SIX THEORIES OF METAPHYSICS This is my second major writing on metaphysics. I say this because I think the ideas introduced are significant. The earlier writing serves as a summary of quasi-traditional views, and the approach to them. It introduces the idea that matter is meaning, and that depending on the type of reality, there might be gods, and that transcendence might be a mistake. I will summarize a thought I had recently. (I’m paraphrasing my actual quotation, because I have forgotten how I formulated it. But in any case, this is equally clear:) The inner world may be an outer world, and the outer world may be an inner world. At first, one would suspect there is a choice between the inner world and the outer world. But, in fact, everything is intermediate. Either there is a continuum, or there isn’t. This resolves the issue of dualism. The inner world is potentially an expression of the outer world. The outer world may be a translation of someone’s idea. Because the inner and outer or correlated, there is no absolute outer or inner world. Everything is at least a little bit intermediate. We can’t go infinitely far inside our heads, and we can’t go infinitely beyond ourselves. Life needs a subject, so it needs an intermedium. ---Nathan Coppedge (2014) I will use this thought for an extension into metaphysics in general. First of all, I use the concept of an intermedium as an idea of interface, and interface is treated as equivalent to semantic concepts of reality (I have previously written a book called Metaphysical Semantics, clarifying something of what I mean, but this book is largely not scientific, and relies on images rather than epithets to convey what it means. Also, I find that subject somewhat restrictive). Perhaps it is more convenient that this idea of an interface be ignored, for by this I do not mean that I believe in a Matrix- style reality, or that life is emotionally artificial. Instead, I am using aesthetics (‘dabbling’) as a default concept, because I have an additional insight that the critical faculty depends on an aesthetic sensibility, e.g. to ‘appraise’ objects is also to accept their functionality and existence. Life, in a quasi-mereological view, is composed of objects. However, objects are not very restricted in their definition. If there is a limitation to physics, it is some rule about how all objects behave the same. But I am open to the idea that there could be a new physics, or that the idea of a single object’s behavior could be semantic, and thus, that the definition of its functionality could be ambiguous (and open-ended). All of this is a deliberation about what I might think about the above quotation. The problem is, applied criticism implies minimalism, but ideas really do matter: they ’make a splash’, they affect the function of semantics, the function of thought experiments (thoughts ‘take’ ideas), and the function of meaning-in-reality. The effort to translate a metaphysical thought into another major metaphysical thought is like trying to translate one big thing into another big thing that is altogether different. I will take the idea that the largest idea in the quotation is ‘modules’ --- via the concept of the intermedium and the choice about continuums. However, I do not want this concept to affect the entire scope of my metaphysics. My goal is to make six points which describe a new idea. Ideally, none of the points will schizophrenize the knowledge of my domain. I have said something meaningful about modules, now I will say something significant about something else. One of the concepts I could use is the idea that matter is meaning, taken from the earlier work. That provides a basis for developing greater variation. Already we see variations which could affect existence materially or semantically. I will use the concept of an aesthetic interface to develop further what might be meant by the other categories. Meaning is the palette of the subject artist. I could use the concept of an artist-subject as one of the categories. Functionalism is one of the things that has not yet been described, and so could be used as a kind of elephant-in-the-room for missing concepts in this metaphysics. Functionalism must connect to modules somehow, providing a potential platform. This may also connect to logic. Because I am looking for a system that does not lack qualities, I am assuming that mathematics is banned (at least explicitly) from the categories in this system. There will therefore be no operator which extends the categories into infinity, and there will be no category that is not in some sense metaphorical. One question is whether there is room for a logical system in this arrangement that I’m formulating. The answer is that there is room for a mechanic, but there is not room for a specific logic application. Such an application would be far too specific. However, it might be possible to learn from rules of logic, and apply the knowledge to formulating something very general, which still articulates something about the other categories. However, if it does not articulate anything, the logic must be considered useless. Previous attempts related to this theme might include the clockwork model of the mind (Locke, Descartes, etc.), the alchemical concept of the body (‘modalities’ / zones), and noumenological views put forth by Kant and those after him (e.g. ‘clockwork in the distance’). I will use the concept of clockwork in the distance (Kant’s noumenology) as the basis for a mechanical view of the world. Thus, the world is ‘clockwork in the distance’. As such, it engages with the mind, and its properties can be changed by the artist. Now there are two categories remaining (I have arranged the first four to occupy the first and last two slots of the six. I will give a list and descriptions at the end of the piece to describe the overall system). I have addressed the concepts of the world, the universe, the subject, and the properties. What remains are context and object. I determine that context is a fulfillment application. When there is no demand for fulfillment, the application is arbitrary. When there is a demand for fulfillment, such as in critical, animal, human, or post-human situations, or in the case of the necessity for what I call ‘tool gathering’, then a fulfillment application is essentially what is necessary. This application has been previously described --- perhaps with less accuracy --- as ‘function’, ‘meaning’, ‘religion’, and ‘God’. However, I find that the concept of fulfillment is inalienable from function, and yet there is no doubt that there is some kind of logic involved in fulfillment. If someone chooses to believe that the application consists of religion or God (ignoring the truth of these statements), this does not relegate that no other concept of fulfillment exists. Because other concepts of fulfillment exist, a ‘fulfillment application’ is approximately the most universal definition, that is, if it meets all critical requirements of the definition. Now I will turn to the idea of an object, the last category required for the list. The answer is that thoughts are objects, since we have already described that properties are material, the only thing that can be alienated from materialism and properties and still hold interest is an idea or a thought. A religious person would say that this view means that objects are souls. However, I mean to open this to a more secular viewpoint. In this view, objects are not souls, instead, they succeed to be objects when they succeed to be thoughts. However, a given thing can still have meaning without being a proper object. It could represent a thoughtless form of meaning, or even the subject of criticism. The point is that only via formalities or semantics can we conceive of an object-idea. An object idea is more obviously an idea defining an object. And without the idea defining the object, there is no object. This may seem like a formalism in itself, except that I have implied elsewhere that objects are objects with functions. Functions require thoughts, and thoughts create functions. So this does not define the existence of the object per se (since meaning appears to create or destroy objects at a whim), but instead defines that the functional existence of the object concerns thought about its meaning. In today’s technological world, it becomes obvious that objects really are thoughts: it is thoughts that are true objects. Notice that this overcomes the traditional reliance on an immaterialist viewpoint, because it is still possible that thoughts are material. What I mean by a thought is not always a thought-within-the-mind, but merely a thought-which-may-apply-itself-within-the-mind. Here is my list of the six metaphysical points, with descriptions: 1. Matter is meaning, in whatever form it takes. The properties of the process of meaning are the properties that are sensed by us. If we ignore our thoughts, we ignore meaning. Ignorance of meaning is ignorance of matter. 2. An artist is the subject of life. Consequently, life can be designed. An artist, or some more complicated concept, is the appropriate subject of a just life. The applied life of a specialist has a narrow concept, and therefore becomes marginalized. An artist does not become marginalized, because he or she is inspired by the meaningful existence. Reciprocity between the subject and the context creates design. Design in this sense is applied metaphysics. 3. Context is a fulfillment application, previously described as ‘function’, ‘meaning’, ‘religion’, or ‘God’. Fulfillment might not be God, and it must have logic, so a fulfillment application is a more universal concept. This should no be mistaken for psychological needs or any specific fulfillment. Instead, it is the invisible ‘capacity’ for fulfillment. Someone might call this ‘love’, ‘systems’, ‘metaphysics’, or ‘understanding’. 4. True objects are thoughts, because objects are material and material has meaning, and because it is still possible that thoughts are material, although it is impossible that something absolutely without meaning meets this definition. A religious person would say that a true object is a soul. Thoughts do not require souls, and yet have meaning, and yet are not inherently material. Thus, they meet the broadest possible definition of object according to previous terms. 5. The world is clockwork in the distance. The mind can apply itself to the world. Thoughts can rest on objects. This is essentially a view of the world, and how it has functional complexity. Clockwork is not necessarily a thing of the mind, but rather a thing of reaching-into-the-world. It is only ‘applied mind’ which is mechanical. Applied mind exists in the world, of one type or another, no matter whether the world is defined as the mind, or whether the world is defined as the world. This follows from a definition that the world is what is perceived (or what might be perceived), as opposed to the mind, which is what determines thoughts. According to this view, the mind can be outside of the body, because what determines thoughts can be outside of the body. 6. Modules are continuous or discontinous. Life is coherent or incoherent. This is the subject of the above quotation. Essentially, whether matter is meaning or not, life is continuous or not. If life is discontinuous, life relatively relates to the current module. Regardless of the nature of meaning, meaning is defined just as it is found. People rely on consciousness to define the character of what is found in the world. Yet, as I have written elsewhere, thoughts might exist outside the mind, and so, meaning might exist in the world. ----Nathan Coppedge 11/24/2014 Nathan Coppedge, SCSU 11/24/2014, p.