First and second order metaphysics.

[Glenn Scheper]

> But how would you know that an instance of communication
> is taking place at a metaphysical level rather than at
> sign level? And how can you know of such a metaphysical
> level in the first place?
 
Due to a swelled head from a successful math/science path,
I bumbled into Honors Philosopy senior year of high school.
The first night's homework was to come back with a list of
the problems of philosophy. I returned ready to answer how
"philosopy homework will take away time from other things."
(It only got worse. I think I got the senior D for an F.)
 
Luckily, I found Dr. Ross's extensive philosophy web site,
and intend to read or scan every stitch of it. (15% done)
I had culled out the following nine core pages which just
happen to bear on the definition of metaphysics, as least,
as I shall be delighted to define it as I see it, below:
 
http://www.friesian.com/hermenut.htm
 Foundationalism and Hermeneutics
 
http://www.friesian.com/popper.htm
 Sir Karl Popper
 
http://www.friesian.com/founda-1.htm
 The Foundations of Value, Part I
 
http://www.friesian.com/founda-2.htm
 The Foundations of Value, Part II
 
http://www.friesian.com/friesian.htm
 The Principles of Friesian Philosophy
 
http://www.friesian.com/immedi-1.htm
 Non-Intuitive Immediate Knowledge
 
http://www.friesian.com/antinom.htm
 Religious Value and the Antinomies of Transcendence
 
http://www.friesian.com/undecd-1.htm
 Ontological Undecidability
 
http://www.friesian.com/epistem.htm
 Epistemology
 
"Metaphysics is all reasoning at or beyond a horizon
at which there is no more possibility of refutation,
or of empirical coherence testing (=demonstration)."
- It may not be precise, but readies my ax to grind.
 
A very similar expression came across my desk the same day:
http://singularityshuttle.com/SS4ft.htm
 So, is the essence of light the photon or its field con-
 tinuum? Is it a local or global identity; the knot or the
 rope? Both? One might have to look to "meta"physics for
 the answer, afterall, c is the defining boundary condition
 - the application limit - of standard model theoretical
 physics.
 
When we first learned division, using repeated subtraction,
then anything divided by zero became a metaphysical problem.
 
At some point, perhaps before algebra, we were taught naive
ideas of infinity: Anything divided by zero yields infinity.
 
In algebra, the principle of doing equal operations on both
sides of an equation might lead to contradictions: 7*0=0 ->
0/0=7. But rather, 9*0=0 -> 0/0=9. So division by zero must
be ruled out, I would say again, as a metaphysical problem.
 
In calculus, various kinds of 0/0 problems were presented
with determinate answers, but not the same as each other.
 
I can't draw a math analogy further because I dropped out.
But the inference from Kant et al above is that you should
not claim for even your best reasoning attempts beyond a
refutation/demonstration horizon to yield necessary truths.
 
I stated the math analogy because it is like a possibility
of obtaining a purchase on a new horizon, beyond what most
people have acheived. From this first-order transcendence,
one recognizes other persons possessing the same metanoia.
Such a "direct gnosis" filled me with mental illness a few
years. Two decades later I begin to be able to exposit it.
 
Because of an improbable event, hidden within unacceptable
matters of discussion, I fell on a 'dividing line' raising
the stakes of my life out of contingent to inhuman, alien,
just as in Kafka's _Metamorphosis_. The vast importance of
the possibility of a slight error reduced me to catatonia,
for I had entered a numinous condition which contains both
God and Devil; and every society unable to make the second
order distinction, excludes that entire numinous condition.
 
So if you ask if a communication is metaphysical, that is,
to ordinary persons, I only have to examine whether there
is coherence to the quite simple referents of this domain.
Frequently, non-gnostic persons attempt to elaborate some
discourse they have heard from a gnosic source. In such a
case, isomorphism of that discourse to this target domain
breaks down, wavers all over, and after some generations,
is merely vacuous speculation bracketed by contradictions
arising against the original texts.
 
For example, Socrates is spot-on. When Plato stops quoting
Socrates, he ceases to demonstrate this good isomporphism.
Aristotle never shew it (but is not without worldly value).
 
Now how can this numinous condition support such diverse
persons as Crowley and Christ? Why is Nietzsche nihilistic?
As in any complex taxonomy, there are differentiating factors.
 
Oh, my wife's making me go to bed. And after pressing the
prime directive all weekend (to tend the garden). Later/soon...

Yours truly,
Glenn Scheper
scheper at antelecom.net
http://www.antelecom.net/~scheper/
Copyleft(!) Forward freely.