Now > (i) method and content as one (ii) “This aspect of meaning is good for TWB at present, other aspects such as ‘use’ may be incorporated and integrated later.

Metaphysics > the significant universe

On design and planning

Minimize plans in all site docs > paste special to design and planning.

Sources to go to design and planning organized by division.

How

General

Minimal; do it.

Top ® down

1. Outline (improve titles later)

2. Fill in (decide secondary content such as notation while doing this).

Conventions etc., on the go; rethink / rework ‘Truth’ and ‘Assertion’ styles.

New outline – rational, then import axiomatic to new outline as axiomatic.

Rethink

Pathways

Styles

Definition – Alt + F.

Truth – Alt + Ctrl + Shift + T.

Assertion – Alt + Shift + A

Main-mini – Ctrl + 9

Main-mini-list – Alt + Ctrl + ;

How to revise a document or part of a document

1. Go through the document, writing down the main points.

2. Note repetition.

3. Collect together the main points, so as to eliminate inessential repetition.

4. Write out the main points, then order them.

5. Rewrite.

The Way of Being

Notation

Abbreviations

TWB – The Way of Being.

TM – The real metaphysics; the system of knowledge instrumental to realizing the ultimate.

IM – The ideal metaphysics; the abstracted, perfect side of TM.

fp – The fundamental principle (of metaphysics); the proven assertion that the universe is the realization of the greatest possibility.

Definitions – Numbered items that introduce concepts. Though they resemble elements of an abstract axiomatic system, their function includes to point to the real (thus, the definitions are more than just specifications of concepts and unless what they point to is manifestly real, its reality must be demonstrated); how they perform this function is explained in the introduction and worked out in detail, later. Definitions are formal or informal according to whether they are in the formal or informal parts of the work. Material in (parentheses) is elaboration or commentary.

Assertions – Statements asserted as true on the basis of argument – informal; meta, e.g., about the formal development (method or content); and comments.

Truths – Statements whose truth is either manifest or derived from manifest truths. They include what could be called ‘axioms’, ‘postulates’, or ‘theorems’. As will be seen, it is inherent in the development that method, foundation, and further content emerge together and therefore definition, axiom, and postulate intersect.

Uses of terms—new and variant

Be-ing – The word ‘Being’ will be used as abstract in the sense that essential distortion has been removed from the concept, which is a strength in that it empowers precision. However, the abstraction also removes the depth and ineffability that is powerful in historical use of ‘being’. Thus, a term to connote what has been lost in abstraction is an essential need; ‘be-ing’ will be used to provide that connotation.

Experience – this term has been used in many senses. As used in positivism, it was limited, e.g., to sense data, the point (in positivism) being that sense data is given, and the aim then was to derive all knowledge from it. An extended meaning of experience is identified and identifiable subjective mental content, including what is below conscious awareness but must, by inference, exist. Here, the use of ‘experience’ shall be (i) awareness in all its levels, kinds, and forms (ii) justified extension to the ‘root of being’ (the meaning of which shall be explained and the extension justified (iii) experience as ‘ground of being’ parallel to an ultimately abstract conception of being also as ground.

Meaning – this term has two senses in this work, (i) as in a family of meanings suggested by the terms ‘the meaning of life’, ‘significance’ or ‘importance’ (ii) concept and linguistic meaning. Both senses are important—the first as what is meaningful, e.g., why we aspire to anything at all; the second is crucial to concept development—a lack of proper understanding of it in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions results in confused and limited understanding; such an understanding is developed in the formal system. Where the use is not clear from the context the terms ‘significant-’ and ‘concept-’ or ‘linguistic-’ meaning will be used.

Unition – a term for (i) the insight that individual and universal identity are locally distinct but ultimately the same (the insight is shown to hold) (ii) knowledge pertaining to the insight and ways of realizing ultimate identity for and beginning in our world. The ultimate identity is a state of being but is also experienced as an endless process of peaking and dissolution. ‘Unition’ is a neologism whose meaning is closely related to the meaning of ‘yoga’ as it originated in what is now called South Asia, inclusive of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.

Miscellaneous notation

When a term is ~~crossed out~~, it is included to acknowledge that it is (i) strictly unnecessary but useful in the given context or (ii) that later development shows it to be unnecessary, perhaps in extended senses of preliminary conceptions.

An asterisk or star (*) marks material that is very much in process. A section marked with a star may be empty or have just an outline.

A dagger (^†) marks temporary material that will be removed from final versions.

Part 1. Into to The Way of Being

The material of ‘Into’ serves as an informal introduction. The formal system of the work appears in an account of the world.

Comment 1. Format tabs, add heading here, introduce doubt.

Preliminary

Assertion 1. In the realm of ordinary and everyday experience, our cosmos is limited. Yet this limitedness is fully consistent with the universe—the realm of the ordinary and beyond—being the realization of the greatest possibility (that we do not experience all possibilities is true as far as we do not experience the entire universe). The claim that all possibility is realized, proven later, is the fundamental principle of metaphysics (fp). In what follows, (i) the meaning of limitlessness is formalized and expressed in common terms, (ii) the limitlessness of the universe and its beings is demonstrated, and (iii) the consequences of limitlessness are developed and shown to bear immense significance for life as it is lived now and across the unbounded realms of being.

Assertion 2. The aim of The Way of Being (TW)is the shared discovery and realization of the ultimate—arising in, oriented toward, and starting from our world.

Assertion 3. The main concepts of TW center on being and experience because (i) the use of being states simply that ‘things are what they are,’ without reference to any other foundational idea, and this very triviality makes it foundational both to the conceptual development and as a conceptual container for our experiential being and becoming; (ii) thus, being, as used here, is trivial compared with its use in existentialist philosophy, but, as just noted, this is a strength, and what might otherwise be lost is assigned to ‘be-ing,’ which is within being rather than of it; (iii) in summary, the present use of ‘being’ avoids the imprecision of its use in existentialist philosophy while preserving its depth; and (iv) experience is central as the ~~effective~~ place and fact of our being, our reason, and the ‘meaning of our lives’.

What is The Way of Being

Definition 1. The Way of Being (TWB) is (i) an attitude that sees our present world and its cultural traditions as transitional, (ii) a system of knowledge—‘the real metaphysics’ (TM)—instrumental to realizing the ultimate, perfect in its effectiveness and the best to be had while we remain limited and which changes in interaction with change in our being, and (iii) a way (‘pathways’) to the ultimate that begins in our world and emphasizes the world, the ultimate, and the process.

Assertion 4. The real metaphysics (TM) is based on well-founded concepts as explained in foundational issues, below. In the development, the concepts cluster around (i) being as precisely known, inclusive, and neutral (and so of perfect and potentially universal application, that is free of slant) (ii) experience which is grounding of being and, particularly, of our being. While most of the terms for the concepts are common and often lack a single use, it is critical to the development to follow the meanings as specified in the definitions and, further, that the system of terms constitute a system that has system-meaning that captures and is designed to capture the form and process of the universe.

Assertion 5. The cluster of concepts did not arise at once but in stages via conceptual trial and error: (a) a rough stage in which I experimented with materialism, evolutionism, idealism, and physicalism, before settling on being and experience for their neutrality and foundational character (b) a stage of selecting and fine-tuning the cluster of concepts (c) a final but still ongoing stage in which I recognize the system—the cluster—as adequate to a sufficiently precise and complete metaphysics. Thus, the origins of TM are in my experience and reflection and, via reading, in the history of thought. Similarly, the pathways, are also based on my exploration and reading in what might be called ‘experiments in being’, a mix of philosophical resources, and traditional pathways, both east and west.

Assertion 6. TM has two sides: (i) a perfect side, ‘the ideal metaphysics’ (IM), formed by deploying abstracted versions of the concepts—i.e., by removing distortable detail from the concepts, and so leaving concepts and detail free of distortion, and (ii) pragmatic knowledge. IM is perfect and shows the universe to be ultimate and limitless. It points to the ultimate, but, being a framework, it requires a complement for effectiveness, namely pragmatic knowledge, and its ongoing process of discovery. Though pragmatic knowledge is subject to imperfection, the union of the two sides is the most effective instrument we possess for realizing the ultimate and for advancing toward that realization. Because IM provides perfect orientation and pragmatic knowledge provides the best means available under limitedness, their union is the uniquely maximal instrument for realization. It is in this value sense that TM is perfect.

Founding The Way of Being

Comment 2. Issue of abstraction, inclusivity, and neutrality.

On illusion and its implications for the nature of the real

That there is some illusion in our perception, thought, and sense of what is real and important is not doubted.

But do we know what is real at all or is ‘everything illusion’? If the latter were true, we could not know it, for it too would be illusory.

Some impressions of what is known must be real, while others are illusory.

But there is a presumption behind the idea of illusion. It is the common—though not universal—view of knowing as a picture of the real, in some ways a misdirection. Rather, we should perhaps look at the entire seeming picture of our process in the world—knowing, valuing, and acting—from the outside, as it were, and observe that there are impressions of the process to which we give the names ‘knowledge’, ‘value’ (ethical, aesthetic, and meaningful as in the family of senses surrounding the meaning of life), and intentional and choice based ‘action’, but which are not as definite as we commonly think they are.

That is, we are perhaps reifying our names.

Yet our naming is not mere reification; it arises from and points to something real.

The giving of names is not the end of how meaning emerges—the emergence is an interaction between the sense of meaning, naming, use or practice, and formalization (which except when – where – it is shown otherwise cannot be said to be complete).

Whether our names reach the real, and whether knowing can be disentangled from the real, cannot be clearly or satisfactorily resolved without a picture of the world that has some truth and some completeness. Furthermore, such a picture should account for the relation between knowledge – experience of the world – and the world itself.

The name we give to such a picture shall be ‘metaphysics’. And an adequate metaphysics will incorporate, will weave into the world picture, experience, knowledge and reason, value, and action. It will not be a ‘metaphysics of experience’ (etc., as above), but a metaphysics of the world in which experience, etc., are integral aspects.

Thus, effectively, we are saying that metaphysics is study of the real, where ‘the real’ has a broad implication, such that epistemology, reason (philosophical logic), ethics, and implications for how and what we do – and how we regard what we should do – are parts of metaphysics. While this is different from some approaches to explaining what metaphysics is, it is conceptually strong enough to incorporate the subject matters from the history of metaphysics through today, in fact and in principle – and much more (the ‘etc.’)

Foundational issues

The question of foundation is complex: what a foundation (that which is founding) and what is founded (that which is founded) are; whether it should be a thing of the same kind as what is founded, of another kind, or not a “thing” at all; what kinds of foundation are possible; and whether foundation is possible in any sense. Here I address only the present foundation.

1. Experience is given. (Following a generalized Cartesian argument, the fact of experience is indubitable and requires no further grounding.)

2. From experience, abstraction yields precise concepts and a metaphysical framework. Abstraction from experience—including ordinary language and reason—gives rise to method and content together, resulting in precise concepts such as being (and whole or universe, part or a being – plural: beings, null or the void), and relationship (reason, argument, logic). That there is being, and that universe exists is given; however, existence of the void may be questioned—and is addressed below in doubt and dialetheia. From the existence of the void, as proven later, all possibilities follow; and from all possibilities, necessity emerges as foundational. Because necessity is modal rather than a further “thing,” it avoids infinite regress.

3. Not only do method and content emerge together, TWB is self-referential or reflexive in examining its own process and cross-referential in continually checking its content against the published literature for possible error and enhancement.

4. The foundation in being allows a precise metaphysical side (IM) and a pragmatic side. Thus the epistemology is pure on one side but pragmatic on the other and this non-uniformity or non-purity is part of its strength. Similarly, the foundation in being requires no substance, but in the pragmatic side there may be as-if substance or substances. That is, an aspect of the strength of the metaphysics is that it is not pure—while it needs no substance it does not ban substance altogether. Purism in epistemology and metaphysics would be a defect.

5. Given the precise metaphysical side (IM), that we are limited makes grounding and realization cyclic rather than regressive. The grounding aspect of foundation is not an infinite regress but a helical process—iterative, deepening, and self-correcting.

6. Foundation is not in another being or substance, either remote or immanent—unless, of course, necessity is seen as an immanent being (which follows from the necessary realization under fp of all concepts, concrete or abstract).

7. But if there were nothing, the logic from the void still applies.

8. Necessity and logic are inherent in being but to talk of them we must build them up from concepts that arise in experience.

9. The universe is self-founding; the question of foundation deflates. Thinking through the previous steps reveals that the universe is self-founding, and the traditional question of foundation dissolves into the structure of being itself.

Features of the development

Here, we informally note some remarkable features of the system (TM).

Doubt and dialetheia

The crucial logical point of the demonstration of the ideal metaphysics (IM) is proof of the existence of the void.

Existence of the void – Demonstration 1. The existence and nonexistence of the void are equivalent, therefore the void may be taken to exist (two further proofs are given in the formal development).

This will of course be doubted. I have doubt, even though there is no inconsistency in the proof itself or in the foundation in being and experience. The doubt results from the claim of equivalence, the magnitude of the conclusions, and that to sharpen knowledge, doubt is essential.

My response to doubt is to suggest three options to the reader, (i) to simply accept the demonstration (ii) to accept the result but live with doubt and accept with the fundamental principle (fp) and IM as hypotheses which optimize expectation, metaphysical, existential, or both (iii) to reject the demonstration and the metaphysical system.

Option ii is the most philosophically fertile because doubt keeps the system – and action that flows from it – alive rather than dogmatic and metaphysically dead.

There is an interesting consideration regarding an assertion such as ‘the void exists and does not exist’.

Consider a contradiction such as ‘it is raining and it is not raining’. In standard propositional calculus the truth of a proposition and its negation imply that all propositions are true (and false), which is commonly called ‘explosion’. How can we defuse explosion? Consider that ‘it is raining and it is not raining’ could mean ‘it is raining in New York but not in Beijing’. For standard logic to apply, symbols for objects must be precise, e.g., one symbol : one object (such considerations pertain to the domain of applicability of any logic).

There is a literature on what are called ‘dialetheia’. A dialetheia is a true contradiction, e.g., ‘A and not A’ (meaning, it is true that A and not A), where A is a proposition. Dialetheism is the thesis that there are true dialetheia. See my article Dialetheia and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Dialetheism.

Some proponents of dialetheism hold that it obtains because (i) there are dialetheia (a strong claim if the propositions are truly contradictory) (ii) the universe is inherently contradictory (a stronger claim). Critics assert that dialetheism leads to explosion.

The ‘rain’ example suggests that there are no actual dialetheia, but only propositions that are in the form of dialetheia. In my article, linked above, I argue, tentatively, based on a variety of examples, there are no actual dialetheia. In my article, all the examples depend on artifacts such as imprecision of symbols, metaphor, and shift in meaning. There is more, though: if a proposition that has the form of a dialetheia is such that explosion is defused, call it what you will, there is nothing exceptional to it (but this does not negate the usefulness of dialetheism for there are situations in which dialetheic logics are at least potentially useful).

Regarding the void, we can argue as follows. For most things, existence means that there is an object that can be experienced (later: there is an object corresponding to the concept). And since we live in a world that is experienced, we translate ‘most things’ into ‘all things’. However, this is inadequate regarding the void.

But this does not prove that the meaning of existence must shift for the void. Here is an argument that the meaning of existence must not just shift, but be broadened.

A proof of existence of the void was given above. A second proof, given in the formal development, shows that, though (or even if) the void is not experienced, it is a source of that which can be experienced. Thus, while the meaning of ‘existence’ for manifest objects is ‘there is a real object that corresponds to the concept’, for the void, the meaning must shift: ‘real object’ must be changed to ‘potential object’.

A counter argument is that ‘potential’ is something and therefore cannot reside in the void. However, a response to this counter is the idea of potential being something is based on potential as causation and there is no necessity to causation projecting to the entire universe and the void.

The void is neither causal potential nor unreal; it reveals the conceptual possible as indeed — as actually — possible.

Logic, science, and argument

If something violates the laws of physics, it cannot obtain where those laws obtain.

However, if for it to obtain would violate logic, it cannot obtain at all (e.g., in any world, actual or possible; and note that the phrase ‘it cannot obtain at all’ eliminates any need to refer our development to ‘possible worlds’—to the contrary, it may found the concept and object of the notion of possible worlds).

Therefore, logic defines the greatest possibility. Here, of course, we are thinking of strict logic, e.g., deduction as used in mathematics, not induction or abduction as used in generalizing and in science.

It is common to make a comparison between science and strict logic—induction / abduction is ‘probable’; strict logic is certain.

However, the comparison is not appropriate—it compares reason to a scientific theory with reason under strict logic.

If, on the other hand, we compare arriving at a scientific theory to a logic (e.g., propositional calculus), the conclusion is not certain (there are alternative propositional logics, e.g., three valued logics)—we see the beginnings of a true parallel.

The parallel is completed when we note that inference under both science and strict logic can be strict (it could also be non-strict if the science were less than precise as in the theory of evolution and the logic was ‘fuzzy’).

Thus, there is a general sense of ‘logic’ that covers induction / abduction and strict / deductive logic.

In philosophy, ‘argument’ has been relatively recently used to describe establishment of facts via inference from given facts.

It has been used in the context of deduction: if the deduction is correct, the argument is ‘valid’, if, further, the fact is true, the conclusion is true, and the argument is ‘sound’.

In mathematics, the basic ‘facts’ are axioms. Here, however, the basic facts are about the world. Usually, such facts are imprecise and incompletely certain.

Are there any certain facts? Yes—(i) the fact that there is experience and so (as we will see) being, beings, and the universe (ii) the existence of the void is found to be necessary, from which all possibilities are necessary (somewhere in the universe including the universe itself) and thus there are facts that are absolutely necessary.

That is, there are strict arguments—there is strict argument—based in necessary fact and certain inference.

On the less than certain side, there are imprecise, perhaps not entirely certain facts, and induction / abduction, as in science.

Thus, just as logic may be thought to bifurcate into probable and certain inference, so, argument may also bifurcate to the same options.

I.e., the term argument could be used to refer to the establishment by whatever means, so long as it falls under reason (and not, e.g., superstition or dogma)

It is my preference to use ‘logic’ for this umbrella notion of argument and then classify logic according to fact vs inference and likely vs certain, however, I continue to use ‘argument’ so as not to overload convention.

An example: logic from ordinary language

Comment 3. It is a project to clarify and make precise the content of this section and to also consider predicate calculi.

Some fundamental laws of logic are

1. The law of identity—each thing is identical to itself, expressed A º A, or that a proposition implies itself. The law has exceptions if A is insufficiently well defined. Thus “it is raining is” the same as “it is raining”, which as we have seen requires it to be specific as to location (and time) and thus the law of identity is not universal.

2. The law of noncontradiction, encountered earlier, that a proposition cannot be both true and false. It was implied earlier that logic follows from relationships among concepts; thus “it is raining” and “it is not raining” cannot apply to the same object and are therefore mutually exclusive. However, as seen earlier, for the law to hold, the proposition must be sufficiently specific.

3. The law of the excluded middle—every proposition is true or false, i.e., there is no third option. Without sufficient discrimination, it is possible for propositions to have some third, e.g., intermediate, truth value or no truth value at all”, for example, “on a nonexistent planet neither true nor false that it is raining”.

These ‘laws of logic’ are fundamental to standard logical systems but do not obtain in some nonstandard but useful systems; an example, suggested by “it is raining and it is not raining”, is a system of nonstandard logic for contexts in which some propositions are both true and false (e.g., systems in which such propositions are both, a third truth value ‘b’, and thus, in the system, neither ‘t’ nor ‘f’ (true or false).

It is clear that for these ‘laws’, often thought absolute, especially in the past, to obtain, the language being used must be sufficiently precise and if that precision obtains, the laws are trivially true.

Standard logics

What we call standard logics here are those for which the fundamental laws obtain, especially the propositional and first order predicate calculi (the syllogisms fall here too).

In the propositional calculus, there are propositions or statements, which are one of t or f. There are truth functions. An example is negation. If A is a proposition, its negation, written, ~A, –A (preferred for compound statements), not A, or Ā (preferred). The negation of a statement is false if the statement is true and true if the statement is false. A second truth function is conjunction—if A and B are propositions, AÚB is the proposition ‘A and B’, such that it is true if and only if A and B are true. A third truth function, alternation, AÙB, ‘A or B’ such that it is true if and only if at least one of A and B are true (note this is the ‘logical or’, which is different from ‘or’ as it is usually used in English in which one and only one of the propositions true).

These functions are called truth functions because their truth value by and only by the truth values of their components (there is just one component for negation and two for each of conjunction and alternation).

The propositional calculus, concerns compound truth functions of propositions. It turns out that all truth functions can be expressed in terms of negation and conjunction or, alternative, in terms of negation and alternation (it further turns out that a single elementary truth function, e.g., the ‘Sheffer stoke’ is sufficient).

The essential question here is the requirements on language for the machinery of the propositional calculus to hold. It is first, that we are not concerned with non-logical ‘variables’, such as in mathematics. Second, we are concerned with propositions and their combinations but not in the inner structure of a system of non-compound propositions. Third, the propositions must be either true or false, but not both. Finally, there must be some non-compound propositions.

The arc of The Way of being

Its parts

The introduction explained what The Way of Being (TWB) is, its foundation, and its range. It has motivated TWB and outlines origins, personal and in world culture.

Recall that “The aim of The Way of Being is the shared discovery and realization of the ultimate—arising in, oriented toward, and expressed from our world”.

Discovery and realization will be based in (i) a phase that emphasizes knowledge, conceptual experiment, and criticism (ii) a phase that emphasizes being in the world and active directed at both the quality of the world as well as experiential and physical action toward the ultimate. These phases are of course intertwined.

These two phases are addressed in Part 2. An account of the world and Part 3. Pathways.

The final part, Part 4. Return, is a short account of what I will do, what readers may do, after having developed, lived with, or absorbed ‘The Way’.

Summary

The arc of The Way of being is: Into the way – Foundation (the account of the world) – Realization (the pathways) – Return.

Part 2. An account of the world

Being

Experience and being

Definition 2. When an appearance that seems to be of something, is indeed of the intended thing, e.g., is known to be neither fictional nor merely illusory, it is real (here, in ‘something’, ‘thing’ is entirely general and not restricted to entity, process, relation, property or other such kinds); otherwise, it is as-if (or as-if real, i.e., of unknown status, or at least partial illusion or fiction).

Definition 3. Experience is awareness in all kinds, forms, and levels (this definition, which includes consciousness, is extended later, not nominally, but as a consequence of the nature of the real).

Truth 1. That there is experience is known in that there is experience of experience. The objection that experience of experience may be illusory, is resolved in that illusion is experiential.

Definition 4. Choice is selection of thought or action from among real options.

Truth 2. Experience includes consciousness, receptive and active modes including choice and agency; it has quality, intensity, and form – emotion and cognition with choice.

Definition 5. The idea of an object is that it may be either real (e.g., the table in my living room) or as-if real (e.g., fictional as in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker Street, London; Sherlock Holmes is an object in that, although ‘he’ is not real, we can talk of ‘him’ as if he were real, and he may seem real in our imagination; note that while there is a ‘mental object’, that object is the concept, and it is not the as-if object).

Assertion 7. Thus, all real objects are objects but not all objects are real.

Definition 6. The structure of an experience is concept – relation – object, or, in detail, (i) a concept, an experience as-if of (this as-if is there only because the object that follows may be as-if: that there is an experience is given) (ii) its intentional relation, the experiential relation, to (iii) an object or as-if experienced (the problem of ‘as-if’, i.e., of appearance vs reality is noted; however, it is effective to allow its address to emerge with the development). A referential concept is a concept that has an intended object. In pure experience an object is absent because it is unintended, potential, or otherwise not attached to or detached from the experience—pure experience is entirely conceptual.

Definition 7. A definition is a conceptual specification (note that when the terms ‘is’ and ‘are’ are used in defining concepts, they may be but are not necessary temporal or concerning a particular place).

Definition 8. Abstraction is removal from a concept of all detail that may be subject to distortion or error (it is via abstraction that we know that there is experience itself and that there are being and real beings, e.g., experiential beings, and in terms of later definitions, the universe, the void, laws, logic, and metaphysics).

Definition 9. Perfect faithfulness of knowledge is perfect depiction as congruence of the forms of concept and (real) object so that truth and certainty have meaning and can be asserted (thus defined, perfect faithfulness is significant to the development of the metaphysics of TWB; and one source of perfect faithfulness is abstraction and important examples are given beginning with experience above and continuing with ‘being’ and related concepts below).

Informal commentary. In earlier versions of the work, being was introduced as existence, without defining existence, and without reference to the essential role of experience in existence and beinghood. What is that role? It is that without a concept, there is no being corresponding to a mere system of signs, but there may seem to be a being due to the implicit presence of a concept. This may be put “no concept, no being”. The deficit thinking in the earlier definitions is now remedied.

Definition 10. An existent is the real object of a referential concept; the plural of ‘an existent’ is existents. Existence is the property of existents as existents.

Definition 11. A being is the real object of a referential concept; the plural of ‘a being’ is beings. Being is the property of being as beings (while ‘being’ and ‘beings’ are conceptually distinct and being is not a being, with sufficient abstraction, the distinction vanishes).

Truth 3. While definition does not imply existence, there is being and there are beings (this conclusion is sound).

Truth 4. There is no being without the depictive or iconic concept (the linguistic sign without the associated icon is an empty label). In abstraction, the concept is implicit. A being is known as a being via its conception. Concepts are beings, as are concepts of a concept-being. The general being is a concept-being; the general object is the concept-object. Thus there is no essential distinction between objects and being. There is no being that is not known or not knowable.

Assertion 8. A reason objects are sometimes introduced as different from beings is that we are then able to talk about possible objects, necessary objects, and nonexistent objects. However, we have just seen is that being, existence, and object-hood are essentially are identical, and therefore we do not really need the concept of an object. Thus, we can consistently talk about possible beings, necessary, beings, and nonexistent beings (or objects or existents).

Assertion 9. However, we may continue to use ‘being’, ‘existence’, and ‘objecthood’, for the differences in connotation—being suggests richness, existence suggests bare existence, and objecthood suggests both existence and nonexistence.

Definition 12. If the object is a being, it is said, as already noted, to exist; otherwise it is said to not exist, i.e., to be nonexistent (and thus the conception of an object as concept-object, trivially resolves the problem of nonexistent objects or beings and provides one conception of nonbeing).

Definition 13. When we want to refer to the depth of being or of a being, e.g., that of our being relative to our intellect, we will use the hyphenated forms be-ing and a be-ing (plural be-ings).

Definition 14. Society is a group of beings with institutions that promote their identity and well-being. Culture (in the words of EB Tylor) is “that complex whole which includes knowledge (including development, dissemination, and education), belief, art, morals, law, custom, institutions (government, economic, technological, military, and political), and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (additions and changes to Tylor’s definition have been italicized).

Significant me aning and value

‘Meaning’ has two senses in this work. In this section it is ‘significant meaning’, as in the meaning of life or importance. The second sense is concept and linguistic meaning, which is introduced later.

Definition 15. We are accidental in that our immediate sense of why we have be-ing and what that be-ing is or may be is opaque to us (to what extent the opaqueness is absolute has emergence in the development).

Definition 16. Significant meaning and value are is whatever give be-ings the sense that they are more than mere accidents (though it is not emphasized, negative meaning would be what gives the sense of being less than a mere accident); it lies in the quality and form of their experience.

Assertion 10. Experience is the place, though not the sole source, of significant meaning and of our being. We are experiential beings. The being that does not register at least indirectly in some experience is effectively nonexistent (it is later seen that the word ‘effectively’ may be dropped; that the universe is experiential, where it is not necessary to use the term ‘effectively experiential’; and that such predication does not entail absence of material or mental qualities, real or as-if).

Definition 17. The sense of beauty or the beautiful is a joint emotive-cognitive sense of what gives beings pleasure to perceive or contemplate, with an emphasis on durability or permanence in time (and across ‘subjects’) of that sense. Objects and beings that are a source of the sense of beauty are beautiful.

Definition 18. The Intrinsic good or primary good is that which improves significant meaning of experiential (human) beings (particularly their well-being and community, safety, and security, their projects, the life well-lived and what it is to live well, the sense of the beautiful, what it is to live well, and culture as a way of expression). Right choice and action are those which promote intrinsic goodness.

Definition 19. Secondary goodness (is not experientially intrinsic but) promotes intrinsic goodness; the secondary good includes culture as a system of institutions and social arrangements (society itself, economic and political arrangements, and technology).

Definition 20. To be ethical is to choose thought and action that promotes what is good (here, there is no rejection of systematic ethics, but the personal is emphasized in interaction with the systematic and the large scale). Ethics is study, systematic and other, of what thought and action are ethical (ethics is not primarily about the abstract good or right). Metaethics is about the nature of ethics and ethical judgement (but as topic in itself is not particularly important in this work). (While ethics is often studied for its normative side “what we should do and so on”, and the associated discipline is named ‘normative ethics’, analysis of the meaning of ‘ethics’ in terms of word-concept-object, we will find that normative and metaethics are bound as one – two sides of a coin). Applied ethics is about what is ethical in concrete situations and institutions (it is currently, in 2026, a broad subject and some examples are taken up in this work; also note that applied ethics gives ethics flesh and ethics gives applied ethics structure, so while their independent study is important, so is their joint and perhaps dialectic analysis).

Definition 21. Government is group decision making and its institutions for decision and implementation. A foundation government in a fundamental value of experiential being in small and large scale choice may be called democracy, especially liberal democracy (as explained, just below), which is democracy with (institutional) protection for all beings and groups as far as not dedicated to destructive ends.

Assertion 11. A concern regarding the promotion of experiential beings is the balance between self- and group- interest. Where, in the movement of society, do we move – and want to move – toward? The problem arises in all societies, but it is a special concern in democracy.

Truth 5. Thus, liberal democracy has secondary goodness (in this sense, the idea behind democracy is close to intrinsic goodness and is not just as one of many possible systems of government – it is not a system of government at all, but functions as a principle for systems which is derived from fundamentals; this conception is effective in that under it, the instrumental effectiveness of democracy is a pragmatic rather than conceptual or ideological concern).

Knowledge

The kind of knowledge considered here is factual, expressed as a statement and its establishment may be perception (‘direct’) or inference from established facts.

Language, concept meaning, and knowledge

Definition 22. There is a range of sophistication (self-reflection, criticism, and creativity) in the use of language and experience. Ordinary experience, ordinary language, ordinary reason, and ordinary knowledge, though not unsophisticated, lie in a region on a spectrum toward the everyday, and away from institutional, specialist, academic and standards setting uses.

Assertion 12. Ordinary language (and experience) is a ground for discovery, expression, and justification of knowledge as beginning framework for the formal development (which, though it begins with the ordinary, it does not presume it—the ordinary is improved upon in the formal development via precision of meaning of terms and reason via relations among terms). From the ‘ordinary’, via abstraction, we may arrive and precise meaning and knowledge and certain inference.

Definition 23. (The following repeats some material from the earlier definition on the structure of experience.) A concept is a mental content. A referential concept is a concept in referential form, i.e., a concept that is intended to refer to an object, real or fictitious. The association of a sign (elementary or compound, where the structure of a compound sign may reflect the structure of the object) with a concept constitutes a linguistic concept. The meaning, conceptual or linguistic, of a referential concept is the concept and its possible references (objects) in use (this constitutes a three part meaning of meaning as sign – concept – object). Knowledge is meaning realized.

Truth 6. The three part meaning of meaning as in The Meaning of Meaning, by C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards, has necessity in that signs devoid of even indirect iconic content cannot refer. It has sufficiency so far shared signs have common associations. Though it does not exhaust an understanding of meaning, it is effective in this development. Its virtues include that (i) confusion in search for meaning of a vaguely understood term may be resolved by seeing the search as in a sign – concept – object space, suggested by H.A. Simon’s notion of search in a dual space of concept and object, and (ii) it can neatly resolve the problem of negative existentials (see Nonexistent Objects – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for a definition of the problem) via the earlier definition of a nonexistent object (or nonbeing).

Definition 24. The intension of a concept specifies the nature of the term, e.g., in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions (specifying the intension does not imply that the concept has objects). The extension or range of a concept specifies to what real objects the concept refers.

Definition 25. A fact is a true assertion (knowledge is factual; it concerns the way the world is – the way things are, where ‘is’ and ‘are’ may be but are not necessarily temporal).

Definition 26. Knowledge or belief are true and certain when it is indubitable that their content corresponds to the fact(s) to which they are intended to refer (notes—some accounts of knowledge do not require absolute certainty; while certainty is desirable in some endeavors, it may not be the case that it is always desirable, e.g., to base action on it; though correspondence is not the only ‘theory’ of truth, it is, as will be seen, adequate to the needs of TWB; finally, a more comprehensive account of knowledge, one that takes into account the developments for TWB, is presented in, knowledge / world under development in longer versions of this work)

Discovery

Definition 27. Discovery is a creative phase of knowledge acquisition (though significant to TWB, it is not the focus of this discussion of knowledge and argument, which is amplified later; however, it crucial to ultimate—human—endeavor and knowledge, for it is unlikely that all is known regarding knowledge acquisition and negotiation of the world; thus, we cannot afford to rely only on established or certified means of argument and ought to be open to ‘what works’ and to discovery, not just of ‘things’ but also of means or method).

Assertion 13. Establishment of tentative knowledge as knowledge requires selection, which is the subject of argument.

Argument

Definition 28. An argument is establishment of fact (to argue is to establish a fact; here we consider only argument in itself rather than kinds of argument specific to restricted fields of inquiry; note that this definition is related but not identical to common conceptions of ‘argument’; the elements of argument are direct establishment of fact and indirect establishment, or inference of a fact or conclusion from an established fact or premise;).

Definition 29. An argument is certain when it establishes that the conclusion is certain and likely when it is thought to be likely according an accepted kind of inference and degree of likelihood.

Direct argument

Definition 30. Direct argument is direct establishment of a fact (by observation including measurement, which may be contingently precise or imprecise, and, which may, in some cases, be necessary).

Truth 7. In direct argument certainty is possible via relaxation of precision and by abstraction. Some facts are intrinsic in that their truth is necessary (e.g., that there is experience or, equivalently, that experience has being; a later example is necessity of existence of the void and its consequence that the universe realizes all possibility in the greatest sense of possibility).

Assertion 14. Direct establishment is likely when doubt is low or accuracy is high. Precision may be confirmed by corroboration or theoretical agreement with other facts.

Indirect argument or inference from established fact

Definition 31. Inference is valid conclusion of entities in fact form and called conclusions from other such entities called premises, such that if the premises have truth (facticity), then so do the conclusions.

Definition 32. In indirect argument, conclusions are established in two stages (i) direct establishment of premises (ii) inference from premises to conclusions (which gives strength to the claim of truth for the conclusions as elaborated below).

Certain inference

Definition 33. In certain inference, if the premises, P, are true, the conclusions, C, are certainly true (abbreviated: if P, then C, or P ® C).

Assertion 15. Sources of certainty are (i) precise reasoning, which is obtained as below in deduction and intrinsic inference (ii) that in such reasoning (though there may be exceptions), the conclusions contain only information that was at least implicitly present in the premises (they may seem to say more because the chain of connection is not transparent to beings with limited intellect – but would of course be transparent to a limitless being.)

Assertion 16. When the information in the conclusion is already at least implicit in the premise, the inference is called nonampliative, which is formally defined below. Certainty is a function of an argument being explicitly or implicitly nonampliative. Though certain inference is not ampliative, it may be effectively so when the a direct or indirect argument not obvious and even counter to received expectation.

Definition 34. Deduction is certain inference from premises to conclusions which is stepwise via laws of logic (its power lies in that it is explicit and open to inspection, and, given logic, the conclusions are implicit in the premises; also note that some basic modes of deduction are the propositional and predicate calculi and a range of extended and variant logics, which, of course, are not asserted to exhaust the possibilities of deductive inference; note, further, that this does not eliminate the possibility of non-explicit certain inference as in, intuited and received results).

Definition 35. In intrinsic inference, the conclusion is established without recourse to premises (this is related and, at least in some cases, maybe identical to intrinsic fact; though intrinsic inference may seem absurd or counter-foundational, there are examples, e.g., that there is experience and a later one will be the equivalence of existence and nonexistence for nothingness which will also be called ‘the void’).

Assertion 17. The certain inferences in this work include the intrinsic and the deductive.

Likely inference

Definition 36. In likely inference (or reasonable inference), if the premises are true, or likely to be true, the conclusions are also likely to be true (examples of sources of sub-certainty include, first, that the conclusions are ampliative – also defined below – i.e., contain information not present in the premises, or that the reasoning is ‘rough’ in some sense).

Definition 37. In induction, some observations of instances and regularities, are generalized or lead to general principles. Abduction is argument to the best explanation (and is significant in science). In inference by analogy, if two systems are similar in some ways, similarity in some other ways is concluded. (That these are recognized modes of likely inference does not eliminate the possibility that intuited and received results could be likely).

Assertion 18. Such inference is typically more than a process from premise to conclusion but is seen as strengthened with buttressing information or inference and repeated confirmation. Further, the above modes (induction etc) may be used together and may be incomplete as modes of likely inference. Manifest patterns may perhaps be thought of as intrinsic and likely inference. The likely inferences in what follows are abductive and analogical.

Transitivity of inference

Definition 38. When inference is in more than one step, it may be of the following form: given A ® B and B ® C, then A ® C. This is transitivity of inference, which guarantees the validity of ‘long’ proofs in deductive logic (however, transitivity of inference, even if it has meaning, may not obtain in likely inference).

Assertion 19. Thus deduction is fundamentally different from likely inference, not just in reliability, but also in kind.

Argumentative strength

Both direct and inference indirect establishment can be certain; and both can be less than certain but good in terms of appropriate criteria or in restricted settings.

The certain case

Definition 39. An argument is valid if the conclusion certainly follows from the premise (a standard approach is step-by-step, via rules of deduction). A valid argument is sound if the premise is true (significant sound arguments are identified, sometimes with just the word ‘sound’). A necessary argument is a certain inference from the empty fact (an important example will be given).

The less than certain case

Definition 40. In the less than certain case, the argument is good if the conclusion likely follows (e.g., with pragmatic certainty) from the premise. A good argument is strong if the argument and premise are likely enough that the conclusion is likely (significant and strong arguments are identified as strong; in absence of such an identifier, the argument is regarded as at least reasonable).

Ampliative vs nonampliative argument

Definition 41. An argument is nonampliative if the conclusions are explicitly or tacitly (e.g., via relations between meanings) already present in the premises (thus deductive inference in mathematics results in theorems that are already at least implicit in the axioms and postulates). In ampliative argument, the conclusions contain essentially new factual material, i.e., material that is not tacit in the premises.

Assertion 20. The standard reasons for (i) (to repeat) the certainty of deduction is that it is nonampliative (for an omniscient being, deduction would not be necessary for the chain of inference would be transparent to it) (ii) the noncertainty of likely inference is that it is ampliative (of course, the omniscient being would see all patterns and the limits of the regions in which they obtain).

What argument does

Assertion 21. Argument synthesizes (i) knowledge and its establishment, i.e., content and method, (ii) e.g., the sciences – abstract and concrete, and (iii) as will be established later, knowledge, inspiration, and value.

Summation

We have completed the argument that precise method and content flow from ordinary language and experience and that science and logic fall under one umbrella, ‘argument’.

We have also argued that knowledge and value interact such that there is a tradeoff between precision and value.

Where concepts are abstracted to perfection, there is no need for a tradeoff between knowledge and value. Otherwise, tradeoff may be necessary. Another way to look at the situation is to observe that knowledge and value are intertwined in their very conception.

Beings

Being and beings

The concepts of being and beings are introduced above in being. Here we take up beings that frame the real metaphysics (TM). Other beings, especially experiential, peak, and other cosmological beings are taken up later.

The universe and its contents

Definition 42. The universe is all being (meaning all beings as a being; used in this bare sense, the term is ‘universe’; later when it is shown that the universe is limitless, has identity, and confers this power on all beings, ‘Universe’ will be used to refer to “the universe and all beings and their collective identity”).

Truth 8. There is exactly one universe; all (real) beings and (real) kinds are parts of it (sound, from the definition of ‘universe’). What we sometimes call ‘our universe’ or ‘other universes’ is an inappropriate use of the word ‘universe’; instead we shall use the term ‘cosmos’ (below).

Cosmoses

Definition 43. A cosmos is a causal domain in whose interactions with the rest of universe over the times of concern, are below the threshold of observation including measurement.

Truth 9. Our cosmos exists (it is a being; later it is found that there are limitlessly many cosmoses of limitless variety).

Laws

Definition 44. A pattern obtains for a being if the information to specify it is less than the raw information.

Definition 45. A law for a being is (our reading of) a pattern (usually of a degree of general applicability and for one or more cosmoses, typically abstract in nature).

Truth 10. Laws are beings.

The void and its existence

Definition 46. The void is the being that contains no beings (if it exists, it is an empty being and it contains no laws; that we talk of the void, as if there is just one, is justified later).

Comment 4. That we talk of ‘the void’ rather than ‘a void’ is justified later.

Truth 11. The void exists (this was proven earlier; two further demonstrations follow, one significance of which is the address of doubt).

Existence of the void – Demonstration 2. Assume the void does not exist. This implies that the universe is eternal and in eternity, give that there is at least one possibility (our world), by symmetry all possibilities occur and so the void must exist.

Existence of the void – Demonstration 3. The universe and the void are eternal. In eternity, the above symmetry argument goes through. Necessity is the ‘cause’ of the universe.

Truth 12. The rational foundation of the being of and cause of the universe is necessity.

Truth 13. There are no laws of the void (sound, from definitions).

Definition 47. A being that is not the void is manifest.

Metaphysics

Definition 48. Metaphysics is knowledge and study of the real.

Assertion 22. Though the possibility and meaning of metaphysics are seen as having openness, here we are demonstrating possibility (our metaphysics has been underway, beginning with experience and being). Further, it will emerge that traditional through modern metaphysics—the idea and the topics—have significant intersection this conception of metaphysics.

Possibility

The concept of possibility

Definition 49. Given a concept of a being (entity, event, …), it is possible if nothing rules out its realization (existence).

Conceptual or logical possibility

Definition 50. If a concept cannot be realized because of its form alone, e.g., an object that is both black and not black, it is impossible in the sense of conceptual impossibility (or logical impossibility).

Definition 51. A being whose existence is not ruled out by the concept alone defines conceptual possibility (‘c-possibility) or logical possibility (‘L-possibility), sometimes called subjective possibility (because it is thinkable without contradiction).

Definition 52. A maximally expressive language is one that would be capable of describing all logical possibility (note that this does not imply that such a language exists, even if language in discrete signs is enhanced to include the perceivable state of the communicator).

Assertion 23. If (the concept of) a being is not L-possible, it is not possible (at all).

Definition 53. Logical possibility is the boundary of the greatest possibility in the sense that, presuming logic(s) for a maximally expressive language, the being has realized logical possibility has realized all that can be realized.

Definition 54. Limitlessness for a being is realization of the possible (and, optionally, the impossible—because it explicitly includes the void among the limitless but makes no difference for manifest being). A being that realizes the greatest possibility is limitless (sound, from the concept of limitlessness).

Assertion 24. Infinities are not inherently limitless; the limitless is not inherently infinite, but it has or contains (all) infinities.

Real possibility

Definition 55. If a logically possible being (one whose conception is logically possible) cannot be realized in a world because its form is incompatible with the form of that world, it is impossible in a world, w; if it can be realized there it has possibility in that world, or w-possibility; if that world is the universe, the possibility is u-possibility, i.e., just possibility (other terms for ‘just possibility’ are real possibility, global possibility, ontological possibility; other terms for w-possibility, where ‘w’ is not the universe, are local possibility or relatively real possibility, of which an example is physical possibility—possibility in terms of known physical laws, which may be imperfect; note that these meanings are not universal).

Truth 14. To be possible in a world, it is necessary that the being shall be logically possible. Therefore, L-possibility bounds w-possibility for all worlds as well as u-possibility; that is the concept of L-possibility is the greatest or the most inclusive possibility.

Assertion 25. L-possibility is a prerequisite for real possibility; real possibility presumes logical possibility.

Assertion 26. If from the void, a (logically) possible being did not emerge, that would be a law of the void.

Truth 15. All L-possibility emerges from the void. That is, u- and L-possibilities are identical in range. That is, the universe is limitless—the realization of the greatest possibility (this is named ‘the fundamental principle of metaphysics’: fp).

Impossibility and necessity

Definition 56. A being that is not possible is impossible.

Definition 57. A being whose nonbeing (nonexistence) is impossible is necessary.

Cause and the cause of the universe

Assertion 27. Causation has many senses, even if we restrict it to the main modern use of (Aristotle’s ‘efficient cause’)—e.g., cause as based in origin (necessary, possible, probable, and random) or cause as reason for being (existence), again (necessary, etc.)

Definition 58. A fundamental cause is itself without cause.

Assertion 28. A being cannot be the fundamental cause of the universe for that would require the being to be without cause or infinite regress. Therefore, the only cause can be modal. However, since possibility is unsatisfactory, the only satisfactory cause of the universe would be necessity—which will be demonstrated to be the case.

Assertion 29. However, if such a cause is causation over time, it would seem to be contradicted that there is no necessity to a chain of events (generally) and therefore the fundamental cause of interest is cause of the universe over all time and space as a whole (or more generally over all coordinates of difference; which may be called the scotus universe, after the conception of Duns Scotus).

Truth 16. We now see that the cause of the Scotus Universe can only be necessity and the fundamental principle confirms that this can indeed be seen to be the cause of the (Scotus) universe.

The range of possibility

This discussion has been about the concept of possibility. The range of possibility, also of great interest, is best deferred till after the universe has been shown to be limitless and the concept of robust worlds has been developed.

Comment 5. Enter link to robust worlds above.

The limitless universe

The limitlessness of being and the universe

Truth 17. If from the void the greatest possibility did not emerge, that would be (constitute) a law of the void. Therefore, all logical possibility is emerges from or is necessarily equivalent to the void. That is, the logical and real possibilities are, in fact, the same, even though the conceptions are (at least seemingly) different. Since there has been no assumption in making this conclusion, absolute necessity is the cause of the universe (sound, given existence of the void).

Assertion 30. This resolves (what Heidegger called) the fundamental problem of metaphysics, i.e., why there is being at all, i.e., why there is something rather than nothing.

Truth 18. The universe is the realization of the greatest possibility (this is the fundamental principle of metaphysics, abbreviated fp).

Truth 19. The universe—equivalently, the void—confers greatest possibility on all beings (for otherwise there would be a limit on the universe; also sound).

Alternative demonstrations of limitlessness

These demonstrations parallel the proofs of existence of the void. Reasons for their provision are (i) uncovering the ‘deep’ logic of the emerging metaphysics (ii) to address doubt.

Second demonstration (the first is above). Either the universe does not enter a void state or it does not. If not, it is eternal and, in eternity, given that at least one possibility obtains (our world), by symmetry all possibilities occur—which contradicts the premise that the universe does not enter the void state. Therefore, the universe enters the void state and the earlier demonstration goes through.

Third demonstration. The system of universe and the void are eternal. In eternity, the above symmetry argument goes through; necessity is the ‘cause’ of the universe.

Truth 20. The rational foundation of the being of and cause of the universe is necessity.

Assertion 31. This is a ‘logically satisfying conclusion for the possibilities of foundation are (i) another being (ii) regress (iii) possibility or necessity. However, there is no ‘other being’ and so foundation in a being would be self-foundation which is not a foundation at all. Further, regress and possibility (and probability) are less than satisfactory for they allow that the universe might not be manifest at all, which leaves necessity as the only satisfactory and demonstrated foundation (necessity could be seen as self-foundation).

Some significant consequences

Comment 6. Following is one core of a ‘center-out’ approach to presentation.

All beings

Truth 21. The universe has identity (given limitlessness in the sense defined above, this and the remaining conclusions in this section, ‘all beings’, are sound).

Truth 22. The universe and its identity are limitless in extension, duration, variety, peaking of being and dissolution; it contains cosmoses without limit to kind and number. Every cosmos is as-if an atom in another and every cosmos contains as-if atoms that are cosmoses.

Truth 23. All beings inherit the limitlessness of the universe—they realize peak being (this can also be derived from the fact that a being and the being-and-the-void are identical). The realization of peaks by all beings is not a contradiction, for they merge as one in the peaks.

Truth 24. Birth and death are real—and this is not a contradiction, for, though real, they and death are not absolute. Beings have limited form on limited scales but on death they diffuse into the background, from which they emerge on birth.

Truth 25. It is in higher forms that we see across the multitude of forms that do not seem to communicate with one another (while we are in limited form and do not see that we can see and therefore do not attempt to do so). Knowledge of our limitlessness is revealed in higher forms, but not only their—there may be communication among lower forms via peak being; communication across the void equivalent of peaks is to be examined.

Truth 26. From the limitlessness of beings as well as from the void, the identity of all being is present in both the extended distribution of being as well as in an instant; yet, in our limited experience and local time and its perception, this instant encompasses lifetimes – lifetimes of individuals, cosmoses, and cosmoses of cosmoses (and so on). We are both limited and limitless. While there may be eternities and infinities of extension between lower manifestations of a being, those limitlessnesses are experienced as no more than a point.

Truth 27. There are paths in, for, and from this world to the ultimate (a careful specification of paths is given later).

On perfection, pleasure, and pain

Truth 28. In most received senses of ‘perfection’ there is no final perfection. Pain, doubt, and pleasure are inevitable. Effective attitudes toward perfection, pleasure, pain, and doubt, are in sharing, mutual support, and pleasure in being on a path of realization, addressed further in pathways.

The universe

Truth 29. The cause of the manifest universe is necessity (sound).

Assertion 32. What is the edge of the known universe? It may have edges duration and extension. It also has edges having to do with strength of interaction; this edge is everywhere.

The void

Truth 30. There is effectively one void (the number of voids presumed to exist has no relevance to the real). The void is the empty being (sound).

Knowledge

Assertion 33. The limit of knowledge (i.e., for a limitless being) and of the universe are identical—of logical possibility.

Living in two worlds

Comment 7. Placement?

The two worlds

Assertion 34. Thus, we live in two worlds in the following sense. We live in the world of ‘ordinary’ experience (the big bang). But we also live in a larger world—the universe—which is real, which we do not necessarily see, but which we can know by rational thought.

Living in two worlds as one

A part of the difficulty of this view is the contrast between the two views. One may overcome this difficulty by (i) accepting the difficulty (ii) living with it (iii) becoming accustomed to it (iv) to the point where the two views merge and we no longer habitually resort to one or the other (v) living in light of the immediate and the ultimate as one as a guide to life in this world and life beyond death, birth, and finitude.

An ideal metaphysics

Definition 59. Limitlessness defines a perfect and ideal metaphysics (the perfection is in the sense of perfect faithfulness of the metaphysics as concept to the universe as object, which follows from fp, is illustrated above, and whose developed into full-fledged account of being, the universe, its beings, and their changes, in what follows).

Assertion 35. In greater detail, from the perfection in the abstraction in the concept of being, there is a perfect and ideal metaphysics, a framework, summarized – the universe is the realization of the greatest possibility, which gives us an ultimate value, realization of the greatest possibility.

Real metaphysics

Definition 60. When the ideal metaphysics is adjoined to at least pragmatically valid knowledge, what results is named the real metaphysics (TM)or just the metaphysics.

Truth 31. Though TM is not perfectly faithful in entirety, the framework remains faithful. Further, it is the best that limited (human) beings have, and as a practical instrument toward ultimate knowledge and realization, it is perfect relative to the value of realization. TM is a dynamic unity, for the ideal side illuminates and guides the pragmatic while the pragmatic illustrates and is an instrument for the ideal. That is, the criterion for TM is dual—epistemic perfection and valuational (ethical and aesthetic).

Assertion 36. Alternatively, we may see metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory as an integral whole.

TM implies existence of all possibility and possible worlds which may have temporary but not permanent isolation. Are all possible worlds of the same significance? This is taken up in the sections on metaphysical possibility through the significant universe.

Metaphysical possibility

Definition 61. By metaphysical possibility, we understand (i) ‘what may occur under a system of metaphysics’ or (ii) what may occur under conditions of realism, e.g., whether an unembodied mind is possible.

Assertion 37. If one accepts (say) physics as determining what is real, then the systems of metaphysical possibility #i and physical possibility are the same.

Assertion 38. Under TM the metaphysics, metaphysical possibility, logical possibility, and (metaphysical) reality are the same.

Assertion 39. The interest in metaphysical possibility #ii is that it distinguishes reasonable from the most inclusive possibility. In this work the topic has been explored, imaginatively and with input from world literature.

Assertion 40. Systematic development of reasonable possibility is an ongoing project.

Robust worlds

Definition 62. A robust world or cosmos is one that is significant because it has an adequate combination of endurance in time, beings capable of cognitive experience, and causal ability to register in experience. By contrast, a bizarre world, is transient, does not register significantly in the experience of experiential beings. And a bizarre explanation is a non-standard ‘explanation’ of the existence of a robust world that seems to rob it of significance, e.g., that our world came into existence a moment ago complete with apparent history and memories.

Truth 32. Though possible, bizarre worlds and bizarre explanations are real but seemingly of limited significance and probability.

Truth 33. Yet the fact of bizarrely created worlds have the significance that even if our world is non-bizarre (robust as defined below), it may meaningfully but bizarrely transform to other very different but robust worlds.

Truth 34. In the robustness of our world we are part of peak process – on the way to peaking – for a robust concept of ‘god’ is a process and peaking that is the world or worlds and is neither alien in kind nor remote in extension and duration, i.e., space and time (a strong conclusion).

The significant universe*

Comment 8. Also see the master version.

The range of possibility

Definition 63. The range of possibility is the range of whatever satisfies the space of logics (and while this is of conceptual interest, it is of especial interest to extract from this what is relevant to be-ing).

Assertion 41. The extension of the range of possibility may be developed conceptually and computationally.

Source or study topic 1. Possible Worlds (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Source or study topic 2. Search the ‘space of logics’ and computational approaches thereof.

The significant universe

Definition 64. The significant universe is the universe that has relevance to beings for more than transience (this is both somewhat hypothetical and vague, but needs to be said; it is especially hypothetical that it is accessible from our cosmos or that must have relevance to at least robust beings with more than ‘transient’ existence—that it does or cannot pertain to bizarre worlds).

Doubt and certainty

On certainty

Definition 65. Certainty is absolute agreement of concept and referent (and is obtained in some axiomatic systems and, as we have seen, empirically when the object-referent space is allowed imprecision).

Assertion 42. It was observed in discussing argument, that certainty is not always possible; and we have seen that it is not always desirable (and this is amplified below).

Doubt and its use

Definition 66. To doubt is to question what is accepted as or potentially true including reasons for the acceptance.

Assertion 43. Doubt is a prerequiste to degree of certainty (whether absolute or not), and to seeing whether there are absolute foundations for knowledge and ground for being (this would be idle, were it not for the fact that we have developed such foundation and are in the process of developing ground).

General doubt

Assertion 44. Unquestioning certainty of any degree is a recipe for ignorance and error. Therefore, doubt is an essential phase of knowledge acquisition. Further, action under doubt is often an efficient existential stance.

The Way of Being: doubt

Assertion 45. Doubt in TWB arises (i) in the arguments, e.g., the existence and properties of the void (ii) the magnitude of the conclusions and imperative to question them (iii) and, as seen shortly, for the power of entertaining doubt relative to knowledge as hypothesis and existential stance.

The Way of Being: response to doubt

Assertion 46. The following, which are not fully exclusive, are effective options—

a. As a preliminary, to note that in the development of TWB, it was doubt about the canons of human knowledge—method and content—that led to the emergence of, first, IM, and then TM, and their ongoing refinement.

b. Given internal and empirical consistency of fp, to regard it as a hypothesis about the real (world)—and, so, for metaphysics.

c. To, therefore, consistently see fp as an ‘existential hypothesis’ as guide to and framework for living.

d. Therefore, to employ fp as a guide to (pathways to) realization (of the ultimate in, for, and from the world).

e. To acknowledge that doubt and certainty are not exclusive.

f. To see fp and TWB as ground for being as just noted and further developed in pathways.

g. To reject fp and be on one’s way in the world.

Topics in metaphysics and philosophy*

Comment 9. Placed in knowledge / world.

Experience as universal and in detail

In this division, we extend the earlier conception (definition) of experience to all being, explain what the extension means, show of the extension, and describe the form of experience.

Then, experience is shown to be fundamental to (i) our being, (ii) (as-if) mind, matter, space, time, property, and, cause (iii) realization.

The concept of experience extended to all being

Definition 67. Experience is awareness in all its kinds and levels, extended to all being, i.e., to the hierarchy of being from the void to peak of being (this is the promised extension of the earlier definition of experience, which is justified below, with some repetition of earlier material).

The fundamental nature of experience and reasons for its deferred treatment

Assertion 47. The concept of experience is implicitly present in talking of being even if experience is not explicitly mentioned. Thus, to say “Being is the property of that which is”, ‘that which is’ has not even meaning unless it is the sign for a concept which occurs in experience. If explicit treatment with extension came before metaphysics, it would have to be reworked.

How shall we extend the concept of experience?

The plan for the extension is as follows. The definition is not proof. We shall demonstrate extension of the concept of experience, explain its meaning, and relate it to consciousness – the phenomenon and its phenomenality – as understood in the philosophical literature (better: see consciousness-as-we-have-it as a region within experience-extended). Let us now execute this plan.

Meaning and justification of the extension

In strict materialism (everything is matter and mind – consciousness, awareness – are excluded from the domain of matter), there can be no ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’ (which discloses that the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ is really an ‘impossible problem’). The only resolution must involve seeing that strict materialism, while it could obtain in an inert cosmos, cannot obtain in our cosmos and that experience is an essential part of the world.

Now, we have seen that the contour form of experience is experience-of – experiential-relation – the-experienced. And that can be written subject (mind-like) – relation – object (matter-like).

Assertion 48. In other words a possible description of the real as disclosed is that of an experiential field within which there is mind – relation – matter (all terms in a limited sense).

Assertion 49. Therefore, by TM, it is a true (though not exclusively true) description of the universe. That is—

Truth 35. The universe is an experiential field which does (must) extend to the root of being (the void), where primitive ‘experience’ is the primitive even though not ‘like’ our experientiality or higher forms.

Assertion 50. Within that field mind and matter are neither denied nor asserted but there are domains in which there are as-if mind and as-if matter in (experiential) relation, which is an as-if material-causal relation.

There is experience; and it is known by there being experience of experience

Truth 36. There is experience, for it is in and only in it that there is awareness (and even if that is illusory, illusion is experience).

Assertion 51. Without experience of experience, there could be no real talk of it.

In terms to be introduced below, while experience is the mark of a subject, it also presents as object.

We are effectively experiential beings

Assertion 52. Experience is (one vehicle for the) essence of (our) being, for all significance registers in it.

“We are effectively experiential beings” in that the claim is true and complete but is effective in that it is not exclusive, i.e. other descriptions are possible. However, recognizing that it is not exclusive, we may omit the word ‘effective’.

Truth 37. We are experiential beings.

The form of experience

Definition 68. An as-if kind (e.g., substance) is one that is not derived from being for all being but is one that may be treated as a kind for some regions of the universe, e.g., a cosmos, for some purposes.

Truth 38. The form of experience as we experience it is experience-of (subjective, as-if mental) – the-experience (being – as justified below, relation, interaction) – the experienced object (which includes what may be called as-if material). In ‘pure experience’, the object is null (but there is a potential object).

Assertion 53. Conditions of realism including formation of cosmoses ground a strong argument that the experience of experience shows the form of experience.

Free will

That there is free will in the sense that there different possible actions from which we can choose and execute is now necessary in TM. It should be understood, of course, that, while we are limited, not every imagined possibility can be realized (some anti-free-willists seem to think that this is what free will entails) and further, not that those actions that are possible are easy (the existential and other challenges). However, some choices are easy, e.g., I decide to pick up a stone and do so (experiments that purport to show choice occurs below awareness show only that that may be the case).

On consciousness and consciousness studies

In the early twentieth century, behaviorism banished talk of consciousness because it was private and therefore (in the view of behaviorism), not empirical.

However, it is empirical in that it is experienced (consciousness of consciousness) even more closely than external empirical objects (that it is not always noticed is because it has omnipresence and that to observe in all situation is not adaptive).

Then in the 1950’s came the cognitive revolution – we can talk about mind – and then consciousness studies.

It may be observed that that entire field may fit (in principle) into TM and our study of experience in such a manner that many of its ‘difficult’ problems, especially the ‘hard problem of consciousness’, become non-problems, and the scientific problems are framed by the present developments.

The detailed structure of experience

Comment 10. Think about possible extensions of the present developments.

Site source 1. Dimensions and Paradigms of Being, Experience, and the World. Are there better site sources?

Source or study topic 3. Empathy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Five and six factor models of personality (Wikipedia).

This section builds on the previous one. Though significant terms are marked with small capitals, their mentions and descriptions are not raised to the level of definitions that are significant for TW.

Aspects of experience – needs for experiential beings

The following experiences and distinctions mark needs for function and integrity of beings at our level – within the animal level – and above. Given that these are needs for function and integrity, it is natural that they should arise in adaptation (it does not follow that they are universal but it does follow that they will have a degree of manifestation in the entire universe and may be requirements for robust and populous being as described earlier).

1. Experience of being – identity, i.e., body and experience itself, vs experience of the world, particularly differentiated by agency vs nonagency and immediacy of control.

2. (Within experiencing,) sameness and difference of identity, which are characterized as sameness (of identity over experiencing), and difference (different identity or identities), i.e., duration and extension, respectively, whose quantitative but prescientific measures are labeled time and space.

3. Experience of form vs quality, mainly, cognition vs feeling, especially pleasure, pain, and qualities of things (objects).

4. Binding vs freedom, usually as follows with deviation that may be functional but non-functional or maladaptive if ‘severe’—

a. Bound aspects, those regarding which choice is constrained by ‘realism’ (i) feeling, marked by intensity, quality, or both—pleasure, pain, strong emotion (ii) perception of form.

b. Free aspects, choice is not constrained by realism, which makes for creation and agency (i) subtler feeling (ii) thought (iii) interactions of feeling and thought, particularly emotion, art, and intuition. The freedom of thought involves the capacity of mismatch between thought and the world (sometimes called ‘error’) but also metacognitive correction and, so, creativity.

The experiential relation and time

For an experiential being there is experience of

1. Experiencing itself and, so, of change (and ‘time’) and

2. The world, which presents as body and self (which requires continuity in memory) in the world of things (in the general sense of thing as object) and other beings (with selves).

Quality, form, experiencing (time)

Experience has

1. Quality and form,

2. With varying intensity and degree of binding to (versus freedom from) objects (in bound experience-of, the form of the form and quality of the experience is tied to the object).

Experiential structure

Feeling is primitive and of two kinds, qualitative and formed, is of world, generally, and body, specifically. These modes of feeling interact and have degrees of integration.

Cognition concerns form, while emotion is about quality. Experience is an integral whole—the two are interwoven (but may be dissociated).

Perception is cognition bound to the world (if free it is either dream, perceptual imagination, or hallucination which is free but seeming bound).

Thought is free conceptual (not perceptual) cognition, that may be found via perceptual comparison to ‘represent’ the world; delusion is thought that is baselessly and fixedly bound.

Emotion is a combination of body-feeling and thought; it is also conditioned by perception.

Mood is the general tenor of feeling and emotion and its effect on cognition.

It is inherent in these ‘modes’ that, while the distinctions are real, they have interwovenness in their nature and their organic base (parts of the body, especially the brain and endocrine system); that the structure of this system is determined by genetics, environment (physical and social), and its exercise (including choice) over time; and that this changing structure includes an encoding of personality.

The universe is effectively experiential

The world is the object of and includes experience

Truth 39. The world is an object of experience and includes experience.

If the universe were a cosmos with a single kind of element, experience would be a suitable candidate. However, from the metaphysics, the universe has no ultimate kind. Yet, experientiality in primitive form, can and will occupy the lowest levels (at which experientiality is not varied and rich as it is at higher levels). This is neutral on the reality of matter but affirms that there is as-if matter whose interactions are primitively experiential, which sometimes manifest as causal. A world that is not experienced is effectively nonexistent.

The universe is experiential

Truth 40. The universe (being) is (effectively) experiential (this and the earlier statement about the world are consistent).

Assertion 54. That the world is experiential is to neither deny nor affirm that it is material, atomic, spatiotemporal, ideal (in the sense of psychological or spiritual in nature), causal (in the sense of physical causation), in its ultimate nature.

Truth 41. The form of experience suggests and the real metaphysics (all beings interact) confirms that experience is relational and this is what is meant when we affirm that the universe is a (relational) field of experience.

Assertion 55. That the universe is a field of experience allows both zero and infinite values, i.e., voids and particles. Also, from the real metaphysics the ‘speed of light’ has no significance for the universe at large and therefore there is no limit on beings interacting with other beings (even in our cosmos, the limit is contingent).

Assertion 56. Thus (i) as it was said above, the concept of experience has been deepened and broadened (ii) this has been done to an ultimate degree (iii) the term ‘experience’ may be used in the restricted (usual) and extended sense, which, even if it is confusing, is not contradictory, and shows beings to be embedded in being.

Identity, extension, and duration

The nature of identity, extension, and duration

Here are alternative approaches to the definitions.

Definition 69. The most primitive experiential aspect of (experiential) being is that of (sense of) sameness and difference. Emergence and experiencing imply change (and so duration and a concept of time). Identity is (sense of) sameness over duration or change. Extension (and so displacement and a concept of space) is measure of difference across identities; and the further characteristics of identities are (further) properties, i.e., qualities and form (this approach synthesizes instrumental and immersive approaches to identity, extension, and duration).

Definition 70. The most primitive experiential aspect of (experiential) being is that of (sense of) sameness and difference. Primitive identity is enduring (sense of) sameness associated with an experiencer (self) or experienced (object). Change (and so duration, whose measure is time) is difference for a given identity. Extension (and so displacement whose measure is space) is marked by difference across identities; and the further characteristics of identities are (further) properties, i.e., qualities and form (this approach synthesizes instrumental and immersive approaches to identity, extension, and duration).

Assertion 57. Thus, extension and duration (space and time) are immanent in being and therefore (i) so far as the two kinds of parameter of identity difference above are interwoven, so are extension and duration, which are thus extension-duration (spacetime) and (ii) they are dynamic entities in dynamic interaction with the ‘object’ (as above, which is matter-like as seen later) and thus constitute extension-duration-being (space-time-matter).

Assertion 58. Since duration is or can be marked by constancy of identity across change and extension by change across identities the parameters of difference beyond extension and duration, i.e., space and time, aspects of identity rather than difference (and thus there are no parameters of difference beyond spacetime).

Their origins

Assertion 59. Originally, sameness and difference arise together from, e.g., the void. Our experience of sameness, difference, and identity arises, necessarily (from limitlessness), either in a single step or (perhaps more likely) iteratively, with selection.

Assertion 60. But how does the uniformity of extension and duration that is our space and time arise (in general relativity it is, of course, not true uniformity, but in terms of the distribution of matter, it is a kind of uniformity because the space time metric depends only on the distribution of matter, so in the absence of local matter space and time are in fact uniform, and in the presence of matter the different measures of space time at different locations are related so that standard measures can indeed be set up)?

Assertion 61. The answer is in the sameness of sameness and difference. Furthermore, it has already been seen, and relativity lies in the incomplete distinction between the different modes of sameness the identity. And that the quantum lies already in the void, and its signature, therefore marks extension and duration, that is – the objects whose identity constitutes extension, and duration, whose is measure is space and time or rather spacetime.

Assertion 62. But how does sameness of sameness and difference arise? The real metaphysics implies that (a) one step emergence does occur (b) it also occurs via mutual interaction and spreading.

Ethics and meaning

Comment 11. This topic is to be (re) developed in interaction with the later treatment under ‘consequences of the real metaphysics).

Source or study topic 4. The meaning of life—The Meaning of Life (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Source or study topic 5. A source for a living ethics—Bernard Williams (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)and a list of his books and papers. His book Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (is of special interest, for, together with Nietzsche, it argues that in (philosophy’s) striving for universality, ethics (particularly Kantian and Utilitarian), “virtually exclude everything related to the question of how to live well”.

Introduction

Overview

Ethics has been implicitly present from the beginning—(i) experience is the place of being, knowing, and valuing, and being-knowing is without significance without valuing (ii) knowing and valuing are co-founding to any valid metaphysics.

Modern western ethics has been criticized for focus on normative systems to the exclusion of what it is to live well or to live meaningfully. The aim here includes peak realization integrated with living meaningfully. This aim is implemented skeletally in this chapter and in detail but immanently in the later discussion of pathways.

The aims of this section on ethics and meaning

1. To review the concept of ethics.

2. Then, in light of TWB,

a. To see ethics as continuous with metaphysics (and epistemology) and, particularly, to see the placement of this section as part of a natural development of the metaphysical system of TW.

b. To see realization of ultimates – peak being – as an ultimate value, while also seeing that this meshes well with ethical contexts of lesser scope, individual to global.

c. To conceive ethics and consequently give it an orientation toward experiential agents, and so, to develop ethics as a dual focus on and meaning (as in ‘the meaning of life’).

3. Consistently with the first aim, to filter and incorporate aspects of ethics from the history of its thought and practice (a systematic and detailed account in light of TW is in knowledge / world > ethics and meaning)

What is ethics

We repeat an earlier definition:

To be ethical is to choose thought and action that promotes what is good (here, there is no rejection of systematic ethics, but the personal is emphasized in interaction with the systematic and the large scale). Ethics is study, systematic and other, of what thought and action are ethical (ethics is not primarily about the abstract good or right). Metaethics is about the nature of ethics and ethical judgement (but as topic in itself is not particularly important in this work). (While ethics is often studied for its normative side “what we should do and so on”, and the associated discipline is named ‘normative ethics’, analysis of the meaning of ‘ethics’ in terms of word-concept-object, we will find that normative and metaethics are bound as one – two sides of a coin). Applied ethics is about what is ethical in concrete situations and institutions (it is currently, in 2026, a broad subject and some examples are taken up in this work; also note that applied ethics gives ethics flesh and ethics gives applied ethics structure, so while their independent study is important, so is their joint and perhaps dialectic analysis).

Modern normative ethics

Assertion 63. The main theories of (approaches to) ethics are consequentialism (e.g., an act is good if it brings the best future), deontology (rightness of actions in terms of norms), and virtue ethics (actions are moral when they express virtues, e.g., honesty, courage, kindness, and compassion). This list is incomplete; however, there is some agreement that context, culture, and hybrid approaches are important. Further, some thinkers hold or have held that ethics should also be directed at what is meaningful in individual lives in addition to supra-individual frameworks.

Source or study topic 1. For other kinds, see Ethics – normative, other traditions – Wikipedia.

Why ethics and meaning?

Assertion 64. If ethics is about ‘the good’ and related ideas, e.g., ‘what it is to live well’, it must include consideration of the good life for experiential beings (particularly, persons), which implicates meaning as it is used in ‘the meaning of life’. In turn, the meaning of life is not just about higher values but also concerns basic values of safety, security, health, and community.

Assertion 65. Systematic and personal ethics should reflect one another, for while the large scale ought to benefit individuals, individual meaning gives direction to the large scale.

How they do so is addressed in what follows.

Meaning and ethics

Meaning

Here, ‘meaning’ is used in its sense as in ‘the meaning of life’, and is related to ‘significance’ and ‘purpose’. It is roughly, what it is that makes life worth living, which of course varies among people, is influenced by culture, may be active or receptive or both, and entails immediate and larger issues.

Definition 71. Meaning (in the sense suggested by ‘the meaning of life’) is whatever synthesis of thinking, reflecting, feeling, acting, sharing, doing that makes life not just worthwhile, but ultimately rewarding—for individuals, humankind, and being. It includes considerations of value, particularly ethics (for individuals, society, and institutions) and aesthetics (particularly beauty as way of and motive to inspired living).

Experience is the place of meaning in the sense of ‘meaning of life’ and ‘significance of being’. We are essentially experiential beings.

Source or study topic 2. Well-Being (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

The good

The good was defined earlier. We repeat some aspects of the idea

The intrinsic or primary good emphasizes (improvement of) quality, intensity, and form of experience (receptive and active, of experiential beings).

Choice and the right

Definition 72. Where choice (i.e., of thought or action from among real options) is possible, it is right to choose thought and action that promote (intrinsic) goodness.

Ethics

The following repeats some aspects of earlier definitions.

Ethics is right choice in light of what is good; in simple terms, metaethics is the study of ethics.

While facts are about the way the world is, value is concerned with preference and choice and principles thereof; and ethics concerns moral value (an issue to address in the general treatment of ethics is whether there is an ontological distinction between fact and value).

In modern western thought the study of ethics is canonically (i) normative ethics—ethics as specified just above (ii) applied ethics—the ethics of actual situations whether ad hoc or in terms of ethical principles, problems of how to apply the principles and take into account factors specific to the situations (iii) metaethics—roughly the study of the concepts – including ethics itself – that constitute ethics and its study and interactions among these three divisions.

Secondary goodness

Bodily integrity, culture (which includes knowledge, belief, and art), economic and political arrangements and technology are secondarily good—have secondary goodness—as far as they promote goodness.

Overlap of intrinsic and secondary goodness

Assertion 66. Involvement in these matters has intrinsic goodness. Thus, thus there is intrinsic goodness to political entities with elements of democracy. Political arrangements and institutions are secondarily good as far as they promote intrinsic goodness.

In culture and its development, there may be intrinsic goodness; and there is secondary goodness as far as they are instrumental in promoting primary goodness.

While there may be intrinsic goodness in sophistication (which includes precision) of culture, its value in promoting movement (which includes progress and evolution) towards the good (e.g., better beings and societies) does not always require us to wait for sophistication. There may be tradeoffs between sophistication and goodness.

Ethics for The Way of Being

Comment 12. Brief reduction to simple language (already begun in the definition above).

A simple ethic

Assertion 67. The life of the individual is valued – driven by concerns of security and higher living—beauty, intellect, the union of the immediate and the ultimate; sharing; relationships.

What should be considered

Aim and object

Assertion 68. The aim of living according to TWB—Shared living and process in the immediate and ultimate as one.

Assertion 69. Individuals—Adults, children, all living beings, the environment; their interests – sharing, caring, seeking one’s highest being.

Means – the categories

Assertion 70. The following simple rendering of the categories (developed below) is useful.

a. Experiential—(i) meditative (ii) active – immersive, learning, and instrumental (iii) personality and role.

b. World—(i) experiential-universal (ii) nature (iii) community and global society (and categories—economic, political, knowledge and its functions, trans-worldly) (iv) artificial being as being and co-agent.

Ethics and pathway

The pathways shall address all aspects of human being – mind and body – and their best address in light of a balance among thought and feeling, sharing and individual expression, the immediate and the ultimate – i.e., this world and beyond.

Though classical perfection is not desired, there is a sense in which being on a path is provided there is intelligence, effort, sharing, negotiation (over prescription), and address of pleasure and pain (emphasis on pleasure in being and being on the way, some acceptance of pain together with therapy).

Ethical considerations for TW in other sections

There are ethical considerations in doubt and certainty and pathways.

Categories and cosmology

Comment 13. Implications of ethics are to be included if not already present. The treatment of categories in this chapter and that in pathways are to be brought into closer alignment.

In this work, the foundational elements of metaphysics are argument, abstraction, being (existence), universe, beings, the void, possibility, which are known precisely (in abstract, which is all that is needed at that foundational level of discussion). A further element, is the system of knowledge and ethics, for which certainty and precision are valuable but not necessary.

Early in the development of the work, the foundational elements were used as explanatory and predictive. The form of the explanation was to recognize levels and aspects of being, which were called ‘dimensions’ and paradigms or dynamics of explanation or ‘dynamics’ in some generalized sense. It was then recognized that these were close in conception to the philosophical concept of category. In this version of the work dimensions and paradigms or dynamics are replaced by categories and categorial explanation or paradigm and dynamics.

Just as metaphysics is study of the real at all including the highest of levels, so, in this work, categories are elements or ways of understanding at all levels (this deviates from received use as explained and justified below). Thus, the study of categories has already begun—at least implicitly and without especial attention to systematic study. Here we will explicitly develop a concept and system of categories.

Here, the categories (i) depend on chapters through metaphysics and then, especially, on experience and ethics and meaning (ii) enhance the metaphysics – its use in understanding-with-prediction and realization and. Therefore the categories are placed here, after experience and ethics and meaning. There is some freedom in where to place this chapter, but the categories should come before the chapters on implications for knowledge and pathways and programs, where the categories have significant use.

Introduction – categories in philosophy and in this work

The received concept of the categories and its function

The concept

As introduced by Aristotle, a system of categories is a complete—and perhaps unique—list of highest genera or kinds of being or of understanding (or of both being and understanding as manifest in Aristotle’s work).

In modern use, as emphasized by Kant work, skepticism about knowledge led to emphasis on categories of our conceptual system, language, or knowledge and acknowledgement of limits to such kinds.

Comment 14. Comment on category ‘differences (SEP).

Function

Categories are useful in recognizing and forming systems of logic, understanding, and valid thought about and descriptions of the world at a high conceptual level; their use is commonly in but not restricted to philosophy.

With Aristotle, the categories were real but derived from language as the most general predicates and were thus useful in formulating his syllogism.

From considerations of it being difficult to distinguish appearance and reality (‘phenomena and noumena’) Kant begins with an attempt to identify all possible forms of empirical judgment, from which he hopes to discover the categories employed in the cognition of objects (Categories – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Some recent work has focused semantic category distinctions as a way of dissolving various mistakes and paradoxes in the use of language and logic.

Categories in this work – categories vs categorial levels

Origins

In earlier developments of TW, tools of method, understanding, and realization were precursor to its categories.

n early developments of TW, a number of aspects of being arose as useful tools, which I named ‘dimensions’. They were similar but different from categories, so I did not use the term ‘categories’.

The dimensions were associated with dynamics or paradigms of understanding. For example, at the highest level of abstraction, the paradigm is that of certain fact and inference. A paradigm or dynamic that would be useful in transformation would be a ‘means’.

Since I wanted the dimensions to be useful in I emphasized not just dimensions, but dimensions and paradigms and, later, dynamics.

Determination and function

Being itself was seen as (rationally) deserving of regard as a category, as were levels below that of traditional categories, for the latter are essential tools in the real metaphysics and its use.

In using the real metaphysics, its abstract structure and the structure of experience is useful in understanding the high level structure of the real and employing it in action and transformation. At the highest level a paradigm or dynamic of understanding is, by the real metaphysics, sound argument (certain fact established directly or indirectly by inference).

Some low level structure can be understood by abstracting the essence of and generalizing paradigms or dynamics such as causality and evolutionary selection from our world. When projected beyond our world, e.g., to form and formation, (i) such projection provides one representation of the real, which is or is seen as likely, perhaps highly likely, but not unique (ii) the effective likeliness is enhanced by a formed world being, most often, a prerequisite for emergence of high level experiential beings.

The dimensions would be determined by working top (abstract) – down by particularization, as well as bottom (concrete, our world) – up, by analogy and corroboration. In doing so, it is effective to regard being itself as a category at a level just above that of the traditional categories.

Categorial levels and dynamics (paradigms) rather than just categories

Consistent with the origin and use of the idea in this work, it is seen functional to recognize not just a high-level system, but (also) levels and their systems and paradigms.

Further, given how the real metaphysics splices together experience and reality, the categories will be experiential and this will be both Aristotelian and Kantian in spirit.

That is

1. The categories will be experiential.

2. As in Aristotle and Kant, at the level of being, categories will pertain to description and logic.

3. in analogy to physics, so far as they may, categories should contain a dynamics, if only implicitly.

Definition 73. A dynamic for category or categorial realm is a description of its structures and their changes (it is useful for the descriptions patterned, i.e., based in a small number of parameters or principles, and therefore make for efficient determination of the structures and their changes).

Thus, the dimensions would not just be at the highest level (just below being itself) but also at the level of being, at the traditional level, and perhaps other intermediate levels, down to a concrete level.

In determining the dimensions I found that it would be effective to (i) include being itself as a level above the traditional highest level (ii) have intermediate dimensions.

Though it might seem that the higher levels derive from the concrete, it has been seen in the development of the metaphysics, that we do know being itself directly as abstracted from the entire world rather than from something remote in the real or in our concepts (we also saw that this frames what might be deep in the world and therefore permits depth to emerge without suggesting that there is depth or otherwise).

Nomenclature

It is now found that it is effective to talk of categorial or paradigmatic levels, and categories and paradigms (the latter includes ‘means’).

Definition 74. A paradigm or dynamic (as the term is used in this work) is system of understanding for a class of beings (up to all being), which includes methods of argument and means of transformation such as technology—particularly technology of exploration, being, and intelligence—and unition or yoga (defined below).

Definition 75. A system of categories and paradigms is a classification of being into kinds at all levels, which derives from real metaphysical knowledge, and—especially—enables understanding, prediction, and transformation (via the paradigms).

Deploying the real metaphysics

It is effective to have being itself as a category as this invokes (i) all, part, and null (ii) nonbeing including contradictory being, which does not affect considerations regarding manifest being but makes explicit the fact of the existence of the void (iii) possible being and argument, especially sound argument.

The high level or ideal metaphysics, affords a true and realist system at that level. At that level, there is a uniqueness of paradigm or dynamic (sound argument) but the question of uniqueness in how the paradigm or dynamic is worked out (what logics there are) and need for it at that level remains open.

Our understanding of the universe as experiential (at least effectively) enables incorporation of both old and new notions of category (elements of being and of dynamic understanding).

The real metaphysics encourages the idea and introduction of categories at multiple levels, e.g., (i) the level of being (ii) the level of manifest being (iii) robust being (iv) our world. The determination will be (a) top – down (i.e., abstract – manifest – concrete) (b) bottom – up (concrete – abstract, with our world and its paradigms as analogy, buttressed by reasons).

Where appropriate, terms for categories used in the philosophical literature may be explicitly incorporated here (e.g., substance, process, entity, relationship…).

Note that two kinds of substance are recognized in the history of philosophy (i) the substance of all being, i.e., as that of which all being is made or of which it is understood and which is denied by the real metaphysics (as-if substances are permitted and useful for some purposes, e.g., in a cosmos) (ii) the substance of particular kinds of being, for which I prefer to use the idea of form (Aristotle’s use of ‘substance’ in this regard is close to Plato’s the idea of form), which is immanent in the one universe rather than, as in Plato, existent in an ideal world (and further, since forms with perfect symmetry may be static, their realization is approximate even where the form is perfectly symmetrical).

We will not strive for explicit completeness in this version of TW, but allow what completeness there is to remain partially implicit (the term ‘argument’ includes much that is implicit).

Comment 15. Thus, work remains to be done for the open version of TW.

The categorial and paradigmatic levels

The categorial and paradigmatic levels of being (and understanding, prediction, and means of transformation of beings) will be:

Experiential being and nonbeing—the highest level known via abstraction

Universe field of being, (effectively) as an experiential-relational field.

Whereas, the traditional categories are one level below being, here we include being itself as the highest categorial level.

We admit nonbeing or nonmanifest being to being (from discussions of existence and manifestation).

Form(s) of (experiential) being – a continuum

Includes formation as a form.

Emphasizes special forms that are relatively stable as a result of near symmetry – and mechanisms of formation (variation and selection) over random formation (which is also possible and therefore does occur but is – far – less likely).

The formed forms yield categorial levels just below being itself. The dynamics of their formation is, as stated above, variation and selection. The dynamics of their behavior, resulting from formation, is analogous to the dynamics seen in our world.

May include singularities and voids.

Emphasizes a hierarchy of experiential being from primitive to animal and human to higher and to peak being.

We want the categories to be more than mere classification but also to provide structure and dynamics. For this we introduce ‘general form’, as below.

Our world

Our world as depicted in our better knowledge and its paradigms.

Our world from which we derive pragmatic metaphysical levels – the physical through the universal and paradigms of perception and understanding, e.g., spacetime and causation as well as their specific forms in science.

The categories and dynamics according to their levels and paradigms

Site source 2. The little manual has details on some aspects of the categories (under ‘dimensions of being’), especially social categories. Though rough, the detail may be useful.

This chapter begins the actual system of categories in this work.

Cosmology, later treated explicitly in cosmology, enters here via paradigms (dynamics). explicitly later in cosmology.

All (levels of) being

The main paradigms or dynamics

The main paradigms or dynamics—the following are inherited by all levels: general argument and the real metaphysics; fact, imagination, analogy across levels with imagination, criticism, and corroboration as a paradigm or dynamic of understanding.

Kinds of argument and levels from abstract to concrete.

Inter-implications among the paradigmatic levels

Lower level paradigms or dynamics that have necessity at their level (relative to the domain of observation), have non-universal instantiation at higher levels where more inclusive paradigms or dynamics obtain.

On the other hand, paradigms or dynamics for higher levels, of which some have necessity, obtain at lower levels, where they are constraints, but do not completely determine structures and events.

Experiential being and nonbeing

Nonbeing

Inclusion makes no difference to manifest being but identifies the void as the object of contradiction (illogical form).

Beings

Beings and whole – part – null (or nil or zero) items and relations.

Universe as an experiential-relational field

Universe as an experiential-relational field.

Dynamics and paradigms

See the main paradigms or dynamics for all (levels) of being, above.

General form

Form in general as change or changing of the experiential relational field (experience-of – the experience – the experienced).

The change and field may be described by the terms ‘continuous’ and ‘continuum’ where those terms allow abrupt change and regions of continuity, particles (as singularities or excitations), and voids.

Formation

Formation as a form—details follow.

A range from increment-and-selection to saltation in a single step or a few steps.

Correlates with the above stasis-symmetry-stability-robustness continuum.

Formation without heredity

Generally transient and low on the above continuum.

However, there are exceptions.

Formation with heredity

Vertical heredity

Beings with form that is micro-coded with inheritance of coding, but not directly of form.

Paradigm or dynamic of emergence—dominated by incremental variation and selection but single step origins possible and real.

Horizontal heredity

Form is propagated in the field of relational being.

How might this happen? Given a region, e.g., a cosmos or pre-cosmos, of interacting elements, an emerged form in a sub-region may propagate because, from common origins, the entire region is receptive to the form emerged in the sub-region.

Vertical vs horizontal heredity

Is it likely that in some or many cases, one kind is dominant but the other is also present?

Relation as form

Form and paradigm or dynamic—beings as concept – experiential relation – object.

Formed forms

The form of (concept-) objects marked by slow enough change to be perceived as static and lying on continuum of more to less stasis, symmetry, stability, and robustness.

Paradigm or dynamic—saltation is possible but effective population determined by (nonlinear) interaction of degree of experientiality and robustness; robustness determined by stability and so by symmetry.

If, as is reasonable, perfect symmetry is static, while absence of it is rapidly transient, extremes are rare.

Elementary forms

E.g. field of relational experience, which permits voids and atoms as special cases.

Sameness, difference, identity, extension, relation, duration, and property.

Comment 16. Fill the above out.

Particular forms

Particular forms (corresponding to as-if substance as a kind of entity)

Hierarchy of experiential being

Comment 17. See this topic under ‘our world’, below. Abstract from that topic.

A beginning to this topic is in our world, below.

Our world

Approximated by an experiential field describable by as-if matter in primitively experiential relation, i.e., approximated by (as-if) matter that is primitively experiential.

Consequently the emergence of (as-if) high-level matter and mind is not substance emergence but emergence of form.

The experiential field ranges in quality and magnitude from nil and minimal as in bulk (as-if) matter, to complexity (molecules), to elementary life, to plant life, to animal including human being, to higher forms and peak being(s).

The physical or material level

Behavior

Field, atoms, bulk matter and its behavior as in quantum, relativistic, statistical, and condensed matter theories. Chemistry and nuclear physics.

Paradigms or dynamics – mechanism and its origins – determinism and indeterminism, residual indeterminism and quantum theory; sameness – difference – identity – extension – duration – cause – property.

Paradigm or dynamic – the object side of experience as seen in the natural and social sciences and their paradigms or dynamics (e.g., evolution by variation and selection, mechanism, causality).

Extension and duration

Cosmos, origins, history; cosmological structures (galaxies etc), solar system(s) and planets.

Multiverse theory.

Mathematical and logical universe (not restricted to physical theory).

Complexity and life

Complex molecules, abiogenesis; replicators, coding, and genetics.

Life and its kinds and levels through conscious and intelligent organisms.

Function—life as it is

Paradigms or dynamics—functional chemistry of complex compounds, principles of biological organisms and ecosystems.

Origins and evolution

Paradigms or dynamics—emergence of complexity, evolution by variation of hereditary factors and selection.

Domains and kingdoms

With ‘kingdom’ as the highest level of classification, two kingdoms, animals and plants, were recognized early in biology (this is what I learned in school).

But then, more kingdoms were, recognized, depending on criteria. With the idea of a kingdom as a major branch with a common ancestor, today it is common to recognize five or six kingdoms (in textbooks around the word), but as many as eight are recognized.

Today, a higher level than kingdom, the domain, is recognized by some biologists, as in the three domain system—archaea, bacteria, and eukarya—devised by Carl Woese, Otto Kandler and Mark Wheelis in 1990.

Commonly recognized current taxonomic divisions are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.

Since this work is not one of biology, and the distinctions are neither absolute nor static, there is no further conceptual discussion of the divisions of life at this time.

Experiential hierarchy

As-if material, dominated by physical law.

Mid-range and human, both experiential and physical.

Paradigm or dynamic – the subject side of experience and its transformations as in unition (yoga) and meditation and as seen in psychology of experiential being.

As-if spiritual, dominated by ideas as container and propagater of hereditary form.

Societies

Comment 18. The content is at present suggestive.

Primitive molecules and organisms

A paradigm or dynamic of synchronous cooperation.

Plant

From societies of organisms to rooted entities.

Animal – primitive through higher

From societies of organisms to mobile entities.

Human

Site source 3. little manual.docm.

Intelligence and physiology as preliminary to elements of culture, communication, and cooperation.

Higher

Transcending our beings, societies, and cosmos.

Universal

Comment 19. Work this out via imagination, synthesis of foregoing elements, and criticism.

Paradigm or dynamic – integration of the subject and object sides in understanding and means of realization—particularly transformations of self, as in unition (yoga), aided by technology (space exploration and artificial intelligence).

More on paradigms and dynamics

The dynamics are further elaborated in cosmology.

Unition (yoga)

It would have been natural to have placed this section experience. However, since it should address all categories, it is placed here.

Yoga has an historical origin in thought and practice in India, where ‘yoga’, related to our ‘yoking’, had one use as union with being-as-universal-experientiality. Yoga had a long history in India (~3000 BCE to the present time) and has spread worldwide in a range of adaptations to modern cultures

Thus yoga is an appropriate term to capture the system of TW as a practice that recognizes the truth that beings are experiential with as-if matter and mind sides with manifestation in the world and destiny to cycle through limitless peak and dissolved being and seeks effective ways (paths) to the ultimate beginning in our world.

The original insight in India was of yoga as the metaphysical insight of the identity of experiential beings—local and universal. Practice of action, and (as-if) body and mind, came later.

Nomenclature

Use of ‘yoga’ and related terms such as ‘meditation’ to refer to what is intended here may be misleading if they are interpreted as very specific activities or if they are seen as being religious or merely spiritual.

Therefore, in addition to the introduction above and the definitions below, we shall consider a term that can function as alternative to ‘yoga’, especially with western readers in mind.

Having considered a number of possibilities (e.g., binding) and consulted with others, a neologism emerged – unition (suggested by a Microsoft AI agent). I shall write ‘unition (yoga)’, except where just one of the terms is appropriate.

The concept of unition (yoga)

Definition 76. Unition (yoga) is (i) the metaphysical insight of identity of all experiential beings, their as-if physical and psychic sides, local and ultimate (ii) an emerging system of knowledge and categories, practice, and action for ultimate realization that begins in (and for) the immediate, where realization may occur in the present but is more likely in the ultimate, i.e., across the patchwork of form and the void. It may be immersive and instrumental, individual and cultural. It may select from any aspect of knowledge, culture, and experience according to what is found effective and efficient. Unification (yoking) is unition (yoga)-in-process-and-action.

The as-if material and the mindlike sides of being are significant to ways of realization of the ultimate. Thus—

Unition (yoga) as binding of beings to being has no ‘sides’ but two apparent experiential sides meditative and physical – mind and body.

As we are experiential beings, the meditative might seem supreme, but since the sides are not distinct, the physical is as essential (it being thought that experiential being must have a body).

Part 3. Knowledge / world*

Part 4. Pathways

Part 5. Return

Return

Having reflected on our place and trajectory in the universe, while acting out and upon these reflections, we return to focus on action and transformation, emphasizing the immediate, the ultimate, and their mesh. Return is a complement to Part 1. Into to The Way of Being. Here, there is an emphasis on a place of quiet, contemplation, and reflection on what is essential. However, it is not a final place. Rather, it is part of a cyclic process, and from ‘return’, we may begin again from the beginning or at any point in the cycle of our individual and social life. ‘Return’ is also looking inward, so as to more effectively act in the world.

Truth 42. We are the ultimate even – especially – when we do not see it. Our work, if we choose it, is to see and realize the ultimate in sharing, while attending to immediate ground, informed by our new understanding.

The focus

Definition 77. Return signifies a focus on the world that is freshened by a new point of view. The focus is an ongoing ‘conversation’ between reflection, ideas, sharing and publication; the world and the ultimate; and action and realization.

Focus – interaction and conversation among living in the immediate, community, and realization under The Way of Being. A time of living in the present, for the present as (if it is) ultimate. The foci include foundation (ideas, writing, publishing) and becoming (realization; attention to the categories of nature, society, psyche, and the universal; unition; sharing).

Action – the categories, with emphasis on immersion.

Publishing – see universal narrative, below.

Perception – seeing the world as it is, in balance with the lens of concepts.

Retreat and renewal

Retreat and renewal – for sustenance of attitude and immersion in a path to the ultimate—as the occasion arises and annual or biannual.

Places – home; extended nature and culture travel for immersion, renewal, and ad hoc and other inspiration in the moment

Universal narrative

Introduction

Synthesis – It is of value to have a synthesis of the history of thought. In doing so individuals have been important, especially because some thinkers are occasions for fundamental advance. However, it is also useful to focus on ideas.

The status of the literature of ideas – Today we refer back to thinkers about 2500 years ago, that is, to the earliest written words in philosophy. What if, instead, there were 10,000, 100,000, or 1 million years of written history? In formulating philosophical thought, would it be required to refer to all important thinkers of the last million years? If philosophical thought continues for another, say, 10,000 years would not referring back, become an impediment to new thought?

What is required – Some of the seminal thinkers of the future will be summarizers and synthesizers. They will capture the essences of thousands of years of philosophy. This will make for productive new, thinking. This will, of course, not prevent any thinker from referring to the detailed record (and perhaps some kind of systematic databases will be available to help minimize the labor of back referral).

Writing and updating universal narrative

Writing and updating the narrative shall be an ongoing and shared project.

1. Sharing is an intrinsic (community) value in being and becoming; sharing will address the problems of limited time and expertise of a single writer.

2. The problem of coherence and inspiration will be addressed by a team under inspired leadership.

3. For The Way of Being – continued development, publication, advertising, sharing, and realization.

On universal narrative

Assertion 71. Synthesis – the history of ideas and endeavor rewritten, perhaps once a generation or at cultural paradigm shifts, as a single and evolving text (and oral and ideational tradition). The synthesis will be concept centered with individual thinkers as a secondary emphasis.

Comment 20. Add link to ‘institute’.

Planning†

General

Rethink

Uses of terms—new and variant

Part 1. Into to The Way of Being

Foundational issues

Doubt and dialetheia

Logic, science, and argument

An example: logic from ordinary language

Some fundamental laws of logic are

Standard logics

Part 2. An account of the world

Being

Experience and being

Significant meaning and value

Language, concept meaning, and knowledge

Argument

Direct argument

Indirect argument or inference from established fact

Certain inference

Likely inference

Transitivity of inference

Argumentative strength

The certain case

The less than certain case

Ampliative vs nonampliative argument

What argument does

Being and beings

Metaphysics

The concept of possibility

Conceptual or logical possibility

Real possibility

Impossibility and necessity

Cause and the cause of the universe

The range of possibility

The limitlessness of being and the universe

Alternative demonstrations of limitlessness

Some significant consequences

All beings

On perfection, pleasure, and pain

The universe

The void

Knowledge

Living in two worlds

The two worlds

Living in two worlds as one

Metaphysical possibility

The significant universe*

The range of possibility

The significant universe

On certainty

Doubt and its use

General doubt

The Way of Being: doubt

The Way of Being: response to doubt

Aspects of experience – needs for experiential beings

The experiential relation and time

Quality, form, experiencing (time)

Experiential structure

The world is the object of and includes experience

The universe is experiential

The nature of identity, extension, and duration

Their origins

Ethics and meaning

Overview

The aims of this section on ethics and meaning

What is ethics

Modern normative ethics

Why ethics and meaning?

Meaning

The good

Choice and the right

Ethics

Secondary goodness

Overlap of intrinsic and secondary goodness

A simple ethic

What should be considered

Aim and object

Means – the categories

Ethics and pathway

Planning^†

Significant me aning and value