Constructing the Metaphysics II
On Being
PART I: BEING
1.1 Reality is independent of perception
Perception is not reality. Perception is a relationship with reality. The tree falls and makes a sound. What is real but never perceived is real in the same way as what is perceived.
1.2 Being is analogical, not univocal
Different kinds exist and are perceived and interact differently. A rock, a number, a mind, a historical event: all real, not real in the same manner. [Open Question] Kinds only, or kinds and degrees? Participation language implies degrees; the Aristotelian bent implies kinds. Decision required.
1.3 The 2021 list corrected
Ontological and spiritual are modes of being. Experiential, testimonial, experimental are modes of access. The Triveritas operates on the access side, which is why it can be maximally strong without being sufficient for truth: it optimizes the channel, not the object.
1.4 The criterion of the real
A form is real when it is borne by actual instances somewhere in the timeline, unified by a real generative structure.
Extinction does not unmake the tiger. Extinction is a fact about one region.
The Quigger is borne nowhere and is not itself real, though the concept of the Quigger is perfectly real as an artifact of the mind that composed it.
Numbers are real by constant instantiation. No separate Platonic justification required.
A design in a mind, human or divine, is a real act of a real mind. However, the thing conceived only becomes real when it is actually created.
Generative unity distinguishes a form from a grouping. “Tiger or teapot” is instantiated and is not a form.
Consequence: a finitism about very large numbers, consistent with the published requirement that parameters be finite and computable in principle. This grounds why divergent series and actual infinities fail M rather than stipulating it.
1.5 The timeline
The timeline is complete. The future is real. Availability, not inspection, grounds reality: things are real insofar as they are there to be known, whether or not anyone is looking at them. Divine attention is discretionary and does not constitute what it attends to.
The future does not become unreal because God has not chosen to look at it. That makes divine perception constitutive of reality, which is idealism relocated upward and contradicts 1.1.
1.6 Fixity is not determination
Determination is a relation between events inside the timeline. Fixity is a property of the timeline seen from outside. Chance is the absence of the first, not the second. A quantum outcome is undetermined and definite.
1.7 Contingency
The answer as given is temporal (first mover, first cause) and the question is modal. Structure now available: everything in the timeline is contingent, including the timeline. What is outside it does not require a start, since starting is something that happens inside the dimension. Whether to call this necessary existence is a decision to be made.
It's tough sometimes to see what is being built when there are only a few blocks, yet it is awesome to be able to look back afterward and have a decent understanding of the full path to completion.
I look forward to this journey.
The pork futures, for its degree of unreality has a disproportionate effect on the material and spiritual due to the actions people take relating to it.
Part of what makes lies as abominable as they are is that they exist but are themselves rejections or perversions of what truly does exist.
The unthing.
It came to mind on reading.
Something about the reality and unrealised reality of thought constructs also bothers, but this teller doesn't have the capability to pull the thread, if it exists as anything more than the normal disquiet that a dream is but a dream unless pinned down and taxidermied in text, oral speech or some other physical medium.
Well normal disquiet to one who has more dreams than dreams brought into the world.
Whatever else, it's nice to see something constructed which has an objective that isn't cognitive poison, and to barely be able to follow along.
Reflecting.
The nature of a book is plainly different to that of an oral story, the latter is characterized as 'living' yet is more ephemeral compared to the book. The book is lasting, but unread is dead until rediscovered.
Notably book or spoken word, if someone has thought of it once, it can be thought of again, yet for all the similarities in the patterns of thought people have, the particular manner is unique to each person.
This too, came to mind after typing, reflecting.
The rock has more persistence than the rain.