Existence

The First Principle of Everything

Existence is. Existence is Miracle. Existence is mystery, paradox, infinite.

Existence precedes and permeates all Things. Existence is Unique. Existence is unlike any Thing. Existence is not a Thing.

Existence has no properties. Properties have contrast. Existence has no contrast.

Existence is as a blank canvas, upon which all that Exists is painted.

The Value: Miracle

There can be no miracle greater than that of existence. It is the grandest of all Unknowns.

Laws of Nature

…Emerge from Existence, Emergence & Emanation.

The ordering principles inherent in Existence. Just as a blank canvas has surface, edge, texture, so too, from Existence emerges structure. Structure is a substrate, and substrate becomes part of that which emerges from it.

The Value: Stability

Laws give our existence stability, balancing order and chaos to provide the foundation upon which we extend.

Universe

Emerges from Laws of Nature

Universe is substate, the physical environment of all that exists. Galaxies, stars, planets, atoms, particles. Whether one Universe or many, each will conform to and emerge from the laws that exist in its realm.

The Value: Humility

The vastness and complexity of the Universe instills humility. We are a small part of a greater whole. Out of small parts emanate greater things.

Life

Emerges from Universe

Life, emerging from lesser organized matter, is a miracle. Similar to, but of a different scale, than the emergence of a cake from its components. Life is movement. Possibility. Growth. Finite.

The Value: Possibility 

Life is the first element that can reproduce itself, not beholden simply to chance encounters with other elements. To live is to live in possibility. To live is to be. But life is finite, and we live in a balance of Being and Dying. The end of life is the end of possibility.

Variation

Emerges from Life

Life manifests possibility through variation. Through combination, recombination, change and evolution. No two occurrences of life are wholly identical. Any philosophy that does not account for the variants of individuality is invalid.

The Value: Change

Variation teaches us to value change. Life is in motion toward evolution or decay. A being that avoids change does not embrace life.

Body

Emerges from Variation

Early single-celled forms of life existed for billions of years prior to multi-cellular bodies which produced evolutionary advantages. Bodies emerged through variation of simple forms of life to more complex. Bodies are the substrate of all being; they are not impediments to being, they are delivery systems for being. No being exists apart from substrate.

The Value: Sensation

Bodies give us an ability to sense the Universe; both pleasure and pain. Body allows us to move and to interact. Sense provides data which leads to further variation and evolution. Sense is our primary form of communication with the external world.

Drive

Emerges from Body

As life is imbued with variation and possibility, these connote motive toward change. In simple life, that motivation comes in the given called Drive. It is the unchosen move toward acquisition: nutrients, reproduction, security, aggression. Drive is the precursor to “Desire” which emerges later in self-aware beings.

The Value: Motivation

From Drive comes the value of motivation. This moves us to change or acquisition. Through motivation we balance comfort and need. Too little motivation and our comfort will kill us.

Causality

Emerges from Drive

As drive moves us into motion, we experience our first spark of understanding. Causality. We begin to notice the relation of events in time and space. Before. After. This then that. It is the emergence of pattern, and sets the foundation for the most important aspects of being.

The Value: Information

From causality we derive information. Information is the raw data that will later be formed into higher levels of understanding. But at core, information underlies much of what it means to be alive, to be able to move through existence with purpose and discipline. Cause and Effect are the Triunal parts of information. 

Mind

Emerges from Causality

Mind is a pattern-seeking tool.  From the first pattern we recognize, causality, emerges our ability to analyze and organize more complex patterns. Through storage and recall of that information, we develop the ability to make informed and better choices.

The Value: Awareness

The ability to sense data and to begin to analyze that data was a monumental occurrence in the extension of the Universe. Awareness is the manner in which the Cosmos began to know itself. 

The Known

Emerges from Mind

As the mind analyzes more sense data, it begins to categorize that data into knowledge, theories. This becomes the set of things that are Known by the mind. Experimentation, trial and error, evaluation: these lead to answers that become useful in our pursuit of extension.

The Value: Story

From that which we know emerges story; ideas about how the Universe operates, how it should operate. These we organize into the tales we tell ourselves and others, providing the beginning to culture. Story becomes a tension between education and ignorance. It both enables us to look forward,  and prevents us from doing so.

The Unknown

Emerges from The Known

Understanding The Known is the first step in being able to understand that the mind does not know most things. This moves us to exploration. That which we do not know becomes much more powerful as a tool in the evolution of the Universe.

The Value: Discomfort

Not knowing creates discomfort, which prods us into motion and discovery. We balance between avoiding that discomfort and advancing forward toward better understanding.

Knowledge

Emerges from Causality Mind, The Known & The Unknown

The culmination of pattern recognition, of data gathering, and of exploration and analysis results in Knowledge. It is the ability to learn and to imagine a different future that constitutes knowledge. 

The Value: Wisdom

Knowledge brings us the ability to cultivate wisdom: a balance between evidence (external) and judgement (internal) that we create. Wisdom is both experience and creativity.