'Hegel's Theory... is a philosophical summit ' So it is 'a' summit appears to have been reached only for us to find, having attained such a summit, a new summit awaits beyond the one we just laboriously conquered. The climb towards Hegel's summit began with 'nothingness' and revealed stunning paradoxes great metaphysical thinkers such as Zeno, Aristotle, Boethius, Copernicus, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel himself attempted but failed to resolve. The gallant attempts put forward by these great thinkers led to metaphysical perceptions which temporarily satisfied segments of our species but never rose to the level of consensus required of a universal metaphysical model. A universal metaphysical model answers, at a minimum, three metaphysical questions: Where am I? What am I? And, Why do I exist? From such a model the term 'I' finds itself, naturally and with an ease of complete continuity, capable of being rationally replaceable with the terms: 'you', 'we', 'you and I together', 'humanity', 'life', 'the earth', 'the solar system', 'the galaxy', 'other life forms within the universe', 'all life forms within the universe', 'the universe', 'all universes'. ... Hegel is no different just because we come to 'a' summit. There is always a summit to follow each summit we conquer. To state: 'Hegel's Theory... is a philosophical summit.' is not to imply there are no other summits awaiting us. Before we can begin our climb to the next summit, we need to understand the new perception Hegel displayed for us. It is Hegel's metaphysical system, which raises the question regarding the need of 'a creator of the universe', the need of' 'a primal cause', the need of 'a first Cause'. ...What then of 'God' being 1st truth? ... Hegel's system would suggest there is no 'need' for God, no 'need' for primal cause, no 'need' for 1st cause to exists since the universe would appear to be timeless, would appear to have 'always' been. The problem becomes the operative word, 'universe', for everything we observe, believe, or reason suggests timelessness is not simply a perceptual option. The most obvious yet simultaneously obscure result is that a 'second' location emerges as 'the' solution to the problem. In essence, Hegel's system reinforced what Zeno, Aristotle, Boethius, Copernicus, Leibniz, and Kant had already reinforced one with the other. This is not to say Hegel's system lacked new insights for our species. ... It is the ideas and actions identified within this quote from Rockmore, which need addressing if we are to resolve the issues Hegel brings metaphysics. It is the concept of the universe not needing a 'creator' and yet finding an acceptable significance for 'God' which needs to be addressed and resolved before we can fully appreciate what it is Hegel may have stumbled upon: 1.The universe had no 'beginning' from which it evolved. 2.The universe is timeless and has no 1st cause. The problem seems paradoxically irresolvable in terms of either a Cartesian system or a non-Cartesian system. It is for this very reason the new metaphysical model presented in this tractate may well be 'the' solution to the problem. The metaphysical model presented is not one of Cartesianism nor one of non-Cartesianism but rather the metaphysical system being presented is one of a non-Cartesian system 'powered' by a Cartesian system located 'within' the a non-Cartesian system using the process of 'separation' through 'inclusion' versus 'separation' through 'exclusion'. The questions then become: What is a non-Cartesian system and what is a Cartesian system and how can the two exist one 'within' the other? Why is the first located 'within' the second rather than the second located 'within' the first? In fact why is either located 'within' as opposed to being located independently one from the other and separated through the process of exclusion?
About the Author: Mathematics/Science Undergraduate degree - University of Michigan Master's degree in Physical Science - Eastern Michigan University 30 years teaching mathematics & science 20 years science and/or mathematics department chair I'm not sure if I became a philosophical thinker because I was a depressant or if I became a depressant because I was a philosophical thinker. Whichever the case, I am both. To make matters even stranger I am an optimistic depressant philosophical thinker. Actually it might be more accurate of me to state that I am an optimistic depressant philosophical thinking metaphysicist. But how did metaphysics enter the picture? During my early teens I began questioning what was 'out there beyond ...' Over time this thinking sequentially lead to 'beyond the stars', 'beyond the galaxy', 'beyond time and space' until I came to the end of the physical universe itself. Once I had reached this 'outer wall' of the physical universe. I could not help but mentally poke a hole in this wall. Having created a hole in the outer wall of the physical, I peered through the hole only to see nothing. At this point I was mesmerized with questions that forever haunted me: What is this nothingness on the 'outside' of the physical universe? What is the physical universe immersed within? What is out there? What are the characteristics of this existence outside the universe? What does this outside of the universe have to do with us, with myself, with God Itself? The questions became cruelly unrelenting and overpoweringly dominating of my very psyche. With time and the use of humanity's four perceptual tools (observation - science, universal teachings - religions, rational dialectics - philosophy and universal language - mathematics) the answers began to reveal themselves. The answers came not in terms of a bias on the part of one tool as opposed to another but in terms of all four tools agreeing with each other. The biggest hurdles to the work came in the form of cynicism, skepticism, closed minds and most of all in the form of the words, 'can't', 'its impossible to know', 'humankind is not intended to understand', 'prove it'. In all good conscience, it must be stated, 'We cannot prove anything beyond all doubt ...' Having stated the obvious, we can then move on to state: '... but we can 'prove beyond a reasonable doubt.' So it is a new model of reality emerged capable of leading our species into the new age of the third millennium.