The Journey so far: The Understanding of Being - Page I
The understanding of being is complete and this completeness has been demonstrated. The goals in transformation (and application) are underway… The first purpose of this discussion is to address the claim that ‘the understanding of being is complete.’ I will then discuss its use in transformation and application. I will briefly cover plans and achievements so far in those goals. The discussion spans a number of pages and its level of depth is greater than that of the other introductory pages to this site The development follows a number of steps. Details of the development are in the essays linked from the Home page (Site-Map) which fill in details and provide greater precision. What follows is a very brief narrative which starts with the concepts of the universe (roughly defined to be all that there is, has been and will be) and the void I will begin with a brief outline of the logic of the understanding of being that is developed in the essays (Home.) The void is defined to be what remains when everything is removed from the universe or, more precisely, when the universe is subtracted from itself. An equivalent definition is that the void is any object subtracted from itself. It follows that (1) the void exists; (2) that there may be thought to be any number of voids but, as will be seen, there is no significance to the number of voids and, therefore, it is valid to think of there being precisely one void; (3) the void is not just an absence of things but also of laws and patterns. The third item follows from the definition of ‘universe’ as everything: therefore not even laws can be outside the universe. Note, that ‘exists’ is being used in the sense of existing somewhere and somewhen (discussion of the idea of being or existence is to be found in the essays) Now consider the assertion that a description that contains no contradiction cannot or will not be realized from the void. That assertion would be a law of or in the void and is therefore untrue. I.e., the void is equivalent to any object (here and in what follows an object is one that is actual or describable without contradiction), to all objects and to the entire universe; and, therefore, that any object is equivalent to any other object and to the entire universe. Therefore, the universe is far greater than conceived in (normal) science, in usual common sense, and in any concrete picture from art or imagination. Every possibility is (in the atemporal sense noted above) realized and every individual is equivalent to every other individual and to all being. Every individual will realize every being and all being with and without design. This outline has been extremely brief and its elaboration, criticism, and extensive application is narrated in the essays There are clearly a number of criticisms of the logic of the previous two paragraphs but before I take them up it will be useful to consider a number of implications whose significance will make it worthwhile arguing for and against the logic. Consider, first, the ‘great’ laws of theoretical physics that reveal to us something about the character of the ‘known’ universe and its origins. Not every negation of these laws is a logical contradiction for if the negations do not contain internal contradictions then it is possible that there are cosmological systems outside the known universe where the alternative laws obtain. Therefore, according to the arguments above, such cosmological systems are actual. It then follows that all laws have a limited reign. It may be thought then that there are no universal laws. However, this is not precisely true for the one restriction on the possibility of laws is that they must, as has been seen, be logically consistent. I.e., the one universal law is the system of logic. Now, this appears to contradict some modern views on the nature of logic but it does not and the different views (logic is universal vs. logics are contextual) may be shown to form a synthetic whole; however, this development which requires proper (re) conceptualization of the nature of logic as the analysis of necessary or constitutive form is deferred to the essays… continue |