Chronology - 1.00

Eternal Potential - as opposed-to Nothing - defines

Eternal Origins.

At Eternal Origins, 'Potential reigns supreme'.

We start with Eternal Potential in the universe. Birnbaum makes clear that before the Big Bang, there was not nothing, as physics often claims. Instead, Eternal Potential defines Eternal Origins. What does this mean? Birnbaum states that there was never nothingness in the universe. Of course, there might have been no matter or universe as we know it. But this misses the point.

Potential has always existed. Without potential, nothing can be. So, it is impossible to say there was a time that there wasn’t potential. This is exactly why Birnbaum concludes with ‘Potential reigns supreme.’ Without potential, nothing else could ever have been.

In fact, this idea is so embedded in Potentialism because there is nothing else in the universe that has this trait. Consider that.

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The universe could, at one time, have gone without anything else but potential itself and still come into existence.

Indeed, this proto-metaphysical universe was a metaphysical nothingness save for one feature, Potential itself. Before even reality existed, there was Potential. But that was enough to eventually lead to the spark of creation for reasons we will discover shortly in this Chronology.

More succinctly, let us put it this way. Birnbaum posits:

1. Potential is Eternal.

Why is Birnbaum so certain here?

Per Birnbaum, it is self-evident that Potential/Possibility is eternal. This is what we call in philosophy an axiom. It is something which is irreducibly true. If something Can exist it obviously has the potential to exist.

Birnbaum further states that:

2. Only Potential/Possibility can be posited as being Eternal.

Here we have to consider, if something Can exist it may or may not exist. This may seem like mental gymnastics, but let’s break this down. Let’s pick a dinosaur. For arguments sake we will say brontosaurus. Before it existed, clearly the possibility for it to exist was true or it could never have come to be. Likewise, even

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though it is now extinct, the possibility for it to exist still exists or it could never have been on the earth in the first place. So, its potential and possibility both predated its existence and lived past its existence.

The above 2-step is Birnbaum's key metaphysical pivot; the pivot which de facto clears-the-chessboard of all pre-existing metaphysical theories; after 5,000+ years of (frustrating) theory, Summa cleans-the-slate; Per Birnbaum, 'Only if you discern a truly eternal & overarching dynamic, can you play in the metaphysics sandbox.' [The one declarative sentence ushers-in a revolution in metaphysics/cosmology/philosophy - and in all the (soft and hard) sciences.]

Thus, before even Quest for Potential (Q4P) made-anappearance, naked Potential reigned supreme. This is Birnbaum's Realm 1 of 3: his Proto-Metaphysical universe.

Chronology 1.00 is so short, not because it lacks importance, but because it is so simple and fundamental that nothing else could occur without it.

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