LINGUISTIC HERESY OF DENOTATIVE ABSOLUTISM:

PHYSICAL OR BIOLOGICAL “SELF-INTERACTION”, “SELF-ORGANIZATION”, “SELF-REFERENCE”, "INTENTIONALITY", “EMERGENCE”

Raphael Neelamkavil,

Ph. D. (Quantum Causality), Dr. phil. (Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology)

1. Locus of Linguistic Absolutization of Universals, Properties:

Verbs, Nouns, and Attributes

Language is used to speak with inevitably fixed and at times sufficiently fixed meanings. This is just a pragmatic matter for the general behaviour pattern and history of human race in general. There have been at least some thinkers who felt that this is not fair to Wisdom. Nevertheless, majority of humans think in terms of meanings expected to be fixed forever. I term this tendency as originating from the linguistic heresy of denotative absolutism. Moreover, usually variation in and varieties of meaning transpire in the case of any word in terms of modulations of existing meanings, although new meanings may at times be produced.

The stability of meanings of the notions of quality / universal (simple, non-complex, universal characteristic), property, etc. comes about according to their universal applicability, and guides the strength of all theory about anything. Universals accessible to all processes that are existent and those applicable to all existent processes of a natural kind or of a few natural kinds must be distinguished from each other. Universals are pure if they can be as applicable to all existents as there are in Reality-in-total. Universals of this kind must further be distinguished from properties, which never are applicable to all existents that there are in Reality-in-total. This is the case in theories. The situation is not different with respect to notions that lead to experiments too.

Hence, both universals and their conglomerations termed properties cannot be subsumed or dumped within the term ‘qualia’, as most analytic philosophers do while talking of them without specifying, [----] and some philosophers of science too seem to follow them. [------] It leads to scientific and philosophical confusion and decadence in the otherwise achievable duration of and continuance of epochal successes in theories. The reason for this bad practice, in my opinion, is that most of them do not seek and ground the ‘properties’ and what they tend to call in general ‘qualities’ and ‘qualia’ – taken falsely as equivalent to ‘properties’ – upon the foundations yielded by the physical-ontological implications To Be (existence of all that are), which naturally are the most foundational and hence purest universals (qualities) ever thinkable.

As a result of these problems too – and not merely due to these – there has not been enough clarity so far in the sciences and in philosophy (1) regarding how to strengthen and sharpen notions and distinguish between quality, property, etc. in an ontologically well-grounded manner and (2) as to what the material extent of applicability of these terms would be.

Linguistically, both syntax and semantics, based on their ontological foundations, are involved in any theory of distinctions between ontologically well-grounded quality (ontological universal), property (conglomeration of ontological universals), etc. In what follows, the discussion is not about syntax, but about the ontology of logical semantics of axiomatically Categorial presuppositions, sense, reference, and implications not only of attributes but in general also of verbs, nouns, and other such words that work as denotative symbols to enshrine meanings in verbs, nouns, and other words.

There are two generally diverse theories (on the philosophically linguistic side there are the recent classic stalwarts like Searle, Chomsky, etc., but closely interpretable notions may be seen even in Aristotle [-----]) and their various sub-positions on the origin of and connection between syntax (symbols) and semantics (meanings obtained after some symbols unite) in linguistics and its philosophy: that semantics is included in and/or derived from syntax or even vice versa. But my arguments here are strictly based on the ontology behind the logic of word semantics. I will discuss elsewhere (1) the biologically and neuroscientifically brain-based causal action involved in syntactical formations and the origin of semantic formations based on syntax but not based merely on it or from it, and (2) the manner in which brain-based semantic formations give rise to further syntactical actions.

The ontological aspect should be present and justified even while justifying the logical semantics of words; else, there are no justifications for words in logic and logically argued sciences, because in end-effect all discourse is of the existent Reality in its entirety and parts. Not only changes in the ontology of logical apparatus (the meanings of symbols, connectives, etc.) but also in the ontological meaning of words (in our case, of nouns, verbs, and adjectival and adverbial attributes) can characterize logic. Since all these notions and their logic itself serve also the science of all movements in existent processes, and these movements produce impacts, whatever relation that exists between the agents producing the impacts and the impacts themselves getting transformed into something other than the said agents must be termed causation. It is for this reason that I take here a causally processual attitude to the constitution of words.

Determining the material extent of existent processes, of processes within processes, etc. can be fixed at least generally at the minimal-medial-maximal (MMM) levels, i.e., as being either zero or finite or infinite – and of course not by exact or near-exact measurements. For this, clarity is to be had first on the most basic generalities (Categories) that pertain to all existents which thus apply also to part processes of Reality-in-total. This is what I have been attempting to accomplish by creating a Categorial system for both philosophical and science-grounding consumption alike.

In philosophy the Categories will be followed at all stages, and in the sciences the intensity of following them will be found progressively less relevant when it comes to the experimental aspects of the sciences. Since I have already worked out such a Categorial system earlier, I presuppose them here and show how they are being obeyed in the ontology of the logical semantics of terminology formation.

As a preliminary to fixing the dimensions of influence of the most fundamental linguistic problem of the ontology of the logical semantics of terminology formation in the sciences and philosophy, I discuss hereunder the rampant denotative absolutism, i.e., the human tendency to absolutize the meaning/s of terms and its repercussions in the formation and finalisation of meanings of scientific and philosophical terms. I suggest also a solution. Since the problem is complex (not complicated or complicating), the arguments below will be from various perspectives and systemic.

Denotative absolutism is the case not merely of nouns but also of verbs and attributes, e.g., verbs like ‘to exist’, ‘to become’, ‘to free’, etc., adjectives like ‘existent’, ‘becoming’, ‘free’, etc., and adverbs like ‘(by) existing’, ‘(by) becoming’, ‘(by) being free’, etc. As a consequence of the background of the above short discussion, I hold that many of the ordinary nouns, verbs, and attributes are composites of most basic ontological universals. But we discuss initially (here) only terms formed in the form of nouns, which, with a slight effort in explanation and understanding, may be formulated in the form of verbs, attributes (adjectives and adverbs), etc. These are the meaning-carrying and reference-carrying agents at the smallest symbolic level in linguistics.

Admittedly, persons who stick their mind onto pragmatically (i.e., without recourse to the semantic demands of the processual ontology of Reality-in-total) sharpened fixed meanings and use them to form pragmatic ontologies of notions, theories, human institutions, and social structures are the catalysts of discouragement to scientific and philosophical advancements and decadence in human race.

Pragmatism is the scientific and philosophic method (and attitude) that (1) obtains data from theoretical and spatiotemporal vicinity and distance equally well, (2) seeks the methodological tools mostly from theoretical vicinity, and (3) does not seek to give enough theoretical space for re-deepening and re-generalizing in terms of the evidently scientifically acceptable Categorial implications of the To Be of Reality-in-total.

This gives chance for me naturally to be critical also of the pragmatic methods that human race follows in the formation of meanings of verbs, nouns, attributes, etc. At the side of science, for example, newer details and theories constantly pour in, which naturally should result in increase in the capacity of science to broaden and deepen the axiomatically Categorial presuppositions, sense, reference, and implications of all the words involved and resultantly also of the details, theories, etc. Hence, resistance to the resultant innovations beyond pragmatism is a malady in science and philosophy. The behaviour of those already trained to respect the traditions cannot be fixed solely in an academic manner. They require other treatments.

Hence, I do not speak here of their morality, psychology, sociology, social upbringing, etc. of the persons who stick to scientific and philosophical pragmatism, but instead, of the need to attempt to eradicate the said linguistic heresy in ordinary language, expressed at least as a theoretical paradox in the sciences and philosophy. As part of the human predicament, the heretical aspect of this linguistic paradox is natural merely in the sense that humans follow the semantic tendency in preference for the immediate pragmatic needs and without any attention to the meanings that transpire into the data and theories from within the Categorial predispositions offered by the whole of Reality.

But from the vantage obtained from such holistic, most general, theoretical necessities yielded by the most general ontological universals belonging primarily to Reality-in-total as necessarily being the whole of nature, it is more natural to follow the never-ending trail of perfection of meanings that humans can obtain out of Reality-in-total. I suggest, therefore, that the latter is more natural than the former pragmatic sort of linguistic heresy. For example, it may be natural for humans to steal and to wage wars, given the strictly pragmatic needs of individual life, social groups, and nations. But a broader outlook hinders (or at least minimizes) ethical, political, epistemic, scientific, and metaphysical conformity to pragmatist attitudes and facilitates the broadest possible attitudes and knowledge proper to such broader attitudes.

The attempt at eradication of the linguistic heresy should begin at least in persons relatively more prepared to be thoughtfully Reality-bound. Naturally, it is not possible to eradicate it from human practices. But continuous awareness about it should do good to science, philosophy, and human institutions in an eminently phenomenal manner.

2. Linguistic Absolutization and Its Consequences in Biology and Neuro-Science

I believe it is universally accepted that there is a higher extent of self-organization in biological organisms than in non-biological “organisms”, whatever the definition of self-organization is. But this is in the sense that in all or many of their parts this nature (property) may be present only partially, and cannot imply that any one element or parts thereof can ever be absolutely self-organizing. Absolute self-organization can be attributed only if the concerned existent process has infinite complexity at any given finite spacetime.

This is a direct effect of the necessarily Extension-Change-wise continuity in existence of all physically processual and thus non-vacuous existents with finite amounts of activity (finite Change within finitely Extended beings exerting finite amounts of impact) within each specific process, however near-infinitesimal or near-infinite it is in matter-energy content. The finitude of Extension-Change-wise activity defines the finitude of any characteristic (and of any property) in any existent and its parts.

On the other hand, ‘complexity’ is a term that does not primarily signify the functions but the structural depths of existents of all kinds in general. Anything existent should be in possession of complexity up till reaching infinitesimal levels. Hence, it is a concept that does not lend itself to limiting. There is such an extent of complexity of all relevant sorts in any existent process, and no measurement or generalized theory of the grade of complexity of anything can be had without the prior acceptance of the presence of a finite amount of near-infinitesimally approaching and an infinite amount of infinitesimally approaching complexity in anything existent. In short, all the finite parts is infinitesimally thorough or infinitely extending in their approach of amount of complexity. For this reason, it is impossible to treat self-organization, emergence, and related concepts in terms of that of complexity.

The extent of complexity as such does not submit itself to any determination of the beginning of self-organization, because any physical and biologically physical being has all the available but finite complexity in all its parts. What counts to differentiate biologically physical beings from merely physical ones is the sort of complexity, not the extent of it. Hence, here we discuss only self-organization, emergence, etc. and their seemingly foundational notion of self-interaction, and other related concepts.

If often words, defined with one or more allegedly fixed and pragmatically directly-occurring linguistic meaning, deceive thought, it is by making us attribute the temporarily personally and socially determined absolute meaning/s as absolute denotative realizations in the concerned processual objects under the merely denotative attribution. This sort of semantic fixation makes the words affect also the functions of all related sorts of words in the concerned theory.

This proves the necessity of broadening the ontology of the logic of semantics of words of all sorts in language. The semantic broadening must reach in language and theory beyond the exact denotations of whatever exist as processes – not merely of what exist individually, but instead, mainly of the related processes in their totality. Only thus can the totality of all existent processes permit their parts as individual existents to attain to the effects of the broadening.

This is what happens also in the case of the non-dualistic and monistic tendency of attribution of meanings, in an absolute sense, regarding the so-called ‘self-organization’, ‘self-reference’, and other natures, upon finitely existent biological organisms as idealistic sparks of an infinite-eternal Ultimate Consciousness, which for that reason should have had infinitely thorough infinitesimal reach of self-organization, which is not available in ordinary biologically based consciousnesses.

In religion, the absolutized concept of absolute self-transcendence at least in some human beings (either at the attainment of the highest state of the experience of Ideal Union, or at least at death) as the most desired “result” of their religious practices, is yet another serious example that has effectively held human race captive for millennia. It continues to do so in many nations and cultures. Such an absolutized concept of absolute self-transcendence, when ameliorated to acceptable levels of continuity of augmentation, may be an acceptable solution. But the solution for this problem in religion is not our concern here. I plan to discuss it later in a future book.

The level at which biologically physical organisms may be defined is determined and characterized at least by a finite amount of self-organizing ability in them at any time. They never attain an absolute state or an absolutzable experience of it. Such determination and characterization are due to the presence of life. But that this too is causal – albeit in another manner – may be discussed on another occasion. To put differently self-organization and self-reference as originating from the idea of self-interaction: due to the presence of some self-organizing ability in them beyond a certain limit (which limit is extremely difficult to determine sufficiently well by using measurement apparatuses), there is the presence of life.

But when habitually the meaning of self-determination is fixed under pragmatic deliberation “in favour” of some nearest theoretical needs and not by taking into account the most basic Categories (ontological universals) of the whole of Reality? It is there that the conclusion remains either absolutely materialistically reductive or absolutely idealistically incurring both the attainment of an absolute and unchanging state and instantiation of an infinite-eternal Absolute Consciousness in finitely active consciousnesses.

Then I shall also argue that self-interaction under a meaning determined by some pragmatically limited realities is a misnomer by all methods of argument. Why not then limit the pragmatic range further smaller? Why do pragmatists in science and philosophy not follow such a path? Hence it is better to argue in favour of removing at least the directly pragmatic, merely denotative, sort of motives behind absolute self-interaction, self-organization, self-reference, etc. in anything. Pragmatic motives do not at all take off at any stage of arguments to empower the significance of these terms.

Quantum physics’ statistical definitions of local and non-local states seem to empower them. But as I have already shown earlier in many works, non-local states are only a strictly probabilistically reached conclusion without an ontological commitment to an Extension-Change-wise active existent state behind the calculations. This is due to the inability of human minds by use of our experimental methods and mathematical tools to calculate certain minute causal events absolutely accurately. The lack of absolute or near-absolute accuracy is not a reason to accept some statistically non-causal (not existent in the Extension-Change-wise active manner) event. That is, the notion of non-causality of some quantum events arising here does not obey the pre-scientific law of Universal Causality.

The presupposition in quantum statistical non-causal interpretation is that some events characterized by probabilistic reasoning as “non-local” are non-causal events which then are supposed to “happen” in existent physical processes that are non-vacuously in Extension-Change. If they happen instead of “not to happen”, how do they happen in physically extended processes? Should they not primarily be Extension-Change-wise existent and thus be causal in all their parts? Hence, the happenings within them too should be such, and not be non-Extension-Change-wise vacuous in physically existent nature. Such “happenings” are physical contradictions for their very happening in existent beings.

If generalized properties (biologically consciousness-based ontological properties composed of many ontological universals) like self-organization, self-reference, and the more basic self-interaction are emergent in biological beings, they are certainly not be present in that manner in purely physical and non-biological beings. The question is: can any conscious mental event primarily be anything other than biologically consciousness-based?

If these are not emergent by being the resulting properties (not simple ontological universals) that differ due to their constant accumulation or loss or both of ontological universals, and if these properties are not of some sort of evolution from physical into physically biological aspects, together, of a wide variety of the evolving processes, then one would have to show how they are not produced evolutionarily. Suffice it to say that properties are emergent by evolution (of course, need not be emergent exactly as some emergentists have theorized) and hence are different in their grade among biologically processual physical entities; and as a result, the purely physical property of emergence and the biologically physical property of emergence are different but not absolutely different due mainly to their commonly possessing some ontological universals.

Note that any quality (ontological universal) is in itself absolute in the sense that it is not an existent but that ontological universals can only be the simplest in their implicit being in the many members of any natural kind. But any ontological universal and property (conglomeration of ontological universals, like in the case of concepts, sentences, truths, theories, etc.) within any near-infinitesimal part of any existent physical process (token entity) in this world, is non-absolute. As the result of this non-absoluteness, emergence (a property and a concept) too is not a notion with a permanently and absolutely fixed or hundred percent realized manner of realization in the parts of physical processes. In its capacity as a term denoting some specific process within physically existent processes, emergence (any other denotative of a property for that manner) is also not in possession of permanently and absolutely fixed meaning/s.

We may at the most take for granted a general sense of it as highly true by keeping its advanced meaning-dimension with respect to our minds as open for further evolution in linguistic expressions in theories regarding each such term or groups of them (including via logic and mathematics), because the objectual processes behind them and any of the parts of these processes, parts of these parts, etc. are not absolutely in possession of these or any other properties. In that case, how can our conceptual fixation of the meanings of unfinished processes be finished products?

The said objectual processes, their parts, parts of these parts, etc. behind every denotative are also not in absolute possession of the individual ontological universals that constitute these properties by reason of the impossibility of infinite division of anything into infinitesimal existents, in which on infinitesimals alone can be placed a pure ontological universal as being under absolute possession by the existent. But in fact no infinitesimal can exist non-vacuously. Moreover, no conglomeration of ontological universals into a property can consist of infinite number of ontological universals. Hence even the conglomeration of ontological universals into properties cannot be a finished product.

If, as we said, the so-called self-organization available in living beings cannot be absolute in the case of any living cell or its parts, then it shows that no physical process has so far become absolutely biological and absolutely non-physical. That is, biological activities are nevertheless physical, and thereafter, when there is an evolutionary heightening in it by emergence, then they become also biologically physical. I should remind the reader that I do not bring in any iota of panpsychism here – the only thing is that this fact will not be clear to anyone with only elementary convictions about panpsychism. But I leave it at that since this is not part of our discussion here.

Note also that we may generalize self-organization only upon what a physically existent and in that very capacity biologically organic processual entity. No such processual entity is in infinite activity in any of its parts. Hence, two facts should be kept in mind here:

(1) A wholly self-organizing kind of part or parts cannot be found in this world. For a similar reason, while characterizing anything this way or that way, it must be remembered that there is nothing absolutely this way or that way except its fully physical nature. Everything is existent as whatever it physically is; and none is fully whatever the physical entity is perceived or defined to be, except that it is physically existent and has in its processual possession the ontological universals absolutely implied by its physical existence.

(2) No human being can fix the meanings of self-organization and related terms forever and use them as totally involving any iota of a physical or physically biological entity. At the most we may generalize the meanings and work with them, and in the process of it re-define the terms, verbs, attributes, etc. into more perfection. This is part of the growth of language.

Hence, by assigning a characterizing name-sticker to any evidently general emergent property as being produced out of self-interaction, self-organization, self-reference, emergence, etc., we cannot absolutely categorize any iota of an existent biological and/or biologically conscious being’s action in evidence of these said properties as something wholly different from physical existents in general or from another physical or biological existent.

If they are not absolutely different from any other physically existent processes, then clearly, (1) all these are primarily and always irreducibly physical / material (both the “physical” and the “material” simultaneously involving finite amounts of existent matter processes and energy processes together, without exception – and not merely as the mathematical quantities assigned to them in individual situations and termed ‘matter’ and ‘energy’), and, (2) when seen both practically and theoretically, it is only after being physical / material that some of them are biological and thus given to actions proper to self-organization, self-reference, self-interaction, etc. In short, no part of the biological ever ceases to be physical / material in its non-vacuous processual existence.

Those who become systemic-logically quack as scientists and philosophers function intellectually by (1) first correctly considering the knowledge of the function of energy in physical entities in terms of various methodological plays of mathematical quantities and equations, (2) then, unluckily, forgetting the epistemic status of this fact and considering the knowledge of a function as the function itself, the logic and mathematics of the function as the function itself, and (3) then, further identifying the function itself (and the knowledge of the function itself) as the very processes that the function represents, as if the epistemic is the same as the thing epistemically explained denotatively and using concatenations of denotative universals. This sort of scientists and philosophers deserve derision as agents of degeneration and decadence of science, philosophy, and culture.

This too can be taken in conjunction with the discussion on the linguistic heresy or paradox which means also that at the most there is in biological processes a reduction of the merely physical aspect by means of the near-absence of some physical properties (i.e., some physical properties, e.g., inorganic chemical reactions, radioactivity, etc.) are not present in biological processes. This reduction is characterized by the finite presence of properties that belong solely to biological entities. But the basically physical-ontological universals remain, and many of the physical properties too, some of them containing some part-conglomerations of ontological universals belonging to biological properties. This fact could be used to extract a new concept of the biological, the mental, the conscious, etc., and if one wants, even a new foundational concept of the spiritual aspect in religions.

But the religious aspect does not consist in (1) merely presupposing an infinite-eternal Ultimate and Pure Consciousness (UPC) as pre-existent, under the guise of justifying the existence of consciousness in the world, and taking the universe as a purely conceptual and/or pure-concept-based physical creation by the UPC, without explanation as how the purely conscious UPC can become or be instantiated in the partially conscious entities in the world which is its creation, (2) explaining individual consciousnesses as miraculous ideal-knowledge-level instantiations of this presupposed UPC – which is miraculous, due to its epistemologically ambiguous unity and ontological duality with the infinite-eternal UPC – but without explaining whether and why the UPC in its individual expression is infinite-eternal or merely finite, and (3) explaining away minds as something separate from UPC both in its ideal primordiality and in its miraculously stealthy self-individualization in consciousnesses – miraculously stealthy because of its supposed conversion into finite conscious existents.

In short, the minimum Categorial implications (i.e., the ontological universals: Extension and Change) of the existence of the physical / material aspect are more fundamentally (i.e., near to absolutely) acceptable in anything non-vacuously existent, including in the biologically existent, than are acceptable the biological properties (conglomerations of various ontological universals), which often falsely but unconsciously come to be accepted as being the fixed and wholly differentiating nature of biological organisms.

What becomes clear here is the essential nature of the distinction between (1) ontological universals and (2) properties as conglomerations of ontological universals. Only ontological universals in their ideality cannot change. Properties are composed of them. There can be any finite number of such universals in them, and their number (unknown in each case) is the proof of non-exact measurability of properties. Some of the ontological universals are naturally most applicable to all existent processes, and the others are not meant for all. Hence the need to seek out the ever more fundamentally characterizing Categories of all physically existent processes and the eventual necessity of basing all biological properties on some physical universals which in fact are the physical-ontological Categories.

It is worth mentioning here that even as the self-organizing capacity of biological organisms is not present in an absolute measure anywhere in biological organisms as is intended by intellects that favour fixed meanings (i.e., as absolutely everywhere in every infinitesimal part of any existent organism), so also, in purely physical processes too there must be present an even humbler measure of this property. This is in the remote sense that all the ontological universals that characterize self-organization can be present in purely physical processual entities in certain conglomerations of ontological universals, and the conglomeration of ontological universals in biological organisms include many more other ontological universals in various intensities.

This is not any sort of pre-existence of merely and exactly the said property (conglomeration of many ontological universals) in purely physical processual beings. Rather, all the ontological universals exemplified in any property in a biological organism are present also in some other physically processual entities (and not concentrated merely in one), in each case in a different (or at least slightly different) sort of conglomeration formation. Conglomeration of ontological universals can only be in varying (normally more meagre) measures in a natural kind.

This helps dismantle the argument that, if the property of self-interaction, self-organization, self-reference, emergence, etc. were inexistent in physical beings in a milder form, no similar or non-similar property would have been such that it be converted gradually in its evolution into a stage where it can finally be called life. It is the conglomeration of some ontological universals (a property or many properties) that gradually evolve into causing the emergence of a specific property, in our case a biological property. In short, for consciousness to emerge in the process of evolution, it is not necessary that consciousness pre-exist in its elementary form as the property that characterizes consciousness.

Clearly, what is termed evolution is not any exactly measured-up property. Instead, it is the intensification or relegation of some ontological universals and the addition of some other universals, all of them together forming a property that is (finitely) different from others. I term this as an extremely variegated intensification of property-configuration by some ontological universals within biologically physical objects and as the evolutionary pre-condition for biological emergence.

Clearly enough, this argument shows that not all ontological universals of the property of self-organization, but only some of them are present in non-biological processes. Here, my term ‘emergence’ is merely a term to which common linguistic practices have yielded some generalized meaning – but nobody will be able to fix its meanings and their explanations forever and absolutely, because all the ontological universals that constitute the property of self-organization and emergence in biological organisms are not as such and fully present in purely physical entities.

Moreover, since it is only a property, it must also be known that it is a property consisting of many, more simple, ontological universals that are pertaining, more commonly than others, to even more other existent entities / processes, and that therefore the property of emergence is not an ontological universal within itself. It is a property, a conglomerate of ontological universals. The various characteristics of proper objects that the sciences and philosophy discuss as fundamental are not so fundamental as their Extension-Change-wise existence as non-vacuously existent, constantly finitely impact-generating, and hence universally causal processual beings. The conglomeration of Extension and Change is nothing but causality in all parts of the given entity as is the case in all other existents.

Now arises a question in self-interaction, on which are based the absolutized meanings of self-organization, self-reference, emergence, etc. – the rational answer to which will support the ultimately physical-ontological status of all existent processes as Extension-Change-wise active, i.e., universally causal, existence. Is self-interaction possible, if it is (1) between two parts of one and the same physically existent entity, i.e., between parts alone, or (2) by one existent or by one of its parts with itself?

I have said above that the level at which biological organisms are defined is determined by at least an iota of self-organizing ability in them, due to the presence of life. This is in the sense that in all or many of their parts the nature or property of self-organizing may only be discovered partially, and not in the sense that it will be discovered in any one element or parts thereof in an absolutely self-organizing manner.

I have also suggested that at least a highly elementary measure of self-organization capacity should be present also in purely non-biological processes so that it can increase evolutionarily and give rise to biological processes; and if not, emergence of life and elementary mentality would never take place in physically chemical elements and molecules. But this capacity in purely non-biological processes can only be such that they do not get expressed as the property of self-organization. Some ontological universals that belong to the finite amount of self-organization in biological processes will be present in purely physical processes in conglomeration with some other non-biological properties, and that is all. It is these ontological universals (elementary characteristics) that may conglomerate with other related or required ones and create self-organization. Hence, self-organization does not require absolute self-interaction.

If it is insisted that there exists something absolutely self-organizing in biological processes (i.e., at least some parts of biological organisms are considered to be absolutely self-organizing), the solution-seeking problems that arise here would be: How can an absolutely self-organizing organismic stuff interact with other non-self-organizing parts outside its own so-called absolutely self-organizing processes? How can the former exist at all, if not in contact with other existents? If they coexist, how at all can they interact physically?

These same questions await explanation concerning all other similar concepts that humans formulate in language. Hence, also in the linguistic formation of concepts there should be some sort of interaction, and all interactions are causal since no non-causal (non-Extension-Change-wise existent) interaction can exist non-vacuously.

The concepts of meta-cognition and meta-consciousness are another set of, very apt, cases in point. The moment meta-cognition is attributed to a conscious process, no little – however minute – portion (or portion of portion …) of the most elementary motions or actions, which are part of the biologically physical and thus sufficiently cohesive process (call it ‘existent processual consciousness’) involving conscious processes, is to be entitled as absolutely meta-cognitive or meta-conscious.

If the absolute sense is to be given to any near-infinitesimal part of the action (set of actions) in existent processual consciousness counterparts in the brain (i.e., to the brain parts and other related parts that were active in the act, which include both existent matter and energy), then the absolute sense of the terms that denote the action must first be justified rationally.

This can be done by proving two aspects of the action: (1) that this near-infinitesimal part of the action never was part of the physical world, and (2) that this near-infinitesimal part of the action ceases to be a part of the physically existent world, since (a) physically existent processes can only have finite activity although the infinite number of infinitesimal parts do not measure off to an infinite amount of it, (b) even a finite amount of parts in absolutely meta-cognitive or meta-conscious activity will have to interact with other not-so-absolutely meta-cognitive or meta-conscious physical processes (beings), and (c) in the course of the interaction the finite amount of parts must absorb into its inner parts some elements from the not-so-absolutely meta-cognitive or meta-conscious parts too – for if there is no absorption of this kind then there is no interaction, and absorption of any kind is due to impacts.

Yet another similarly pertinent notion that deserves mention here is ‘conscious intentionality’ (Brentano, Husserl, Searle, Chomsky, etc. among the philosophers and linguists). We have seen a big line of Continental and American phenomenologists, hermeneuticians, ethicists, linguists, and many more religious thinkers successfully attributing intentionality to at least some aspects of conscious behaviour. But then, as the result of naïve absolutism regarding the pertinence of the notion’s assigned denotative meaning to all parts of every element of participants in the actions leading to the conclusion of intentionality or to at least a few of them in the absolute manner, many of them believed that at least a portion of the conscious (intentional) apparatus is purely intentional and that the remaining portions could be purely biological, physical, etc. and thus not so intentional.

In short, denotative meaning in words (verbs, nouns, and attributes) is never absolute because of the non-absoluteness of the processes of the concerned action in the causally finitely active denotable entities / processes in the world and in the human brain.

Thus, denotative absoluteness of meaning in the logical semantics behind linguistic expression is a dangerous intellectual schism in ordinary uses of language including individual and social life, and is the result of a deep-seated tendency in language and language-using agents, which it is time to eradicate from the sciences and philosophy at least from its disastrous repercussions. I would term this schism, as active in the sciences and philosophy, as a paradox. We know that the suggested eradication is not going to take place in the ordinary use of language, literature, etc. and in ordinary human behaviour. But this is no reason for issuing ironical challenges and declaring “see-how-I-have-conquered-your-philosophy” sort of winning statements.

The usual ways of differentiation between concepts like ‘activity / action’, ‘functionality’, ‘structure’, etc. and between their meanings may also be analysed in the above manner and soon the futility of absolutized differentiations of significance will shine forth in the sciences and in philosophy, due to the interconnectedness of all these terms within the notion of physical existence and its grounding Categories, namely, Extension and Change. Pointedly to be mentioned is the interconnectedness between ‘activity / action’, ‘functionality’, ‘structure’, etc.

In short, without sufficiently fixing the meanings that can grow in clarity further with respect to these notions, and without showing their extent of interconnectedness and grounding in their deepest possible grounding Categories, namely, Extension and Change, progress cannot be registered while using any verbs, nouns, and attributes in languages of any kind. I keep this remark as a passing one here, since a physical-ontological discussion about this does not directly belong here.

After having accomplished the formation of the above conviction in academicians and scientists on the paradoxical and heretical aspects of the said absolutizations, the even more difficult responsibility of theirs shows up: that of eradicating the centuries of effects of the same linguistic schism in the various mathematical, physical, biological, and human sciences, from linguistics, from philosophy and ethics, and especially from linguistic philosophy – which latter, in fact, had set out to linguistically eradicate metaphysical problems from all philosophy and science and soon has fallen prey to the pragmatic linguistic absolutizing tendency which existed in language all the time that humanity existed.

((Neuroscientific aspects will appear here in passing, since they will be dealt with in another.))

3. Linguistic Absolutization and Its Consequences in Physical Sciences

Unlike the sort of terms discussed above, as we have already said, there are some physical-ontological universals and constructs behind them, which must be applicable to all existent things, before the discourse of properties sets it. Thus, as I have argued, the existence of properties pertaining to or akin to emergence cannot be a guarantee that biological bodies are free of the basically inevitable characteristic of being a material body or having a material body. This is because the most general ontological Categories (the most universal of all ontological universals) of all existents are directly implied in this characteristic / property.

I couch the discussion of the heresy / paradox of meaning absolutization within the general presuppositions of physicalism [Stoljar, Daniel, “Physicalism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (eds), URL: ], beyond which I have developed Minimal Metaphysical Physicalism (MMP). The present section discusses this possibility beyond crass physicalism and materialism.

Physicalism holds that everything is physical, physically to be explained. But of course, for this purpose they are not using the physical-ontological characteristics (which are basically the ontological universals, which have their conglomerations which are properties). Physical-ontological universals belong to all existent physical bodies, including non-vacuous energy propagations and existent biological varieties. I do not discuss MMP in all detail here, but I facilitate its physical-ontological foundations upon the general principles of physicalism, of which, I hold, materialism is a simplistic and scientifically and philosophically underdeveloped version.

But materialism merely holds that all that are real (I mean, existent) are matter and energy. One should not here be simplistic by saying that materialism holds that all that are real are matter alone. Today they do accept also the interconvertibility of existent matter and energy. They do not even take energy merely as quantity and matter alone as existent, as some physicalists my tend to argue. Physicalism includes the materialist thesis, but goes beyond it: that everything is physical and must be explained only by using physics and other sciences and not in terms of the highest physical-ontological foundations of physics. Physics here does not exclude biology, neuroscience, linguistics, and other sciences.

MMP too is a physicalism but not materialism that holds that everything is physical-scientifically explicable matter and energy, because matter-energy is not fully explicable by physical science but possesses the characteristics of physical bodies (Extension and Change), and everything that exists may be explained as being causal at the physically existent level but not at the level of explanation by physical science. MMP facilitates the theory that biological and biologically conscious bodies continue to be physical, thus involving reductionism concerning all living beings into bodies possessing at least the Categorially most foundational Extension and Change that are possessed by all existents. This aspect is absent in both crass physicalism and materialism.

MMP is not merely about living beings. It is about whatever exists. In our context of consciousness and language, MMP favours the functioning of existent conscious bodies without facilitating or involving absolute reductionism regarding the relative progress of fully causal freedom in some biological organisms. The sort of freedom available is relative freedom of some levels of conscious actions from the influence of merely physical and consciously causal actions from other existent processes. How can this be achieved? Before detailed explanations, I characterize it in a few sentences.

MMP Defined: Whatever be the property / properties that appear by the conglomeration of ontological universals within matter-energy conglomerations, there is no physically acceptable reason to say that these properties will disappear forever in all cases of development of properties. If any of the properties grows continuously within a given processual existent, it happens as follows. Increasingly more and more of near-infinitesimal parts of the existent or of just one part of the existent acquire this particular property more and more. This makes the existent an ever-growing base of that property. In this state too it can continue to exist, if it happens to acquire any one specific property continuously. Crass physicalisms (holding that the foundation of all explanation is always based on physical science) and materialisms (arguing that all that exist is the sort of matter-energy that we see) do not facilitate continuity in the acquisition of any property in Extension-Change-wise existent processes. Instead, they insist that all properties should change their base and lose those properties at some stage.

MMP resists merely physical-scientific level of explanations for the progress of causally thorough finite freedom in conscious beings, because such beings are involved in certain activities that have their base in the physical body. Such freedom cannot be non-causal freedom, since the interaction with non-biological bodies suggests similarity of basic nature between them. MMP involves basic (metaphysically most foundational, Extension-Change-wise) Universal Causality in all parts of the real internal physical constitution of relatively freely acting agents, and not the causation at levels explained by physical science and other positive sciences.

In the above, I have drawn up in gist a theoretical mode of viewing Minimal Metaphysical Physicalism. If the notions and words that we use (especially verbs, nouns, and attributes) are non-absolute in their denotative meaning and in the processes of meaning-representation via semantical attrition, this is not merely because minds are not justified in continuing from obtained meanings to absolutized meanings like in the case of ideal geometrical or other mathematical objects, ideal concepts of true and false in logic, etc. It is also because (1) no existent process is absolute at any given spacetime due to the continuity, although finite, of the Extension-Change-wise existence of non-vacuous processes in a finite manner, which is the same as Causality, and (2) Extension and Change together can become a property only by the involvement of some other ontological universals.

Even in this context of finitude and non-absoluteness of possession of ontological universals and properties, there are some absolutely-to-be-taken ontological universals pertaining to all existents, namely, Extension and Change (and I challenge the reader to show that there are any other/s). These ontological universals are to be taken as absolute because they are present at every aspect, every infinitesimal part, of any non-vacuous existent, and (2) they are constantly summoned by the fundamentally ontological commitment, required epistemologically for any knowledge of it, to the existence of all that exist.

If all existents possess only some absolute ontological universals, and all other universals become parts of conglomerations (called properties) of lesser ontological universals belonging to groups, then some of these properties (not ontological universals, but their conglomerations and only conglomerations) may, can, and hence will at times (given proper environment) evolve towards becoming ever more intense in their applicability / pertinence to every near-infinitesimal changing part of such evolved entities. Such evolution can only be the accumulation of further characteristics (ontological universals) that cumulatively represent the evolution of the existent processes in question.

If biological organisms constantly have a fully material / physical body in the sense of possession of at least the minimal characteristics (the two Categories) of all existents, then it is nothing but saying that the basic qualities (ontological universals) common to all physical existents must be available also in biological organisms. The term ‘quality’ here refers to the pure ontological universals, and not to qualities / properties like ‘being good’, ‘having two legs’, etc.

In many other characteristics the many processual beings can exhibit differences. This is what contributes to the identity of every process, sub-processes within a process, their sub-sub-processes, etc. with or as themselves and with or as no other. What constitutes their existence are the Categories: Extension and Change. That is, emergence cannot be of a manner of existence absolutely different from the material / physical manner of existence and yielding properties completely different from the most general physical-ontological qualities / Categories, namely, Extension and Change, of physical existents.

Thus, an inevitable part of a preface to biology would be that the purely physical / material nature evolutionarily yields within itself also biological ways (some ontological universals) of existence, as biological organisms are also absolutely physical / material. Even within the biological context, I take ‘the material’ and ‘the physical’ together as meaning the same – the physically existent whatever called matter-energy, which the cosmos is and contains everywhere – even though there are various currents of thought concerning this in common usage, e.g., the worse than physicalist claim that energy is only a mathematical quantity.

‘Material’ is usually considered not merely as matter but also as containing matter-related energy in contrast with energy treated merely as a mathematical quantity that is assigned to energy propagations. ‘Physical’ customarily is considered merely as physics-related, which naturally includes therein also the discipline named physics. Only those who want to extol energy into a divine level would take what is termed matter as the only ingredient of the cosmos.

I take ‘material’ and ‘physical’ to mean one and the same by first going back to the Latin-Greek materia-energeia and taking them together as meaning ‘material / physical existents’, whereby in the Latin concept of materia both matter and energy can today be included, and the Greek physis (which originally means also “growing”, although its stem phú(ý)- is related to the Sanskrit bhū and the English ‘be’) means for me the ‘material’ / ‘physical’ existents as such, which are defined as whatever is active and thus stable in that activity during all their existence.

‘Physics’ is another derivative from the Greek phú(ý)sis, this time as the study of whatever is in becoming-existence, meaning physically finite but continuously active existence. Continuity in physical processes in active existence is not infinite in whatever it is at a spacetime (Extension-Change region); instead, their continuity in becoming is absolutely true, and hence takes an absolute ontological commitment.

I subscribe to the physical principle of interconvertibility of matter and energy, which naturally permits me to take these two together as whatever is in existence as physical. I mean by ‘action’ in physical existents whatever happens in them, and not merely biologically intentional or partially intentional happenings, e.g., an action by a conscious agent.

With this short physical-ontological background, I propose a dismantling of the concept of false ideas about ‘self-interaction’. I shall treat it as a test case wherein most of the absolutizing words discussed above find another absolutizing parallel which is the case of a notion containing all of them. That is, if the absolutism of meaning of ‘self-interaction’ is analysed well and the real metaphysical problem therein is shown, then any concept that involves similar difficulties may well be de-absolutized. Here follows the analysis of the term ‘self-interaction’.

In physically processual existents, if any part (say, a Part of Level 1) of one of them is in self-interaction, it has clearly to be within itself, and not from outside. This can take place only if it has parts, and hence only between a few or all of the various parts (say, Parts of Level 2) of that one part of a process termed Part of Level 1. If one member of the Parts Level 2 of Part Level 1 is considered, then Level 2’s self-interaction cannot be with all its sub-parts, i.e., with all Parts of Level 3. Instead, some of them can act with some others of the same type or even with other Parts of Level 1 or 2. And so on. One may argue that there are no infinitesimal parts of any one of these parts. But this means only that the division process can go on infinitely, and each part will remain merely near-infinitesimal. The conclusion is self-evident: supposing that one entity or a part of it is considered as whole, none of them can interact with the whole of itself, since no existent physical process is non-extended.

With the introduction that time is always the measured duration of Change, let us move to some very significant additional conclusions for the present work: The above shows that, as the duration of Change, measured / measurable time cannot absolutely loop on itself; there is no non-measurable time; hence, time cannot move from the future to its past; and thus, causation must always be a forward process. However much spacelike a process may be, it involves some temporal duration, and vice versa. Hence, no absolute black hole singularity can exist, too.

If such are the truths, then self-interaction as the action of something absolutely on itself, on the whole stuff of itself, either involving no time or evidencing retro-causal measurementally (i.e., cognitive-epistemically) temporal regress, is a linguistic absolutism and ipso facto a metaphysical, physical-ontological, scientific-philosophical, physical, and linguistic nonsense.

Consequently, self-reference, self-referential consciousness, self-referential intentionality, self-referential emergence, etc., as based on the expectation that everything can act on itself in its totality, are gross terms used in disobedience to the ontological foundations of the broadest possible modes of existence, namely, Extension and Change. This is also a manner of demonstrating the impossibility of causation from future to present or past. As is now evident, an effect cannot cause its cause. A supposedly pre-existent Absolute Consciousness cannot divide itself into the specific consciousnesses in the cosmos.

4. Linguistic Absolutization in Physically Biological, Neural, Conscious States

From within the theoretical background created above, it is clear that whatever general laws apply to physical existents should apply also to brains, the conscious processes within them, etc. This does not mean that all that happen in all physical processes should happen also in brains and consciousnesses, but instead, some fundamentally ontological universals about physical existents should be present in biologically existent processes too. Note also that I meant very generally about physical existents, and did not take ‘physical’ as belonging merely to physics and physics-based explanations.

I do not take consciousness in its totality merely as the clearly conscious activities nor exclusively as the so-called intentionality, self-referential and self-interactive activities, etc. within brain events. Consciousness is more than intentionality; and self-referential and self-interactive activities are not fully so and not exclusively consciousness. Consciousness is the totality of all the cognitive and cognitivity-facilitating relational (including sensitive, emotional, memory, extremely vague mental processes within the background of other clearer activities and while the clearly conscious aspect is less active, etc.) and the evidently and remotely cognitive biological movements within the brain and those which are extended into (and beyond) the body as part of these relational biological movements.

Thus, the specific relationality meant here is more than what happens as strictly biological in the biological body. Therefore, consciousness is an assumed, finite, and non-absolute unity of all the relatively more self-related reflections of experiences of the biological being within the biological brain and related areas. One who did not understand the implications of these statements might now accuse me of excluding all non-cognitive activities of the brain – in that case, the request is to read again the statements above.

Now to the next step. Does the brain obey physical laws? Yes. But does it obey the physical laws merely as a crystal obeys? No. The manner of application of the physical laws is what makes the main difference. More than physical laws, what are obeyed constantly and without any exception are the most basic physical-ontological Categories (Extension and Change) and naturally their fusion, namely, Universal Causality. For this reason, it is clear that at least such pre-scientific Categories are laws and should be obeyed by all physical and biological existents.

I would reiterate: Here belong not merely non-vacuous Extension and Change, which means impact formation by non-vacuously extended existents. Extension and Change, as the most fundamental Categories of all existents, may be considered as the highest axioms or laws at the pre-scientific metaphysical realm. Their fusion (Universal Causality) is a derivative pre-scientific law to be obeyed strictly without exception. From these are derived also other pre-scientific Categorial laws like Processuality, Conservation, etc., of which I do not discuss here, nor of the manner of derivation of these latter from Extension-Change.

If Extension-Change-wise existence may be taken as the pre-scientific law of Causality, and if all existents are such, then Universal Causality prevails in all physical and biological existents. The nature of this pre-scientific law is such that I cannot be impeded by any scientific theory that does not aim to derive its theoretical foundations from Extension-Change. This is not merely a philosophical belief but also a universal Law much more fundamental than scientific laws like the causality pertaining to each science, e.g., statistical causality, chemical causality, social causality, etc.

There can be two sorts of scientists who can only continue being irritated about the above and waste mental energy by psychological fighting and self-talk: (1) physical scientists steeped in the non-causality stance of certain quantum-physical statistical interpretations or a biologist, neuroscientist, and (2) human scientists (I do not generalize over all physicists, biologists, neuroscientists, and human scientists) expecting something uniquely non-physical or statistically non-Extension-Change-wise imaginable and science-debilitating as happening in consciousness. The strength of the physical-ontology behind Extension and Change would someday prevail over them, because the pre-scientific laws are constitutive also of the consciousness-based procedures of formation of all mathematics and logic and the mathematical foundations of statistics.

The above ontologically and physically inevitable Categories of all existents are also the context in which the physically possible extent of self-interaction applies and plays out in the brain. If any one element or part of it in the brain is held to be absolutely self-interactive, then one will have to show that at least a portion – however small – of the brain and each near-infinitesimal part of that portion is absolutely self-interactive without a mix with other bodily and typically brain elements that are not in absolute self-interaction. But this is not the case in any part of the brain, for reasons discussed above. Nor can one argue that everything existent is in absolute self-interaction.

Hence, the physical, biological, neurological, and conscious so-called self-interactions are all in the very least merely interactions between two or more parts or sub-parts or sub-sub-parts, and not interactions absolutely within one and the same unit part considered as integral. They may also include interaction with elements beyond the very so-called self-interacting parts. This is at the most so, because no physical (which includes also biological) interaction is infinite in the total amount of parts involved in the action. In short, it is just physical action characterized also biologically, i.e., characterized by some sort of extra amount (than in purely physical processes) of self-organization between parts of the brain and the brain’s ability to do the same between its parts and outwards.

Now, upon me cannot be imputed the mistake of equating (1) human “action” and conscious “action” as in normal conversations – to which one has reserved the verb ‘action’ – and (2) whatever actions / processes happen in physically existent processes, biologically physical existent processes, etc. I prefer to call them all of them as action. This is merely a theoretical preference. The important point is that terms like self-interaction do not mean that all action, all motion, all Change, are absolute self-interactive actions within any one tiny part of existent body that is considered at the instance.

5. The Scientific-Metaphysical Aspect of Grounding the Sciences

Language is an evolutionary instrument to express anything with inevitably fixed or sufficiently fixed meanings. But this is a pragmatic matter for human race, which permits assigning fixed meanings only for the time if the persons are aware of the theoretical non-fixity of any pragmatic meaning whatever. Nevertheless, majority of humans thinks in terms of meanings fixed forever. Given the non-vacuously Extension-Change-wise causal-processual nature of Reality in all its parts, the linguistic practice of absolute fixation of meanings of denotative words representing the verbal and nominal aspects of processes and their attributes cannot be granted in science and philosophy which can be advancement-oriented only in terms of the non-fixity of meanings.

As is clear by now, (1) language is full of the linguistic heresy used for winning in argument, serving only to make biological, cultural, and linguistic evolution and scientific and philosophical processes and advancement as stationary as possible, producing millions and millions of convinced commoners for upkeep of pragmatic-linguistically inalienable orthodoxies, (2) which is properly a paradox in science and philosophy due to the above-said reasons, which is a matter that either cannot be solved at all or may be solved somehow – but in ordinary daily use, words and their products will have to continue to be heretically fixated in meanings.

This linguistic heresy or scientific-philosophical paradox, involved in words in various degrees, can only be bridged, not solved. That is, we attempt to eradicate the paradox in science and philosophy and end up having some success. It will remain a heresy in common usages, conversations, customs, cultural traditions, and elementary and not-so-elementary expressions of religion. But even here, even as the linguistic heresy continues, it can gradually be transformed by the extent of transcendence of the paradox achieved in science and philosophy.

No scientist or philosopher can now say that extending all notions, insights, and theories to fundamental and experimental physics is the resolute aim and only method of salvation of all science and philosophical, or that this is where all scientific and philosophical seeking should start, or both. For some, what is more fundamental is physics, biology, neuroscience, etc., and for some it is logic and mathematics, for some it is any of the human sciences, for some everything is reducible to language and linguistic interpretations, and for everything at the level of knowledge is just feeling. In my opinion, the starting point of all science and philosophy must be where one can seek the broadest generalities in the sciences and all human endeavours, all with clear and at least generalized reference to Reality-in-total, because the most general aspects of whatever we say should be applicable to all existent processes and thus and only thus to its parts.

The solution, therefore, consists not only (1) in constantly stretching the meanings of terms and other words of all sorts in a theoretical manner proper to each science and philosophy, but also (2) in drawing the fundamentally physical-ontological presuppositions of the reason for such re-broadening of the meanings of terms – i.e., the processes that language attempts to denote by various words are to be constantly taken as non-absolute in any of the properties attributed to the existent processes because the grounding notions on which terms are based are of application to all that exist, and not merely to all that we say.

The absoluteness of meanings of denotative words denotatively represent properties and those that denotatively represent the constituents of properties, namely, the ontological universals that conglomerate to form the properties of existent processes in their natural kinds. Such absoluteness of meanings of denotatives will be ever more the greater the reach of application of those ontological universals is in theoretical and empirical endeavours. Hence the relatively high absoluteness of the ontological universals that pertain to all existents, namely, Extension and Change, and their conglomerated Category, namely, Universal Causality.

Even today one may call oneself a scientist if one is an experienced student of and does researches in one specific field of knowledge. But the above-said sort of schism or paradox would be rampant in one’s field of research if one is not open to other fields of knowledge and does not seek the common grounds behind all these sciences. Seeking the common grounds should be done in such a way that the verbs, nouns, and attributes formulated in one science can interact with similar ones in other sciences and permit researchers in other sciences to seek the ever broader and sharper meanings of the common grounds of all sciences.

If Extension and Change and their conglomerated Category, namely Universal Causality, are not the foundations – although their meanings need further clarifications in the course of years and decades – let it be shown by opponents that more fundamental implications of To Be may be found and that their meaning can be clarified further and further in terms of the To Be of Reality-in-total. We have already had for millennia much discourse on regions of Reality and on the particularity of things.

Differentiating between the functionality and structure of anything existent does not yield any absolute difference between physically material processes and processes that give rise to the biological and the conscious sorts of existents. If denotative labels like ‘self-reference’, ‘self-interaction’, etc. can be proved to be an activity that absolutely differentiates conscious organisms from purely physical (non-biological) beings / processes, then one could claim success in the theory – which has never been the case so far in the related sciences.

If not, then self-reference, self-interaction, etc. will remain fully but finitely causal within the unfolding of what these terms represent denotatively, just as all material / physical existents too are subject to the pre-scientific law of Universal Causality due to the fact that all that exist non-vacuously must be in Extension and all that exist thus should always (continuously) generate finite amounts of impact, i.e., Change, on a finite number of other such existents. This necessitates seeking the common grounds of all the sciences while science succeeds creating new notions, branches of science, philosophies, etc. and the ever broader and deeper meanings of the verbs, nouns, and attributes at use in them.

Discussions like the above would certainly confuse some at the initial stages, but this is in view of beginning just somewhere to clean up sciences and philosophy out of the grand old human tendency to absolutize the meanings of words, especially of verbs, terms, and attributes, which in some or other manner represent existent processes and the sub-processes within them. We may even extend this discussion to the case of the age-old discussions on human freedom, emergence of life, emergence of consciousness, etc., and to find ways of understanding the manner of continuance of consciousness’s creativity. The present attempt stops short of these.

From the above discussions one thing is very clear: There is, within earthly and extraterrestrial human or similar existence, no emergence of a presupposed, already eternally pre-existent, and holistically infinite-eternal consciousness that is supposed by some religious philosophies as capable of creating an absolutely non-local localization of itself within earthly and extraterrestrial human and similar existents.

There have been philosophies that have confounded everything by treating everything simultaneously from the absolutistically holistic and the absolutistically pragmatic ways of forming statements. Absolutist holism takes all existents as expressions of the One That, which, by reason of the absolutism concerning the stuff of the Absolute Consciousness, is taken as absolutely different even from the most fundamental ways of existence imaginable, i.e., Extension and Change. The said absolute difference has been presupposed because, in any case different from the absolutistically holistic, the “One That” would have to be part of the multiple physical processes existent in the cosmos or vice versa.

The resultant impasse is that, in the said case, the “One That” cannot exist non-vacuously, and any vacuous existence can only be notionally transcendental and not concretely existent as transcendent to or as inclusive of the cosmos, because the transcendental is a mere ontological universal, and the transcendent is a non-vacuous existent within the purview of Extension and Change. If it has only Extension, then it cannot exist at all, since it would again be an inactive infinite-eternal stuff unable to be instantiated or active in any manner.

Thus, it would become useless to explain the existent cosmos. How then can it merely instantiate itself in the various physical and physically biological beings, by thus somehow “creating” all these beings, if it has no action at all? If it exists, it needs to be of infinite Extension and infinite Change. This alone would capacitate it to be active. Hence, a solution where the infinite-eternal consciousness is a mere “One That” without infinite Change is unthinkable for (1) anyone who favours semantic absolutism and (2) anyone who favours the existence of an infinite-eternal consciousness that instantiates itself or creates by way of converting the infinite-eternal itself to the finite-ephemeral parts of the cosmos.

But if one says that the cosmos has been infinite-eternal and without any partial or total origin, then the infinite-eternal consciousness as the transcendental “One That” becomes a useless notion and a vacuous non-existent. Can there then be freedom of any kind within the law of Universal Causality in existent physical, biological, and conscious processes to make any advance in the cosmos? This question is to be discussed in another chapter.

There are other areas in language that deserve redemption from the absolutization of meaning. An example is connectives in language and logic, like ‘and’, and ‘or’, and disjunctive ‘or’. But this and related topics must be discussed based on the foundation built by the present work, from the linguistic (both syntactic and semantic), logical, mathematical, positive-scientific, and philosophical viewpoints. This is beyond the scope of the present work.