On meaning

Anil Mitra, © August 2023

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Being | Metaphysics | Experience | The real metaphysics | The ultimate | Pathways | Postscript

The way of being

Introduction

The specialization of modern philosophy is a necessary consequence of its broad development. The breadth is positive, yet specialization has negative consequences (i) when interdependent topics are developed in relative isolation form one another, the development of a given topic may be limited by its dependence on limited versions of other topics and, generally, philosophy tends to develop piece-meal rather than coherently (ii) whereas philosophy once had knowledge as a whole as an emphasis, there is no discipline that has this emphasis today.

Regarding item #i, concept and linguistic meaning is one significant topic among the interdependent topics of philosophy. But it is more than just a topic—it impinges almost every discussion in philosophy, whether seen narrowly through the lens of specialization or broadly; and modern notions of meaning are themselves specialized and often distorted by too much weight being given to recent developments. Further, as meaning is immanent everywhere in the knowledge disciplines, even in the sciences, it is essential to the development of knowledge as a whole.

I acknowledge that the idea of knowledge as a whole is often seen as a hopeless even if meaningful endeavor. However, it is shown in

Being

A being (plural: beings) is that which is (validly known to be, in the most inclusive sense of the term is); being is the property of beings-as-beings—being and existence are identical; there are beings and being.

The universe is all being; the universe is a being (itexists).

The void is the absence of being—the being that contains no being; the existence of the void does not obviously follow from its definition; however, nonexistence of nothing is existence of nothing and therefore existence and nonexistence of the void are equivalent; therefore (it may be said that) the void is a being (it exists). Note that for all concepts, to exist and to not exist is a contra-diction; and for most objects, it is also a contra-real, i.e., impossible; but for the void, it is not a contra-real (thus, for the void, to exist and to not exist is a true contradiction or dialetheia).

A pattern obtains for a being, e.g., a cosmos, when the data to specify the being is less than the raw data; patterns are immanent in the being and therefore have being (exist); if we regard a law as its pattern, laws have being (exist); there are no laws in the void.

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is knowledge of the real; it is already established above that there is some metaphysics (our study of metaphysics began with beings and being).

A being is possible if its existence is not ruled out by any consideration at all. Given a concept (depiction, description), existence of a corresponding being may be possible or impossible. If the concept itself does not (does) rule out existence, the (conceived) being is logically possible (logically impossible). If, further, the nature of the universe does not (does) rule out existence, the (conceived) being has real possibility (real impossibility); real possibility presumes logical possibility, therefore logical possibility is the greatest possibility and real possibility does not and cannot exceed logical possibility; examples of real possibility are physical possibility (in our cosmos), economic possibility (for our world), and human possibility (in terms of experience of and valid thought, received or rational, on our nature).

If, from the void, a being, possible in the greatest sense, did not emerge, it would be a law of the void. That is, the existence of the void is equivalent to existence of all possibility in the greatest sense. That is, the universe is the realization of the greatest possibility—this assertion is named the fundamental principle of metaphysics; and all beings realize this greatest possibility; they merge in doing so.

Experience

The strategy of this section is to establish the local significance of experience and to universalize it as far as we may, with reason, first without and then with the fundamental principle.

Experience is conscious awareness in all its forms; there is experience (experience has being), and we are experiential beings; the structure of experience in general is experience-of, (the-) experience, and the-experienced—or concept, relation (meaning), and object (being). The being of the experience-of (obviously) does not always entail the being of the-experienced and so arises the possibility and fact that what we think of as and call pure experience, is not essentially different from experience-of.

Experience is the place of all significance and of the essence of our being, and as far as we are characteristic of the essence of all being, experience in all its forms is the essence of being; that is, if we are characteristic of being, the essence of being is aware understanding (of being). Can there be a kind beyond experientiality—beyond consciousness? As experience is relation and relation of relation is relation, there is no further kind beyond experientiality. However, there can of course and must be levels of experience ‘higher’ than ours.

If our world were strictly material, i.e., entirely material with experience as no part of matter, experience would be impossible; therefore, our world may seem and be approximately material but is not and cannot be strictly material.

Let us now reason without appeal to the fundamental principle.

As suggested above, we could see experience as the fundamental nature of the universe—the universe as a field of experience or experiential being, ourselves as essentially experiential (with experience as the place of significance and our being), experience as ultimate relation, and the experienced as what we otherwise call material (since we have experience of experience, experience, too, is material or, rather, as if material). To see the universe as a field of experience, the concept of experience would have to be extensible to the root of being and animal beings would be heightened, layered, focal centers of experience; in our experience, objects have quality—they are like something, but primitive experience-of would, if at all, be barely like anything or intentional (just as primitive material objects, e.g., fields, are far simpler than medium or macro level objects such as rocks, animals, and cosmoses). The extension to the root would require all being to be experiential, and what we think of as ‘mere existence’ would have minimal to zero but not null experientiality (null experientiality would mean zero experientiality and necessary incapability of achieving experientiality). Since the world can be seen as relational being, this possibly true description contains all possibly true descriptions. But is it true?

Appeal to the fundamental principle entails that it is true; the fundamental principle requires it.

The universe is a field of experiential being as described above, and experientiality can now be seen as the essence of being. And this field includes as if mind as object and as if matter.

The medium and means of realization of the greatest possibility is experience. That is, means and medium have experiential (experience itself) and instrumental (as if material) sides. If we interpret yoga as its own ultimate possibility rather than what is received in eastern and western traditions, then yoga is the means; and, in this sense, real yoga will incorporate but go beyond what is valid in eastern and western traditions of thought and action—particularly, e.g., meditation, hatha yoga, eastern philosophy, western knowledge (especially philosophy, science, and the symbols of religion), and our traditions of technology and exploration.

The real metaphysics

The fundamental principle is culmination of an ideal metaphysics. Its truth follows from abstraction, which is to eliminate from a concept whatever is necessarily distorted (and the results of abstraction are not here intended to be what are elsewhere commonly known as abstract objects, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or SEP). For example, while our concepts of particular beings may be unreliable, that there is being and that it has instances, e.g., the universe and the void, is known from the abstract character of the concepts (thus the present sense of ‘abstract’ is not in opposition to the concrete but may be seen as most real and most concrete). Even the essential logic of the derivation of the fundamental principle and the logics of the greatest possibility are abstract.

The ideal metaphysics shows us that we can and will realize ultimate being. It suggests approaches—yoga, its experiential (meditative) and instrumental (use of science, technology) sides. It shows that there is ultimate enjoyment in the ultimate and therefore if enjoyment of our faculties of being is a value, their use in the realization of the ultimate is an ultimate value. However, while the ideal metaphysics begins to show paths, it needs to be complemented. By what? To the ideal metaphysics, we join what is reasonably valid—‘good enough’—in our traditions up to the present. We do not ask for perfection in received senses such as perfect correspondence of concepts to objects or perfection of beings or perfect happiness. The join is the best we have and that it may lead to error does not detract from it for it is guaranteed to lead effectively to the ultimate; it is perfect in this pragmatic sense, which is based in valuing the ultimate. But it is also a dynamic join—the ideal illuminates and guides the pragmatic; the pragmatic illustrates and is instrumental toward the ideal ultimate. The dynamic join is named the real metaphysics.

Since the pragmatic need only be good enough, we choose from western knowledge (i) ‘dimensions of being’—nature (the ground: simple or physical, complex or living, and experiential), society (the human environment of knowledge and action), and the universal (whose conception begins in understanding and finding nature to be flexible, and which is extended as in the real metaphysics, above) (ii) paradigms such as mechanism with indeterminism from physical science, cumulative variation and selection from biology, and logic (with two sides—formal logic and induction, which are integrated in seeing that both logical and scientific theories are inductive, while proof under the theories is deductive). We now describe some consequences.

The ultimate

The universe has identity; the universe and its identity are limitless with regard to variety and magnitude; as experience requires duration and extent, measures of time and space are parameters of magnitude; as there is difference with (duration) and without (extension) change in identity, there are no further parameters, but there can be modes of description that are not spatiotemporal, e.g., much of the metaphysics above and this is what is meant by the phrase ‘beyond space and time’; there are cosmoses without limit to variety, e.g., laws and beings, and magnitude; every cosmos is an atom, every atom a cosmos; the entire system is in self-communication and communication with the void (but there are temporary isolations); logic is at the root of descriptive and patterned variety; all beings realize the ultimate—they merge in doing so; birth and death and other as if limits are real but not absolute; bits of our being traverse the universe and its atoms and cosmoses and reconstitute as other beings and at a certain level of ‘sophistication’ beings begin to have some mastery over their destiny; pleasure and pain are unavoidable, but optimum enjoyment is in the intelligent development and sharing of pathways to the ultimate (best therapeutic address of pleasure and pain is a value); pleasure is not to be avoided but its best enjoyment emphasizes pleasure on the path (yet enjoyment of the world is a value, too; and—they also serve who only stand and wait); if peak being has a meaning it is the process of which we are all part rising from the void and the elementary and moving toward and realizing and dissolving form ultimates—the ultimate peak and peaks are not remote beings. It remains to develop and describe pathways to the ultimate.

Method

A foundation is that which gives a makes a system of thought secure, e.g., in the sense of certainty, or being good enough relative to some aim or value. A method is a valid approach to foundation. Thus far, foundation and method have been mostly implicit. Where they were implicit, let us now make them explicit (and where they were explicit, we may repeat them).

The terms used are in common use, but their meaning here is to be taken as given. The validity of the meanings is not determined individually, but (i) in their being part of a system (the real metaphysics) (ii) in the system, so far as it is valid and ultimate (which has been seen). This does not invalidate other uses but shows them to be distinct concepts, despite conceptual similarity and use of the same sign (‘word’).

A method in being, p. 1, and metaphysics, p. 1, is abstraction, which is to eliminate from a concept whatever is necessarily distorted (and the results of abstraction are not here intended to be what are elsewhere commonly known as abstract objects, SEP). Thus, there is being, for without it there would not be the sense of being (even if illusory)—and the universe is a perfect example of a being. The logic of the sections on being and metaphysics is also a simple logic arrived at by abstraction.

The real metaphysics, p. 3, is a join of perfectly representative and pragmatic metaphysics. The pragmatic metaphysics introduces imperfection relative to perfect representation. However, the join is perfect in another sense (i) the abstract framework is perfect and reveals an ideal—to achieve the ultimate—which it guarantees, but is incomplete in showing how to achieve the ideal (ii) the pragmatic is the best we have in-process and good enough in complementing the abstract. This net perfection is not purely epistemic but is a join of criteria of epistemology and ethics. The result frames received epistemology and ethics.

In the ultimate, p. 3, there are no proofs. However, from the real metaphysics, since the universe realizes all possibilities, proofs are trivial (if we were to investigate the realm of possibility, it would require not only our received logics but development of all possible logics; a small non-trivial examination of the realm is in possible worlds, SEP). A concern that arises is that if all possibilities occur, how is it known that the system in the ultimate is significant? The answer to this question is that we do not certainly know that our standard versions of the real and there extension as in the ultimate are real or the only real. However, the paradigms in the real metaphysics suggest that they are by far the most significantly preponderant real with pragmatic certainty (see the little manual for details).

Is there no doubt regarding these developments? Indeed there is and ought to be. The nature of the doubt and its resolution is discussed in the postscript, p. 5.

Pathways

Ways and pathways are detailed in templates, received ways, beyul. Here, we present principles and essentials—(i) one set of foci is the immediate and the ultimate (the development above has guiding ideas) (ii) another is the immediate and the ultimate. Meditation is (a) quieting and emptying, in which individual experience approximates a join of the immediate and the ultimate (b) analytic in which real metaphysics is understood and absorbed to intuition (c) the dimensions of being are employed to develop paths of action in the world. The physical component of yoga prepares the individual for meditation, strengthens the body, and immerses the individual in society, nature, and the universal.

The worldview of the metaphysics grounds social action, providing meaning to daily action, education, research, science, philosophy, political economics, conceptions of the local cosmos, technology, and travel in the parameters of magnitude (space and time).

Postscript

Since the empirical knows not what lies beyond its border, the real metaphysics, which we have seen to be rationally consistent, is also empirically consistent. But can we trust its proof? On the one hand, the proof is rational. Further it is absolute in that, even though it is expressed in our terms, it makes no assumption—the void necessarily exists; and though we need our experience to know of it, our experience is not necessary to its existence, which follows from the real metaphysics. On the other hand, we ought to doubt the proof. However, since the real metaphysics is empirically and rationally consistent the following attitudes are to the fundamental principle, and, so, the real metaphysics, are appropriate (i) as fundamental postulate (ii) as principle of existential action (iii) as conceptual and instrumental framework toward the universe and realization of ultimate being.

Metaphysics shows ultimates and paths to achievement; we are limitless but may not have recognized it; yet we know that these limits—particularly birth and death—will be transcended. The place of the beginning is our world; its time is always now; the seeking values the immediate and the ultimate; there are ways and pathways to the ultimate.