Outline to be fleshed out later:
Distinguish between
Exploration
Reference
Definition of Terms & Concepts
Dogmatic, heuristic, theoretic & semiotic
Indeterminacies
- Overdetermined possibilities from vague to precise
- Determined actualities from ambiguous to clear
- Underdetermined probabilities from general to specific & regularities vs necessities
Classify the extent indeterminacy is epistemic and/or ontic, in/determinable and/or in/determined
Description
Explanation
Scholastic Notation
- Un/certain
- Im/probable
- Im/plausible
- Im/possible
Ir/rationality refers to sapient realities in degrees of epistemic virtue re metanomological heuristic
Adsurdity refers to metaphysical realities in degrees of un/friendliness to rational creatures in terms of excess of meaning re truth (sufficient nomicity) & surplus of beauty & goodness or suffering & pain, abundance & superabundance (existential sufficiency)
Occam’s Razor in terms of abductive facility plus multiplication of ontologies only adjudicating between models that enjoy explanatory adequacy
Evidentiary standards
Normative justifications
Practical reasoning under speculative uncertainty
Equiplausibility & equiprobability principles
What about a Theory of Everything?
Presently, it seems that a TOE is most generally understood to involve the construction of a model that describes both quantum mechanics and gravity. It remains quite the challenge but the research is driving remarkable technological advances. Perhaps such a TOE would
1) describe the origins of
2) all quantum and thermodynamic realities,
3) accounting for all of the initial, boundary, limit, intermediate & final conditions of
4) all of their properties, existents and relations, using the
5) same concepts & terms for them all.
One might imagine that, theoretically, “everything” could refer to more of reality than just quantum mechanics & thermodynamics. Perhaps such a TOE would
1) describe the origins (inductively & statistically) and predict the behaviors (deductively & probabilistically) of
2) all quantum and thermodynamic realities as well as all living, sentient and rational beings,
3) accounting for all of the initial, boundary, limit, intermediate & final conditions of
4) all of their properties, existents and relations,
5) using the same concepts & terms for them all.
While conceivable in theory, I don’t see that happening for all sorts of reasons, due mostly to practical constraints but some theoretic as well.
In my view, there will never (strong philosophical claim, n’est pas?) come a time when any given observer would not be epistemically entitled to posit vis a vis reality’s furnishings (being or meta-ontological heuristic), an Analogia Entis, and/or their arrangement (necessity or meta-nomological heuristic), an Analogia Axiomata.
An observer could, in principle, always further probe reality and holistically ask descriptive, evaluative, normative, interpretive, transcendent and explanatory questions, while respectively positing various cosmological, axiological, teleological, ontological, existential (soteriological) and epistemological proofs and arguments.
What would keep one within their epistemic rights, in addition to humanity’s requisite shared epistemic virtues, would be any significant and unique personal experiences with respect to which many others may not be similarly situated. Thus it is that accepting one’s reasonableness, as they articulate some reasonable stance regarding reality writ large within their given epistemic rights, must be distinguished from imagining that such a stance would necessarily move others with any general normative impetus.
Humanity’s relationship to God, as a meaningful philosophical concept, hypothetically, and as a leap of faith, existentially, can never be demonstrated as unreasonable, neither a priori, in principle or theoretically, nor a posteriori or for all practical purposes.
So, even as we heed the methodological admonition to not place God in our metaphysical gaps, that doesn’t mean that Nietzsche gets to stand guard at reality’s perimeter.
Note: Proofs are derivable from the primal causes (reality’s primitives).
An observer could, in principle, always further probe reality and holistically ask descriptive, evaluative, normative, interpretive, transcendent and explanatory questions, while respectively positing various cosmological (primal support & efficient), axiological (primal order & formal), teleological (primal goal & final), ontological (primal being & material), existential (primal source & existential in potency to essential & soteriological) and epistemological (primal ground & semantic/proportionate metaphysical ground plus PSR or metanomological heuristic) proofs and arguments.
