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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

A Philosophical Assessment of the 42 Propositions

Metaethics, Evolutionary Metaphysics, and the Problem of Coherence

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

The 42 propositions associated with the First Principles and First Values project of Marc Gafni (in collaboration with Zak Stein and others) represent an ambitious attempt to reconstruct metaphysics and ethics in one sweep.[1] They aim to establish an ontologically grounded “story of value” capable of addressing civilizational crisis.

The question is not whether the project is rhetorically compelling. It is whether it is philosophically coherent and defensible in light of contemporary metaethics, philosophy of science, and evolutionary theory.

I. Metaethical Status: Realism, Constructivism, or Theological Rebranding?

The core claim appears to be a form of value realism: value is intrinsic to the cosmos, not merely projected by human cognition. Yet this realism is not naturalistic in the analytic sense. It does not reduce moral facts to natural properties (as in Cornell realism), nor does it argue through standard moral ontology debates (e.g., via supervenience, normativity, or moral explanation).

Instead, value is framed as:

• a structural feature of reality,

• narratively expressed,

• accessed through “anthro-ontology” (interior phenomenology).

This hybrid position oscillates between three poles:

• Moral Realism – Values are objectively real.

• Phenomenological Constructivism – Values are disclosed through human interiority.

• Cosmic Spiritual Ontology – Value is woven into the evolutionary structure of the universe.

The difficulty is that these are not trivially compatible.

If value is ontologically embedded in the cosmos, then it must have explanatory purchase independent of human interpretation. If it is grounded in anthro-ontology, then its epistemic access is interior and perspectival. If it is narrative in structure (“God is stories”), then it risks collapsing into hermeneutics rather than ontology.

The result is conceptual ambiguity. The theory does not clearly specify whether moral truth is:

• stance-independent,

• emergent,

• or participatory.

Without clarity, it risks equivocation.

II. The Naturalistic Fallacy and Its Evasion

The project explicitly claims to move “beyond the naturalistic fallacy.” Yet this claim is not rigorously demonstrated.

The naturalistic fallacy, as articulated by G.E. Moore, concerns deriving normative claims from descriptive facts. The 42 propositions frequently move from:

• The universe evolves.

• Evolution displays increasing complexity and interiority.

• Therefore, evolution has intrinsic direction and value.

This is precisely the inferential move that analytic philosophers flag as problematic. Describing increasing complexity does not, without additional premises, yield normativity.

To avoid the fallacy, the authors implicitly insert a metaphysical premise:

• The structure of reality is inherently value-laden.

But this premise is asserted rather than argued. It functions as a foundational axiom.

That is not illegitimate — all metaphysical systems have axioms — but it should be acknowledged as such. The rhetoric sometimes suggests philosophical demonstration where there is primarily metaphysical declaration.

III. Evolutionary Teleology and Scientific Tension

The propositions repeatedly imply directionality in cosmic evolution — plotlines, Big Bangs of increasing interiority, conscious evolution.

Mainstream evolutionary biology does not recognize intrinsic teleology. Evolution is adaptive, contingent, and shaped by selection pressures — not by an intrinsic drive toward intimacy or love.

To claim teleology requires either:

• a revisionary metaphysics of nature,

• or a theological overlay.

The project seems to offer the former while rhetorically distancing itself from classical theism. However, structurally, the metaphysical move resembles spiritualized teleology.

The philosophical risk here is category confusion:

• Scientific accounts explain mechanism.

• Teleological metaphysics interprets meaning.

The two can coexist, but only if carefully distinguished. In the 42 propositions, the boundary is often blurred.

IV. Anthro-Ontology: Strength and Weakness

The concept of “anthro-ontology” — grounding value in interior phenomenological disclosure — is one of the more philosophically interesting elements.

Its strength:

• It acknowledges that value is experienced.

• It avoids crude objectivism detached from lived meaning.

• It integrates phenomenology and ethics.

Its weakness:

• It risks collapsing into subjectivism if not carefully specified.

• It lacks criteria for adjudicating competing interior disclosures.

• It does not solve intersubjective normativity.

If one group's interior experience discloses “cosmo-erotic value” and another's discloses tragic absurdism, what adjudicates between them?

Without shared epistemic criteria, anthro-ontology becomes existential poetics rather than robust moral epistemology.

V. Narrative Ontology: Insight or Inflation?

The proposition “God is stories” reframes ontology in narrative terms. This insight aligns with:

• Ricoeur's narrative identity theory,

• MacIntyre's virtue ethics,

• certain strands of hermeneutics.

But there is inflationary risk. Narrative is undeniably central to human meaning-making. It does not follow that narrative is ontologically fundamental in the structure of quarks, galaxies, or entropy gradients.

The jump from:

Humans organize meaning narratively
to
The cosmos is narratively structured

requires additional metaphysical argument.

Otherwise, the project risks anthropomorphizing the universe.

VI. The Meta-Crisis Diagnosis: Sociologically Plausible

Where the 42 propositions are strongest is in diagnosing fragmentation of shared value in late modernity.

The idea that modernity's implicit sacred axioms have eroded is sociologically defensible. Postmodern critique did destabilize universalist moral confidence. Technological acceleration has intensified coordination challenges.

But the leap from:

Cultural fragmentation exists
to
Only a comprehensive new metaphysics can solve it

is contestable.

Liberal democratic pluralism, for example, does not require ontological consensus — only procedural norms.

The project presupposes that existential risk can only be addressed through shared metaphysical foundations. That assumption deserves independent defense.

VII. Systemic Ambition vs. Analytical Precision

The 42 propositions function more as:

• a manifesto,

• a philosophical architecture,

• a visionary schema,

than as tightly argued theses.

They are synthetically ambitious but analytically underdetermined.

In analytic philosophy, one expects:

• defined terms,

• clear modal commitments,

• explicit argument structure,

• engagement with counterarguments.

In this project, one finds:

• integrative rhetoric,

• evocative metaphors,

• axiomatic declarations.

That does not make it valueless. But it places the work closer to speculative metaphysics than to rigorous systematic philosophy.

VIII. The Structural Risk of Totalization

Any attempt to articulate “first principles” risks totalization — the claim to have identified foundational truths across domains.

History shows that such projects often:

• overextend beyond evidence,

• blur normative and descriptive levels,

• conflate existential meaning with ontological fact.

The more comprehensive the system, the greater the burden of precision.

The 42 propositions do not yet meet that burden.

Final Assessment

The First Principles and First Values project is:

• Visionary in scope.

• Metaphysically bold in asserting intrinsic value.

• Sociologically resonant in diagnosing value collapse.

• Philosophically under-argued in its ontological claims.

• Conceptually ambiguous regarding realism, teleology, and epistemology.

It reads less like a completed philosophical system and more like a promissory note for one.

Its central gamble is that humanity requires a shared metaphysical grammar of value to survive technological acceleration and civilizational strain.

That may be true. But the case has not yet been rigorously made.

If the project is to mature philosophically, it would need:

1. Clear metaethical positioning.

2. Explicit engagement with analytic moral realism and anti-realism.

3. Careful separation of scientific explanation from metaphysical interpretation.

4. Criteria for intersubjective validation of anthro-ontological claims.

5. A defense of why pluralistic proceduralism is insufficient.

Until then, the 42 propositions remain architecturally impressive — but structurally unfinished.

Appendix: Partial List of the 42 Propositions

(Propositions are numbered according to sources reflecting a draft list from First Principles and First Values and related CosmoErotic Humanism documents.)

1. A new set of First Principles and First Values must be clarified in the context of the second shock of existence and the meta-crisis.
2. The source code of culture involves evolutions of superstructure, social structure, and infrastructure.
3. Humanity faces two forms of existential risk: the death of humanity and the death of our humanity.
4. The meta-crisis has both an exterior and an interior dimension.
5. We live in a time between worlds, a time between stories.
6. The gap between interiors and exteriors now involves exponential technology, resulting in global civilization failure and multiplied existential risk.
7. The first shock of existence is about the death of the human being.
8. The first shock activated inner gnosis.
9. The second shock is about self-induced extinction of our species.
10. The second shock further activates inner gnosis.
11. Humans must learn to move from a pre-tragic to a post-tragic relationship to existential risk.
12. The root cause of many threats is a global intimacy disorder — a structural alienation of relationships and value.
13. Thirteen expressions of global intimacy disorder can be understood as thirteen forms of alienation.
14. Pre-modern, modern, and post-modern understandings of value must be integrated into a new story of value.
15. God is stories: narrative is a first principle and value.
16. There have been four “Big Bangs” in the evolution of the cosmos.
17. There are identifiable plotlines in the universe story.
18. The plotlines of the cosmos become self-aware in humans, creating conditions for conscious evolution.
19. There has been a collapse of intrinsic value at the center of culture.
20. Two views on value characterize modernity.
21. There is a set of common-sense sacred axioms that have undergirded modern cultures.
22. These axioms have not survived postmodern collapse of value — requiring reconstruction.
23. A partial list of First Principles and First Values is possible (and necessary).
24. Everyday anecdotes display the deep impact of postmodern deconstruction of value.
25. Culture must shift from implicit sacred axioms to explicit First Principles and First Values.
26. First Principles and First Values must be embedded in an evolving story of value.
27. A partial list of First Principles/Values of Cosmos is presented.
28. The constitutive cosmic order and the dynamic field of cosmic evolution can be classified into first- and second-order values and principles.
29. These go beyond categories of natural or supernatural.
30. Continuity and discontinuity characterize principles and values across levels of emergence (matter ? life ? mind).
31. The problem of evil and pain must be faced, showing reality of value, paradox, polarity, and mystery.
32. First Principles and First Values are the plotlines of reality, beyond contingency and deterministic design.
33. They are based in anthro-ontology — an interior science rooted in phenomenological truth rather than universal natural law.
34. Anthro-ontology and evolving principles take us beyond the naturalistic fallacy.
35. The anthro-ontological method can and must be specified and evolved.
36. We must recover and renew the eye of value — the capacity to discern intrinsic value.
37. The collapse of value leads inexorably to existential risk.
38. An evolving perennialism allows for naming subversive categories of value.
39. The hidden alignment between surveillance capitalism and its critics serves as an example of the collapse of value.
40. Subversive, empowering vocabularies of value are needed.
41. Techno-feudalism is our default future without reconstruction of value.
42. CosmoErotic Humanism is a response to the possible death of our humanity.

(These are drawn from an extended draft list and summary of core propositions from the evolving text.)

Annotated Commentary on Key Propositions

1–5: The Meta-Crisis Diagnosis These opening propositions frame the current epoch as a unique turning point — a “time between worlds” where existing value frameworks have broken down. The meta-crisis is not only technological or environmental but fundamentally existential, rooted in a breakdown of shared meaning and relational health.

12–13: Global Intimacy Disorder Proposition 12 locates the root of cultural dysfunction in a pervasive “intimacy disorder,” meaning an alienation in how humans relate to each other, themselves, and the world. This notion is central to the movement's critique of modernity and its prescriptions for a relationally grounded ontology.

14–18: Story and Value These propositions assert that narrative itself is ontologically primary — listing “God is stories” and identifying fundamental cosmic plotlines. The aim is to reframe value not as subjective or constructivist but as woven into the narrative unfolding of the cosmos.

23–27: First Principles/Values and Reconstruction A key claim is that explicit articulation of First Principles and First Values is necessary because implicit axioms have failed. These principles are proposed both as foundations for a new global ethics and as sources of cultural coherence.

31–36: Anthro-Ontology and Value Realism The text emphasizes anthro-ontology — interior, phenomenological grounding of value — as distinct from natural law or mere social constructs. They argue that values are real but also evolving, tied to consciousness rather than external norms alone.

37–40: Value Collapse and Tech Critique These propositions link the moral collapse of value to large structural forces like surveillance capitalism and propose new vocabularies and categories of value that resist reductive economic or technological accounts.

41–42: Critical Endgame and Response The final propositions frame the threat of techno-feudalism and existential annihilation as avoidable only if humanity adopts this new philosophical schema — a claim that showcases both the grand ambition and the prescriptive urgency of the project.

Meta-Commentary on the Propositions

1. The philosophical style is synoptic and aspirational rather than rigorously analytic: it reads like a manifesto synthesizing metaphysics, ethics, and cultural critique.

2. Many propositions overlap with broader threads in evolutionary spirituality — e.g., narrative as foundational, value as ontologically real yet evolving — and they aggregate rather than derive details from empirical support.

3. Critically, the list functions more as a conceptual architecture than as individually argued claims. There are few operational definitions or falsifiable statements; it is largely intuitive metaphysics rather than systematic philosophy in the analytic sense.

4. This raises legitimate questions about rigor: without a complete public text or systematic argumentation, much in the 42 propositions remains high-level and impressionistic rather than tightly reasoned.

Conclusion

While a complete, verified listing of all 42 propositions isn't publicly available, the draft reconstruction above shows that the work ambitiously blends existential diagnosis, metaphysics, ethical reconstruction, and cultural critique. It frames value as inherent and evolutionary, proposes a narrative ontology rooted in intimacy, and positions CosmoErotic Humanism as the corrective to contemporary crises.

NOTES

[1] This review is based on the 42 propositions only. After publishing it I found the full text: David J. Temple, "First Principles and First Values of Evolving Perennialism: Forty-two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, Post-Tragic Memories of the Future", www.officeforthefuture.com, Spring 2023.