Pillars of Belief
The Cosmological Question:
How did our physical universe first come into being, and what are the physical laws that govern its past, present, and future functioning?
While often publicly professing to believe in the classical Theist Cosmology because it is the useful (utilitarian) thing to do in a culture in which the majority of people espouse this belief, adherents to the MIDDLE-MARGINALIST position along Professor Parsons’ Sociological Bar graph do not really believe in such an “Emanationist” Cosmology in which:
(A) Every point of “space” outside of the physical boundaries of our physical universe is filled by an infinite & eternal sea of undifferentiated Consciousness;
(B) This Consciousness also pervades every unit of “matter” within the physical Universe;
(C) The infinite & eternal sea of undifferentiated consciousness can alter our universe’s natural laws of physical science in response to “prayers”; and
(D) Every single human being is capable of achieving direct conscious access to the infinite & eternal sea of undifferentiated consciousness through the act of “prayer.”
However, they are not certain that something like this is NOT going on ‑ even if they cannot rationally determine what the “something” is.
Conversely, Adherents of the MIDDLE‑Marginalist position are NOT entirely convinced that every single ultimately-irreducible integer of matter in the physical Universe is simply expanding out‑and‑away from every other such integer of matter in the Universe into ultimate nothingness resulting in there being no meaning whatsoever to any act other than insofar as that act generates the most immediate short‑term material physical gratification of the biological needs of one’s own personal self and one’s own immediate family.
However, Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview suspect that this might be true – even if they do not wish to admit this to themselves – or to the public.
Therefore, Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Middle-Marginalist Worldview do not stand with those who take (what the Middle-Marginalists perceive to be) such “IDEOLOGICAL”, or “Extreme”, positions on these Four Cosmic Questions of Ultimate Fact and adopt, in practice, a merely provisional position on the “Cosmological” Question as to the existence of, or non-existence of this “Infinite & Eternal Sea of Undifferentiated Consciousness” which is the source of the physical Universe – as well as refraining from taking any fixed position as to the Answer to any of the other three Cosmic Questions which might provide them with a consistent “Worldview.”
INSTEAD OF believing in, or attempting to comport their conduct in accordance with, any specific “Cosmological” Belief – Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm “Middle-Marginalist” Worldview operationally adopt whatever THEORY is PRESENTLY supported by the latest scientific data ascertained solely by our five human senses (amplified or enhanced by our human technology) and then processed though our human intellect. This conduct generates a position on the issue of Cosmology which is fundamentally different from simply averaging the data provided by the Cosmological Answers espoused by the two Systemic Worldviews and the two Marginalist Worldviews.
Thus, Adherents to The Middle Marginalist Worldview believe in a Cosmology which is the product of the data gathered solely through an exercise of their five commonly-acknowledged physical senses and extrapolated by their Intellect. However, such intellectual extrapolation generates a model of what the physical is beyond that which they can actually see, touch, taste, feel or smell (enhanced by technology). So, Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview do NOT take any position other than an entirely theoretical position as to the Cosmology of our physical Universe beyond that portion of the Universe which has been “proven” by scientifically – verifiable means (meaning that data which can be confirmed by our five human biological senses enhanced by scientifically accepted means of physical technology).
Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm relegate all study outside the known universe to theoretical sciences. This position on the part of Adherents to the MIDDLE‑ Marginalist position along Professor Parsons’ Sociological Bar Graph causes Adherents to this Middle-Marginalist Worldview to be comparatively UNGROUNDED, un‑linked to any truly Cosmic referent , thus, very much without any over-arching consistent moral and ethical framework.
The Teleological Question:
Is there a specific direction in which our physical universe is unfolding, and if there is, what is the role of our human species, if any, in this unfolding?
Adherents of the Middle‑Marginalist position are not wedded to the Right-Systemist position that human beings are essentially the same as we have been for hundreds of thousands of years: territorial, predatory, selfish, violent, untrustworthy, etc and that our species is essentially unalterable in this regard.
Nor, however, do Adherents to The Middle Marginalist Worldview believe in the Left-Systemist position that there is some natural phenomenon at work from outside of the physical Universe which is operating within the physical Universe which will naturally evolve our human species into a more and more “perfect” status, both biologically or ethically.
Adherents to this Middle-Marginalist position DO, however, believe that individual human beings can, through the exercise of their intellect, improve the lot into which they were born – so long as one does not form any firm beliefs based strictly upon intellectually – projected theories beyond those which can be confirmed through direct observation by means of one’s five physical human senses.
Thus, Adherents of this position are vigorous in their advocacy of education and the making educational opportunities available to ALL persons ‑ regardless of those persons’ race, ethnic background, class or place of national origin. But, this educational opportunity must train persons who receive such education to restrain their beliefs strictly to those which are rational and scientifically verified. This, indeed, is an absolutely essential aspect of the education to which Fourth Paradigm Worldview Adherents believe that every person should be entitled… indeed, should be legally-compelled to be subjected to… in order to make the world a strictly rational place.
Pursuant to such an education, Adherents to The Middle Marginalist Worldview believe that we, as human beings, can influence the teleology of our physical Universe by inserting our rational conduct into the physical Universe to alter the otherwise natural physical events of the Universe which are otherwise governed by the physical laws of science. The criteria to determine what human action we will insert into the otherwise natural “Teleology” of the physical Universe are, by an Adherent to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview, strictly rational actions in accordance with the Mode of Ethical Reasoning which is generated by a strictly rational judgment.[3]
The Ontological Question:
How did sentient consciousness come into being (especially human consciousness)?
Aristotle represents the Philosopher of The Fourth Paradigm Worldview. Aristotle’s discussion of perception overlaps with two contemporary debates about consciousness: the first over whether consciousness is an intrinsic feature of mental states or a higher-order manifestation of which we are merely vessels; the second concerning the qualitative nature of experience. In both cases, Aristotle’s views cut down the middle of an apparent dichotomy, in a way that does justice to each set of intuitions, while avoiding their attendant difficulties. With regard to the first issue he argues that consciousness is both intrinsic and higher-order, due to its reflexive nature. This, in turn, has consequences for the second issue, where again Aristotle seeks out the middle ground. He is committed against qualia in any strong sense of the term. Yet he also holds that the phenomenal quality of experience is not exhausted by its representational content.
The Epistemological Question:
What are the means by which we as human beings are capable of discerning the “facts” that constitute the answer to ultimate cosmic questions such as these?
Adherents of the Middle‑Marginalist position, like persons who are located on the right side of Professor Parsons’ Sociological Bar Graph are dis‑inclined to believe that there is any method by means of which we, as human beings, can determine any Absolute Truth.
However, unlike the Adherents of the Right‑Systemist and Right‑ Marginalist positions on the Bar Graph, Adherents of the Middle‑ Marginalist position will NOT maintain that THERE IS NO TRUTH OR REALITY (which would mean that we are free to conduct ourselves as though there were NO TRUTH or that we are free simply to blindly give ourselves over to some purely mechanical dialectic.)
Like persons who are located on the left side of Professor Parsons’ Bar graph, Adherents of the Middle‑Marginalist position along the Bar Graph are inclined to go searching for THE Truth (with an expectation that “IT” exists out there somewhere). Thus, Adherents of the Middle-Marginalists position along the Bar Graph endorse the utilitarian tactic of a dialectical methodology for searching out the Truth (more accurately, perhaps, “groping toward” the truth). However, Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview do not grant to this dialectical process an end-game ULTIMATE value (as do Right‑Marginialist Dialecticians).
Instead, Adherents to the Middle-Marginalist position on the Bar Graph remain ready and willing to adjust the truth generated by an attachment to the outcome of a purely dialectical process to accord with new physically-verifiable scientific data. In the meantime, Adherents to this Fourth Paradigm Middle Marginalist Worldview are always willing accept a less-than-perfect “truth” to accommodate the pragmatic needs of the moment at which “truth” needs to be determined.
In order to determine this presently-operative Truth, Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview engage in the intellectual process of “Scientific Logical Positivism” to determine “The Facts.” They systematically gather scientific data, then subject this data to their human intellect, discerning patterns within this data. They then project out (arithmetically, geometrically, algorithmically and through calculus) this data to determine how these strictly physical patterns might project themselves out into the physical realm beyond the parameters in which we, as human beings, can presently physically discern the presence of these physical phenomena.
BUT, Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Scientific Logical Positivist Worldview confine this intellectual extrapolation strictly to the realm of theory, and they confine their beliefs strictly to that portion of the totality of Reality to which they can gain direct physical access through their five physical biological senses (enhanced by scientifically-verified technology.) Because of this, Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview explicitly and expressly acknowledge that they do NOT “know” everything. Indeed, they expressly acknowledge that, even that which they profess to “know” is strictly provisional… that is subject to change. All Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview stand ready to amend what they “know” by adjusting their knowledge to accommodate new discoveries made through the process of Scientific Logical Positivist physical research.
Thus, Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview are consistently tentative about their beliefs, causing every one of their existent Physical World beliefs to be contingent upon the acquisition of new data and causing every one of their Cosmic Beliefs to be strictly theoretical.
Mode of Ethical Reasoning
When faced with a number of choices from amongst which to select, an Adherent to the Middle-Marginalist position will always select that choice which generates “the greatest good for the greatest number,” the classical Utilitarian choice. They are not ideological. They are pragmatic … almost mathematic in their ethical decision-making.
They do not attach metaphysical values to data. They are strictly rational. They are the Mentants of Frank Herbert’s DUNE. They are the Dr. Spocks of Gene Rodenberry’s STAR TREK.
Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview hold the Cosmological belief that our physical universe might have begun as the result of the Big Bang, as is believed by adherents to The First Paradigm Worldview. On the other hand, adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview believe that our physical universe might have begun as a result of the manifestation of two “singularities” within the theretofore entirely homogeneous “Void,” as is believed by adherents to The Second Paradigm Worldview – and that all of the other incremental steps might have occurred just as they are believed to have occurred by adherents to The Second Paradigm Worldview, strictly as a matter of pure physical forces. Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview also believe that our physical universe might have begun as it is believed to have begun by adherents to The Third Paradigm Worldview, as a function of the inter-play of “Energy”, “Mass” and “Mind.”
Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview believe, simply, that the three conclusions about the historical origin of the Universe which are firmly held by adherents to The First Paradigm Worldview, The Second Paradigm Worldview and The Third Paradigm Worldview constitute three merely different hypothesis as to how our physical universe might have originated. However, adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview are strict empiricists, so they are, therefore, willing to positively affirm only those portions of any one of these (or other) hypothesis as can be positively confirmed through the compilation and analysis of physical data which they can measure, weigh, taste, touch, smell, see or hear (though adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview DO allow their five physical “senses” to be “magnified” or “extended” through mechanical technology). Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview are willing solely to hypothesize as to further aspects of any thesis beyond the limited physical data which can be confirmed by physical means. And they will remain open to altering their hypothesis as to how the physical universe came into being to accord with their future acquisition of any further measurable data. For adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview are “Scientific Logical Positivists.” Their “Reality” is made up only of “facts” which they can “prove.” And they deem as having been “proved” only those “facts” which can be confirmed through means of physical measurement.
Thus, the Cosmology of adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview is a purely physical Cosmology. Indeed, nothing else is deemed to exist.
Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview, like adherents to The First Paradigm Worldview, like adherents to The Second Paradigm Worldview and like adherents to The Third Paradigm Worldview, recognize that all “matter” which was created at “The Beginning of Time” (whether this be a de novo “beginning” or simply the beginning of a new cycle of the universe) is expanding, and they, too, believe that every combination of matter more complex than the smallest unit of “matter,” are disintegrating (into their smaller constituent, ultimately NON-divisible units of matter.) And adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview believe, further, as do adherents to The First, Second and Third Paradigm Worldviews, that every ultimately-irreducible integer of matter in our physical universe is, at the same time, repelling itself out and away from every other such integer of matter in our physical universe. They believe that all three of these phenomena are taking place – because they can observe and measure all three of these physical phenomena.
However, while adherents to The First Paradigm Worldview believe that this contemporaneously-occurring expansion and dis-integration of all matter in our physical universe has been going on since the very beginning of our physical universe, and that this contemporaneously-occurring expansion and disintegration will continue to go on forever causing our physical universe, inevitably to dis-integrate into nothingness; while adherents to The Second Paradigm Worldview believe that this expansion of our physical universe will STOP and then begin to collapse back in upon itself, thereupon reconstituting itself back into complex combinations (waves of energy; particles of mass etc. re-form planets; stars; solar systems; star clusters; “galaxies”; “nebulae” etc.) and while adherents to The Third Paradigm Worldview believe that neither of these two alternative options is a pre-determined fact but, rather, that whether our physical universe will expand forever or will ultimately stop and collapse back in upon itself is the function of an existential choice which is being made every day by individual human beings by our either lending the power of our mind to the holding of the universe together through an exercise of our existential hope combined with our existential actions taken in accordance with that hope, or our lending the power of our mind to the ultimate disintegration of our universe through our embracing of despair and our then engaging in conduct every day that gives this despair effect – adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview believe that any one of these three alternative hypotheses might well be true – OR that some fourth hypothesis might just as easily be true depending entirely upon what the most up-to-date physical data is confirms to be “true.”
In the broad field of Cosmology, adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview, therefore, HAVE NO PRESENT FIXED BELIEF. They simply view the present amount of physically confirmed data which our human family has in our collective possession to be statistically insufficient to enable our human family to come to any fixed conclusion as to how our physical universe came into being. The state the Cosmological belief of adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview is the result of two causes. The first is that, confined by the present state of our scientific technology, we simply have not yet been physically able to project our sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching or “measuring” undertaken by means of our five physical senses out to the very farthest edge of the expanding universe so as to experience the physical data which contains the secrets of the physical process which gave rise to the origin of our physical universe. The second is that, there is a distinct possibility (i.e. there is a credible specific hypothesis to the effect that) that our physical universe might possibly have originated from some kind of entirely NON-physical (NON-material) process. If this “Hypothesis B” turns out to be the case, then the scientific technology which is employed by adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview – (technology which is designed to ascertain and measure ONLY material or physical phenomena) – will have no means of discerning, measuring, or otherwise physically detecting any NON-physical data pertaining to, or bearing witness to the phenomena of creation until such phenomena generates one or more physically measurable qualities (in the form of energy or mass). Therefore, the earliest data which could discerned by adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview would be only after its manifestation into matter has already happened. Thus, the process of the creation of matter itself would remain a total mystery to adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview, effectively invisible, because it exists out beyond the physical discernment and measurement of the technological devices developed and fielded by adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview.
Thus, if “Hypothesis B” proves to be the case, then adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview will never be able to scientifically confirm this fact. They will be able to say nothing more than: “At one moment, nothing was there. And, the very next moment, there “it” was (or is.) Anything more would have to remain forever a mere hypothesis or a mere intellectual surmise.
Such a Cosmological Belief would then, of course, bear a great deal of resemblance to the Cosmological Belief that is adhered to by adherents to The First Paradigm Worldview called the Big Bang. For that matter, this is the same Cosmological Belief that is adhered to by adherents to The Second Paradigm Worldview – with the only slight modification that adherents to The Second Paradigm Worldview adhere to the Cosmological Belief that, rather than the Big Bang originating simply from nothing, it was “The First Singularity” which simply manifested from nothing (from some NON-material dimension) and then a second singularity (again, from the same NON-material dimension). Then, “The First Unit of Matter” (a WAVE FUNCTION OF ENERGY consisting of one electron volt unit) simply MANIFESTED into Material being, again, out of nothing, and so on. Nor, for that matter, do adherents to The Third Paradigm Worldview maintain that the human “MIND” is the source of the first unit of physical “matter.” Adherents to The Third Paradigm Worldview maintain, rather, that “Mind” is a mere “Co-Partner” with “energy” and “mass” after the human “MIND” comes into existence. Adherents to The Third Paradigm Worldview simply believe that “energy” and “mass” have ALWAYS EXISTED (in the “form” of an ever-oscillating Universe, “oscillating” back and forth between a state of Absolute Energy and Absolute Mass.) It simply has no “beginning.”
While adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview adhere to some aspects of the Teleological beliefs adhered to by adherents to The First, Second and Third Paradigm Worldviews pertaining to the laws pursuant to which physical matter within our universe functions in between its origin and the “Moment of Ultimate Expansion,” adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview adhere to NO SPECIFIC TELEOLOGICAL BELIEF AS TO WHETHER OUR PHYSICAL UNIVERSE IS GOING TO GO ON EXPANDING FOREVER INTO NOTHINGNESS OR WHETHER IT IS GOING TO COLLAPSE BACK IN UPON ITSELF, RECREATING THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE. Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview maintain that our human family simply does not yet have enough of the necessary pertinent physical data on the basis of which to make such a factual determination.
As to the Ontological Belief of adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview, adherents believe that consciousness and human life manifest themselves within the processes of the physical universe – but they have no present set of physical data which enables them to determine exactly how sentient consciousness came into being out of NON- sentient matter. So, once again, adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview possess no fixed or determined Ontological Belief. They merely have various hypotheses.
Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview – because of their lack of any specific Belief in the fields of Cosmology, Teleology and Ontology are identified almost exclusively by the Master Identifier of their Epistemology.
Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview hold the Epistemological Belief that the only means which are at our disposal, as human beings, by means of which we can determine TRUTH are:
(A) the exercise of our five physical senses (reinforced by technology) and
(B) the application of our “intellect” to the physical data experientially perceived by means of our five physical senses which has been directly given by actual physical objects.
Thus, like adherents to The Third Paradigm Worldview, adherents to The Fourth Paradigm explicitly agree that one can intellectually hypothesize as to possible aspects of Reality which lie out beyond the present actual experience of our five physical senses reinforced by technology, (even to the point of being able to project certain probable aspects of this “Ultimate Reality”). However, unlike adherents to The Third Paradigm Worldview, adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview come to NO conclusions, or even set beliefs, pertaining to any aspect of “Reality” which has not yet been actually seen, smelled, touched, tasted, heard, measured or weighed.
In this regard, adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview are similar to adherents to The Third Paradigm Worldview. However, whereas, due to an overwhelming “cosmic frustration” (or “Cosmic Angst”), adherents to The Third Paradigm Existential Worldview choose to seize upon one specific intellectually – projected Reality as THE Reality which they wish to bring into being (by means of their existential choice and action) and they then act on that specific projected Reality as if it were established to be TRUE, adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Scientific Logical Positivist Worldview refrain from seizing upon any one specific Reality and merely project a variety of possible “hypotheses.”
When compelled to act upon an element of Reality which remains still beyond their having measured it, adherents to the Fourth Paradigm Worldview will act in accordance with the specific hypothesis which possesses the highest probability projection of being true. This is done through the application of a process which they identify as Bayh’s Theorem. [1]
To the degree to which adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview strictly adhere to their refusal to come to any explicit conclusion of fact beyond data which has been already seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted, this Epistemological Belief has come to be regarded as the Master Identifier Belief of The Fourth Paradigm Worldview.
Thus, while adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview are quite rarely wrong because they come to hold specific empirical beliefs on such a limited portion of Reality, adherents to The Fourth Paradigm, conversely, often miss out on very important aspects of “Reality”… simply because so many important aspects of genuine “Reality” presently lie out beyond empirical physical verification, due to the insufficiencies of our present state of technology.
In its “Lower” Manifestation, the Fourth Paradigm Worldview generates the “Mode of Ethical Reasoning” of elite Intellectual Majoritarian Utilitarianism. This is a process by means of which a choice is made between alternative options available by a majority of those individuals who are deemed to possess an adequately “high” level of intellectual capacity – and the “choice” which is usually made pursuant to this Mode of Ethical Reasoning is that choice which generates the greatest good for that intellectual “majority” (which is often [though not always] viewed, by these elite, as providing some ancillary “utilitarian” trickle down “benefit” to those who are intellectually-disqualified from participating in the decision-making process.)
In its “Higher” Manifestation, the Fourth Paradigm Worldview generates the “Mode of Ethical Reasoning” of “Majoritarian Utilitarianism” which was espoused by John Stewart Mill. Pursuant to this “Mode of Ethical Reasoning”, every “choice” to be made is made by all of the individuals who are going to be effected by that choice, and the “choice” which is made pursuant to this Mode of Ethical Reasoning is that choice which will generate the greatest good for the greatest number of those individuals who are directly effected by that choice.
Because of these combined Cosmological, “Teleological and Ontological beliefs on the part of adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview, adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Worldview adhere to the Philosophy of “Scientific Logical Positivism”, a Philosophy exemplified, in its “Lower” Manifestation by ARISTOTLE.
In its “Higher” Manifestation, this Fourth Paradigm Worldview generates the philosophy of “The Golden Rule” of “Brotherly Love” (“Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You”) espoused by The Christian Social Teachings. This is viewed as being the truly Utilitarian Salvation Dynamic of the human family, the dynamic of Heart-Felt Human Affection.
The “Mode of Spiritual Expression” of adherents to The Fourth Paradigm is Christian. In its “Lower” Manifestation, The Fourth Paradigm Worldview manifests itself in the Mode of Spiritual Expression of “Medieval Catholic Logical Scholasticism.” In its “Higher” Manifestation, The Fourth Paradigm Worldview manifests itself in the Mode of Spiritual Expression of Thomas Aquinas in his latter days of life (Jesus & Marian Christian Egalitarianism.)
In its “Social Form”, The Fourth Paradigm Worldview “manifests” itself, in its “Lower” Manifestation, in the form of “Continental Federation”, such as The Christian Democratic European Union. In its “Higher” Manifestation, The Fourth Paradigm Worldview manifests itself in the “Social Form” of Continental Christian Social Democracy.
Many have accused Adherents to the Middle-Marginalist Worldview (located at the exact physical “center” of Professor Talcott Parsons’ Sociological Bar Graph) of simply adopting a neutral (or “Agnostic”) position on each of the FOUR COSMIC QUESTIONS OF ULTIMATE FACT – and of then adopting a “Mode of Ethical Reasoning” which simply mechanically averages the positions taken by all of the other Worldviews, and thereupon simply back engineering a mechanically reductionist lowest common denominator position as an answer to each of these Four Comic Questions.
However, it is the position of Professor Parsons that Adherents to the Middle-Marginalist position along his Sociological Bar Graph have done something MORE…and at the same time LESS… than simply averaging out the lowest common denominator resulting from an analysis of the answers provided to these Four Questions by the Adherents to the two Systemic and the two Marginalist Worldviews.
Rather, Professor Parsons asserts that Adherents to The Fourth Paradigm Middle Marginalist Worldview have generated their own answers to these Four Basic Questions. These “Answers” are, however, only Provisional Answers.
THE “PARADIGMATIC” EXEMPLIFICATION OF THE “LOWER” MANIFESTATION OF THE FOURTH PARADIGM WORLDVIEW
MIDEAVAL SCHOLASTIC CATHOLIC CULTURE
THE “PARADIGMATIC” EXEMPLIFICATION OF THE “HIGHER” MANIFESTATION OF THE FOURTH PARADIGM WORLDVIEW
ARISTOTLEAN GREEK CULTURE
[1] (Set forth Bahy’s Theorem.)
[2] At the present moment, this “position” seems to be that: There are numerous locations within the physically- perceivable physical Universe where “matter” is dis-appearing into “Black Holes” (into the inside of which our presently-technologically-augmented five physical human senses cannot gain access. And there are a number of locations within our presently-physically-perceivable physical Universe where “matter” seems to be “coming into physical existence. And, thirdly, we have mathematically determined that there must exist a HUGE quantity of “Dark Matter” (or “Anti-Matter”) within our physical Universe. But, at present we cannot physically see, measure or weigh enough physical “Matter” within our physical Universe to convince ourselves that our physical Universe is going to stop expanding and dis-“integrating”. So, at present, we tentatively believe that our physical Universe is heading toward “chaos.” (So, for the moment, we “in the Middle” will support those who believe in the First Paradigm Worldview.)
[3] This specific “Mode of Ethical Reasoning” is set forth under the rubric of The Fourth Paradigm “Mode of Ethical Reasoning.”