notes on being

NOTES ON BEING AND KNOWLEDGE

Document status: June 4, 2003

Outdated: maintained out of interest

A number of points are interesting: in the ultimate there are no patterns from which to have exceptions

Many details have been improved and absorbed

I have gone beyond the present document in many ways and topics; some claims to this document I now consider to be weak, some in error

Essential content absorbed to and no further action needed for Journey in Being

NOTES ON BEING AND KNOWLEDGE

1. The limits of being

Existence may come from nothing / no-thing; therefore existence and its nature come into being simultaneously; existence, its nature [pattern…], and the distinctions between existence, its nature are not at all absolute. I want to see the realm of the absolute in science also as fluid

This brings me back to the sphere of the human: What is its nature and what are its limits in time, space, imagination and being? What is the limit to the contents of awareness; is there a boundary beyond which objects may be known but are not part of a mind? What are the limits of being, and knowing? There are the meditative experiments of the Yoga; and there are my experiments in being. Yoga says that we can know that Atman [= the individual soul; also = reality as known by introspection] and Brahman [= the universal; also = reality as known through the world and experience in the world; but in both cases there is no a posteriori limit on these two realities] are identical. As an example consider that the individual is part of evolution; consider that though the individual dies it also came into existence and this is a pointer to the non-absolute nature of death. This is reincarnation without absolute and determinate karma. What can I know and be in relation to these karmic possibilities?

2. Human and ultimate Being and Knowledge

Objective: find a concept of knowledge that enables a full theory of being
Problem: find a way to understand ultimate being / knowledge through proximate being and knowledge. A part of an approach is to consider the elements of Being at the most abstract level and ask what of these elements correspond to proximate knowledge

Preliminary

In which the objective is to show how the rock called reality is fluid

The history of knowledge shows that what is agreed upon as firm, even scientific, reality by most people for long periods of time can be overturned and replaced by a new view of reality. Even though seemingly paradoxical, the new ideas provide the most accurate descriptions of the world currently available

The new reality seems different but, mostly, agrees with the old reality in its own realm; the new version is valid in both the old realm and newer realms of discovery; often the new reality is useful in some cases in where the old version was inadequate even in its own realm. Thus common views are not overturned but given context

Newer ideas are esoteric because they are developed through imagination in response to the inadequacies and paradoxes of the old ideas

The history of ideas can be traced back and it is found that the seemingly esoteric realms have origins in the realm of human life... although the older systems continue to have application; the newer ideas that are more universal in application but also have novel application in immediate realms

What is the nature and what are the limits of human being?

The limits point to the ultimate!

What are the limits to human being? Examples of limits and boundaries: Are the thoughts of distinct individuals truly distinct? Are seemingly distinct persons absolutely distinct? Is the boundary called my skin, a very practical boundary, an absolute boundary? Are the boundaries called birth and death final... or is there some kind of continuity? Is the individual permanently an individual or can there be a merging with being[s] of progressively more inclusive boundaries? Does that progression lead to All Being? And if it exists at all does that identity with All Being exist, unrecognized, here-now or does it require the working out of destiny?

A key to these limits is: what do I know; how do I know what I know; and, more generally, what is knowledge? This last question is the key. Knowledge is commonly, in the secular world, in universities thought to relate to an object of knowledge. We need a broader concept of knowledge

Let us step back from our very self-centered view of what is knowledge which will not tell us anything about Being... a view, valid in its own realm, in which knowledge is something I have about the world, is right or wrong, is a picture of how the world is. How can I do that stepping back? I can imagine myself looking at the earth with its societies and ask how knowledge might have originated. I might not be able to come up with an exact account of origins and history, but I do know that there was an origin and a history. Knowledge must have played a role in the process. What do I see? Knowledge has an adaptive role! Taking one more step back in imagination look not only at the earth but also at the universe and its origin. What could be knowledge on that scale? It is relationship on the larger scale that reduces to knowledge in our world? In discovering nature of being the role of knowledge is to create ideas of being, we then live out these ideas, and learn and see what may be the outcome for our being. Knowledge as relationship, as a code for action, includes as a special case knowledge as being “about” the world… in-between knowledge “about” and belief is action i.e. the action function of knowledge

Suppose I make a hypothesis: Atman = Brahman. So I am going to imagine that I am the universe and do an experiment with my life? How so? To answer, I need imagination not just for the subject of study but also how to do the study. Guided by vision on a large scale, one begins small, with simple examples such as healing and mind, such as creative relationship and leadership [charisma] through imagination, risk and review. Look at other ideas and cultures. When it is claimed that meditation can lead to knowledge of the identity of individual with all being... what experiments were done? Put all these ideas together, synthesize and create new experiments... We evolve a hierarchic network of ideas, vision, limits, actions and transcendence; walking through the network in a dynamic way -vision of the path is created as we walk and learn- we approach the one goal. This is a sketch of how it will work

3. On Being and Knowledge

We saw through examples from the history of knowledge that what was considered by canon to be absolutely known could be replaced by a new canon

Therefore, if our understanding of Being is insufficient to explain and understand the facts of Being - why we are here, where we come from, why is there something rather than nothing, how mind arises from matter, the relationship between our being and ultimate Being - it may be that the canonical understanding of Being is insufficient

What is the source of the limit of understanding of Being? It is in the nature of knowledge and experience or experiment

A first concept of knowledge is that it corresponds in some sense to the real. Let us step back from positing a concept and ask about the nature of knowledge rather than inquiring directly “What is knowledge?”

Already, the individual examples from the history of knowledge show that knowledge proceeds in successive degrees of approximation of successively wider ranges of application. Combine this with the idea that knowledge originates as a function rather than an institution and we see knowledge as adaptation. Knowledge, though subjectively about understanding, is also objectively about action. This is the first step back from the subjective experience of knowledge

The second step back comes from combining the origin of knowledge in action and in growth of being. Knowledge is an adaptive relationship of being

4. On knowledge, belief and experience

An event has happened everyday at dawn. Will it certainly happen tomorrow at dawn? The answer is “no.” At dawn tomorrow, the event is “probable¹ but not certain.” This is one of the classic problems of philosophy - the problem of induction - that enlightens us about the nature of knowledge. When it comes to the question of truth, it is not neurotic to doubt every day regularities because we learn and grow from that doubt. The purpose of doubting every day truths is not so much to show their falsity as to show their limits... and not so much to show limits to particular truths but to show the nature of truth

Thus truth is not and cannot be certainty. Rather, truth is knowledge of general patterns that may have exceptions. The exceptions are not meaningful on a day to day basis but have large and profound consequences on a larger scale. There are many examples from science -relativity, quantum mechanics, and the theory of evolution… I do not want to rehash that story here

This is a low-level characterization of truth, a high-level concept. Instead, the essential nature of truth lies in the balance between structure and change - between the known and the unknown

I want to consider an extreme example. Consider the assertion “Ultimate being is open to individual being.” I do not want to do magic with words. The assertion means what it says. Is it true? What would its truth mean - “becoming ultimate” cannot be a regular occurrence since its truth would not seem to be of the type of knowledge of a pattern with possible exceptions. Belief as an action principle makes for realization! A distinction between belief and knowledge exists only in the realm of the established, i.e., in the present and the past; for the future, that distinction exists only so far as the future or its patterns [laws and so on] are regarded as established. As one individual I may take certain risks with my own life; this does not require all persons to take those risks. There is some “practical” reason for taking risks of the kind implied by a belief that “Ultimate being is open to individual being.” In so far as it is risk it is risking my life rather than risking my death. But, I now want to turn to reasons for the belief

Review the nature of knowledge described above - truth is “knowledge of general patterns that may have exceptions.” This was a working concept of knowledge. If we demand that our knowledge [of regularities and patterns and not mere facts - facts seem to be always something that has happened] be certain, then we have no knowledge and become quite neurotic. So, to repeat, knowledge is knowledge of general patterns that may have exceptions. But, apply this to the concept or idea of knowledge itself. There are exceptions to the idea that knowledge has exceptions; this may follow even though the original statement was not intended to be a meta-statement. When does knowledge not have exceptions? Firstly, when knowledge is an action principle; the idea of knowledge as representing facts or patterns is one conception, and considering the real nature of our navigation of reality, it is not at all the only conception of knowledge as something that enables navigation, nor is it an ultimate conception. Secondly, in the realm of ultimates, e.g. possible destinations of spirit and consciousness, as hinted above, there are no patterns from which to have exceptions

5. The ontological hypothesis: individual being can know and become all Being

Construction of all Being... the following issues arise:

The first issue is one of meaning. What does it mean to know and become all? If restriction is made to the present form, an appropriate significance must be attached to “knowledge” so that it is not interpreted as a mere accumulation. In the “present” form, the question “what is knowledge” is seen to depend, in contrast to some operational or instrumental form such as “justified true belief”, upon value[s]. In the ultimate form knowledge is an adaptive or meshing relationship of Being. Although value free at the ultimate level, at the present level value[s] are about relationship

The second issue is of possibility. A consideration of the conditions of creation reveals a necessarily indeterministic universe² in which all creation [and therefore an individual] is equivalent to nothing or nothingness; this follows from the emergence of novelty. Thus no-thing = [individual] being = All Being. At this level I can ask, “What is knowledge from the point of view of the universe as a whole?” Knowledge is then seen as adaptation among the parts of the universe; “adaptation” is a somewhat valuational term and so an alternative is that Knowledge is the dynamic relationship among the parts of the world

The third issue is one of probability. Granted the possibility of an individual becoming all being... is not the probability infinitesimal? There are three key issues in a determination of probability. First, that value of the enterprise of construction of all Being is more relevant than probability; value is measured roughly as the product of a large end value [all Being] and a small probability. Second, in an action [adaptive] formulation of knowledge, an assertion is a step in the creation of the world. Third, the construction of all Being does not ignore the here-now but is through the here-now

The fourth issue is of the mode and means or approach. It is through ideas [as in the Upanishadic formula Atman = Brahman] in interaction with the experience, living out, creations, constructions, and transformations of individual being

The fifth issue is of the value - what is the intrinsic or process value of the construction? This is answered by the way of being

The sixth issue is the relationship of the individual to the group in a search for ultimate being. It is in human nature to find meaning and commitment in the context of individuality and of groups

Footnotes

1. As a statement about the world, a probability only makes sense against assumed background feature such as regularity

2. An indeterministic universe allows the emergence of structure from no-thing and, given structure, it allows for growth of structure i.e. the layering of structure upon structure. This occurs as follows. Spontaneous novel eruptions or variations in structure are characteristic of an indeterministic universe whether populated with entities or not. This is indeterminism but is also necessary for without such variations the universe, populated or not, would be deterministic. But not all novel variations persist. Only those structures that are relatively stable have an endurance that exceeds transience. Actually there are two tautologies in the foregoing analysis. First, a universe is indeterministic if and only if there are novel variations, i.e. variations that are not determined by what came before. Second, relative stability is structure that exceeds transience. But our universe contains novelty and relative stability and therefore it is an indeterministic and structured universe. At the human level choice and creation are forms of generation of novelty