coincide. The meanings, especially connotations, of ‘metaphysics of experience’ used here do not coincide with the typical connotations in modern thought and so, in the main narrative thread, I have decided to not use the term metaphysic of experience. Reflection adds that we may even celebrate this situation as in the nature of Being in the world.

Discovery and justification

The distinction ‘context of discovery’ versus ‘context of justification’ was employed by Hans Reichenbach 108, and is often attributed to him even though he rejected the distinction as absolute (‘It is important to follow the concepts by which the theory finds its way step by step and to level criticisms at the theory from the same intellectual path as was used in the creation of the theory.’) Although some divide between creation and proof may be possible in, say, conceptual thought, science, and mathematics, the distinction is not always clearly absolute. Criticism and creation are mutually enhancing 109 and criticism, particularly, is perhaps never at an absolute end

A note on analytic philosophy

A note that may help avoid a confusion: in analytic philosophy 110, intuition in the generic sense above is used to evaluate definitions of concepts. Analytic philosophy is perhaps the dominant approach to philosophy practiced in the English speaking countries and Scandinavia. It emphasizes careful critical thought. It has tended to favor study of the nature of thought in language over metaphysics which it tends to eschew or for which it may substitute ‘metaphysic of experience. (I cannot state more than the simplest of generalizations.) There is a tendency to study concepts ‘piece-meal. Works often appear abstract because writers appeal to logical symbolism for careful thought and compactness. There are anti-metaphysical influences from the scientific positivism of the early twentieth century. Analytic philosophy stands in contrast to what the analytic thinkers call ‘continental philosophy’ which they hold to be uncritical and soft

On the question of the logical necessity of science

In the present time, c.2010, we are familiar with the that of scientific revolutions in which old theories are superseded by newer ones and in which scientific theories are hypotheses that may be refuted by new observation. However, after the great successes of Newtonian mechanics there was a period of time in which science was regarded as necessary. It was therefore a shock to the establishment when Scottish philosopher, David Hume 111 showed that while the inductions—generalizations from data sets via hypotheses to theories—of science may be the best knowledge available, there is no necessity to them. His argument was simple: for any generalization, even generalizations that seem natural to the point of necessity, there is an alternate generalization. In the developments of this narrative we have seen limits to the two critical positions remarked in this note. First, scientific theories are factual with regard to limited domains. Second, there are necessary conclusions from Experience as seen in the Universal metaphysics. Since these conclusions are not generalizations they do not constitute limitations to Hume’s actual position but they are limits to the implicit conclusion that metaphysics is the supreme generalization and therefore impossible

It is an interesting consequence of the metaphysics that every Logical posited system of hypotheses regarding a hypothetical local cosmos must obtain in an infinite number of cosmological systems

Resources

Contribution

It is a useful personal and demonstrative exercise to evaluate one’s contribution

In science, there are clear standards. In science, clarity derives from its relative concreteness and definiteness. In general thought (e.g. philosophy) there are standards but they are not so clear. What is science? What is the method of science? While agreement on these concerns is not perfect, the field of general thought is far more open

One of the contributions of the present narrative is that it clarifies the open situation regarding general thought without artificial limits and, perhaps, without allowing reign of the merely speculative

The general contributions of the narrative include the metaphysics or picture of the Universe, the definiteness of the metaphysics (it does not suffer the merely hypothetical nature of prior metaphysics and this may have one origin in the fact that I did not set out to develop a metaphysics: understanding was more important than producing a system,) the vastly expanded view of things (here I refer you to the narrative for detail,) and the idea of Being as journey without end (and the connection of that journey to ‘this’ life)

Specific contributions include resolution of a vast array of problems of metaphysics, provision of framework for the understanding of the ‘local’ disciplines, conception of the nature of metaphysics, philosophy and science, reflections on method, a new conception of Logic, and a new outline of the system of human knowledge 112 whose essential character is that metaphysics replaces science as the center of definite knowledge (science is included and of course there is no thought to refute the valid aspects of science)

There are many potential contributions and there is much potential for interaction with the academic disciplines and varieties of human endeavor. Regarding the disciplines the narrative provides possibilities in modern theoretical physics and biology. Interaction with philosophy is manifold. Regarding the human endeavor the narrative provides a conception of religion and religious process and, indeed, of the human endeavor. The conception of religion does not ‘relate’ it to science but shows in a sense how the two may converge (no final distinction between matter and spirit, science and religion, and artificiality of actual distinction between church and state.) Regarding newness, I remind you that it is not especially the ideas that are new but what is done with them

Glossary

The glossary explains terms from the primary topics. These and other terms are in the Index

In the descriptions of the glossary entries, Capitalized Italics refer to other terms in the glossary

In glossary and index, the terms occur in roughly in their order of appearance

Absolute indeterminism That future states bear no necessary connection to the present. For any outcome, it could be otherwise (even if locally improbable.) In Absolute indeterminism, from any state, every state, including highly structured states, will arise

Absolute Used in reference to space and time, ‘absolute’ refers to a space-time grid that exists independently of an aspect of Being that inhabits space-time

Abstract Object A number is not a Particular Object. Is a number an Object at all? It is commonly held to be an abstract Object. Number is one kind of Abstract Object. However, the nature of the abstract Object is not regarded as perfectly understood and there is question about their Being. Universal metaphysics puts these issues to rest and shows a unified theory of particular and abstract Objects: the distinction between them is empty. It is shown that abstract Objects do inhabit time and space but that, e.g., their temporality has been abstracted out

Abstraction because there may be distortion in perception, knowledge of an Object may be imperfect. In fact the meaning of ‘Object’ may be questioned. Abstraction is suppression of detail that is capable of distortion. What is known via abstract has definite Object-hood and is known perfectly. Thus Existence is a Perfect Object

Absurd The issue of the absurd arises because the Universal metaphysics appears to violate science and common sense. It is shown that the metaphysics is and must be in harmony with valid science and valid (reflective) common sense. There is a role even for entertaining the absurd because it may be only apparently absurd

Analysis of meaning See Meaning. An important aspect of Method, especially in metaphysics and philosophy. Properly understood and properly done, analysis of meaning incorporates experience and the Empirical

Actual, The See Possibility. What obtains. It is effective to think of the actual in the Trans-temporal sense

Applied metaphysics See Universal metaphysics and Local disciplines. Applied metaphysics is the interactive union of the metaphysics and the local. In some cases, Applied metaphysics may yield perfect knowledge and is thus specialized metaphysics. In other cases, knowledge may be no more than good enough. In this case it is not really metaphysics. However, despite the epistemic distinction, a value perspective may result in the distinction between metaphysics and not metaphysics as null

Articulated systems of concepts an important tool in the symbolic disciplines of logic and mathematics and in philosophy and metaphysics. Critical to understanding and development of the metaphysics. Similar to the axiomatic system

As if substance See Substance

As if absolute See Relative, and Absolute. Locally, Space and Time may be as if absolute

As if universal See Universal, see Patch. In a local cosmos, especially one that has no present external interaction, space-time may seem as if Universal

Atemporal Beyond time. The term Trans-temporal is better

Attributes See Mind

Being as conceived in the Metaphysics That which Exists. An Inspiration. Thinkers have distinguished Being whose Existence is not dependent on other existents from dependent Existence. Universal metaphysics shows that the distinction is empty. Although trivial, this meaning is immensely empowering. My search for the meaning of ‘Being’ began implicitly with evolutionism, materialism, idealism and other Substance based metaphysical hypotheses. I realized that that approach was untenable and not empowering of metaphysical understanding. I then looked for Being as that which is most fundamental (precisely, the Object of the concept that which is most fundamental.) Finally, it was the development of the Universal metaphysics that showed that the trivial form is the most powerful precisely because it says nothing and therefore allows Emergence of truth. I regard and the Universal metaphysics confirms that this is the most basic and most metaphysically empowering concept of Being

Being as that which is most fundamental This meaning is important too and it lies within the metaphysical meaning. Tantra as well as reflection suggest that the meanings are identical for there is a sense in which no thing is more fundamental. That which is most fundamental is relative to the purpose at hand. In the spirit of nothing is most fundamental, all purposes lie within one Purpose which is Realization of the Ultimate in its actuality and in the present (which, in the end, are not distinct.) What is most fundamental? That is one of the questions of the journey and the search occurs within Being as container for all that is there. We are not altogether without guide for we have intuition, life experience, and tradition. The latter includes Religion and the religions which include Ideas and practices (ways,) exploration and its spirit, Science and Secular Humanism, art and literature, and much from Metaphysics and Philosophy. There is a riches of suggestive material. I think, however, the exiting thought that we still have aloneness in the midst of connection

Breadth of experience important to creative thought, especially in some conceptions of philosophy

Breadth See Ultimate

Bridge See Religion, Journey, Yoga. Between this world and the Ultimate

Catalytic practices These open the individual up to awareness and Realization. Includes traditional practices

Civilization and Destiny A secondary phase of my journey (and adventure)

Complement the Complement to or of a Domain is the part of the Universe not in the Domain

Concept See Meaning for discussion. Here, a concept is mental content; this may be seen to include another meaning of concept as ‘unit of meaning’

Construction See Reflexivity. Creative thought and construction of concepts (in the sense of higher concept or unit of meaning)

Cosmological system (Cosmos) The idea of a Cosmos is that of a system that is at present effectively isolated

Creation of being A secondary phase of my Journey (and adventure)

Creation Conceived in terms of a cause that is outside what is created. The metaphysics shows that Universe has no Creator

Criticism The idea of criticism is not that of harsh criticism even though it includes strict criticism. The goal: knowledge with which we attach degrees of certainty and make no greater claims than warranted. Some critical theories overstate their case as a result of enthusiasm and (sometimes) because they are not fully critical (e.g. an assumption that metaphysics must overstep Experience)

Demigod See God, see Creator. A demigod has some powers attributed to God (a God.) There are demigods. However, intrinsic causation and origins seems more likely than guidance by a demigod

Demonstrated result The result of a demonstration; abbr. result

Demonstration A proof in which the premise is an evident fact and the methods of proof are beyond question

Depth See Ultimate

Discipline See Local disciplines

Dissolution See Peak. Inevitable outcome of a Peak

Domain Part of the Universe

Doubt as used by Descartes doubt is important because it may lead to certainty. Critical doubt has been important in the present development. Doubt remains regarding the proof of the Universal metaphysics which, however, is not and cannot be proven inconsistent.

Dual Used to refer to dual epistemic and metaphysical resolution of problems of knowing and Being; not used in reference to substance metaphysics

Duration is the part of knowledge or intuition of time that can suffer no distortion. Intuition may suggest that duration is essential to the constitution of Being; Universal metaphysics confirms this intuition

Dynamics of being See Fluid-transformation. Developing, enhancing, and deploying understanding of personal process in realization. Calls upon Universal metaphysics, its methods, traditional systems such as Yoga, and Catalytic practices

Emergence See Neutrality. Allowing truth to emerge. The epistemic dual of Being

Empirical See Abstraction. Abstraction as suppression of distortable detail is intensely empirical. The point is important in showing that the Universal metaphysics is empirical and thus avoids the usual criticism that metaphysics is not of experience

Epistemology Study of knowledge and the possibility of knowledge. See Existence

Evident fact A fact that cannot be rationally doubted. Example: Experience is a given

Evolution Refers, first, to incremental evolution and, second, to the mechanism of variation and selection. Reason suggests that evolution is far more likely than creation because the latter requires the improbability of a Creator: if evolution is unlikely, a Creator is more unlikely. Evolution by variation and selection shows, however, that incremental evolution and origin of the species is not unlikely. In the Universe, with its colossal infinity of cosmoses, there is occasional local creation and non-incremental origin. This happens infinitely often but reason suggests that it is of a lower order of infinity than that of incremental evolution

Existence That which is there. ‘Existence’ can be used in the temporal sense ‘exists now’ or trans-temporal sense ‘exists somewhere and somewhen’ (somewhen is usually implicit in the temporal sense.) Also a given (e.g. there is experience.) What remains in question is the ontological question What concepts define Objects? This form of the question is instrumental in the answering being a resolution of the dual epistemological and ontological or metaphysical question necessary for the founding of metaphysics. Well known difficulties with the concept of Existence are addressed in the narrative

Experience Used in the sense of the immediate feeling as of the fragrance of a rose or of awareness of having a thought (and so on.) Although immediate, Experience is not necessarily experience of immediate Objects, e.g. as in memory. The word ‘experience’ is also used informally as in ‘this candidate for the job has a wealth of experience’

Extension is the part of knowledge or intuition of space that can suffer no distortion. Extension is essential to the constitution of Being

External world The Object of Experience. ‘External’ is used somewhat metaphorically. It is possible to doubt that Experience has an Object—perhaps Experience is all that there is. The doubt is resolved in the narrative

Faith The attitudes most conducive of Good outcome. The attitude of the Journey in the presence of doubt that is not absurd

Fiction The metaphysics shows that the only Fictions are those that violate Logic (this is the flimsiest of all restrictions; in fact it is seen that it is not a restriction at all)

First cause An uncaused cause, usually used in relation to the Universe. In scholastic thought, God was the uncaused cause. Universal metaphysics shows that there is and can be no first cause, no God the external creator of the Universe

Fluid-transformation See Dynamics of Being. I like this term better because Dynamics of Being sounds mechanistic, scientific in an enterprise in which that kind of science is not the main mode of activity

Form The idea of a Form is that of a Universal die from which particular kinds of Object are cast; that is of course metaphorical but it is the Being of the Form that makes possible the Being of the Object. Thus, in this view, there is a Form labeled ‘Horse.’ The metaphysics makes Form irrelevant. Alternatively, every Object is its own form and we could regard the collection of Objects of a given form as constituting a Form. Then, Form has no limits. The common Forms would be the Forms of the more or less stable Objects

Fundamental principle of metaphysics The principle that Being has no limits. This is the central and demonstrated result that empowers the Universal metaphysics. Abbr. fundamental principle

General metaphysics the part of metaphysics that is direct knowledge; what we know

Ghost The metaphysics shows that there are Ghost systems now passing through our cosmos

Given Anything whose existence cannot be rationally doubted. Experience is given because doubt is Experience

God See Creation. There is no all powerful God external or prior to the Universe

Good, The See Ultimate value

Ground Founding in Being rather than symbolic abstraction. The Universal metaphysics is grounded. This world is our Ground to the Ultimate

Human being Individuals, mankind, and civilization. Source of inspiration

Ideas A phase any Journey, it is in Ideas that we know and experience something of the way. A source of inspiration. Relative to Being, Ideas as Ideas are a limited form of Realization

Identity (of Objects and personal identity) Identity is implicit in Object-hood

Indeterminism That the future is not determined by the present

Inhabiting abstract Objects The metaphysics implies that any Being can inhabit or become an abstract

Inspiration Refers, specifically, to sources of inspiration for this work and its process. Also inspiration in my journey and life. The Inspirations: Being, Nature, Human Being, and Ideas

Interpenetration Here refers to criticism and construction. There is interaction over content. There is interpenetration when the content is Method which includes both construction and criticism

Intuition I perceive the world in terms that I call ‘space’ and ‘time’ even if I have difficulty explaining what these terms mean and how the percepts are processed in my brain and how they appear in my consciousness. As used here, Intuition refers to the remarkable ability to perceive ordinary Objects in ordinary ways

Intuition In connection with Method, Intuition in the sense of special insight is essential to the growth of logics and mathematics

Is Verb to be, therefore a root meaning of Being. Used as definition: A is B; or equivalence: A is B (and B is A;) and to indicate Existence: There is A, or there is an A, or A is

Journey See Ultimate, Ultimate value. The metaphysics shows that these realizations will occur but not now. Reason shows the endeavor to be worthwhile and to be much more probable and enjoyable if approached intelligently and with intent. However, it is also seen that the approach cannot be laid out and must be in the nature of a journey. I came to this conception of the process via analogy with my own life

Lateral See Reflexivity. Refers to interaction between disciplines, e.g. synthesis or analogy. Includes interaction between construction and criticism

law (lower case) A law is a pattern (or regularity) that we read into the world

Law The pattern itself. A Law has Being

Local disciplines Sciences and other disciplines, modern and traditional, regarding knowledge of our world as the world

Logic Defined as the constraints that concepts must satisfy to be capable of reference. Because of the fundamental principle, every Logical concept (i.e. the concept does not violate Logic) has reference in some cosmological system or set of systems

Logos the Object of Logic; the Universe in all its detail; we (probably) do not know Logos directly but we know of it, that it Exists

Mathematical Object See Abstract Object

Matter (first order being) See As if substance, see Substance. Matter is conceived roughly as ‘Being-in-itself,’ i.e. as first order Being

Meaning inheres in the reference or potential reference of a concept to an Object. Without an iconic element, a concept cannot refer. In order to refer, an abstract concept (one whose ‘shape’ is immaterial to conception) must be associated at least implicitly with an iconic element. Linguistic elements are abstract or semi-abstract; this is the source of their efficiency in representation and communication. A concept may be pure icon or combination the iconic and the abstract. Thus, in the general case meaning inheres in relations among linguistic structure, icon, and Object or, stated differently, word, concept and Object. Since the concept is not the Object, even when the concept is another concept or the idea of the concept in general, it is valid to inquire into the meaning of the term ‘iconic’ and its possibility. There must be some ‘resemblance’ or else, as observed above, recognition would not occur. A meaning, perhaps the meaning, is found in some similarity between two Experiences—e.g. a mountain is like a pyramid or like a picture of it or like my recollection of it. Except in the case of perfect Objects, the iconic side of concepts have some degree of abstraction and the non-iconic side may acquire an iconic element either by combining signs (e.g. via grammar) or by association. Note that in this item ‘abstract’ is not used in the sense of the entry for Abstraction

Metaphysic of Experience See Universal metaphysics, Applied metaphysics, Abstraction, and Perfect Objects. A metaphysic of Experience could have two meanings: first, inference from experience to the nature of the world, second building up a picture of the world of Experience. The Universal metaphysics and parts of Applied metaphysics are simultaneously metaphysics and metaphysic of experience in both senses; the foregoing is pure metaphysics. The remainder is not metaphysics except from a value perspective

Metaphysical system Any metaphysical system. However, used in the special sense of a metaphysical system whose foundation is in givens, evident facts, and transparent methods of proof. There can be at most one metaphysical system for the Universe but it may have different forms and be developed to different levels of detail

Metaphysics See Universal metaphysics. One conception: The study of the limits of Being. A more fundamental conception: the study of Being-as-it-is. Thought, since Hume and Kant to be impossible. Here shown to be very possible

Mind (second order being) See Matter. Mind is conceived as second order Being, i.e. the impression in one Being of another. It is not clear that matter is more than approximate distinction. Thinking in terms of theory of Objects there may be a first / second order duality (not dualism.) If extension and mind are the first two terms, there is no continuation of the series as suggested by Spinoza regarding attributes

Minimal system Refers to a minimal system of experiments that might cover the range necessary for ‘Universal realization’

Mystic insight Direct apprehension of truth. Universal metaphysics shows that truth can be known rationally. Properly followed, though, reason without force is a kind of direct apprehension. In Mystic insight, however, there may be Union with truth. Mystic insight is (therefore) a kind of Yoga

Name The existence of a given is not demonstrated by proof but by pointing to it; then, the given may be named

Nature The world of nature, the wild. Landform, water, sky, plant and animal. Source of inspiration

Neutrality See Emergence. An aspect of approach to knowledge that allows truth to emerge rather than be forced. The role is similar to that of doubt but is perhaps reflexive in that it encourages doubt of doubt, criticism of criticism but also of interaction of creation with doubt and criticism

Non-relative metaphysics one that has foundation at a finite ‘depth.’ Demonstration of the Universal metaphysics disproves the common belief that a metaphysics with foundation, i.e. a non-relative metaphysics, must be founded in substance

Ontology Study of kinds of things that Exist or can Exist. See Existence

Particular Object A concrete Object is a ‘real world’ Object such as a brick. A particular Object is an (apparent) generalization that admits process and interaction as Objects. From the metaphysics it follows that distinctions among thing, process, and interaction are not essential

Patch A patch of local space and time

Peak Of realization. There is no end to ‘peaking’ either vertically (degrees of integration) or laterally (variety)

Perfect Object see Abstraction

Phases Of the Journey

Philosophy See Metaphysics. One conception: The study whose limits are the limits of Being. At least some analytic philosophers will take issue with this idea

Practical Object We do not know the common Objects of the world with perfection. However, via adaptation they are known well enough (for some purposes) and the meaning of Object is adequate (for some purposes) even though it may be implicit

Possibility See Actual, The. Relative to a context a state of affairs is possible if in obtaining the constitution of the context would not be violated. Thus the occurrence of the possible may change the facts of the context but not its essence or constitution or definition. Clearly, the Actual is possible. The narrative mentions physical, logical, and practical possibility; and possibility relative to the Universe. Relative to the Universe, the Actual and the possible are identical

Process Changing associated with passing time. See Duration

Property The redness of a particular thing is a particular Object but redness itself is abstract

Psychic depth Deep level of Being in Awareness

Pure metaphysics see Metaphysic of Experience

Realization of the Ultimate requires Transformation of Being and Identity

Recurrence The metaphysics confirms the idea of eternal recurrence but much more; there are identical as well as variant themes; and each atom is a cosmos, every cosmos an atom

Reflexivity The intelligent selection and interaction of a variety of experience and knowledge as an aspect of Method in which criticism is essential but, for various reasons, never entirely separate from construction. An essential reason for this is that criticism itself is never complete and its development requires creation. Also, while recognizing that creation may be stunted by criticism because the way to mature ideas is through tentative ideas, creation is enhanced by criticism at explicit and intuitive levels. While reflexivity excludes nothing from the knowledge process, it also implies some critical attitude toward ‘anything goes’

Relative metaphysics One that has no foundation, perhaps because each tentative foundation refers to another (tentative) foundation without end

Relative If space and time are part of the constitution of Being and have no independent Existence they are relative. Universal metaphysics shows space and time must be relative

Religion See Ultimate, Ultimate value. The metaphysics reveals our conceptions of religion—and science—to be enormously limited and distinctions between science and religion based in such limited conceptions. If Religion and Secular Knowledge are about truth, they cannot be distinct. Religion may be conceived as the exploration of the Universe in all its dimensions by a Being or Group using all dimensions of their Being. In this essay, over-prescription of ethics has been avoided. It has been suggested that realization of Identity is an Ultimate value. In contrast to some systems, Universal metaphysics reveals that such realization is an eternal process of realization and dissolution. One reason that this is good is that beauty is never at an end, Being remains ever fresh even in a Peak of realization. Experience of the Ultimate in the local is therefore also good because it is on the way. I have shared some aspects of my way but recall that I am a traveler and not a teacher. The traditions have many ways. I like the Bhagavad-Gita; it has ways for different kinds of person and different situations. However, there is much that appeals to me in other faiths. I have acquaintances who argue the merit or demerit of this or that religion. I do not see the religions—the widespread religions and the local practices and myths of isolated or semi-isolated peoples—as monoliths. In not seeing religion as monolithic the arguments this religion is better or religion is a source of evil lose meaning. A church may pronounce that certain articles are to held literally. The flowing interpretation of religion yields this rather meaningless (and even in literal interpretation there are and will be other significances to scripture.) Experience of the Ultimate in the local is not good only because it is on the way. It is, in some way, the best we have in the present. The ethical life is dually Being in and on the way to. Whether I have one life or an infinite number (talking in terms in which I see a distinction) I want every life to be good, to be in The Good

Science a history of the idea of scientific method goes through the following stages of foundation of science: Induction as necessary, Theory as mere hypothesis if regarded as Universal, Theory as local fact, Theory as having probable extension beyond its known domain, and, from the metaphysics, No Universal Science except via Participation and Immersion

Secular Humanism Default worldview of modern educated, non-fundamentalist individuals especially in western Europe. Cultivates human value as central in importance but typically sees the world as seen in science but not necessarily reducible to scientific terms of explanation

Space Extension with degrees of structure and measure

Space-time Universal metaphysics suggests that in having common origin, space and time are interwoven. An obvious source of this suggestion is Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation (General Relativity.) Can the thought be intuited directly from the metaphysics? Perhaps. The metaphysics requires that the Universe occasionally be in the a Void phase from which will emerge another phase of manifest Being. The emergence will be one with Extension (else no Being) and will occur in Duration (else no change from the Void.) Extension and Duration are, therefore, coeval which suggests original interaction or interwoven-ness. Einstein’s argument regarding coordination of time or space over distances required the intervention of Being (matter) whose (signal) constitution interweaves space and time (propagation.) I leave the argument in this weak state awaiting sharpening

Special metaphysics the part of metaphysics that is deduced from direct knowledge; what we know of

Speculation See Empirical. Mere Speculation is another criticism leveled at some systems presented as metaphysics. The criticism does not mean that imagination should not be used; imagination, e.g. concept creation, is essential for any process of understanding in new terms which is required for that which has not been conceived before. It means that what has been imagined may have been argued, and there may be other good grounds for it but it has not been demonstrated. The present metaphysics is demonstrated

Substance hypothetical simple, uniform, unchanging stuff that results in the world as it is. Alternately, the substance of an Object is the Object itself rather than the Object in terms of properties. The Universal metaphysics is not a substance metaphysics: it is shown shows that there is no need for either kind of substance and that there can be no uniform, unchanging stuff of the Universe. There are however infinitely many local as if substances—a local cosmos may have one or more (if mote than one, to constitute a cosmos there would have to be weak interaction which is not possible for pure substance but is possible for as if substances)

The Good See Ultimate value

The Metaphysics See Universal metaphysics

Time Duration with degrees of uniqueness and measure

Traditions See Local disciplines

Transformation of being and identity See Fluid-transformation, see Journey, see Ultimate value. The second primary phase of my journey. The greatest phase. The way to Universal realization in a shared journey

Trans-temporal An Object to whose constitution time or duration is immaterial

Trivial Here used in the sense of something, e.g. an assertion whose truth is obvious or a concept that is apparently without depth. However, the obviousness may require pointing out and the lack of depth may be merely apparent. That an idea appears to be trivial does not imply that it is unimportant

Ultimate in the local See Ultimate, Ultimate value, Journey, Religion, Yoga

Ultimate value The narrative suggests that the search for actual Identity of identities is an ultimate value. A local counterpart to this ultimate is realization of knowledge of the ultimate Identity. As suggested by Bhagavad-Gita, there is a variety of approaches and modes of realization. The Gita also asserts that the local is the way to if not also the ultimate. Universal metaphysics confirms this

Ultimate A metaphysics is ultimate with regard to depth if it has foundation at finite depth and no possibility of further depth. It is ultimate with regard to breadth if All Being lies within its scope. The Universal metaphysics is explicitly ultimate in depth and implicitly ultimate in breadth. It also shows that the Extension, Duration and variety of Being in the Universe has no limit

Unending The metaphysics shows that realization has no end; there are peaks and dissolutions without end and without end to their variety; thus realization is an unending adventure; pain, however, is not avoided

Unified theory particular and abstract Objects See Abstract Object

Unity of consciousness We typically experience our consciousness as a unit; this may be ‘explained’ via adaptation; we may experience kinds and degrees of fragmentation; some fragmentation may be adaptive (restructuring ideas) other fragmentation may be breakdown; the boundary between the functional and the dysfunctional is likely porous

Unity of identity The idea that all identities meet in Identity. The metaphysics shows this to be necessary

Unity of particular Objects see Identity

Universal metaphysics (the,) The metaphysics whose main concepts include Being, Universe, Domain, Void, and Logic and whose main result is the fundamental principle. The one and only metaphysics (any other valid ‘metaphysics’ is an alternate or partial expression.) Abbr. the metaphysics

Universal Space and time are Universal if they are present (perhaps as a single continuum) in the entire Universe

Universe All that Exists; all Being. Used particularly to mean All that exists, existed, or will exist. Used in this sense, there is one and only one Universe

Value As a tendency to behavior and choice, a value is an Object

Variety See Ultimate

Vertical See Reflexivity. The criticism of criticism may be seen as vertical. Includes ‘thinking outside the box.’ Includes stepping back and questioning a whole approach, or stepping away to allow unconscious play. Includes deploying resources reflectively and therefore perhaps more effectively—personal and institutional

Void Absence of Being

Yoga Sanskrit for yoke. Means Union with Ultimate Being. The narrative describes some aspects of Jnâna and Rāja Yoga

How to train your dragon

I thought I might write a section on creating your journey. I do not assume that your journey will be a private one. Your way may be individual and / or shared 113

You can set out to recreate my journey—I would not be flattered because it would mean that I have not written well: the point to your journey is your Being, your experience. To constitute experience, the journey will be your own. However, I have learned by repeating what others have done or written. The process of making another’s experience and thought one’s own is an education in independent work

Perhaps what may be most useful is a recounting of what has made my experience possible, what has enhanced it. At present I specify no particular ‘ways’

When I was eleven I was expected to make up my mind on a career. There was no career that had exclusive and commanding appeal. I knew something of what I wanted but it was not a career and I did not have a name for it—today, however, I might call it ‘relationship with Being’ and ‘adventure in Being.’ I have had many pursuits. However, whatever I have done, if not directed toward ‘Being’ has had that idea in the background and whatever I have fully enjoyed and whose retrospect I continue to fully enjoy bears the stamp of the adventure. I have cultivated this project even when I did not know precisely for what it was that I was looking

Perhaps I might have benefited from a personal teacher or what in India is called a ‘guru.’ I have had no guru like figure in relation to Journey in Being. If I had had such a guru, my ‘journey’ may have been a path or a road; it may have been more direct. However, it might lack its broad base in many disciplines and its careful inner foundation. I am not at all against the idea of the teacher. I have encountered wise words and suggestions in many writings. A favorite is the Work out your salvation with diligence attributed to Gautama Buddha. It would be a caricature to think that I wake up every morning afresh and bursting with energy to workout my salvation. However, the feeling of mission, of purpose and of working toward the goal—which includes refinement and evolving understanding of the goals—is ever present. Work out my life with care—this also includes asking what this working out is or means. Even if it were the only enjoyment, dogged pursuit would be destructive. There are enjoyments of the moment and some of these enjoyments have no obvious or obviously intended place in a journey. And it becomes necessary at times to step away from an endeavor and ask what, why, and how?

I have written of the inspiration of nature. I do not argue that this is (the best) inspiration for all. It has been said that the prime place of intellect in the West is the city; in India there is a tradition of the forest sage. I am not making a case that one is better. Western knowledge tends to the practical. India’s thinkers, especially the forest seekers, focused on experience and Human Condition. I have found the ‘forest’ to be inspiration but more. In my experience it is a place of essential meaning and connection to Meaning 114

I have cultivated breadth and depth of experience and learning. In the beginning I accepted the ideas and meanings of others. Education, self and formal, includes learning the process of discovery and one approach is the absorption of the ideas and experience of others. This is important because (a) one becomes immersed in culture and need not recreate what is already known (b) one is then ready to work on the boundary between the known ideas and world and the unknown. In the shadow region, meanings are not given and one is simultaneously searching in Being and Meaning. One is but need not be hesitant to make one’s own linguistic meanings which may, in the beginning, be a halting affair. The idea that there is an authority on meaning and grammatical form has its main validity in a definite context (grammatical form owes to metaphysics as well as to local choice.) Once outside the context a give and take is required between the fixed and the fluid (of course our common culture is itself a context that has both stability and fluidity)

‘Method’ is discussed throughout the narrative. The main discussions are the following sections. For (experiments in) Transformation of Being and Identity—the section A Journey in Being, specifically in a discussion labeled Method. For ideas—section Method in metaphysics, philosophy, and logic, and Science and scientific method

The author

About this work—it may be useful to you to know something about me. In the interest of the purpose of the narrative, I restrict comment to what may be useful to it

I was born in India, have lived in the United States since 1970. Who I am reflects these origins and, of course, more

I may say something about my experiences in the order that I like them. First, my travels in wild places and, equally, my friends and general immersion in ideas. Then, perhaps equal in their appeal, my work in a restaurant business and in psychiatric care. Then my technical background—a bachelors degree in engineering and a masters equivalent in mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, and a doctoral degree in engineering(University of Delaware.) The PhD emphasized mathematics and computation. As part of that program I took all the PhD level courses in theoretical physics and many of the PhD level courses in mathematics. I have taught, done research, and done some consulting in the field of engineering mechanics and applied mathematics. My research had begun to attract attention from within and outside of the United States. However, my academic interest was inevitably drawn back to ideas that may be roughly described as but perhaps not limited to philosophy

I am not a philosopher and do not want to think of myself as one. This is because in my life the philosophical tradition of thought is a tool. It is however, not merely a tool because, I think, one cannot simply import the ideas of another person. For ideas to be effective they must become one’s own; one must live the ideas and live them for at least a while. I enjoy the process and living of thought that may be labeled philosophical but philosophy could never be who I am—or my only or greatest love and this is not because of any intrinsic limit to philosophy but because I want to live ideas but have always wanted to live more than ideas: to live Being or, more precisely, to live in fullness of Being

Here I sign off and hope that we may talk one day—perhaps over a glass of wine—to our mutual enjoyment and benefit—Anil Mitra, Arcata, California, December 13, 2010

Notes

1 Capitalization, Definitions, Links, and Abbreviations. In this work non-standard Capitalization generally signifies that the term is used with a specific meaning. Definitions are found in the section Demonstration of the Fundamental Principle of Metaphysics and the Glossary. References or Links that are internal to this web page are italicized while external links are underlined. Footnote references are written in superscript form:214. In the Internet version of this document it has been found convenient to repeat some footnotes rather than to refer back to a previous footnote. f8 is a reference to footnote 8

2 The concept of metaphysics in this narrative is, roughly, knowledge of things as they are. In this work, interest is in all things—i.e. the Universe. The history of thought from the Greek philosophers to today raises many concerns about the nature and possibility of metaphysics—The nature and possibility of metaphysics, elaborates and responds to the concerns. The highway of metaphysical thought is littered with dead even if fruitful metaphysical systems—especially the grand speculative systems of nineteenth century European philosophy. It will be seen that the present metaphysics is not just another speculative system

A word of caution—a popular modern use sees metaphysics as study of the occult; this is not the use of the term metaphysics in this work. Here, metaphysics will turn out to be direct, clear, and transparent or public knowledge and its demonstrated consequences

3 I could say experience, imagination, and reason. However, the modes of reason of the narrative have base in experience and imagination is a mode of experience. I should add that imagination does not equate to mere speculation but to creative thought subject to a ‘sieve’ of reason and experience. In general creation is projection and a sieve may improve confidence but does not completely eliminate the hypothetical aspect. The developments show how this element is eliminated in the development of the metaphysics

4 This metaphysics is shown to be ultimate in the following ways. First, it is demonstrated—this eliminates problems of foundation. Second it is demonstrated in terms of Being and since it employs a concept of Being as that which exists, all things must fall under it. Third, it shows that Being has no limits and, particularly, that the variety of Being is without limit

5 This includes studies of the Human Being, Society, Value, Civilization, and detailed information that may be useful in the ‘journey in the worlds.’ See http://www.horizons-2000.org for details online; f7 has additional information

6 Title for this special private circulation

7 Visit the Journey in Being site http://www.horizons-2000.org for detailed information. The essay links are in the right column of the home page for the site. A significantly longer version of this work, Journey in Being - 2010 - recent - detailed, contains details topics here omitted or brief. The Archive has links to recent and old essays and supplements

8 Visit the Journey in Being site http://www.horizons-2000.org for contact information

9 The traditional meaning may be derived from the present meaning and the traditional and modern logics fall under it

10 In this use passion includes a range of connotation. The most obvious sense is that of a connection of wonder to the world and knowing the world. What might be experienced as sacrifice without it is engaged commitment. It makes the idea of external reward, not irrelevant, but relevant in a good way: one appreciates appreciation as recognition by another without depending on it. Even under passion a labor may occasionally feel laborious. Commitment then sustains, transforms, and guides work

11 Here, intuition used to refer to what may be sensed but not explicitly seen. Later it is used in a philosophical sense in which Intuition the remarkable ability to perceive common Objects in common ways, e.g. in terms of space and time. That such perception requires complex neural processing at a level below consciousness is part of what makes it remarkable

12 The chemistry teacher, Mr. Varma, was adequate but I preferred to read chemistry books of my choosing while he lectured …’ My high school results in chemistry were the best till that time (1963.) I became an excellent student—on graduation I was awarded the prize for highest performance and in the competitive entrance exam to the Indian Institutes of Technology I placed in the top 0.1%. The Indian Institutes of Technology are Schools with University status. I was admitted to the institute at Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. This school is perennially evaluated as among India’s top two or three (often the top) engineering schools

13 Adventures of Ideas, published in 1933, is the title of a book by Alfred North Whitehead who lived from 1861 to 1947. This book was useful to me in sharpening my conception of law after the concept had been used in the development of the metaphysics

14 Evolution in Action, 1953, Julian Huxley (1887-1975)

15 St. Xavier’s High School, Hazaribagh, Bihar, India

16 In What Evolution Is, 2001, Ernst Mayr, 1904-2005, provides a robust defense of the components of the theory of evolution. The book targets non-specialists. Mayr discusses positive arguments for evolution but does not discuss arguments against evolution because, as he says, there are many authors who do and Mayr provides references. In Toward a New Philosophy of Biology, 1988, Mayr provides philosophical foundations for evolutionary ideas. Mayr was one of the creators of the new synthesis of evolutionary biology and is commonly regarded as one of the great biologists of the twentieth century. For further discussion see Some notes on the theory of evolution

17 The word ‘spiritual’ has so many connotations that I hesitate to use it. If all Being is interconnected spirituality, I think, must have something to do with relationship to all Being including hidden aspects of oneself. The metaphysics that I develop later confirms this. This meaning is close to what I mean by Religion in an ideal sense. There are many ways of spirituality. Which way shall one choose? I am a traveler and therefore do not recommend. Nature is significant to me. Later, I share some aspects of what I have found catalytic

18 ‘Being’ has many uses and shades of meaning, some religious, some metaphysical, and others mundane. The present meaning of Being will emerge with reflection

19 Here is my general reading list—Bibliographies for Evolution and Design (http://www.horizons-2000.org/6. Evolution and design/Bibliographies/1 Topical/general bibliography.html.) And a more specialized list Bibliography for Science and Mathematics (http://www.horizons-2000.org/6. Evolution and design/Bibliographies/1 Topical/Bibliography, math, science.html)

20 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

21 Karl Popper, 1902-1994, had the greatest influence. I felt sympathy with his Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1959 (German edition Logic der Forschung, 1934.) I had had evolutionary ideas regarding knowledge and its process and acceptance. The philosophy of an era is influenced by the science of that time (or recent time)

22 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

23 It is natural that the age of reason should substitute epistemic or ideal elements and that analytic thought should substitute linguistic elements as paradigms of Being. It is similarly natural that modern cognitivism, one of whose sources is computation, should substitute computational elements and, consequently, to see mind as inhabiting any system that is functionally equivalent to an actual mind

24 Whiteheadf13 attributes to the Greek philosopher Plato, 428/427-348/327 BC, the following quote ‘and I hold that the definition of being is simply power;’ in Sophist, 247, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns editors, 1961, has the following words ‘I am proposing as a mark to distinguish real things that they are nothing but power’

25 Metaphysics, Book A, by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, 384-322 BC

26 Sein und Zeit, 1927, by Martin Heidegger, 1889-1976; translated into English as Being and Time, 1962, by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson; re-translated, 1996, by Joan Stambaugh. Condemned for his involvement in the National Socialism (Nazi Party) and controversial for his philosophy, Heidegger is regarded as one of the most influential twentieth century European (continental) philosophers

27 The Problems of Mind and Consciousness (http://www.horizons-2000.org/Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness.html)

28 Gravitational field energy can be negative—i.e. if zero when all particles have infinite separation. It follows that creation of a cosmos from nothing does not necessarily violate the principle of conservation of energy

29 The ‘horizontal figure eight,’ ¥, is a symbol for infinity

30 The source of the insights remains incompletely clear to me—i.e., it was not the result of clearly linear or explicit thought. Perhaps it was ‘random,’ perhaps I intuited that it would provide the desired result, and perhaps it was part random, part intuition. The following speculation is interesting. Consider a region of the world that is occupied by matter and has an effective space, time grid. We think: that region is not a vacuum. But we can also think: it is a vacuum or Void and or plus the matter and space, time grid. This, though speculative at this point in the narrative, will be seen to be real in terms of the metaphysics developed later

31 It is held to be impossible because it is held that it cannot be known in Experience. While the insights regarding law, Void, and Universe provide the key ideas in the development, it must and shall also be shown that the root concepts of the metaphysics are known in Experience

32 The elements of every earlier paradigm entertained and left behind became parts of a large and useful toolkit of ideas to be used in imaginative understanding and explanation (to be subject, of course, to critical treatment)

33 What is new here is (1) The demonstration that Being has no limits (2) The method of demonstration whose further development opens up significant considerations regarding Logic and method (3) The confidence from and tools of the demonstration that result in elaboration of the metaphysics and the immense wealth of application that follows. The idea that Being has no limits has occurred in the past and been presented as plausible or to justify some other conclusion. However, lacking proof, the idea lacks intrinsic power as well as power of conviction; even the meaning of the idea is not clear without proof; and it is the proof that makes possible the variant forms

In The Great Chain of Being, 1936, A.O. Lovejoy, traced the ‘principle of plenitude, back to Aristotle. According to this principle Whatever can happen will happen. This idea is clearly related to the idea that Being has no limits but the meaning of ‘can happen’ is not clear and it is only proof, I think, that can give it clarity and definiteness and power. It is proof as presented in this narrative that is transformative of metaphysics from idle even if creative opinion to definite and powerful metaphysics to which application of the term knowledge, in Plato’s sense as contrasted to opinion, is justified. Certainly, the power of the principle as manifest in the literature appears to be infinitesimal in relation to the power of the present development. My sources of the fundamental principle of metaphysics have been my own reflection as chronicled above

34 Extension and Duration are capitalized because they are used in the sense of spatial and temporal difference but without the detail of description that would permit knowledge of them to have distortion. The word extension, without capitalization, will refer to linguistic extension defined later

35 In terms introduced later, absurdity and error—factual or logical—are associated with (mind-like) second order Being but not with (matter-like) first order Being

36 Capitalized to distinguish it from what is called logic

37 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

38 In this sentence, ‘is’ is used trans-temporally. The idea of eternal recurrence is found in Indian philosophy, ancient Egypt, writing of the Pythagoreans and Stoics and of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900. I have found Nietzsche’s writing to be an excellent combination of insight in to human being and critical thought. It is true that he was given to excess in judgment. I think his reputation as anti-Semitic is not due to what Nietzsche wrote but the use of his writing (after he was dead.) Nietzsche was angered by the anti-Semitism of his time. It is true, though, that his writing reveals an ignorant anti-female bias

39 ‘Common sense’ is a vague term so to clarify I use the term reflective common sense or common sense that is imaginative and self-critical. The word ‘science’ is sometimes used as a mantra and I should perhaps add that by science I mean reflective science. Simple reflection reveals that reflective ‘anything’ should be empirical and critical where to be critical is to attempt to ensure that all relevant criteria are met. Such criteria may include internal coherence, agreement with past and present experience and prediction of future events

40 Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804. In his Critique of Pure Reason, 1781. See On intuition in metaphysics

41 In The Heart of the World: A Journey to Tibet’s Lost Paradise, 2004, which I read in 2009 and which today sits on my coffee table and frequently finds itself in the dark of my backpack, Ian Baker writes of an inner-outer connection of psyche and place. Here is one avenue…

42 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

43 Lateral in terms of variety, and ‘Vertical’ in terms of Identity and Integration

44 See http://www.horizons-2000.org for greater detail online that I thought to omit here and report in a second volume or supplement upon significant development; f7 has additional information

45 Here are some keywords: Understanding, value, involvement, transformation of and via civilization, destiny, social world

46 Developed as the topics Pure Being and History in longer online versions of the narrative—see http://www.horizons-2000.org for details online; f7 has additional information

47 Ludwig Wittgenstein,1889-1951f49

48 I take it that the aim of religion is living in andor realization of truth at a high level—and relations to everyday life. Realization is a process so ‘higher’ and ‘highest’ are implicit in ‘high’ whose meaning is part of religious discovery. Discussion continues in Notes on Religion and its practice

49 In ‘shown’ versus ‘said’ I am using the terms of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus first published in German in 1921 and later translated into English by C. K. Ogden, 1922, and again by David Pears and Brian McGuinness in 1961. What I mean by ‘shown rather than said’ is that the endless variety of positive and negative Being must be (and will be lived and may be lived well but cannot be lived without pain) and cannot be written down except in very broad and outline terms

50 Two problems of the concept of Existence takes a new approach to resolution of well known issues

51 If you hold that not all language elements ‘refer’ you may regard extension as the range of use. I think that provided that the idea of the Object is interpreted with sufficient generality, all valid linguistic elements have reference (or, in a limited or sub-metaphysical context, the possibility of reference.) For further discussion, refer to the discussion of Objects in Issues of classical and modern metaphysics

52 In The Being of Experience and the External world, the ‘reality of the world’ is demonstrated. Although this demonstration may be desirable, it is not necessary to demonstrate the richness of Experience for that is already in Experience even if all is illusion

53 This is why systems of mathematics may begin with undefined terms, unproved axioms, and rules of proof that are not entirely proved

54 There is Experience and Experience is (an aspect of) Being. This parallels Descartes’ thought below

55 René Descartes, 1596-1650, at the end of a process of doubt, asserted ‘I think therefore I am’ (‘Cogito ergo sum’) is one place to begin a discussion of Existence and the idea of an External world. Another place is the thought of the Indian philosopher Adi Samkara, c. 788 to 821 CE/AD, in his commentaries formulating the doctrines of Advaita Vedanta. Discussion is taken up in The Being of Experience and the External world

56 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

57 Error in the sense of the erroneous assertion of a fact may be possible only for a mind that is capable of having factual knowledge—the necessary neurological development and freedom for such capability. However, if we think of the effect in one element of Being due to a second as ‘knowledge’ in the first element of the second, then it is clear that it is not given that such knowledge is faithful or complete knowing

58 See http://www.horizons-2000.org for details online; f7 has additional information. I plan to later publish print versions that develop details that are abbreviated here, elaborate the metaphysics, develop applications that are secondary to the main narrative (the journey) that will include the synthesis of the metaphysical system with our local sciences and traditions (rough developments are available online f7.) It is clear that any metaphysical system may have implications for the entire range of human knowledge and endeavor; it is perhaps inevitable that the one and only true metaphysical system should have such a range of application. It may be an ambitious project to develop and publish application over such a range (it would be impossible for me to develop all possible applications.) However, this range of applications has already been developed—in some disciplines / endeavors only in sketch form. It remains to elaborate and refine. Given practical finitude, I am not sure that I have the resources for this project; given other interests, only time will tell whether I will have an intention for the full project

59 A default though often tacit modern view is to equate Universe to the physical or empirical universe. In this work phrases such as ‘parallel universe’ and ‘multiple universe’ have no significance: they employ a different meaning of the term ‘universe.’ The philosopher Johannes Scotus Eriugena, about 815 to about 877 CE / AD, conceived the Universe as everything that exists and everything that does not exist. He used ‘exists’ in the atemporal sense. It follows from the metaphysics that his definition of ‘Universe’ and the present conception refer to the same Object

60 The foundation of the metaphysics was earlier seen to lie in Experience. This now becomes apparent

61 The term ‘as if’ is used a number of times in the narrative. The general use is as follows. There are a various questions that are generally regarded as having at least some degree of openness. Is there a God? A supremely powerful God, a God the Creator? Are there substances—mind or matter and so on that are the constitution of the world? Are space and time relative or absolute? Even such questions have been regarded as open, the Universal metaphysics determines a definite answer. In a given cosmos, however, (1) The remainder of the Universe may have an effect on the cosmos that is contrary to what obtains in the Universe as a whole and (2) Inhabitants may have not detected a universe outside their cosmos or an effect from the distant universe. It may therefore seem to the inhabitants that there is a universal behavior that is contrary to what obtains as Universal

The German philosopher, Hans Vaihinger, 1852-1933, developed a philosophy of ‘as if’ in Philosophie des Als Ob (Philosophy of As If), 1911 (written more than thirty years earlier.) He argued that we cannot know the reality of the world and so construct thought which we assume matches reality and may seem to match reality and we think and behave as if our models of thought match the world. The similarity the present reflections on ‘as if’ are clear. An important difference is that in the present case we can know the underlying reality by one approach, the Universal metaphysics, but do not know it (yet) via our sciences and everyday experience

62 There are other uses of these terms

63 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

64 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

65 This suggests that there are no fully unmanifest states—and suggests a way to continuity of identity across states of extreme dissolution. For a discussion see Continuity of identity across unmanifest states

66 The idea of minimally manifest states is analogous to the non-emptiness of the quantum vacuum and to the fact that bound quantum systems have a state of minimum energy greater than zero

67 It is also true that from any given state, every state will follow. The Universe may be said to be absolutely deterministic in this non-traditional atemporal sense of ‘determinism’

68 See A discussion of the constitution of Being and the nature of mind

69 That the perfect Objects are known perfectly and directly while the limitless variety of other Objects are known perfectly but indirectly corresponds roughly to the distinction of general versus special metaphysics

70 Similar considerations show the nature and reality Universals

71 The source of adaptation has not been specified—see Adaptation, Evolution, and Mind

72 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

73 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

74 Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book Z

75 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

76 In A metaphysic of experience the pure and Applied metaphysics are interpreted as a metaphysic of experience

77 Thales of Miletus, about 624-546 BC, posited that the world started from water. Today, we may regard this idea as simplistic. I imagine that Thales may himself have found the idea simple. However, the idea has depth in that (a) it is a break from prior religious metaphysics founded in elements not known to be in ‘this world,’ (b) precisely in that it is simple, (c) in that modern science and metaphysics may be traced back to it, and (d) one way of advance is precisely that of positing something and improving upon it

78 Descartesf98

79 Gottlob Frege, 1848-1925, Foundations of Arithmetic, 1884

80 Relations among the pairs concept-Object, sense-reference, intension-extension, connotation-denotation are not further explored at present. Note also that linguistic element-concept is a case of concept

81 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

82 This raises the question What is pure or perfect knowledge? Is it to be defined in ‘pure’ or epistemic terms? Or should values be allowed to enter into the conception of such knowledge? For example, the Universal metaphysics suggests that in realization we may be advised to relinquish the highest purity that is locally possible. If we allow this to affect our concept of purity then in a value sense, the practical is pure. But, we now wonder whether the idea of ‘value’ lacks ‘objectivity’ and whether it is perhaps arbitrary projection. Universal metaphysics shows that in the present case it reflects understanding of the way the Universe is! Another issue arises. Is not any insistence on purity and perfection in knowledge itself a value? My response is it may be but that depends on the case. In the case of the Universal metaphysics perfection is given and therefore insistence is not necessary; in some cases perfection is not possible and therefore any insistence would be absurd; in some cases we do not know whether perfection is possible and in such cases a degree of judgment would enter into the question of insistence

83 Discussed in Discovery and justification

84 Gottfried Leibniz, 1646-1716, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and, in the twentieth century, Saul Kripke, Alvin Plantinga, David Lewis and others

85 It may occasionally be useful to work with a system with known contradictions so as to learn how to remove contradiction, to learn about the nature of contradiction, or to see whether such systems may be useful (there would have to be a way to avoid the explosive character of such systems for in traditional logic a single contradiction makes all assertions true.) Generally, however, mathematical systems are known or hoped to be consistent and an illogical system would be one that we think or hope to be consistent but that has a hidden contradiction

86 Michael J. Balick and Paul Alan Cox, Plants, People, and Culture, 1996

87 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

88 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

89 Philosophical Investigations, published in 1953, after Wittgenstein’s death by translation by G.E.M. Anscombe from the unfinished manuscript

90 Alfred Russell Wallace, 1823-1913, independently proposed a theory of evolution by natural selection in On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type, 1858. Darwin had worked out a similar theory but had not published his ideas. The publication of Wallace’s work prompted Darwin to publish his ideas (below.) Because Darwin had had his main ideas quite a few years earlier, both Darwin and Wallace are credited with the theory of natural selection. Some secondary writers have made an issue of the affair and have tried to show that Wallace deserves credit over Darwin. The consensus appears to be that this is not true. The question has historical interest but little real scientific interest

91 Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, published his main work, On the Origin of the Species, in 1859. He provided compelling evidence for evolution and presented a reasonable theory of how evolution occurs. His arguments were incomplete even though significantly correct and inspired. That there are gaps in his system of explanation has been taken as an argument against both evolution and its theory. However, later generations completed the system of explanation in what is called the new synthesis

92 http://www.horizons-2000.org. See f7 for further detail

93 A note on analytic philosophy may help avoid potential confusion regarding the concept of intuition in philosophy

94 The system categories as space, time, and cause was an extraction from a 12-fold system of Kant due to the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860, in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, published in 1818, and translated to English as The World As Will and Idea,, by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, 1883-1886, and, again, as The world as will and representation, E.F.J. Payne, 1958

95 See On the question of the logical necessity of science

96 The traditional author of Bhagavad-Gita is Vyasa but the author or authors are not known with certainty. The date of writing is also uncertain. In John Brockington, The Sanskrit Epics, 1998, argues that it can be placed in the first century CE (earlier dating reckoned the writing to have been pre-Christian.) The storyline of the Gita is that of a war between cousins, the Pandavas and their cousins, the Kauravas, on the field of Kurukshetra, which is north of modern Delhi in India. The Prince Arjuna of the Pandavas trembles at the thought of having to fight and kill relatives. This scene is the occasion for poetic but insightful development of metaphysics and ethics. The work has been held in high esteem in India and in Europe and by the American writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. One of the sources of inspiration of Mohandas K. Gandhi was the writing of Thoreau. Historians write that the story corresponds to an intertribal war dated variously between 6000 BCE and 550 BCE. The backdrop of war is often held to be allegory. I think that there is also value to regarding the story as real. That implies no ethical judgment on war. The thought is that we are occasionally faced with situations that are horrible with regard to both internal and external conflict. There is a relationship between how one faces one aspect of the conflict and the other

97 Tenzin Gyatso, the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet

98 René Descartes, 1596 to 1650, at the end of a process of doubt, asserted ‘I think therefore I am’ (‘Cogito ergo sum.’) The phrase ‘Cogito ergo sum’ appears in Descartes’ Discourse on Method, 1637. In the ‘therefore’ or ‘ergo’ of the quote Descartes did not intend to appeal to inference but meant that thinking is necessarily a mark of Being. In the later Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641, Descartes wrote ‘that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.’ It has been pointed out that Descartes assumed that the thought is possessed by an ‘I.’ While this criticism may be true, Descartes’ formulation it is easily modified to ‘Experience is an essential given or necessary mark of Being’ and we owe some debt to Descartes for this thought and for the use of doubt

99 Adi Samkara, about 788 to 821 CE/AD, describes Experience as the essential given in the opening paragraphs of some commentaries formulating the doctrines of Advaita Vedanta (questions of authorship remain incompletely established)

100 Computer generated imagery

101 Isaac Newton, 1643-1727, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 1687, translated into English, Andrew Motte, 1729, Mathematical Principles Of Natural Philosophy, and again, preceded by criticisms by I Bernard Cohen of the first translation, as Isaac Newton: The Principia, Mathematical principles of natural philosophy, a new translation,, I Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, 1999

102 Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, Feldgleichungen der Gravitation (The Field Equations of Gravitation—i.e. Einstein’s ‘General Theory of Relativity’) of 1915

103 James Clerk Maxwell, 1831-1879, A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, 1865. Maxwell’s development showed that electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light thus revealing light as an electromagnetic wave; later microwaves, infrared, light, ultraviolet, x-rays and gamma rays were all seen to be electromagnetic waves (here listed in order of increasing frequency)

104 Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, 1935, Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?

105 John S. Bell, 1928-1990, On the problem of hidden variables in quantum mechanics, 1966

106 Baruch (later Benedict) Spinoza, 1632-1677, Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata (Ethics Demonstrated in Geometrical Order,) published in 1677 after Spinoza’s death

107 The problem is considered hard because of conceptual difficulties, actual or perceived, in understanding consciousness in relation to materialism or physicalism. The conceptual problem is contrasted to problems of scientific explanation, e.g. of showing how a perceptual image arises, which may be difficult in fact but do not face the problem of explaining the gap (again actual or perceived) between mind and matter

108 Hans Reichenbach, 1891-1953, The Philosophical Significance of the Theory of Relativity, 1922. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, particularly the article, Hans Reichenbach—Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is the source for this information

109 See the discussion on the reflexive approach in Method in metaphysics, philosophy, logic, and mathematics

110 The founders are often taken to be Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and G. E. Moore (1873-1958)

111 David Hume, 1711-1776, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, of 1748

112 See f7 for online material that elaborates contributions in detail

113 In No Exit, 1944, by Jean-Paul Sartre, 1905-1980, a character utters the famous ‘L'enfer, c'est les autres,’ usually translated “Hell is other people.” Sartre later explained ‘It simply brings out the capital importance of all other people…’ Upon hearing the quote, a friend Clinton Wadell responded ‘Other people are heaven and hell’ or, perhaps, there are heaven and hell and that is as good as it gets

114 I.e. meaning as significance to Being. The more common use in this narrative is that of linguistic meaning