On Being and Action - Part Four

    Imagine the implications of this.  It can be understood that all of existence follows a single plan.  This is, most generally, the way of the universe, or more simply and appropriately, THE WAY.
    The Way can account for powerful beings which give rise to certain configurations, based on a larger plan.  In other words, the overarching Way can even account for so-called gods, just as it can account for so-called human beings.  But it goes against the general principle of the Way to assume an author of the way.  This is because so long as there is an author determining existence according to a greater plan, there is a greater plan determining the author.  So if anything at all is to be brought away from this discourse, it is that an overall plan can be safely assumed, but any assumption of an overall planner rests on very thin ice, based on our experience of all that exists.
    Let us once again take note of our methodological rule: that all our knowing and our making-sense-of will be based on what we already know.  On a side note, this explains why the concept of a single god or creator is so appealing to human beings, because human experience itself is always determined by the willing of one, single human subject.  Naturally we project this onto all of being. 
    Let us consider the consequences that this conception, characterized by 'the Way', has for our conception of the free will of human beings.  We have already said that it is possible to have many separate affective entities which can change the configuration of existence at will.  We have also said that overall there is a general plan accounting for all of these entities.  What does this mean for free will?  It means that every choice that is ever made by any one entity is always already necessarily determined by the Way.  There is a plan that accounts for every single thing that you and I do.  And yet, we are still free to do what we choose to do!  It is just that whatever we DO end up choosing, is already planned out.  We cannot but make whichever choice we end up making.  This sort of conception strikes a middle ground between complete determinism and free will.

On Being and Action - Part Three

When I am discussing those big things of existence, like the universe, its origins, and the nature of the actions which are implicit in the unfolding of events, when I am discussing such topics, the key to my methodology is to consider the problems by relating them to more concrete things I can understand.  When I consider the creation of all being, for instance, I consider it in terms of the birth of a human being.  By this sort of metaphoric transference, I make sense of those concerns which lay beyond the scope of my understanding.  And I can only do so in relation to all that lays within this scope.  I must always use what I know in order to make sense of what I don't.
This rule, if we can call it that, is in fact the very essence of pedagogy, of learning.  All human beings gain knowledge by taking in the characteristics of new events and making sense of them by way of already known patterns and experiences.  In this way the affective force behind each human subject can be seen as a pattern-building force, a force which leads, generally speaking, from disorganization to organization.  Things are put in their place, given a design by which they take their order in relation to other things.
It can be seen that each human being has a will of its own and can choose to do things which no other person can prevent or control.  You are free to choose, even when you are not free in your actions.  This is a freedom no other human being can take away from you as long as you are living.  Because we can see that there are many human beings who all have their separate will to affect the way things are in existence, we also see that there are multiple determining entities, all with their own individual powers to configure the patterns of things in existence.  It is clear that in all that exists, there are separate entities with separate wills.  In the particularly human and even animal entities, we can see that each entity acts-upon, and does so according to a particular plan.  There are other things that happen according to other plans which are beyond the affect of one alone of these entities.  Some of these plans are family or clan wide, some society wide, others spanning across all of human being.   Even more which are not only beyond human beings but also beyond the realms of action of Earth, the solar system, the milky way galaxy, and so on. There is a myriad of forms.  Indeed, as far as we can see there are things and actions which lay beyond our affective scope.
If we are to follow the earlier stated methodological rule here, then the fact that there are many affective forces in the universe affecting its way of being, and not simply one force affecting all.  Generally speaking we must see that there are forces beyond us which are not determined by us and, following our methodological rule, these forces ought to be determined by some particular planner, or at least a plan.  We could imagine the entire motion of the unfolding universe as directed by a single entity.  Yet even as we see this, it stands to reason that if we are to admit one single affective entity that decides the direction of the universe, then we must admit others.  Which means that all which exists in our universe is not actually all that exists.  This much is necessarily assumed the moment one assumes the presence of a single planner.  If we can conceive of all that exists, then it must include all, and not exclude an entity such as a single planner.
However... if instead of assuming a single planner we assume simply a single plan, without a planner, could we finally account for some problems regarding the genesis or coming-to-be of all that exists?  Let us assume that all that is has a single overarching plan, which is not caused by a single planner.  This means that, while there are many planners within the plan (e.g., human beings), the genesis and course of existence is not itself based on a planner.  This turns classic theological explanations on their head: instead of ontogenesis (the genesis of being) accounted for on the basis of an initial existing force, rather we have an ontogenesis accounted for on the basis of an initial vacuum of force: a lack.  In the most general terms, we have something coming from nothing. 
Let us step back a moment and consider this with regards to the earlier discussion about positive, creative forces and negative, destructive forces.  Is what we have here, in this movement from nothing to something, a movement toward organization, or is it a movement toward disorganization?  Is this movement of all in existence a creative movement or a destructive movement?  The answer to this question lays within a consideration of another question: is there order in nothing?  Or is there disorder?  And another question: can order itself be nothing?  Let me put it another way: how can there be order or disorder in nothing?  This can only be possible if 'order' (and 'disorder') are accepted as no thing, non-entities, which is affective yet not present.

On Being and Action - Part Two

On a cosmological level, what would it mean for a constructive force to be ordered for the sake of a destructive force?  For this question to be answered, it is necessary for us to step back for a moment and consider the basic assumptions of the current discourse.  The first of such assumptions, which most philosophers and few laypersons would immediately recognize is a metaphysics of presence: the 'fact' or 'truth' of the existence of 'matter', of the 'universe', is assumed.  Second is the assumption that human thought has some access to the way in which all these things are: that is to say, it is assumed that human beings can properly know the way the universe is.  We must assume that the systems of knowledge by which we explain the "nature" of existence is accurate.  In order to come up with a theory such as the big bang and put any faith in it, we are required to assume that the universe is indeed something that we can make sense of, something that we can understand.  But there is at least one other assumption that overrides even these: by the very presence of our current discourse, we assume that some order of "human being" exists, that some movement toward the very ordering of words and concepts actually takes place in being. Not only that, but it bust also be assumed that this movement toward order that is inherent in the human activity of meaning-giving, in it's advanced form of discourse, is a movement that "we" ourselves control, and by the very fact that there are other wills that might object to this particular discourse, we must assume that there is more than one "will" that makes choices according to free will.  Discourse itself would not even take place if it weren't first assumed that there was first of all someone creating the discourse, and secondly others toward which the discourse is directed.  All of this indicates to us one general and useful idea: there are many (or, at least, more than one) wills directing the state of all existence.