Triadic Philosophy accepts heaven as an ideal or an idea.

Triadic Philosophy accepts heaven  as an ideal or an idea.  If we chase down what Jesus had to say about heaven,  we see it's not some hoked-up celestial arcade.  Heaven is launched by  the simple act of being decent,  of ceding to neighbors and strangers  the same slack  you want for yourself. 
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Ethics is lodged within us all

COSMIC CURTAINS
Ethics is lodged within us all. Just as our makings are. We spring from a cosmic process  founded, science tells us, on a small collection of patterns. We discover these as we move in the same direction as the cosmos. The most obvious pattern is the least acknowledged. It is the inherent presence of ontological values  in every soul  on our small planet. Each action we contemplate is met by phalanx of blunt truths  that constitute the very center of ethics. Are we being tolerant? Are we being helpful? Are we being democratic? Are we avoiding idolatry?
What we call conscience is the presence of these ethical benchmarks within each of us. Each one can be shown to interact with the others. Each addresses the foundations of true progress, toward a cosmos that reflects the intended pattern for humankind,  set from the foundation. This is the "more" that Hamlet could have told.
If this seems overblown and arbitrary it is because of the mess that  we've made of ethics. We've lived by binary  either-or thinking which issued in narrowness, thoughtlessness and betrayal of the aesthetic mandate  to achieve beauty and truth in our living. The revolution of this century is the recovery of the ontological values within us all.
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Semiotics is concerned with the good life because Triadic Philosophy aims at the good life.

SEMIOTICS
Semiotics is concerned with the good life because  Triadic Philosophy aims at the good life. This is because goodness is clearly understood  in Triadic Philosophy as the conscious avoidance of  what is demonstrably harmful. Conscious killing is the greatest evil. The greatest good is the achievement of  truth and beauty via the aesthetic grasp of,  and human creation of, a world in which  the possibilities of harm are minimized. Triadic Philosophy  understands Ethics as the object to which Reality (the referent) refers en route to the interpretants  which are our more or less aesthetic  attempts to form our reality. The ontological values of the Ethical are tolerance, helpfulness, democracy and non-idolatry.
Semiotics is among the tools  we have for articulating  the process by which signs  rising in Reality encounter the blunt truths  of the Ethical. This encounter influences our actions in the performative realm  of life as it is actually lived.
Signs can be anything at all. The dominant feature  of Triadic Philosophy  is that Ethics is understood as the realm  of secondness, to borrow a term from Peirce.   Understanding Aesthetics as the realm of thirdness marks Triadic Philosophy as an advance, called for by the arduous progress of the world  toward self-realization.
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The four noble truths of Triadic Philosophy

The four noble truths of Triadic Philosophy 

can be expressed in many ways 

but they all boil down to 

statements about four words: 

Tolerance, Helpfulness, 

Democracy and Non-idolatry. 

These words are the ontological basis 

for the ethical barrier or gateway 

between all human beings and 

Reality on one side 

and on the other the Aesthetic realm 

which we occupy and where we fashion 

our ongoing performance 

as occupants of Earth. 

These words describe the only 

ascriptions of worth that 

would be worth saying 

if you were toting up things 

you had done that made you admirable, 

good, noble, etc. 

You might then say:

"I have practiced tolerance 

by being strong in the face of difficulties 

and forgiving in the face of things I abhor 

and non-judgmental toward those 

with whom I profoundly disagree. 

I have practiced helpfulness by keeping 

my eyes open to the needs of others 

and by giving of myself as I am able. 

I have practiced democracy 

by speaking out for humane values and rights 

and by exercising my own rights 

to life, dignity and freedom. 

And I have stood silent and speechless 

before the vast vista of Reality 

which I will never, 

from where I am, 

grasp but which I daily affirm.  

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The four values of Triadic Philosophy, taken together and understood, can do no harm.

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The four values of Triadic Philosophy,

taken together and understood,  

can do no harm. 

Indeed to the extent that their 

universality is made manifest, 

they are a blueprint for 

an aesthetically  realized world. 

The root triad 

Reality, Ethics and Aesthetics 

describes the passage of signs (icons)  

through the skein of Ethics (indices) 

to the plane of human action 

which is Aesthetics (symbol). 

It is important to stipulate that 

while Triadic Philosophy aspires 

to describe what is true and beautiful, 

the action undertaken 

when the triadic process is used 

is conscious thought. 

Signs crop up in profusion within us, 

but the use of Reality, Ethics, Aesthetics 

requires that we be aware 

of the sign (icon) we are considering, 

and that we consciously submit it 

to the Ethical (indices) and then

to the sphere of actuality or performance, 

the Aesthetic or symbolic realm. 

It may sound like a bit much, 

but with practice it rewards, 

because it parses with Reality, 

with who we are, 

with who we can be. 

With this preamble, 

the ontological values of 

tolerance, democracy, helpfulness 

and non-idolatry, 

become the initial dam

 in the flow of icon 

to emergence as symbol, 

that is to say, to our reality. 

These terms are a pristine unity 

made up of three active values 

and their root, non-idolatry, 

the crown of all values. 

All human thinking takes place 

under the beneficent cloud 

of mysteries that envelop  us all.

The active values interact. 

Tolerance cannot trump democracy. 

Democracy requires helpfulness. 

Helpfulness modifies tolerance, 

and so forth. 

Together these values lead to 

the best and highest state 

we can achieve. 

That they are not the center of today's ethics, 

and our daily lives, 

is not sad. It is a crime. 

These ontological values 

challenge every soul 24/7

whether perceived or not. 

When they are rejected, 

they become inoperative

and history suffers. 

They are the truth and 

the truth cannot be defeated.  

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Triadic Philosophy - Daily Discipline (Introduction)

Root Triad

In Triadic Philosophy 

The Daily Discipline is drawn from the 

indices of the second 

in the root triad 

Reality (Icon) , Ethics (Index), Aesthetics (Symbol). 

This second, Ethics,  contains 

the blunt universal truths  

confronting all human endeavor. 

It is an index of what we need 

as we negotiate our way to reality. 

Ethics  contains  the ontological values 

of tolerance, democracy, helpfulness 

and non-idolatry;  

the assertions of a prayer for all, 

which is a template for positive existence; 

and some  specific ways  to  sort 

through the stuff of life 

in a creative, useful manner.

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Triadic Philosophy - Integrating My Categories with Pierce's Icons, Indices, Symbols

Speak To Me +
Introductory Note The best introduction far and away to Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotics (theory of signs) is my Kindle book The Essential Peirce Selected Philosophical Writings Volume Two beginning at Chapter Three and continuing. The short text below derives from reading this and catching my first true glimmer of  the utility of Peirce's division of signs into Icon, Index and Symbol. As he writes, Peirce indicates how fluid logic is and, implicitly, the infantile state of our intellectual efforts. It is enough to induce humility among academics if not among those of us who natter at them.  
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The root triad Reality, Ethics, Aesthetic seems  naturally to segue with Charles Sanders Pierce's terms for the division of signs. The Peirce triad for signs is icons, indices and symbols. The images, thoughts and ideas which arise in Reality are icons. We create and name them. They point to something. In the realm of Ethics we find indices.  They are the elements needed for understanding the sign. This may constitute a blunt truth, even a barrier,  to the sign we are considering. The fruit of the triadic process is in Aesthetics our symbolic realm of activation. The symbol so derived becomes our reality.
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I do not seek to represent  Peirce but to observe points where his thinking may - I stress may - amplify what is essentially  an original philosophy that integrates inspirations traceable to Peirce, Assagioli, Nietzsche and the Gospel of Mark. Applying the sign divisions icon, index and symbol to my root triad adds depth and functionality. To understand this existentially seems to me a serious advance.
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Triadic Philosophy - Aesthetics has been badly treated by philosophy.

Beach and
I am just starting to read Schiller on Aesthetics. Kindle is wonderful and so are those who create Kindle books for free. Charles Sanders Peirce said he was mightily influenced by Schiller's Letters on Aesthetics and I am anticipating a good read. But let me first say that in the case of Peirce and most other philosophers, aesthetics has received shabby treatment. Aesthetics is not only about fine art.  Aesthetics is the realm  in which we fashion our existence 24/7 whether we know it or not. To relate aesthetics to the world of artists ignores this. Aesthetics is the realm in which each of us  plays out our effort to achieve beauty and truth,  indeed to make beauty and truth one. Aesthetics is the theater of life. It provides the basis for judging the value of all actions by standards that are  clear and experiential, in quality and affect. In the simple hierarchy of conscious thought, Aesthetics is superseded only by Ethics and then by Reality itself. These are the categories of Triadic Philosophy.
In much philosophy, Beauty has been severed from truth and, in place of a philosophy  that is universal, we get an implicit binary divide between "real art" and everything else. Post-modernism was at a viscerel level a reaction to this. Some fine art lost its beauty  in the ugliness of its provenance. You cannot steal what the eye sees at any moment.
I shall read Schiller and at the same time articulate Triadic Philosophy  as a true picture of the world as it now  is, as a true basis for an ethical future. The Aesthetic sphere is the very place where we seek always  to achieve aesthetic results. Truth and beauty. Everyone everywhere.
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Triadic Philosophy Commentary: The conflict between ourselves and nature is a trap.

Nature is us
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The conflict between ourselves and nature is a trap. We do not solve our problem  by losing ourselves in nature and excoriating the world we have befouled. There is no magic solution, no boundary we can cross. We are already part of nature as nature is part of us. Thus the only solution lies in transforming ourselves. Triadic Philosophy accomplishes this by opening the mind always to a third way beyond  the dyads we construct.
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Triadic Philosophy Commentary - Peirce's Triads and My Point of View

Meta
 I see Peirce's triads as prior to the achievement of a universal philosophy. That is one reason I do not presume to speak "for" anyone but myself while confessing great indebtedness. I see little hope for philosophy unless it gets from Reality to our active reality. And if along the way it has essentially relegated ethics and aesthetics to the stratosphere, while arriving at a notion that the end point is metaphysics, then I also object. I am coming to think of CSP's phenomenology as a sort of meta that would be essential to a coterie of the informed perhaps, but is useless without coming down somewhere for every person. Maybe I will end up Piercifying James! Or going beyond.  We live in a binary world and culture due to our dominant, inherited philosophies and I feel making it triadic is the key to moving beyond lethal conflict.  That is motivation enough and time is is for individuals finite.
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Triadic Philosophy Commentary - The only way to "grade" reality I know

Make The Grade
The only way to "grade" reality I know  is not by presuming to rate what is real  in a semiotic process  but by the attainment of ethical  and aesthetic authenticity  in the action that ensues.  It is in action and actuality that  Reality (the First) can be evaluated  in terms of its attainments.  In terms of more or  less ethical values leading to more or less  aesthetic results.
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Triadic Philosophy Commentary - The Seismic Move Beyond Mass Movements

Forward
Remember the power of angry masses in old movies. Witness the use of real angry masses in  what passes for news. It's the binary-feeders at work.
Triadic Philosophy paves the way for an end to this deleterious celebration of conflict leading to violence. The sign of this sea change was  orderly lines at polls in the United States exercising the right to vote in the 2012. Peaceful. Effective. Beautiful. True.
The sooner we move from the binary either-or trap  of assuming you "beat the man" by loud, screaming numbers, to a chorus of delighted idiot commentary, the sooner a new exodus, a new power to the people, built on three universal elements of change. 1. Unjust reality. 2. Remedial values (Democracy) 3. Experimental actions,  grounded in Aesthetics, in truth and beauty.
Those voting lines were beautiful.  They changed politics. The clothing of the Emperor frayed. The beautiful truth is this: Democracy is universal. It's how we live together nonviolently.
The future lies in lines like these.
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Triadic Commentary - To take oneself with utter seriousness

Jugglers
To take oneself with utter seriousness is a different thing than rank egotism. A serious view of selfhood sees the porous nature of the self itself and how it relates to everything else.
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Triadic Philosophy - We Call The Shots

Awash Is it within human power to  achieve global harmony? It has never been anywhere else. We have always had a fail safe  way to start over. We could always call upon Reality and receive a response. The Captain Ahabs of the world need white whales to confirm  their impotence when they choose to defy limits and fall into the binary trap.. The self-forgiving Falstaff's need only the capacity to see through rationalization to injustice and hypocrisy.
We are at the crucial time  when the clothing of the emperor is shedding fast,  revealing nothing but the  same old same old  everybody knows. Protagonist antagonist hook sell book but that plot too will fail. The new plot is triadic. 
We have the power in one day to  change the course of history. Individuals are porous but they are also the units of actuality when it comes to unfolding life on earth. As democracy is achieved, power is spread. As communication is enhanced, rights and values can be heralded. All things tend toward truth. We have always been  the determiners of history. The choices we make are the consequences we create. Live with it. Stephen's Remarkable Kindle Store 


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Triadic Philosophy - Words To Make A Revolution By

Revolution
We will not fight. We will not consciously kill. We will not support or  work for lethal enterprises. We will defend the right of  women to to decide when to  create new human life. We will work locally to end bullying and all forms of violence. We will say that when there are either-or situations there is always a third way that may prove truthful and beautiful. We will advocate for  universal human rights using all media over which  we exercise control. We will consciously advocate  the universal values of tolerance, helpfulness,  democracy and non-idolatry. We will say that history finally depends on  the willingness of individuals to take this stand one person at a time.
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