Aristotle opened hisMetaphysics with the simple statement: “All men by nature desire toknow.”

METAPHYSICS

the human mind will ever 00:00:59 give up metaphysical research is as little to be expected as that we should prefer to give up breathing all together to avoid inhaling impure air there will therefore always be 00:01:13 metaphysics in the world nay everyone especially every man of reflection will have it and for want of a recognized standard will shape it for himself after his own 00:01:24 pattern

even as you set out to ignore metaphysics you're probably engaged in some form of manifest physical speculation

Our strategies for changing the world are often inspired by a culture created by a physicalist metaphysics. That’s why I propose that metaphysics eats culture for breakfast. What we believe to be real and relevant is the most significant factor in the formation of culture, which in turn influences our thoughts and emotions, which in turn influence our values, which influence our institutions and political policies. The change has to happen at the deepest level if it’s going to have any significant impact on an issue as important as whether or not we go extinct.

Pythagoreans

Luhmann’s system is built entirely of physical, not digital,parts. With those parts of Luhmann’s system stripped away, deleted, andmorphed from physical form to metaphysical form, the critical essence ofthe Zettelkasten system has been demoted.

The very notion of thinking aboutlife (or evolution for that matter) as having a definite purpose or goal is already asymptom of a deeply rooted bias in favour of the constant and against change. Thereare voices that will immediately attack this view, blaming it for insinuating that lifehas no purpose at all. But a dialectic of such kind is empty of any credence if notentirely absurd. The view I propose here does not indeed accept that life is sub-jugated to a single purpose or principle but instead affirms life as having not onepurpose but infinitely multiple ones, not one goal but multiple goals and, moreover,the vast majority of these purposes and goals cannot be known a priori because theyare subject to continuous formative processes of becoming. This is why life as suchis open-ended.

The thesis of this paper is that you can have your cake and eat it: it is possible todevelop an understanding of the mind that is both non-dual and analytic—in the sense ofbased on clearly defined, formal distinctions. To achieve that, we need to replace thevagueness of process metaphysics by the concreteness of what has been called actionontology (Heylighen, 2011; Turchin, 1993). That will allow us to “extend” the mind not justacross notebooks and social systems, but across the whole of nature and society

us, they lead to the emergence of ever more sophisticated, meaningful and adaptive forms.This evolutionary worldview is very different from the lifeless, static picture of the clockworkuniverse, where inert pieces of matter follow predetermined trajectories. In such an evolving,interconnected world, mind no longer appears like an alien entity that cannot be explained byscientific principles, but rather as a natural emanation of the way networks of processes self-organize into goal-directed, adaptive systems.This is of course not a novel idea. It has been formulated by philosophers such asWhitehead, Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin under the label of process metaphysics(Rescher, 1996; Teilhard de Chardin, 1959; Whitehead, 1978). But analytically trainedphilosophers are understandably not very keen on these rather mystical and obscure theories,preferring the clear distinctions of logic and mathematics to these poetic and grandiloquentwritings. Therefore, analytic philosophy has tended to stay firmly rooted in the reductionistapproach of Newtonian science. The problem is that this leads it straight back into an implicitdualism, and its apparently unsolvable mind-body problem.

Necessarily, for all x and all artifactual kinds K, x is a K only if x is the product of a largely successful intention that (Kx), where one intends (Kx) only if one has a substantive concept of the nature of Ks that largely matches that of some group of prior makers of Ks (if there are any) and intends to realize that concept by imposing K-relevant features on the object. (Thomasson 2003: 600)

This text wound up founding the discipline which we today call "metaphysics", and one way to describe what this subject encompasses is that it covers things at a level of abstraction above physics.

express one's model of Existence

Ambiguity is a tool of consciousness to compel us to explore the dissonance in our current model of Existence. Follow the rabbit hole…and a richer Existence awaits.

Language, using a schema, provides a system of abstraction enabling one to model something. Language is context sensitive & composable. With the Language tool, we craft systems of illusion, intelligence, & life.

"The Map is not the territory" —Alfred Korzybski

I view software as a creative model of Existence. Software, in emulating other entities in Existence, also exists as entities.

According to the endurantist view, material objects are persisting three-dimensional individuals wholly present at every moment of their existence

The perdurantist view is that an individual has distinct temporal parts throughout its existence.

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations

David Hume

so "being " is used in various senses, but always with reference to one principle. For some things are said to "be" because they are substances; others because they are modifications of substance; others because they are a process towards substance, or destructions or privations or qualities of substance, or productive or generative of substance or of terms relating to substance, or negations of certain of these terms or of substance. (Hence we even say that not-being is not-being.)

First, in terms of science, it now appears that his metaphysics has withstood the test of time. While traditional scholars largely dismiss his holistic ontology prior to the Critique, innovations in the environmental and physical sciences have validated Kant's claims as realistic insights in the workings of nature. His evolutionary theory of the universe is now seen as “the essence of modern models” in cosmology (Coles 2001: 240), and his natural philosophy is seen as the last milestone of western philosophy prior to its “comedown” to skepticism (Hawking 2003, 166). In light of climate change, it stands to reason that Kant's grasp on biospherical dynamics and sustainable policies may well spur a philosophical return to Kant in the near future.

This effort to reach past language to the reality it names is what Derrida calls "the metaphysics of presence."

Knowledge takes you back to God while you are in the world, but it does so in a very specific way because its emphasis is practical, not magical. It is not about metaphysics, learning all about the sixteen million levels and the cosmology of all of the universes. That is for people who think and do nothing. The person of Knowledge is not concerned with these things unless they have a specific relevance to his or her function in life, and even then they are a temporary expedient and nothing else. If you want to know about mystical cosmology, then perhaps a teacher will tell you about these things to get your attention while he or she gives you something far greater. Mystical cosmology does not get you through the day. It does not attend to you when you are alone and miserable in your thoughts. It is simply a broader range of speculation. It may be a reprieve from your personal difficulties, but it is not the key to your freedom.

Therefore things both are and are not.