Ideas and knowledge: the understanding of being is complete and this completeness has been formally demonstrated. Naturally, this does not mean that complete and detailed knowledge of the entire universe has been obtained or is even desirable. However, at the most general level the understanding of being is complete. The development of the concept of being (essays titled Journey in Being linked from the home page) requires no reference to a more fundamental level and shows that there is no fundamental or basic substance, that there can be none, and, importantly, none is needed to explain the manifest universe. What is the use of this information except intrinsic interest? Combining the developments with more specific areas of knowledge frequently leads to improved understanding of the specific area while it also illuminates the character of being. The ‘specific’ areas vary from the relatively general such as classical metaphysics, logic and cosmology, to more specific applications such as the nature science, the foundations of theoretical physics (in process,) understanding the nature of mind – in general and human mind, understanding language, understanding society: its institutions and its ethical systems and change, the nature of knowledge and of faith, and the possibilities of transformation, i.e., what forms may an individual assume. The understanding of being has been applied to the foundation of a number of academic disciplines including philosophy as well as to the concerns of human being and society, to faith and religion, and to physical realization of conscious and / or living intelligence. The application includes not only a freeing up from preoccupation with traditional confusions such as the mind-body problem but also the provision of a framework, already put into use, within which attention may be turned to the address and resolution of real concerns

It may be useful to say a little more about the role of substance in philosophy (metaphysics) but, since the development here is not directly dependent on it, the reader who wishes to focus on the introduction may avoid or defer reading this paragraph. I consider the concept because of its importance in the history of thought, because of the difficulties associated with it, and because the present treatment eliminates the need for substances in understanding the world. It is not my intention here to cover the topic in depth or detail but only to outline the main features and problems of any attempt to found metaphysics in substance. The concept of substance is that it is a basic kind of thing, perhaps uniform and unchanging in nature, that is generative of all being or a class of being – one motive to consider the concept is to be able to understand the manifest variety and complexity in the world in terms of a simple foundation; I am using it in the sense of its being generative of all being. Therefore, according to what is called substance ontology, the complex forms of the universe must come out of the simple form or non-form of substance. What has been shown in the developments that require no reference to a more basic level is that there are no fundamental substances, e.g. mind or matter, that are constitutive of all being although it is possible for substance to be constitutive of a cosmological system such as the ‘known’ universe. One significance of the developments is that they cut through problems associated with substance ontology including the classic mind-body problem. There is also an intrinsic problem with substance ontology in that it is foundational and needed as a possible foundation only if arbitrary change is not possible but, in that case, it is difficult to see how it is foundational: unless there are infinitely many substances, it is difficult to see how objects of the world made of substance. The difficulty may be restated: under determinism (roughly, no arbitrary change) substance ontology is either impotent (one or few substances cannot explain the world) or trivial (infinitely many, so substances are just the objects of the world;) and under indeterminism, substance ontology is unnecessary. This difficulty is not merely one of personal or human understanding but may be formulated in logical terms that show that substance is unable fulfill the role that it is intended to fulfill: the foundation of being in all its forms, especially the manifest ones. Substance ontology has had a strong influence, if not a hold, on western philosophy for over two millennia and, though it is the source of much that is profound, it is also the source of much essential confusion, i.e. confusion that must logically attend substance ontology, of which an important example is the mind-body problem. Awareness of the problems of substance ontology is not new and it was a motive for Heidegger’s philosophy of being. However, while Heidegger’s approach begins in what is very specific and human, the alternative developed here is based in what is abstract: the absence of being or the void that, in the philosophy developed in the essays, is equivalent to a substance free ontology or one with zero substances

Transformation: from the understanding of being it has been possible to show that the individual may assume any possible form and to explain the meaning and significance of this assertion. However, the general understanding does not show what transformations may be desirable and feasible… The claim that any form may be realized appears to contradict common sense and science but it is seen that there is no real contradiction when it is realized (and shown) that the impossibilities of science and common sense (except of course for logical impossibilities) are actually high degrees of improbability. My achievements in transformation, described in the essays, though remarkable, are not yet complete. I have made inroads into the first important step which is taking the realm of consciousness beyond its normal limits and the next step is ‘physical’ transformation. Tentative developments in the physical realm include health, relationships but these are not full physical transformations. Although the primary objective concerns ‘experiments in the transformation of being,’ plans include work in the physical realization of conscious intelligence. I plan that this website will record the process of trial and (any) achievements… continue