The Case for Metaphysical Realism
Since this is metaphysics, there isn't a foolproof argument that will convince everyone. But it is possible to make better arguments for one position over others.
First, some definitions. Metaphysical realism means the the world we perceive as external consisting of objects, events, space and time exists in some form regardless of whether anyone is perceiving or thinking about it. Some form means it need not be exactly as we experience it. Indeed, we know that it cannot be, thanks to various skeptical challenges and what is known from science.
For example, the Earth appears to be motionless with a rising and setting sun. Our language reflects that appearance. But we know the Earth rotates around its axis every 24 hours, creating the appearance.
External means that world isn't created by our minds, like dreams or imaginations are. We perceive the waking world as something that doesn't come from us.
Why do experience the waking world as external? One possible answer is that all experience is brute and without explanation. We don't need to do any further metaphysics. Just accept that experience is, and go no further.
But we only want to say that something is brute when we have no further explanation. Quantum Mechanics can be said to be brute because physicists lack a means of explaining further, at least so far.
Do we have to say that experience (perception in particular) is brute? No, we can take our experience of externality at face value. We perceive an external world because there is one.
This makes sense of our experiences. A plant appears to have undergone growth when nobody was around. We appear to have been born, a process nobody fully perceives. The world appears to be far older than humans and even life in general. Minds appear to be dependent on bodies. Death appears to happen whether anyone perceives it or not. For example, you can die of unseen causes.
We know that appearances can be deceptive, as is the case with the Earth's motion. But it doesn't follow that all appearances are deceiving. The stick looks bent in the water, but we can explain why it looks that way, just like we can explain why it looks like the sun rises and sets. We don't need to suppose there are two separate sticks, one bent in the water, and one straight when we take it out. It's more consistent with experience to say there is one stick, and that objects have permanence. It certainly appears that way.
An external world makes sense of how other people can have similar perceptions to our own, and communication is possible. It makes sense of why technology works, and how science is possible. How would Uranus and Neptune have been predicted before they were seen, unless they were already there? How would atoms have constituted chemistry before we had electron microscopes to make them visible? How did people get sick before we had microscopes to see germs?
The other thing an external world does is it makes everything hang together. Consider perception being brute. Do you still need air when you're not aware of breathing? Is your heart still beating? Does the floor under your feet still hold you up? Is the back of your head or your brain still there? How about the eyes you see with? Do they only exist in the mirror? Does your food digest or do you just have the experience of it coming out? Why would there even be an inside full of organs when we cut them open? It's not like brute experience requires a body to breathe or digest food. It's odd that we would perceive a brain if brains aren't needed.
I think realism makes the best sense of our perceptions. But someone could ask what the explanation for a mind-independent world is. We do have cosmology to help with that, but maybe we do end up a brute fact of existence eventually (the quantum vacuum perhaps). It's just that we don't have to invoke bruteness until there is no explanation available. And we do have that for the world we perceive.
First, some definitions. Metaphysical realism means the the world we perceive as external consisting of objects, events, space and time exists in some form regardless of whether anyone is perceiving or thinking about it. Some form means it need not be exactly as we experience it. Indeed, we know that it cannot be, thanks to various skeptical challenges and what is known from science.
For example, the Earth appears to be motionless with a rising and setting sun. Our language reflects that appearance. But we know the Earth rotates around its axis every 24 hours, creating the appearance.
External means that world isn't created by our minds, like dreams or imaginations are. We perceive the waking world as something that doesn't come from us.
Why do experience the waking world as external? One possible answer is that all experience is brute and without explanation. We don't need to do any further metaphysics. Just accept that experience is, and go no further.
But we only want to say that something is brute when we have no further explanation. Quantum Mechanics can be said to be brute because physicists lack a means of explaining further, at least so far.
Do we have to say that experience (perception in particular) is brute? No, we can take our experience of externality at face value. We perceive an external world because there is one.
This makes sense of our experiences. A plant appears to have undergone growth when nobody was around. We appear to have been born, a process nobody fully perceives. The world appears to be far older than humans and even life in general. Minds appear to be dependent on bodies. Death appears to happen whether anyone perceives it or not. For example, you can die of unseen causes.
We know that appearances can be deceptive, as is the case with the Earth's motion. But it doesn't follow that all appearances are deceiving. The stick looks bent in the water, but we can explain why it looks that way, just like we can explain why it looks like the sun rises and sets. We don't need to suppose there are two separate sticks, one bent in the water, and one straight when we take it out. It's more consistent with experience to say there is one stick, and that objects have permanence. It certainly appears that way.
An external world makes sense of how other people can have similar perceptions to our own, and communication is possible. It makes sense of why technology works, and how science is possible. How would Uranus and Neptune have been predicted before they were seen, unless they were already there? How would atoms have constituted chemistry before we had electron microscopes to make them visible? How did people get sick before we had microscopes to see germs?
The other thing an external world does is it makes everything hang together. Consider perception being brute. Do you still need air when you're not aware of breathing? Is your heart still beating? Does the floor under your feet still hold you up? Is the back of your head or your brain still there? How about the eyes you see with? Do they only exist in the mirror? Does your food digest or do you just have the experience of it coming out? Why would there even be an inside full of organs when we cut them open? It's not like brute experience requires a body to breathe or digest food. It's odd that we would perceive a brain if brains aren't needed.
I think realism makes the best sense of our perceptions. But someone could ask what the explanation for a mind-independent world is. We do have cosmology to help with that, but maybe we do end up a brute fact of existence eventually (the quantum vacuum perhaps). It's just that we don't have to invoke bruteness until there is no explanation available. And we do have that for the world we perceive.
Comments (38)
Is this is a stipulative or a lexical definition? If the latter then I think it fails (or at least isn't exact enough). Putnam's internal realism is opposed to metaphysical realism, but accepts the existence of a causally independent world. Kant's transcendental idealism also seems opposed to metaphysical realism, but accepts the existence of independent noumena. Enactivism is another example that accepts the existence of an independent environment, but wouldn't count as metaphysical realism.
Metaphysical realism, at least as traditionally understood, requires more than just the independent existence of things which are causally covariant with human experience, which is where I think your argument falls apart. At best the occurrence of consistent shared experience is evidence that something other than experience exists, but that alone isn't sufficient to jump to a conclusion of metaphysical realism. Metaphysical realism also seems to require that the kinds and categories that the things in experience belong to are also the kinds and categories that those mind-independent things belong to, but I think there's a case to argue that this isn't the case.
I might agree that the particles of the Standard Model have an independent existence, but not agree that things like chairs and trees are reducible to them. The causes of perception and the objects of perception are not identical. But neither would I then say that chairs and trees are simply experiences in my head. I think that's a false dichotomy that paints a far too simplistic picture.
Is metaphysical realism equivalent to belief in objective reality, or is there something more to it?
Perception is a part of our experience.
I'd define conscious perception as conscious awareness of sensory stimulation.
What we 'unconsciously perceive' is therefore sensory stimulation without conscious awareness.
Awareness appears to be the source of perception, whether we experience it consciously or not.
Let's say our 'conscious mental awareness' stimulates responses, for instance, feeling hungry; our sub-conscious mental awareness also stimulates responses in instances such as the arc reflex, maintaining our heartbeat, controlling digestion, homeostasis etc etc.
We have different levels of conscious awareness that govern our neurophysiological processes.
It is a result of such processes that we consciously and 'unconsciously' perceive our reality, and our awareness makes use of such perceptions and determines our responses.
Would a falling tree still make a noise if no one was around to hear it?
Yes.
Would anyone hear it?
No.
Would the tree be aware of it's demise?
Debatable.
I guess the question I'm asking is - what is existence without awareness of it?
Kant would have agreed that it exists ‘in some form’, but he would have said that we couldn’t possibly know in what kind of way it existed, insofar as we only ever know how it appears to us.
What you’re advocating is close to what Kant refers to as ‘transcendental realism’. He spells it out here
However, Kant does NOT say that ‘the world exists only in perception’ as did Berkeley. This was addressed in an addition to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, under the title, ‘Critique of Material Idealism’ ( here).
The key point that I take from all this is that the idea that the world exists in a state of perfect objectivity, independently of any perceptual or cognitive act on our part, is a kind of conceit. It of course routinely assumed by many moderns, which is exactly why Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is so important (as per this brief essay).
How does Kant say the world exists apart from perceptions then?
I've read that quite a few times, and I think I get it. As mentioned, it is included in the second edition to differentiate his work from Berkeley's esse est percipe.
So Kant is not saying that 'the world only exists in the mind'. What I think he saying, is that we can't see it apart from how it occurs to us, as perceiving subjects - that we are an ineliminable aspect of reality. We can 'bracket ourselves out' by concentrating on only those elements which are amenable to precise quantification, thereby arriving at the proverbial 'view from nowhere'. Except that it's not really a 'view from nowhere' because, again, the mind is foundational to even that view - even though the observing mind is nowhere among the objects of perception or analysis! (This is arguably what is at the source of the so-called 'observer problem'.)
There's a passage from Schopenhauer that puts it very succinctly:
I would have said that, but then skeptical scenarios like the Matrix would qualify. I think Michael put it better:
Quoting Michael
How similar does reality need to be for metaphysical realism to be true? Does the fact that tables are mostly empty space mean that solid tables don't exist? Or can we just say that within the light we see, and given that our bodies and ordinary objects are held together molecular in a similar fashion, tables are solid?
Or what if we take Banno's approach to objects, and say that there are different ways to carve up the world? Can there be a multiplicity of conceptual schemas about the world, but the world is still real?
It would make sound waves, but if there are no ears around, then there would be no sound as a phenomena. This is where it gets tricky. Does the tree look brown and green? Well, it does given the sort of eyes we have. But what about when nobody's looking? Well then it's reflecting light with wavelengths that correspond to brown and green perceptions, in addition to any light humans can't see that would be reflected by a tree. There's also all the light that passes through objects like trees, such as radio waves.
It makes you wonder what the sky would look like if our eyes could take in the entire EM spectrum.
Neither that summary nor your remarks say anything whatsoever about how the world exists apart from perceptions.
The passage quoted from Schopenhauer is quite incoherent for he says that what the materialist posits is "indirectly given" since it has "passed through the machinery of the brain", but he seems to have forgotten that the fact that it has passed through the machinery of the brain is also indirectly given because it has also passed through the machinery of the brain. His argument fails to achieve coherence because it leads to an infinite regress.
I guess this depends on what you take for an explanation. If I can take some concepts and numbers and build a reliable prediction machine, that's great. Is this an explanation? Obviously we want reliable prediction. No complaint there. But why is this explanation?
The same problem haunts theology, too, though. A certain system of concepts is used to predict the afterlife as a function of behavior and belief now, for instance, in the cruder cases. But that God is there in the first place is just as strange as the presence of quarks. Brute fact is arguably the result of examining the concept of explanation --and seeing its limits if not its nullity when it comes to our situation as a whole.
I agree. But I think everyone agrees. To deny such a world in conversation is nevertheless to try to say something true about a shared situation. This dimly understood but well and often employed sense of the shared situation is (in my view) the world behind the (more theoretical concepts of the ) world.
Why does it rain? Because heat from the sun evaporates the water which eventually turns into rain clouds. Sounds like an explanation to me.
Science is both prediction and explanation. The explanation gives rise to prediction, which allows for the explanation to be tested.
Why does the sun evaporate the water? You can invoke still other entities, still other projected necessities. Maybe we can go all the way back to the theorized big bang. At some point, however, these objects and their apparently necessary relationships are just here. They just happen to be the case. To be clear, 'God' explanations run into the same problem.
This isn't meant to be anti-science or anti-theology. I'm just trying to point at the limits of explanation. As I see it, it tends to be pragmatic and emotional. Certain ways of thinking about things make them easier to predict and control. Along the same lines, we like to tame the unfamiliar for emotional reasons by relating it to the familiar. On the other hand, we sometimes like to strip the familiar of its familiarity, for stimulation and the pleasure of wonder which we largely lose as we age.
Let's say, for instance, that you have a theory of everything that fits on a T-shirt. Unless that theory explains why it has the shape it has (which sounds absurd to me, like God not needing a creator), it's a mysterious brute fact. It's the mathematical structure that the quantifiable aspect of shared reality just happens to have. We are no less thrown into the world, having merely found some patterns in the way stuff moves.
I don't think we need to go all the way back to the big bang to explain the rain satisfactorily. In my OP, I admitted that at some point, we run out of the ability to explain, and then we're left with brute existence. But we don't need to do that with experience.
Anyway, even if the universe is brute, that still explains our experiences of it. We experience a world, because it's there to be experienced (or better yet, we're animals living inside that world whose survival is dependent on perceiving the world to a certain degree of fidelity).
Well, I can relate. But this satisfaction is pragmatic/emotional, as I see it. For the most part we react to threats and chase promises in nature. We want some things and avoid others. So prediction and control gets the job done.
So we at least agree on some kind of brute existence. So you think experience isn't a brute fact? I don't see how it isn't as a whole finally inexplicable.
The issue is whether or not tables are reducible to those molecules; whether or not "table" is a mind-independent kind. If not then the above is a category error. It's not that the table is mostly empty space; it's just that there's a lot of empty space between the particles that are causally responsible for our experience of a table.
Don't we already have built in answers, contained in our history, which we learn and we can't unlearn or suspend in our interactions with others or with what is in the world it self. We can only find meaning through communication with others. The world, the 'real world' we know is the same one others know because we all communicate. It works, we get along very well in the world.
I think the dualism of man--world is misleadingly driven by a desire for ideal certainty in knowledge, our natural inclination towards a correspondence theory of truth.
Quoting Michael
I like this explanation.
The issue is whether or not anything we perceive can be reduced to it's component parts i.e. molecules/atoms/subatomic particles in actuality, since in order for us to conceive a table, for example, the mind must process a perception of the above in varying quantities.
Are the fundamental particles causally responsible for our experience of a table, or is it our mind which causes us to perceive such a thing?
To me it seems like we could only ascribe names/labels and therefore any human understanding to a given thing in actuality because of our minds ability to do so, paired with the limits of our sensory capacity.
This isn't to say that the 'given thing' doesn't exist independent of mind, but it is to say that any label/understanding for this thing could not exist independent of mind.
It seems that only upon observation (perception/mind), or lack of observation in some cases, can one ascribe a thing as this or that.
Therefore, I would say that a 'table' doesn't exist as such without a human's awareness of it being a table, and even though that thing might potentially exist independent of mind, it could never be conceived as such, since all that we conceive is mind-dependent.
This, I believe, is the distinction that is missing.
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There are uncontroversial metaphysical statements and arguments. I propose a metaphysics based on those. …an uncontroversial metaphysics.
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If it just consists of abstract facts, then it doesn’t need an explanation. There inevitably are infinitely-many abstract facts, and infinitely-many systems of inter-referring abstract facts. They don’t need explanation.
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Could there have not been abstract facts? We’ve discussed that. We’ve discussed why there couldn’t have not been abstract facts. So I think we agree on that, and so I needn’t go into it here.
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No, cosmology is part of physics. Physics describes how the physical world works, and what it’s like, but it doesn’t say anything about why there’s a physical world.
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That would be positing (some theory of) the physical world as a brute-fact. For one thing, any particular physics theory will most likely be replaced, updated, expanded and improved-on by a more comprehensive theory.
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For another thing, the Materialist’s brute-fact physical world is an unnecessary brute-fact.
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Yes, but it can’t be a physical explanation. Physics can’t explain why there’s a physical world.
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Now, about Realism vs Anti-Realism:
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How we talk about that depends on what the Realist is saying there is. So, when I speak of that matter, of course it’s necessary for me to do so in terms of what I claim there is.
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There are abstract facts. There couldn’t have not been abstract facts. Shall I go into the discussion that we had about why there couldn’t have not been abstract facts?
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If there were no facts, then the fact that there are no facts would be a fact.
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But could there have obtained a fact that there are no facts other than that one fact that there are no other facts?
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For one thing, that would be a special brute-fact, calling for an explanation, but not having one (How could it, if there are no other facts?)
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For another thing, as I mentioned above, an abstract fact, or a system of inter-referring abstract facts is completely isolated and independent of any context outside itself, or any global permission, or any medium in which to be.
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…so a global fact that there are no other facts would be meaningless.
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I usually give several examples of inevitable abstract facts:
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A proposition can’t be true and false.
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If all Slithytoves are brillig, and all Jaberwockeys are Slithytoves, then all Jaberwockeys are brillig.
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If the additive associative axiom is true, then 2+2=4.
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(…with an obvious reasonable definition of 1, 2, 3, & 4, based on the multiplicative identity and addition.)
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As described above, those things are just true, with or without minds, and without existence or realness in some larger context, or any global permission, or any medium in which to be.
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…and not subject to some global negating-fact.
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Sure, only sentient beings can discuss those logical facts. But we can also discuss them with regard to a hypothetical universe in which there's no life. We can say "If, in that world, there were Slithytoves, Jabberwockeys, and the quality of being 'brillig'..." or "If, in that world, there were four objects to count in various ways, and someone to do the counting..."
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A proposition can’t be true and false, and so we don't live in a willy-nilly-self-inconsistent impossibility-world. That's why I say that logic has authority over experience,
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The metaphysics that I propose is an Anti-Realism, about an experience-based possibility-story, for each of us.
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For each of us, that life-experience possibility-story is a complex system of inter-referring if-then facts about hypotheticals. It’s valid in the sense that it's as valid as any other abstract fact, or system of them. It's one of infinitely-many systems of inter-referring abstract-facts.
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But its abstract facts aren't really different from all the other abstract facts, which, likewise, each have their own local validity, quite independent of anything else.
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So that's why I claim that absolute Anti-Realism is out of the question.
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Michael Ossipoff
Maybe, but explanations of God are a largely Atheist topic.
Many Theists don't regard God as an element of metaphysics. Metaphysics is about explanations, and things discussable and describable.Many Theists don't assert to you about God.
Assertion and proof are meaningful only in logic, mathematics, physics and (limitedly) in metaphysics..
Speaking of "Creation", in regards to religion, is anthropomorphic.
And, in any case, it would be absurd to speak of a "creator",of what isn't an element of metaphysics. ..or a need for a creator for what isn't an element of metaphysics.
I'm not trying to start a religious debate. I don't debate religion. I'm just clarifying that many Theists don't believe in a God that is an element of metaphysics or needs a creator.
We needn't debate it. (..and let's not). But do you think that the discussable, describable subject called metaphysics describes all of Reality, or that you could understand or know all of Reality? Maybe it would be more modest to not make such an assumption.
Yes, the fundamental existence of the Materialist's objectively-existent physical universe is a brute-fact.
But no, we don't need that brute-fact. There's no particular reason to believe in it. There's no particualr reason to believe that our physical universe is other than a complex system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypothetics. ...one of infinitely many such complex abstract logical systems.
Michael Ossipoff
In my experience, there is here and there a metaphysical theist on philosophy forums. I was trying to make clear that my mention of the limits of scientific explanation wasn't some covert introduction of some other kind of explanation. Indeed, both kinds of explanation have the same shape in my view. Objects are understood within a nexus of necessary relationships. The 'supernatural' is just a different understanding of the natural insofar as one does a kind of science.
I don't take sides really on the theist versus atheist debate. I can find interesting uses for the word 'God.' Still, I don't believe in an afterlife. So that gives my perspective an atheistic feel. That is arguably the real issue: is this all there is? A brief embodiment? I think yes. But I don't claim to have some 'proof.' I can emit 'reasons' for this belief. I can cough up words.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Those are probably the kind I'd get along with best. I do live the old King James. I vote for whoever has the best English poetry.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
You're preaching to the choir. Life is bigger than that which permits of some tidy, settled method. We might even drag the word 'God' in for this largeness of life that dwarfs our systems. But I'm not attached to this or that word. Life is bigger than our words.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
In my view, it's all anthropomorphic. We only really give a damn about the human-like. We can do without the human body (sort of) in a Deity. But take away human virtues and we have only a machine, a pathetic patch over our ignorance.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
You aren't hurting my feelings, and we don't have to debate religion if you don't want to. But I don't see why debating religion should be a bad thing. For me philosophy is something like the religion of those who like to think of themselves as 'rational,' a word with a rich and slippery meaning. We are invested in our highest ideas. They are sacred, etc. Call it philosophy or religion or whatever. We have words that sustain our sense of sanity and worth.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Hell no. I'm an anti-metaphysician. Perhaps my fundamental theme at the moment is the gap between life as it is lived and the small 'piece' of it that we can make explicit and rational. As far as modesty goes, that's a tricky issue. One can be immodestly 'modest.' The real conversation is going to happen or not according to whether we have the guts to say something stirring, even if we might change our minds about it. We've got to take risks, clash, be distinct personalities.
Some might imagine themselves as doing a kind of science here. I don't see it that way. But I recognize their right to project any kind of minimally civil personality they wish. That keeps things fresh. To me this is a place of wild and often impressively articulate conversation.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Let's say our physical universe is such a system. Why is it specifically the way that it is? Why is it here in the first place?
There are infinitely many abstract if-then facts. There are infinitely-many inter-referring systems of if-then facts. There are infinitely-many of those that are complex enough to be what we'd call a "physical universe".
Because there are infinitely-many such systems, it's hardly surprising that there's this one. ...one that is the way this one is. There are also infinitely-many other ones, which are infinitely-many different ways.
In my post that you're replying to, I discussed why there couldn't have not been abstract facts.
...and, therefore, systems of inter-referring abstract facts. ...such as the complex abstract logical systems that is our universe.
As I emphasized in my post that you're replying to, I feel that it's more meaningful to speak of individual life-experience possibility-stories, instead of objective 3rd-person whole possibility-worlds. Those individual life-experience possibility-stories, likewise, are inevitable systems of inter-referring abstract facts about hypotheticals.
In reference to your question, I emphasize the word "inevitable".
Michael Ossipoff
But why isn't all the more surprising that there are infinitely many? One of the anti-metaphysical axes I like to grind is a sort of smugness that I feel in the 'nothing here to see, folks' approach. I don't mean to accuse you personally of smugness. I'm just talking about a kind of stubborn resistance to confessing any sort of experience of wonder (or terror) at finding oneself alive and mortal. It's fine of course if others disagree. They can think me irrational and I can think that they are in the same kind of smug, complacent mode that I am often in myself.
From my point of view, there's a kind of pasting over of this wonder-terror by very plausible sciency sounding phrases. But I personally can't buy it. I do believe, of course, that humans can (for a long time even) remain un-freaked-out. It's not exactly convenient or practical to be freaked-out by existence all the time. But I suspect that most of us experience moments from time to time when all of the impressive words fall away and we stand before the roaring of the there that we are and the there that we are surrounded by. We are thrown into a drama that we don't remember choosing. Thrown into a face and language. Thrown into relationships with particular human beings, each of them also thrown. All of us mortal. All of us improvising, keeping the ship afloat or occasionally scuttling it to do away with the drama.
This is where religion/philosophy as the non-cute stuff really kicks in. Your theoretical vision of the world is interesting enough, but surely you live in a world of people and objects. By no means am I trying to censor you. I'm just pointing at the gap between our creative theoretical fictions and the vivid world of people and objects we actually live in, work in, suffer in, enjoy ourselves in.
(Sometimes nested quotes don’t seem to work. In this reply I sometimes use them, but sometimes just write the inner quote in ordinary quotation-marks. ..just experimentally.)
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Sure, there are Theists who like metaphysics, and there are Theists who regard religion as metaphysical. Of course those categories overlap. I think most Atheists, here and elsewhere, regard religion as a metaphysical belief, though they don’t express it that way.
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I just meant that, at philosophical forums, not all Atheists are Materialists. Elsewhere they pretty-much are (I’ll address your disagreement about that when I get to that other posting).
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I’m only here to discuss metaphysics, and I don’t consider Theism to be within metaphysics. But I answer about Theism when Theists or Atheists bring it up—and Atheists always bring it up a lot more often & more assertively than Theists do.
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My criticism is that Atheists seem to believe that the beliefs of Biblical-Literalists are the beliefs of all Theists, and that the God believed in by Biblical-Literalists is the One True God for Atheists to believe in assertively disbelieving in.
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It’s as if I commented about Vedanta as if all Vedantists were Advaitists. …or if I commented about Buddhism as if all Buddhists were Theravada.
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Of course it could be asked why I always feel obligated to butt in to correct Atheists about those misconceptions about Theists. Good question! I’ve got to quit that habit. I don’t do that in politics. I have nothing to do with political debates.
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Sure, in a way.
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That’s a reasonable comparison.
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I don’t believe in the Supernatural. I don’t believe in Werewolves, Vampires, or animated mummies or skeletons that chase people. …but it makes for some good movies.
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The Supernatural, in general, means contravention of established physical laws, especially in scary movies or other works of fiction.
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Yes, I realize that “Supernatural” is defined more broadly in dictionaries. But my definition, above, is what that word means to pretty much everyone.
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Materialists, especially the ones who call themselves “Naturalists”, use “Supernatural” to refer to everything not part of their Materialism metaphysics.
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So, the fundamentally, objectively existent physical world believed in by Materialists as a brute-fact--an unverifiable and unfalsifiable proposition--is “Nature”, or “The Natural”, and so anything else is “The Supernatural” :D
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I don’t think any position can be proved, regarding what comes after this life.
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But there are a few things that can be said about that matter.
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One thing for sure is that you’ll never experience a time when you don’t experience. Only your survivors will experience that time.
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Oblivion never arrives. Sure, you arrive at sleep, but you never experience complete unconsciousness.
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Words don’t describe Reality. At these forums, it’s nearly always Atheists who talk about God. Even elsewhere, it may well be that, on the average, a typical avowed Atheist talks about God a lot more than does a typical Theist.
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I only speak of God when replying to someone else who has. And my use of that word doesn’t imply an anthropomorphic belief, or all the beliefs of the Biblical-Literalists.
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But at least many Biblical-Literalists believe or feel more than the allegories that they take literally…the only thing that Atheists see about Biblical-Literalists. …and attribute to all Theists too.
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Wait a minute. Isn’t there anything that isn’t anthropomorphic? Surely that’s over-broad.
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If you mean that Theism in general is anthropomorphic, then that’s what I mean by assumptions about other people’s beliefs.
…by what I’d consider a meaningful definition of “anthropomorphism”.
Merriam-Webster says that it’s about attributing human characteristics or attributes. (plural). So, attributing as many as two attributes (but not just one) in common with humans is anthropomorphic?
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To me, Merriam-Webster’s definition of “anthropomorphize” is better: To attribute human form or personality.
…or, I’d also say, inaccurate attribution of one or more human attributes. (where of course anyone can judge for themself what’s inaccurate, meaning that anthropomorphism is just a matter of opinion.)
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So I prefer those last two definitions, enclosed by asterisks.
But, admittedly, yes there are some definitions of “anthropomorphism” that describe all Theisms. Houghton-Mifflin, for instance, doesn’t always have the plural-attributes requirement.
I disagree with that definition, because I feel that “anthropomorphism” should (and usually does) only imply incorrect or inappropriate humanization.
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We at these philosophical forums discuss much that isn’t human-like.
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“Sort of “? I’d bet that only a small percentage of Theists believe that God has or needs a body. Many don’t believe that God is a being.
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Though most Theists don’t believe that God is a person, and many don’t believe that God is a being, is there a Theist sect that believes in a God that has no namable attribute in common with some humans?
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The attribute-less God is more the invention/theory of the theologically-inclined Atheist. (…and yes there contradictorily are those at these forums.)
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That may very well be the theory or position of Atheist theologians.
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You aren't hurting my feelings, and we don't have to debate religion if you don't want to. But I don't see why debating religion should be a bad thing.
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It isn’t a bad thing. It just isn’t meaningful or conceivable (to me), because (to me anyway) religion, and Theism in particular, isn’t about assertion, debate or proof at all. It’s like speaking of electroplating and polishing an adverb.
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To me it’s about impressions, feelings.
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Impressions and feelings aren’t debatable, provable, or assertable.
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But I invite people to debate metaphysics. If anyone disagrees with my metaphysics, then I ask them which part of it they disagree with. I claim that it doesn’t say anything that anyone would disagree with. I claim that it’s completely uncontroversial.
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Of course it isn’t for me to say what is or isn’t a religion to someone else. I know, for instance, that the worship of Science is a religion to many, including many here.
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I also call that religion “Scientificism”, Some prefer “Scientism”. But, the trouble with “Scientism” is, what do you call an adherent of Scientism? A Scientist? No, that word already means a practitioner of science (not a believer in Scientism). Hence my preference for “Scientificism”.
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Every religion has a metaphysics. The metaphysics of Scientificism is Materialism. I think that it can be convincingly argued that Scientificists and Materialists are the same set of people.
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Atheism is a belief of Scientificists/Materialists. But, as I mentioned, not all Atheists are Scientificists/Materialists. (I’ll just say “Materialists” for short.)
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Amen!
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—Michael Ossipoff
Hell no. I'm an anti-metaphysician.
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Is that the position 1)that metaphysics is entirely unknowable, or just 2)that it doesn’t affect our practical day-to-day decisions, or 3) that its statements are meaningless, or 3) that, though not meaningless, it’s all untrue?
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I claim that most who denounce metaphysics are believers in the metaphysics of Materialism. For example, in the radio show Philosophy-Talk, I’ve heard espousal of both anti-metaphysics and ”Naturalism”.
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Yes, what can be explicitly and rationally discussed certainly isn’t all of Reality. …and of course isn’t even everyday experienced Reality. Description or evaluation has nothing to do with experience or Reality.
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Sure, not many differences can be discussed or (maybe) resolved without risking starting an argument, making someone angry, getting criticized, etc.
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Though metaphysics isn’t the same as science, it’s like science in some ways. Definitions should be explicit and consistently-used. Statements should be supported. Metaphysics, like physics, doesn’t describe all of Reality, but definite uncontroversial things can still be said about both.
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Quite so.
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There are abstract facts, and there couldn’t have not been abstract facts, for reasons that I’ve discussed in previous replies. …and infinitely-many inter-referring systems of them. Those things are inevitable.
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The specific way that our physical universe is, is one of the infinitely-many ways that systems of inter-referring abstract facts are. Inevitably, there is each one of those systems or ways. …including this one that is the context and setting for our lives.
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Michael Ossipoff
When it comes to what we care about, no. In my opinion. It may be an exaggeration to get the point across. Accusations of anthropomorphism don't ring true for me. What's the 'sin' here? I think the sin is supposed to be that we are less accurate about reality because of a bias toward human-likeness. Sure. QM violates ordinary experience. But it works. So we endure it. On the other hand, it makes no sense to worship or revere anything unrelated to the human. Not to me. 'God' or X has to be 'good' in some way, good-for-humans, good-for-me.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Perhaps. But this is your assumption. This is the loaded 'how' that you bring to the situation. But my 'how' is the tendency to think this 'how' and get behind this 'how,' to open up the situation.
What if language isn't what you need it to be here? What if strict definitions force you to abandon the fluidity of language in ordinary life? Your system seems well thought out, better than average. But from my point of view it's still a kind of theoretical construction that a philosopher comes up with at his desk, alone in his study. Then he goes outside and immerses himself in the usual inexplicit knowhow of moving among objects and interacting with other human beings. His conceptual art falls away. It doesn't describe the way he actually lives. It's a sort of model airplane building, fun for a certain kind of conversation. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm just pursuing my own notion of 'objectivity' that does justice to non-theoretical life. I want to open the window of the study and let the storm of life in. We are mortal, loving, fearing, lusting, etc., human beings first and system-builders second. In my view, the system builders (cosy in their study) forget the storm. So they bring their systems to those immersed in life and meet with bewilderment.
I suppose for 'spiritual' or 'esthetic' reasons I want my words to have a kind of legitimacy or weight-- or awareness of the passing storm of life. I make my living at a technical job. All hail science. But I don't live for it. It's a small piece of life. Or maybe even a medium sized piece. But what of love and relationships? And how do these fit in to our theologies?
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Of course, I agree with all of that. The Atheist philosopher’s attribute-less god doesn’t make sense to me either.
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Let me just clarify about my Theism:
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It seems to me that metaphysics leads to the conclusion that what there metaphysically (describably, discussably) is, is insubstantial and ethereal. …implying an openness, looseness and lightness, …and something really good about what is, in a way that’s difficult to describe, explain or specify.
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…a feeling or impression that there’s good intention behind what is.
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That’s it. That’s my Theism. It’s an impression and a feeling. I don’t ordinarily call it Theism, because, as you suggested, “-ism”s are more for arguing…compartmentalizing and dividing people.
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But, it seems to me that what I’m talking about is something also evidently felt by many Theists, including those who believe in Literalist allegories. …but more significant than the Literalist allegories. So even though I don’t share all the beliefs of the Biblical Literalists and the more progressive selective Literalists, many of them are still onto something, …what they likely emotionally mean when they speak of God. Of course some Theists, maybe usually the more progressive ones, are more consciously aware of that than others.
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As I said, it’s an impression or feeling. It isn’t something to assert, and can’t be proven to someone else, but I don’t doubt it either. Sureness without proof isn’t scientific? Fine. As I said, proof and assertion are only for logic, mathematics, physics and (to some extent) metaphysics. It would be meaningless to speak of proof, or need for doubt without proof, for a meta-metaphysical impression. As I said, it would be like speaking of electroplating an adverb.
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I’d said:
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— Michael Ossipoff
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You replied:
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But I only apply that “how” where it’s called-for and appropriate. I don’t mean it or offer it outside its range of applicability. I often criticize Scientificists for wanting to apply science outside it legitimate range of applicability. You’re, quite rightly, saying that too, about the “how” of metaphysics, logic, and mathematics. Yes, I’m always criticizing that over-application of science’s approach. And yes, of course that goes for metaphysics too, which has a similar approach.
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But I only talk that way in metaphysics and when I talk about logic, mathematics or science. I agree that the language of metaphysics isn’t for everyday life, and is only verbal argument. And, in fact of course, verbal description or explanation doesn’t, at all, ever even come close to experience or Reality. …and of course I realize that the metaphysics that I talk is entirely verbal and conceptual. …and couldn’t describe or substitute for experience, or describe or explain Reality.
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I often use the analogy that the difference between metaphysics and Reality, experience, is a bit like the difference between a book all about how a car-engine works, vs actually going for a ride in the countryside.
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Of course. Agreed. I like metaphysics.
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But you aren’t saying, are you, that the matter of what metaphysically is, doesn’t meaningfully and relevantly relate to our larger lives?
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For me, the metaphysical medium and basis in which this life is, and has been, happening is worth finding out about.
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No, metaphysics doesn’t describe or explain experience or Reality.
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But that metaphysical medium and basis is still part of the life story. That story has a physical aspect, basis and medium, and unsurprisingly it has a metaphysical aspect, basis and medium too.
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The fact that metaphysics isn’t everything doesn’t mean that it isn’t part of the story.
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Not necessarily always. For example, I realize that physics or metaphysics aren’t, and can’t describe or substitute for, experience. And life is experience in the present, without regard to maps or formulas, teachings, or anything written. As you said, life and experience are something else from logical study.
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I know that most people aren’t interested in philosophy. There was even a thread here about that, a few months ago.
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But let’s not imply that the study of metaphysics (or physics, mathematics or logic) prevents someone from being immersed in life.
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Physics and metaphysics are each about an aspect of substrate, medium or basis, on which we live. As relevant as they are, in that regard, of course they don’t tell us how to live.
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Hinduism, particularly in its Vedanta versions, says something about metaphysics. I don’t entirely agree with any of its metaphysics versions (unless maybe part of what they’re saying is intended as meta-metaphysical, in which case the metaphysical part might not really differ.) But what I’m getting to is that Hinduism also has a lot to say about the purposes in life (Purusharthas).
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The ancient Indian writers seem competent, qualified and informed about the various things they wrote about, and they wrote about a number of aspects of life.
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The gist of the summaries that I’ve read referred to four Purusharthas: 1) Kama: What we like; 2) Artha: Getting by; 3)Dharma: Right living (ethical, considerate, caring, moderate, responsible to ourself and others); and 4) Moksha: Eventual life-completion, after a life (or sequence of lives) with the preceding three purusharthas.
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#2 is just practical necessity. #4 is just a culmination after having lived a complete life for a long time.
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So #1 and #3 seem to be the requirements. The Hindus say that a life deficient in one of those is an inadequate, incomplete, insufficient life. And, when your life has been inadequate, incomplete and insufficient, then you aren’t done, and there isn’t resolution or completion.
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Of course these verbal overviews/suggestions aren’t the same as life or experience, any more than metaphysics is. I mention them to answer what you said about life purposes.
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As for the relation between Theism and love and relationships: Well, I spoke of the good intent behind what is. Gratitude for that is a reason to try to embody it, repay/share some of it, at least within our limited human ability, in our own lives, actions and relations. As Theists often say it (and as you suggested), God is Love.
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Michael Ossipoff
For what it's worth, I like this theism. I find it honest to speak of impressions and feelings. I also like the humility about the difficulty of expressing the higher things. If the higher things were neat little systems, they would almost have to be mechanical trivialities.Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Well said. I agree. The word 'God' and other spiritual words can play all kinds of roles. Those who can only think in terms of proving mechanical certainties often project this purpose on others. So they think religion is stupid only because they are trapped in a scientistic conception of it --and (to be fair) because many religious people themselves are trapped in such a conception.
I like 'electroplating an adverb.' That's good.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I'm seeing that we probably have more in common than otherwise. Would you agree that metaphysics is something like a 'logical' world-revealing or existence-revealing poetry? We want it to cohere, to be plausible. We don't want fiction. It functions as the higher truth. But since it establishes the criteria by which all statements are judged, it's also not objective.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Since we both seem to see things this way, I guess it's just a matter of taste or current interests that has me harping on the gap and you doing metaphysics with an awareness of its limitations. On the other hand, my thinking on the 'how' and the 'what' (inherited from influences) is a kind of metaphysics.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I do find it relevant, just as I find diet and exercise relevant, or style relevant. We humans (especially thinkers) love our words. So for me it's largely a matter of self-creation or self-editing in terms of the words we use for what is highest and truest. As a matter of taste, I like the idea of being a thinker of the storm and the blood --more of a poet than a theologian. But I used to be more of a theologian, so this is something like changing the way one dresses or deciding that X is cooler than Y. I put that in blunt terms (terms that might embarrass not you but more rigidly solemn thinkers) strategically. Slang is sometimes closer (in my view) to the way we really think and feel. A stiffer more respectable language is perhaps a mask we wear not only for others but for the mirror.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I agree. I don't want to imply that. But I can imagine someone being word-drunk and thereby being a bad friend or lover. I'm sure I've been guilty of that. It's the love and respect I have for certain less theoretical people that wakes me up from this. Sure, I could point them to some fascinating thinkers. But are they lacking something essential? I don't think so, even if that would suit my vanity.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Well said. I like 'God is love.' I find other interesting uses for 'God' too --the idea that God is a personification of reality, or that God is the obscure object of spiritual desire. In my view, humans naturally seek virtue, but our conception of virtue is malleable. This allows for terrible cruelty sometimes. In King Lear, Edmund decides that Nature is his Goddess. He practices his religion by throwing those who trust him most under the bus to be a king. I suggest that this often vague concept of what is noble, good, virtuous, etc., is or tends to be the hub of a worldview.
I’d said:
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You replied:
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Yes, I see what you mean. I just meant that it’s metaphysically unsurprising. But yes, it’s fantastic. But the fact that this life started at all is just as fantastic. So, as Jack Nicholson’s character said, in Wolf, “I’m hard to surprise today.”
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And just because there’s a metaphysical explanation for why and how it happened doesn’t make it any less amazing.
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The metaphysical explanation is good, as far as it goes, but this life can only remain surprising.
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And, as I mention below in this post, maybe, even though we’ve been in this life so long that it’s what we’re used to, maybe this life in time and events isn’t the usual or most “natural” state of affairs.
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Of course that’s standard, from Scientificists, “Ignore that man behind the curtain, and his blatant brute-fact.”
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Metaphysical explanation doesn’t diminish the wonder and amazingness of the fact that this life started.
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Academic philosophers use a lot of what seems to me to be pseudoscientific, pseudomathematical jargon, inventing and debating fine-points not of interest to anyone else.
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There’s a lot of philosophical Greek used here, but I realize that it makes for concise, precise expression.
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I mostly use ordinary English, but metaphysics has to be discussed in a science-like way, because it’s a conceptual logical subject, and uncontroversial statements can be made, and conclusions arrived at.
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But that certainly doesn’t lessen the wonder.
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Certainly. It’s remarkable and unbelievable that this life started. No doubt it was incomprehensible on the first day too, and remains no less amazing or surprising now.
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We’re just used to it, because we’ve been in this life for so long. But metaphysical explanation doesn’t make it less amazing.
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Whether someone believes in reincarnation or not, our time in life is finite. But the sleep at the end of lives (or of this life if you don’t believe in reincarnation) is timeless. This life has been going on for so long that we’re used to it, but, being finite, in comparison to something else that’s timeless, this life that we’re so used to is just a finite blip in timelessness. Sleep at the end of lives is timeless. Time is short. It isn’t the usual state of affairs. One dictionary definition of “natural” is “usual”, and, by that definition, the Timelessness at the end of lives is what’s natural.
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So shall we call our material world of time and events the Supernatural? :D
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Of course suicide greatly increases and worsens the drama, and puts a persistent strongly negative cast on it, a dive into longterm unhappiness.
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Sure, but the larger metaphysical basis, substrate, environment of a person’s life is of interest in that life. The overall nature and character of what metaphysically is, has a lot to do with how we interpret and feel about this life. As I mention below, what is there when we look up from our day-to-day business?
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Sure we’re involved in day-to-day details, but the overall picture is relevant to how we interpret, perceive and feel about it. As you mentioned, there are times when we aren’t really busy with details, and that wonder comes to us.
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But maybe we don’t suffer as much, or more than necessary, depending on our perspective on what there is, and what’s going on.
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But you acknowledged the wonder that this life started at all. We aren’t always preoccupied with the details. What’s there when we look up from the details? The overall matter of what is, what’s going on, the bigger metaphysical picture, is the background, setting and environment of our day-to-day lives.
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Michael Ossipoff
This is a good issue. For the most part we are immersed in life. We don't have time for wonder. We desire or fear certain situations and work to attain or dodge them. We grind away in the familiar. I remember a few incidents when I was younger when I was suddenly shocked that there was anything at all. I was also shocked by the specificity of what was. 'It is exactly this way and no other. There are three weeds at this Northeast leg of the park bench. That particular plane with its particular passengers flies overhead.' These days I have a better argument for brute facticity, and yet it's rare to feel wonder as I did once.
I'm biased towards brute facticity because it makes the world new. But I also think it's logically necessary, since nature is a system of necessity, as I see it, and the whole of nature (all that is insofar as we can explain things) can be put in relation to nothing. To put it in relation would only to be expand it, to include yet another entity in the nexus of necessary relationships.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I know what you mean, but in a way it is the only state of affairs. Against the background of physics time it is indeed a blip. But it's all we know. Time-for-us is being late for an appointment and hating every red light. Or dreading what morning brings. Or opportunity fading away. It is death quietly and steadily approaching us, maybe tomorrow or maybe twenty years from now. It is an uncertain resource and/or the possibility of suffering.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I very much agree. Really I'm doing my own kind of metaphysics. I enact a notion of the noble. I too am a sort of scientist, albeit one who theorizes about the limits of theory and theory's tendency to flee from the ambiguity and complexity of experience. The 'total vision' of what life is and means is indeed quite important.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I agree here, too. And metaphysics or basic world views are poetic acts, too. We enjoy finding the words.
Here’s an interesting take...
Everything we see and experience is transposed. We don’t see a color. We perceive it as such, but really it’s the absence of the color in the spectrum.
Cold is the absence of heat. Dark is the absence of light. Substance is perceived by the space around it’s form. These things function through laws of entropy.
If you assume metaphysics is true and expand from there, you’ll stumble on odd laws of our world. Be willing to kill it if it no longer serves purpose or starts driving you over the edge crazy.
Real or not, it’s a waste of brain space if it doesn’t serve a purpose.
If you look at a green Christmas tree light, it looks green, because either it's emitting green light, or because its colored glass is absorbing all the visible wavelengths but green, or absorbing at &/or around green's complementary wavelength,(Magenta.. Green and Magenta are complementary to eachother.)
If you look at a yellow Christmas tree light, it looks yellow because either it's emitting yellow light, or because its colored glass is absorbing all the visible wavelengths but yellow, or absorbing at &/or around yellow's complementary wavelength (Blue)..
...but cold is perceived as a separate sensation of cold.
Well, we perceive a substance by itself. It's primarily the object itself that you perceive. But sure, if it's the same color and texture as its surroundings, then you might not notice it. Of course many insect, birds, reptiles and mammals make use of that principle for concealment.
The facts here, are mostly facts of physical science. ...not metaphysics or other philosophy.
But it should be emphasized that people's color-perception has as much to do with human design as with wavelength...to a greater extent than most people probablly realize.
...but that still isn't philosophy. It just means that biology is involved as well as wavelength.
Entropy governs some events in thermodynamics.
But, as I said above, this is all physical science (and sense-biology too, in the case of color-perception).
There are uncontroversial facts about metaphysics that can be said with certainty.. It probably isn't provable that any metaphysics, alone, is true (and that part of some other metaphysics isn't true along with it). That's because most proposed metaphysicses are consistent with our observations (otherwise they wouldn't be proposed)..
It certainly can't be proved that no metaphysics is true.
Negative.
Physical laws don't contradict any reasonable proposed metaphysics. If physical observations contradicted a metaphysics, then that metaphysics would be abandoned by most people who are interested in metaphysics.
Recommendation: Then you might prefer engineering.
But we here, at these philosophy forums, like philosophy.
Michael Ossipoff
Yes, the question "Why is there something instead of nothing" is an often-asked question.
Michael Faraday answered that question in 1844. I couldn't find details of what he said, but what I found agrees with the metaphysics that I've been proposing. Frank Tippler and Max Tegmark have proposed similar things, but it seems to me that they've both missed the mark in a few ways..
Anyway, the metaphysics that I've been proposing answers that question, in terms of systems of inter-referring inevitable abstract facts.
Kenneth Patchen wrote, "In general, why is everything so specific?"
As we were discussing, the particular way that this world is, is one of infinitely-many ways that the infinitely-many worlds are. There are infinitely-many of them, and ours is one of them.
The world that you were born in likely had something to do with the person that you were. (even if there isn't reincarnation),
But it would still be new by my metaphysics (which doesn't have any brute-facts), as your life-experience possibility-story plays out.
All that's logically-necessary for our universe is a system of inter-referring abstract facts. Because those facts are inevitable, there's no brute-ness
...until we reach the end of lives (or the end of this life if there's no reincarnation) and reach the timeless sleep.
We live either one finite lifetime, or a finite number of finite lifetimes. ...and then timeless sleep.
Finite time in life, and then timeless sleep.
So time isn't the only state of affairs. In fact, timeless sleep predominates, although of course sure, we aren't there yet, and won't be for a while. ...either at the end of this life, or (more likely) after a sequence of lives.
More tomorrow.
Michael Ossipoff
i That which provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for an agent's being able to draw mental correlations between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or it's own mental state.
ii That which is a part of an agent's drawing mental correlations between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or it's own mental state.
iii That which is existentially contingent upon an agent's already having drawn mental correlations between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or it's own mental state.
It’s reflecting a color and absorbing the rest. It is the other colors, it’s separated at the area we see as color.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I’m talking of cold, not feeling it.
‘Microscopically in the description of quantum mechanics, however, matter still has zero-point energy even at absolute zero, because of the uncertainty principle.’-Wikipedia
If it were possible to cool a system to absolute zero, all motion of the particles in a sample of matter would cease and they would be at complete rest in this classical sense.-Wikipedia
Dark is absolutely the absence of light. Do we agree there, at least?
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
My point here is that what we perceive isnt necessary what is.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
Second definition of entropy. Things progressing into disorder. Time measures entropy.
Think really hard upside down and backwards and you might get the possibility of space as an object, and the object lack of space.
I’m talking about odd not contradictory. Why bother thinking of anything if you can dissect what we know a million more times? There’s been some shockers if you try, tho.
Ha! If you haven’t gone near mad, you’re not a very good philosopher.
My unsolicited advice was that letting the mind go silent allows what is to be.
You’re rude.
Hey Internet forums are pretty rough-and-tumble, you know. Keep it up, your contributions are beiing appreciated. (Y)
As I've argued, I don't find the idea of an answer in general plausible. If there is something because of X, then X itself is either the brute fact or itself unexplained.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
But (I must ask again) are the people you love inevitable abstract facts? Is that how you experience them? For me relationships are among the highest things. Other people as people. Not just the idea of a person (which, like all ideas, has a certain shallowness) but the living presence of others. That my be my fundamental complaint about abstract theologies. They betray or ignore our direct experience of being with others, of sharing a practical world with others. This criticism doesn't apply to your sense of a sort of benevolent God, because that's a general sense that life and the world are good.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I can't accept automatically that there are infinitely many worlds. On the other hand, the billions of lives I have nothing to do with are plurality enough. But your attempt to answer the why with what I'd call theology doesn't do it for me. I like that you can relate to wonder, but you're sending me mixed messages on this issue. That's fine. Just sayin'
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I can't agree. The question would be 'why are they inevitable?' I guess we could call the bruteness subjective. I don't believe that so-called fundamental explanations can get the job done --on principle, according to how I understand explanation. The totality is untouchable in this sense.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
But it only predominates abstractly and quantitatively. We don't experience this sleep. As mortals we can contemplate (or try to) the world before and the world after our passing. But we're always here when we do that.
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
I'd call that an understatement. Yeah, we're thrown into a particular body. We're given particular parents, a face we did not choose, and so on. Then it's even 'little' things like the books we happened to bump into as teenager's for instance. Or the things we were praised or blame for in our formative years.
Good conversation, btw.
Sure, with reflecting objects. Something can be green because it emits only or mostly green light, or because it absorbs, from (reflected or transmitted) white light, everything but green, or absorbs mostly around green's complement, magenta.
You said, "It is the other colors", but, because merely emitting only green light makes an emitting object green, I wouldn't say that the other colors are necessary to something being green.
Certainly.
Sure, but you're talking about science, not philosophy. And metaphysics is in no way in competition or contradiction with science.
Of course. That's how i'd regard it if I'm looking for an region of empty floor-space at which sit, a place where there isn't an object in the way.
As for rude: Disagreement, even blunt disagreement, isn't really rude, unless the disagreement is expressed in a manner that criticizes, characterizes, negatively evaluates, the person you disagree with.
I disagreed with your comments about the truth and worth of metaphysics, and said so.
My justification of metaphysics can be found in my recent replies to ff0.
Michael Ossipoff
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If X is inevitable, it doesn’t need explanation. Of course it would be necessary to give an argument that it’s inevitable.
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I’d said:
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You repy:
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No, and they aren’t electrons or quarks either. But that doesn’t invalidate physics.
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You’re assuming an either/or choice between metaphysics and loved-ones. Remember, this is a philosophy forum. With no disrespect toward families, friends and relationships, they aren’t all that philosophy discusses.
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I didn’t say “sort of “ benevolent. …or emphasize a possessing entity, least of all by name.
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Maybe a disposition implies a possessor, certainly in our grammar, but I suggest that any notion about that possessor, including that application of grammar in the first place, is an effort at reification, an over-anthropomorphism, an unrealistic, overextended claim of understanding …as is the notion of existence.
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For people to speak of whether God exists, is like mice speaking of whether humans gnaw hardwood or softwood.
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Many Theists don’t say that God is a being.
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But in what sense did I say that there are? Only in the same sense that, there’s the fact that if all Slithytoves are brillig, and all Jaberwockeys are Slithytoves, then all Jaberwockeys are brillig.
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As I suggested above, it seems to me that theology assumes a lot more knowledge, understanding, and information than is possible.
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But metaphysics isn’t theology. What metaphysics deals with is discussable and describable.
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I addressed that matter in a recent reply to you.
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1) A fact that there are no facts other than one fact that there are no other facts, would be a special brute-fact, calling for explanation, but not having one (How could it, if there are no other facts?)
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2) Because a system of inter-referring abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals needn’t refer to anything outside its own local inter-referring system, then the burden of proof is on anyone who wants to claim that it it is in some way dependent from some context or permission outside itself, or subject to the some global fact that could have prohibited it.
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“Explanation” can consist of inevitable facts that imply the observations that are to be explained. What is there about that to not believe in?
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Metaphysics doesn’t touch the totality, Reality. What it’s about is discussable and describable.
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Sure we do. We experience the arrival at, and initial stages of that sleep. What we don’t experience is a time when we don’t experience.
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I said:
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I should clarify what I meant. I meant (whether there’s reincarnation or not) the person that you already were, influenced the world that you were going to be born in
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How could you be a person if you weren’t born yet? No problem. You were a hypothetical person, the protagonist of a hypothetical life-experience possibility-story. The hypothetical person that you were was the protagonist of that hypothetical story.
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Because I’m speaking of hypothetical, things, I’m saying things that are difficult to disagree with.
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But of course it’s likewise true that the conditions in the world you were born in greatly influenced you after your birth.
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Let me say a few more words, for clarification, about the timeless sleep at the end of lives:
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I might have said something misleading:
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When referring to timeless sleep, I might have seemed to be implying experience of infinite duration. Of course I didn’t mean that. Not even subjectively infinite duration.
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But I was talking about a stage of shutdown at which there’s no knowledge that there ever was or could be such a thing as time or duration.
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And likewise, even though that time is close to complete shutdown, there’s no knowledge that there’s such a thing as an end to experience either. To summarize, I said a time of no experience is never reached, and there’s no knowledge that there is such an end, and there’s no knowledge of duration. Because the person has reached Timelessness, and never experiences no-experience, then I suggest that the fact that shutdown is approaching is entirely irrelevant, as is the shutdown when it occurs (as perceived by your survivors).
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That’s a reason why I say that the timeless sleep at the end of lives counts for more than this finite life, or more than a finite number of finite lives.
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…that, along with the fact that it’s the final state/situation, where the state of affairs finally arrives at.
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But I don’t mean to make a big deal about it either. It’s like going to sleep. It is going to sleep. That already happens nightly. It’s no big deal. I emphasize that so as to not make it sound like some scary new awesome experience.
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Well, because there’ll be no needs, wants, problems, lack, menace, etc., it has been argued that that time will be awesomely good.
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Anyway, above are the justifications for saying that the timeless sleep at the end of lives is more for us than this finite life, or more than a finite number of finite lives.
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There’s another justification too:
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I’ve been emphasizing that a system of inter-referring inevitable abstract facts about hypotheticals, such as the one that is your life-experience possibility-story, doesn’t need a medium in which to be.
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In particular, it doesn’t depend on support or hosting from the Nothing that is its background. Nothing wouldn’t be nothing if it did that. It would be a medium or agent, and it isn’t.
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But we can still speak of the Nothing that is the background of all the inevitable abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals.
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And what could be more metaphysically fundamentally and natural than that? Yes, there are all those inevitable if-thens about hypotheticals. But their Nothing background is the quiescent background of that something.
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Well, that timeless sleep at the end of lives, as I becomes a deeper and deeper sleep, of course more and more becomes experience of less and less. Less is closer to Nothing.
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So, at near-shutdown, you’re peacefully, restfully (and some say very pleasantly—the best part of your life) returning to your fundamental original home, what’s most natural.
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I’ve been stating some reasons why the timeless sleep at the end of lives can fairly be said to be more natural than this finite life in this “physical” world of time and events.
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Michael Ossipoff