The series of the meta-levels of kinds of Being or modalities of being-in-the-world cannot be extended indefinitely. In fact, there are only four meta-levels before these steps end in the unthinkable.
Gregory Bateson was the first to point out that meta-levels of concepts actually end in the unthinkable instead leading to infinite recursions. He shows this phenomena in relation to the meta-levels of change and the meta-levels of learning (i.e. the two sides of the physus/logos duality).
This unthinkability of the fifth meta-level of Being renders the ontology of the fragmentation of Being empirical. It is a challenge to everyone to think the fifth meta-level. If you can find a way to think it you will have increased the depth of the western worldview.
We interpret this
unthinkability of the fifth and higher
meta-levels of Being in terms of the Buddhist concept of Sunyata or Emptiness.
Bateson's STEPS TO THE ECOLOGY
OF THE MIND