Notes on the constitution of the case

2022-01-31

1 The study of philosophy pertains to the examination of the abstract structure inherent to every case.

1.1 The case is a set of factors in their interplay.

1.2 The case is an analytical construct. Its particularities depend on which factors are considered and what modal qualities they are thought to have in light of—or because of—that selection process.

1.3 The case is a noetic presence: a product of thought, not an entity that is independent of the thinkable.

1.3.1 That which is not noetic is understood in negative terms though never directly. For human cannot comprehend that which is not susceptible to the intellect and/or the sense faculties.

1.3.2 The opposite of noetic is ontic (“on” is Greek for “being”), from whence comes the study—or the discussion around the problématique—of “what is”: ontology.

1.3.3 We describe the mental isolation of patterns as “analytics”. An “analytical construct” is another way of denoting a noetic presence that is thought of as if it stood on its own, independent of the totality it is present in.

1.4 A factor is a constituent of the case. Factors are noetically irreducible or analytically atomic (“atom” means “indivisible”).

1.5 The relationship between the factors of the case is described as one of configuration, composition, or constitution. We thus speak of “the constitution of the case”.

1.6 What stands as a factor in one case can be a set of factors in their interplay in another case. A subsystem is a factor of a system yet it is a system in its own right. The constitution of the case in each consideration shall differ.

1.6.1 As pertains to one’s disposition, this means that every analysis must be couched in terms of its scope and remain aware of it. We call this the “mode of application”, where “mode” refers to a way of thinking.

1.7 With “presence” we denote existence: a factor in the case. With “modality” (and variants like “modal”) we refer to the way the presence is made manifest: how some factor exists or the manner in which its existence unfolds.

1.8 The presence and modality of a factor is informed by the constitution of the case, for that involves the interplay of factors and thus the phenomena specific to it; phenomena germane to the combinations as such (which we describe as “emergent phenomena”).

1.9 A pattern which is discerned only in the interplay of factors, though not in their isolation as standalone cases, is considered emergent.

1.10 As the constitution of the case determines the factors in their interplay and as a case may consist of cases, emergence can be stratified depending on the scope of each set of relations.

1.11 The “stratification of emergence” describes emergent phenomena that occur in a composited constitution of the case: a case of cases.

2 Every presence has modality.

2.1 The abstract structure of existence, or else the common in the multitude of all presences, cannot have modality, for that would be inherently contradictory.

2.2 Existence without modality is substance. We name it “Being”.

2.3 Being cannot be described as having attributes: the very process involves the identification of manifest features, i.e. modality.

2.4 Being cannot be understood directly but only through deduction as that which all presences must have in common.

2.5 The opposite of Being is a product of inference though it cannot possibly exist as non-Being, since it is impossible for there to be a present non-presence and, by extension, a pattern that is common in a multitude of non-presences: “multitude of non-presences” is meaningless, as is the notion of a pattern in non-presence.

2.6 Every presence partakes of Being. It shares the substance—that which is common in the multitude—and then extends it in ways that particularise the presence, differentiating it from the totality of presences.

2.6.1 Differentiation pertains to modality. Even if all appears to be changing, the abstract structure remains constant: presences still extend Being.

2.7 There can be no non-Being as that would demand that presences are extensions of nothingness.

2.8 Presences cannot come from nothing, be in nothing, and move towards nothing. A presence comes from something, is in something, and goes towards something. Such is a cycle of transfiguration. The substance is constant as the abstract structure of all presences is Being, yet the modality of each presence as well as the effective emergent phenomena render it subject to change.

2.8.1 The claim that a deity (or any mechanism for that matter) can create life “from nothing” does not imply non-Being: the god is still present.

2.8.1.1 A god with personality traits cannot be the same as Being, since personality is a matter of modality.

2.8.1.2 A god with modal features is a presence.

2.9 Life has to be an alias for the “totality of presences”, while “forms of life” or “life forms” provide alternative ways to denote presences.

2.10 There can be no non-life, as that would imply that there is non-Being, which is impossible. If anything lives, it does so qua presence; presence which extends Being. What are understood as birth and death are apparent phases in an everlasting cycle of transfiguration.

2.11 All forms of life are consubstantial: they partake of Being. Transfiguration operates at the modal level of an otherwise constant underlying substance.

2.11.1 If god is a presence, there can be many gods just as there are many presences.

2.11.2 All presences are subject to transfiguration.

2.11.3 If god is an alias for Being—substance without modality—there can still be gods qua presences. There would be no hierarchy, for that which lacks a mode of being cannot exist in a relationship of any sort with presences (hierarchy entails power and control): such a state entails modality.

2.12 There is no inherently inert, else inanimate, presence. What is thought of as inert may contribute to—or already be contributing to—some form of life that could be perceived as animate provided the necessary constitution of the case.

2.13 The way a presence is and the way it can be, or else its actuality and potentiality, are matters that concern the mode of application.