Metaphysics in Science
It seems to me awkward to say that science is devoid of metaphysics.
We have the simulated reality hypothesis, that is seemingly unverifiable yet makes total sense from a scientific perspective.
Thus, is science really devoid of metaphysics? It would seem to me that no, science is not devoid of metaphysics, and also has some theories that pertain to the domain of metaphysics.
Would you agree with this?
We have the simulated reality hypothesis, that is seemingly unverifiable yet makes total sense from a scientific perspective.
Thus, is science really devoid of metaphysics? It would seem to me that no, science is not devoid of metaphysics, and also has some theories that pertain to the domain of metaphysics.
Would you agree with this?
Comments (72)
Having said that, science often attempts to conceal or constrain metaphysics (and thus uncertainty) within a limited value system. This means that those who interpret scientific explanations often remain ignorant, isolated or excluded from the metaphysical information available.
It seems that Popper was staunchly against logical positivism without the anti-metaphysical attitude against it.
I want to understand why metaphysics as a structural issue is incompatible with science as we practice it today, despite metaphysical statements arising within it?
You can't exclude metaphysics from phenomenology, or can you...?
How?
As far as I can see, Popper considered metaphysics to be relevant to science, but still ‘unscientific’ as such. We can employ metaphysics in the scientific method, but only as far as stating the hypothesis, which necessarily reduces the metaphysics of the question at best to a three-dimensional awareness in relation to value - where at least one dimensional aspect is reduced to a zero, constant or identical value to eliminate the ‘uncertainty principle’.
Quoting Shawn
In my view, the structure of metaphysics is relative, subjective and uncertain. This is what science tries to eliminate - metaphysics can inform the question in science, but not the answer; the theory, but not the proof.
It isn't, though it should be.
Quoting Shawn
"It makes sense from a scientific perspective" does not mean it's science. It's pop-philosphy.
Quoting Shawn
It does have those theories, especially at the current "bleeding edge".
Quoting Possibility
[I] interpreting [/i] explanations is not science, it's metaphysics. What source of metaphysical information is there?
Quoting Janus
:up:
Quoting Possibility
Relative to what?
Physics: the branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy.
Meta-: with, after or beyond; more comprehensive, transcending.
Metaphysics: the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time, and space.
I would define metaphysics as concerned with relational structures and concepts inclusive of, but not limited to, the nature and properties of matter and energy.
Those who interpret scientific explanations are invariably not doing science - mostly they’re armchair scientists and dilettantes, popular science journalists or philosophers. It’s often like a literal reading of the Bible, devoid of context. But interpreting scientific explanations is not metaphysics, either.
The scientific method followed to conclusion is a process of reducing metaphysical information to what is measurable. Metaphysics comes before science, interpretation comes after.
The main source of metaphysical information is human experience. The human mind has been employing the ‘scientific method’ long before it was acknowledged as such, and has developed the capacity to integrate the uncertainty of metaphysical information - which scientific measurement does not - by distinguishing and relating between measurable/observable, potential/valuable and possible/meaningful information on multiple dimensional levels.
Metaphysics is incomplete science, but as such it is inclusive of a wealth of irreducible information that inspires our imagination, curiosity and creativity, as well as the pursuit of science itself.
Quoting Echarmion
Relative to perceived potential/value.
Well, then what is it? Interpreting science is evidently not in itself science, as the process of interpretation cannot at the same time be the object of itself. It's, if we use the traditional meaning of the word, a "meta-level".
Quoting Possibility
You're throwing a lot of terms out here, which seem to lack a definition in the context. If metaphysical inmformation is just human experience, then what is "meta" about it? Experience is the base level, how things appear. Observation is merely a subset of experience, and measurement is a specific form of observation. The term "scientific measurement" refers to certain circumstances, but it's not an epistemological category. All observations, "scientific" or not, can be used as input for the scientific method. So, experience is the physical. The meta-level to that is interpretation of it's results.
Quoting Possibility
Perceived potential or value of what?
In a sense, metaphysical claims are like religious claims. They both make claims that don't have any evidence to support them and don't propose experiments that could falsify or verify their claims.
Many religious people try to point out that religious claims are not scientific claims because it requires faith and that the supernatural is beyond the scope of science. But their claims are about the natural world in the sense that they are proposing causes to the natural world. How can something that isn't natural have an effect on the natural if they were't part of the same reality?
Metaphysical claims are in the same boat. While metaphysical claims at least don't necessarily indulge in this dualistic natural/supernatural thinking, they have the same amount of evidence as religious claims - none. With evidence and falsification being our means of determining what ideas are more useful than others, any metaphysical claim would be just as useful as any religious claim.
What makes you say that?
Science needs to own all of the premises it sets forth to test whether asserted connections are true or not. It is a function of experimentation.
The need to make that a condition of doing science is neither an acceptance or rejection of metaphysical speculation or expression. To make it to be so is onerous and feels like extra work.
i agree with this. Einstein used meta-physics as you well know. Modern Physics has alot more equations and tests involved, but all the information at our disposal has made progress like Einstein's much harder. I don't think this is a testimony to the lack of intellect among modern scientists, but information grows exponentially as the internet has shown us.
Modern scientists have to sift thru alot more information than they did 100s of years ago.
In 1000 years who know what scientists will believe. Sometimes a minor detail changes a whole equation or system completely.
Untestable conjectures, especially those which don't explain anything more than current explanations and/or which are not parsimonious, are pseudo-scientific (Popper) and not, as I understand it, metaphysical.
Is science devoid of conceptual (i.e. categorical) presuppositions?
No. Metaphysics, again as I understand it, proposes criteria for discerning 'impossible worlds' (i.e. ways actuality necessarily cannot be) from 'possible worlds' (i.e. ways actuality can be) - btw, I'm an actualist, not a possibilist - thereby concerning the most general states of affairs; unlike the sciences, which consist of testing models of how possible transformations of specific, physical (class, or domain, of) state of affairs from one to another (can be made to) happen, and thus is explanatory (even if only approximative, probabilistic), metaphysics explains only concepts abstracted from, and therefore useful for categorizing, (experience of(?)) 'how things are', and does not explain any facts of the matter. Metaphysics is not theoretical.
Some aspects of these are implied in any scientific model, meaning that science itself doesn't consist of elements that are derived de novo from a purported blank slate or devoid of presupposition. Science builds on foundations of logic, number, and observational rules, which themselves rest on axioms and assumptions, many of which are not and need not be proven by observation, but are required to make sense of observation.
This is compatible with the definition of metaphysics as being a science of first principles and axioms, the kinds of principles which must be assumed in order to make sense of anything or to frame any proposition whatever. Because these are at the basis of explanation, they cannot themselves be explained.
[quote=SEP]In Metaphysics ?.1, Aristotle says that “all men suppose what is called wisdom (sophia) to deal with the first causes (aitia) and the principles (archai) of things” (981b28), and it is these causes and principles that he proposes to study in this work.[/quote]
Nichomachean Ethics
Note the allusion to 'unproven first principles', which is asserted because if everything needs to be proven, then an infinite regress cannot be avoided.
Quoting Shawn
Metaphysics is usually taken to consist in thinking about what is the nature of reality, being, time, space, objects, causation and so on. Broadly speaking it deals with questions about origins and relations.
None of these questions need be thought about in order to practice science. So it is not a matter of exclusion of these and like questions, but of the realization that they are not usually included or necessarily reflectively involved in the practice of science.
Well, the first three definitions I offered are dictionary definitions. My last sentence states the meaning of metaphysics as I interpret it personally.
I disagree that metaphysics lacks the subject matter which is the province of science. As I said in my reply to @Echarmion, metaphysics comes before science, interpretation after - but the boundaries are far from distinct. The scientific method as I understand it is inclusive of both metaphysics and interpretation, which also transcend this method in their speculative tendencies. What we call ‘science’ as an activity refers more specifically to the process of stating and testing hypotheses with measurable data, yet metaphysics involves the organisation and reduction of information to testable predictions, and interpretation involves relating new information from tested predictions back to conceptual reality - neither of which are necessarily thought about (as @Janus said) in order to practice science.
So science (and more so physical science) is a very narrow form of testing predictions - one that is easily transferable or replicable as an informative experience, because it maps the reduction-interaction-interpretation process to measurable data, minimising uncertainty.
Quantum physics has theoretical and experimental areas of study: basically, the former deals with metaphysics, the latter with scientific process. Mathematics and potentiality wave calculations are not physical science, but they are seen as scientific in that their aim is towards scientific process.
I believe the aim of metaphysics is to map a process of reduction-interaction which enables us to test predictions about relational structures and concepts, particularly with regard to the nature and properties of matter and energy. The scientific method makes this process explicit, but it only deals with what predictions can be reduced to measurable data.
It is what the metaphysician does with irreducible predictions that many have a problem with. The human mind can test predictions and integrate new potential, probabilistic or even possible information into conceptual systems, without reduction to measurable data. We can even communicate this information, in its irreducible (uncertain) state, to other minds, mapping the ‘experience’ satisfactorily into conceptual systems - often using reified potential/value structures to conceal uncertainty.
So the real issue here is where our language is structured to conceal or downplay uncertainty. Science has dug this hole for themselves by reifying abstract concepts such as matter and energy, but even language, logic and morality refer to potential/value information, masking an uncertainty and subjectivity in relational structure which in reality is probabilistic at best.
In my view, it is in the interpretation of both scientific and metaphysical explanations where we need to be honest about the level of uncertainty in the information.
I would say that scientists do metaphysics a lot.
To use the concept of an electron to make predictions is science.
To claim that an electron exists (which scientists do al the time) is metaphysics.
In my opinion and since Kant (to quote the sources is useful) metaphysics is a branch of knowledge that is based on universal and necessary knowledge obtained in the sole light of reason (without being based on experience). Based on this method, metaphysics seeks to achieve a knowledge different or superior to science about certain objects that science cannot investigate: the essence of supra-natural things and entities, such as God, free will, the Universe as a whole, etc...
Metaphysics should not be confused with analysis. Analyzing ordinary language or the scientific method is not metaphysical. Analysis does not seek to discover entities or relationships independent of experience, but to clarify knowledge of experience.
Therefore, the interpretation of science is not necessarily metaphysical. Although it can be. When scientists and philosophers discuss what kind of reality an electron is they are not doing metaphysics. They're doing philosophy of science, which is something else.
Otherwise, Kant's criticism of metaphysics is valid for me. Concepts without intuition/experience are empty. Metaphysics is not knowledge of anything.
That applies to pure maths, also. And actually it's a very idiosyncratic definition of metaphysics as such.
I think the starting point always ought to be Aristotle's Metaphysics, as it was about his work that the term 'metaphysics' was coined in the first place. It doesn't define the scope of the subject, but, as I say, it's a good point of reference, because by starting there are least you're beginning with an agreed set of terms and references which is especially important in relation to this particular subject.
No. Mathematics and logic are formal sciences. That is, they are not based on experience and they do not talk about facts. In Kantian terminology they are a priori and analytical.
Applied mathematics is a part of factual science, therefore it depends on experience. Mainly because it needs rules of correspondence between abstract mathematical concepts and empirical entities, which are given in experience. Their validity depends to a great extent on the adequacy of these rules to experience. For example: Euclidean mathematics is valid for common experience, but not for the theory of relativity.
I believe that the Kantian concept of metaphysics encompasses and is broader than the Aristotelian concept. I prefer it.
Quoting David Mo
These seem equivalent to me.
[quote=Bernard Lonergan]Metaphysics anticipates the general structures of reality by formulating the way our knowing operates. Science actually works out the explanation of the data by a never-ending process of research. [/quote]
Quoting David Mo
“Philosophy of science is a sub-field of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science.” - Wikipedia
I’m not sure I agree that discussing what kind of reality an electron is would necessarily be philosophy of science and NOT metaphysics. Certainly claiming that an electron exists is interpretation of science from a metaphysical perspective, not so much doing metaphysics as such. But I would say that discussing the nature of an electron’s existence is still a metaphysical discussion that may or may not delve into philosophy of science.
I’ve already offered definitions of ‘meta-‘ as well as ‘metaphysics’. Metaphysical information is not JUST human experience - it is from human experience, however, (ours and others) that we source our metaphysical information.
I agree that there is a nested hierarchy of experience, observation and measurement - but experience is not just the physics. Observation is how things appear, whereas experience is how things are perceived: inclusive of interoceptive affect, qualitative evaluation and quantitative potential. Measurement is one, two or three-dimensional information, observation is four-dimensional and experience is five-dimensional information. It is the irreducible five-dimensional information - the uncertain, subjective and relative details of an experience - which pertains to metaphysics in particular.
Interpreting scientific results draws once again on metaphysical information in relation to the experience, but this is not doing metaphysics as such.
Quoting Possibility
It doesn't fit your own definition of metaphysics. Much less with the Kantian concept of metaphysics: our knowledge of the electron comes from experience. Any reflection on it is subject to that experience. It's not the level of abstraction of the first principles. When Bohr and Einstein differ on the nature of atomic particles they are doing philosophy (of science), not science. Their opposition is based on reasons that are not refuted by experience, sure. But that doesn't mean they're navigating in pure abstraction. If you want to adopt the neo-positivist concept of metaphysics, we're in another discussion.
Well then, explain how that works.
Quoting Possibility
Please explain these terms. I have no idea what they mean.
Quoting Possibility
Are you saying one can't measure time? Anyways where do you take this definition from, what's it based on?
Quoting Possibility
How does observation get an extra dimension? What's the fifth dimension and where does it come from?
Quoting Possibility
So metaphysics is just uncertain, subjective and relative physics? Sounds pretty much like random guessing.
Quoting Possibility
Why not. It fits all the definitions.
Scientists are not necessarily well versed in philosophy. So you often get fairly well-trodden metaphysical ideas, like the simulation hypothesis, get huge traction because it appeals to preconceived notions. It seems to "make sense". But the actual justification is flimsy.
First of all, the definition I offered initially was a dictionary definition, but I also provided definitions for both physics and meta- which suggests the dictionary definition has shifted from the intended use of the term. So I offered my own definition (and I recognise now that I didn’t explain my position very well):
Quoting Possibility
I disagree with Kant’s position on both metaphysics and experience in relation to knowledge. I disagree that metaphysics is pure abstraction, and think there is more to experience than Kant was aware of. I agree that Bohr and Einstein’s discussion is philosophical, not scientific, and that they are not navigating in pure abstraction. But my understanding of metaphysics is neo-positivist, not Kantian. Sorry for the confusion.
The measurement of ‘time’ that we know is a value attributed to the interval between two events. So when we measure time, this is two-dimensional information: change in relation to this ‘time’ value.
Observation takes into account the relative position of the observer in spacetime, hence the ‘extra’ dimensional aspect. We can observe events in relation to ourselves and in relation to each other.
And the fifth dimension is where I believe metaphysics comes into play. This is basically potential, probability, value: both quantitative and qualitative. It takes into account not only relative distance, direction, speed, trajectory, etc (all reducible information), but also the relative perceived value/potential of an experience. It is the fifth dimensional aspect of reality that enables us to talk about an experience that hasn’t happened yet.
I don't really understand how you use the term "dimension" here. Is there some mathematical concept I need to look up? I am only familiar with dimensions as spatial dimensions. I suppose you could have a system for the dimensionality of information, but I am not familiar with any specific one.
It's also strange that you apparently treat measurements as if they don't have an observer.
The metaphysical by it's definition ought to lie out of reach of the scientific method as from one point of view quite well explained.
Perhaps the reason for the misunderstanding is that we nowdays use the term meta- quite trivially. For example, we use the term metatext, a text that describes or discusses text. And that of course is totally normal text and nothing to do with metaphysics. Or then there's metaprogramming, where a computer running a program treats other programs as data. Again, that is an ordinary computer program.
Hence just to talk about science, use the scientific method to study the process of people making science isn't anything meta at all, and totally misses the point of metaphysics. A metaphysical question would be like asking about the universe looking at the universe from outside the universe.
I don't really see the issue with that usage. They all describe a situation where the operation happens on a higher level of abstraction to the usual way it operates.
If we understand metaphysics to be about the "reality behind reality", then that's exactly what we're doing - going to a higher level of abstraction.
Quoting ssu
Wouldn't that just be sociology?
I think this is a very important point to understand. As such, metaphysics doesn't tell us what is the case, it tells us what is necessarily not the case. And this is the only way that a specific type of knowledge, called "certainty", is obtained, by determining what is impossible.
Compare this to scientific knowledge which is based in inductive rules derived from empirical observations. Indictive reasoning, telling us what is, in the form of an inductive rule, is based in probability. So metaphysics, by telling us what is impossible, gives us greater certainty than science which tells us what is likely the case. This is why scientism is bad philosophy, and metaphysics ought to be applied toward rejecting faulty science.
Going on a higher level of abstraction changes the game.
And it's really only abstraction, not in the sense of sciences can be abstract. There isn't any way to verify anything of the metaphysical. Otherwise it wouldn't be metaphysical.
Quoting Echarmion
Perhaps if you define sociology or social sciences in the broadest way. It surely isn't metaphysics.
We agree for once. :cool:
How else could a certain systematic way be recognized as necessary in order for something to be done in compliance with it, that is, the very possibility of science itself, if not first thought by means of reason? If human reason has its ground in metaphysics, it follows that science cannot be devoid of metaphysics. Understanding, of course, that that to which science is directed, is not itself science.
In Greek philosophy, the term "metaphysics" originally meant "that which comes after physics." It refers to the fact that Aristotle's metaphysics was found, untitled, placed after his treatise on physics. But metaphysics soon came to mean those topics that lie beyond physics (we would today say beyond science) and yet may have a bearing on the nature of scientific inquiry. So metaphysics means the study of topics about physics (or science generally), as opposed to the scientific subject itself. Traditional metaphysical problems have included the origin, nature, and purpose of the universe, how the world of appearances presented to our senses relates to its underlying "reality" and order, the relationship between mind and matter, and the existence of free will. Clearly science is deeply involved in such issues, but empirical science alone may not be able to answer them, or any "meaning-of-life" questions.
Although metaphysical theorizing went out of fashion after this onslaught, a few philosophers and scientists refused to give up speculating about what really lies behind the surface appearances of the phenomenal world. Then, in more recent years, a number of advances in fundamental physics, cosmology, and computing theory began to rekindle a more widespread interest in some of the traditional metaphysical topics. The study of "artificial intelligence" reopened debate about free will and the mind-body problem. The discovery of the big bang triggered speculation about the need for a mechanism to bring the physical universe into being in the first place. Quantum mechanics exposed the subtle way in which observer and observed are interwoven. Chaos theory revealed that the relationship between permanence and change was far from simple.
Time and Eternity: The Fundamental Paradox of Existence
"Eternity is time
Time, eternity
To see the two as opposites
Is Man's perversity"
The Book of Angelus Silesius
"I think, therefore I am." With these famous words the seventeenth-century philosopher René Descartes expressed what he took to be the most primitive statement concerning reality about which any thinking persons could agree. Our own existence is our primary experience. Yet even this unexceptionable claim contains within it the essence of a paradox that obstinately runs through the history of human thought. Thinking is a process. Being is a state. When I think, my mental state changes with time. But the "me" to which the mental state refers remains the same. This is probably the oldest metaphysical problem in the book, and it is one which has resurfaced with a vengeance in modern scientific theory.
What, then, is absolutely constant? One is inevitably led away from the material and the physical to the realm of the mystical and the abstract. Concepts like "logic," "number," "soul," and "God" recur throughout history as the firmest ground on which to build a picture of reality that has any hope of permanent dependability. But then the ugly paradox of existence rears up at us. For how can the changing world of experience be rooted in the unchanging world of abstract concepts?
Men and women, perhaps for psychological reasons, being afraid of their own mortality, have always sought out the most enduring aspects of existence. People come and go, trees grow and die, even mountains gradually erode away, and we now know the sun cannot keep burning forever. Is there anything that is truly and dependably constant? Can one find absolute unchanging being in a world so full of becoming?
No attempt to explain the world, either scientifically or theologically, can be considered successful until it accounts for the paradoxical conjunction of the temporal and the a temporal, of being and becoming. And no subject confronts this paradoxical conjunction more starkly than the origin of the universe.
--
Paul Davies
Wooo! Let's party! Must be that despicable coronavirus, brings people together.
No mathematical concept needed. That dimensions are necessarily spatial is an assumption; they’re a relational structure, applicable to all information.
Quoting Echarmion
They do have an observer - or measuring device, really - when/where the measurement is taken. But a measurement (once taken) loses a dimensional aspect: time, distance, etc. It’s confusing, but as a measuring event, it’s four-dimensional, but as a recorded measurement, it’s only three-dimensional information at best.
I agree. That's why, for my personal worldview, I provided a definition that is specifically tailored to the primary subject of the thesis: Information. It's obvious that Aristotle believed that both volumes of his encyclopedia of early iron-age knowledge were scientific. But the Physics volume was focused on physical material aspects of reality, while the volume that later came to be called "Metaphysics" was mostly concerned with how we come to know the truth about reality : the mental & rational element.
After the Enlightenment though, both Religion and Philosophical metaphysical traditions were rejected by physical scientists because they were ambiguous enough to support religious doctrines that were deemed superstitious. Since then, only philosophers wasted their time on mushy metaphysics, especially anything that involved understanding of the human mind and consciousness. But eventually some thinkers attempted to apply scientific methods to off-limits subjects that came to be called Psychology and Sociology. These are metaphysical topics about "stuff" that's invisible & intangible.
Now, in the 21st century, Metaphysics has become unavoidable in scientific investigations. Information Theory, Quantum Theory, Systems Theory, and Consciousness studies have become mainstream Science, even though they are all about invisible intangible topics that are not subject to empirical methods. So, philosophy can no longer be viewed as the red-headed step-child of Science. :smile:
Metaphysics : Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
And what is that structure? I can see a basic dimensional structure where one dimension is a value, two dimensions are a list of values, 3 dimensions are a table and so on. But that doesn't match up to your examples. The distance between two points is just a value, so it's one dimension. Adding timezones merely modifies that value, there is no extra dimension.
Quoting Possibility
Can you explain this with an example? Say I measure the speed of a passing car. The measurement is the speed, which I'd assume is one dimensional by itself. What's the measuring event and how many dimensions does it have?
The measuring event is the act of you (or the measuring device you use) measuring the speed of the passing car. Let’s say that you use a laser speed gun, which basically measures the rate of change in distance relative to direction. The event is inclusive of the laser gun’s relative speed - if the laser gun was attached to a police car heading in the opposite direction, it would need to take into account the rate of change relative to direction of the police car in relation to the passing car, in order to determine an accurate speed of the passing car. Otherwise it’s just a relative speed.
If the laser gun were stationary, fixed to a point in spacetime, then the fourth dimensional variable is assumed to be constant, and so doesn’t need to be taken into account in obtaining an accurate measurement. The resulting measurement is reduced to two-dimensional information and then a one-dimensional value in relation to a value system or language (ie. km/hr), without which this value has no meaning in relation to me. So any fifth and sixth dimensional information is also assumed to be constant, and need not be taken into account if you then communicate that speed value to me.
So is the distinction (i.e. duality) of "body" & "mind" itself physical or meta-physical? Do "we perceive" this body-mind distinction (as it is / as we are) or do "we conceived" of this body-mind distinction (formally / grammatically)? Does the latter cause (or mediate) the former, or vice versa?
[quote=Howard Pattee]All signs, symbols, and codes, all languages including formal mathematics are embodied as material physical structures and therefore must obey all the inexorable laws of physics. At the same time, the symbol vehicles like the bases in
DNA, voltages representing bits in a computer, the text on this page, and the neuron firings in the
brain do not appear to be limited by, or clearly related to, the very laws they must obey. Even the
mathematical symbols that express these inexorable physical laws seem to be entirely free of
these same laws.[/quote]
Physics and metaphysics of biosemiosis.
So, actually, I'm in agreement with the quote there, but would consider changing the last description to 'the eye of reason'.
Perception and Conception are functions of the brain, not things in themselves. One does not cause the other. Perception is what we experience physically. Conception is what we think or feel about what we experience. Perception is physical, Conception is metaphysical. But both process are generated by the working brain. In visual perception, you can trace the flow of energy from eyes through various brain components to the "visual cortex". But the conscious conception of that energy is a holistic function; it emerges globally, not located in any single part of the brain.
In my view, the MInd/Soul/Self does not exist apart from the body. Minding is what the brain does, just as hammering is what a hammer does. One is the function of the other. :nerd:
This definition is extremely vague. Almost everything fits into it. Logic or philosophy, for example. Even science. You should clarify it.
Quoting Possibility
Metaphysics according to neopositivism:
A statement is meaningful if and only if it can be proved true or false, at least in principle, by means of the experience -- this assertion is called the verifiability principle. Metaphysical statements are not empirically verifiable and are thus meaningless. Forbidden
[quote="Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen" ]These concepts are intended to correspond with the objective reality, and by means of these concepts we picture this reality to ourselves.[/quote]
Can this proposition be verified?
I don't think so. According to the neopositivist concept of metaphysics, Einstein is doing metaphysics and what he says does not make sense.
Another problem: how to verify sentences about the Universe as a whole? We have no way of getting an experience of the Universe as a whole.
If you want to say that metaphysics has something to do with experience you should adopt a less rigorous criterion than the neopositivist one.
In my opinion, It would be easier if you just give up on the aspiration of seeing metaphysics as a factual knowledge.
A laser speed gun does not measure these values. It measures how long it takes for the laser to be reflected off the car and return. More sophisticated devices probably have multiple beams and measure the angle of reflection as well.
But even apart from that, your list of "dimensions" (assuming that is what you bolded) seems arbitrary. "Rate of change" already implies a measure of "X over time" and the X here can only be distance. So either we treat the measurement as "distance over time", which is properly 2 dimensional and gives us "rate of change" as a one-dimensional derivative, or we drop "distance" as a dimension and use "rate of change" directly.
How this could be relative to "direction" is a mystery to me. First of all direction would be a vector in space, so even simplified to a plane it itself has two dimensions. But apart from that it doesn't make sense to have a "rate of change in distance" [I]relative to[/I] direction. Because distance is obviously distance from something, so it's already relative. You can't add direction to distance.
Quoting Possibility
Yes, but this doesn't add any dimensions to the information. You obtain the absolute speed from the relative speed via a mathematical operation.
Quoting Possibility
A language without meaning isn't a language, so it makes no sense to consider language and meaning different dimensions.
In general, I agree. Just a point:
The names "Metaphysics" and "Physics" are not by Aristotle himself. They were added later. Furthermore, Aristotle's books are not by Aristotle. He was well known in his time for having written some dialogues that unfortunately were lost early on. Aristotle's books on philosophy are actually the work of many hands of students and disciples. A copy and paste of various materials. We cannot be sure if some parts were "remastered" in the final result. What we call "scientific" works is almost certainly due to other hands, perhaps revised or edited by Aristotle.
Some relevant scholar once said that we are not able to read Plato, but the Plato that was filtered and re-edited in the Middle Ages. I think this is also true of Aristotle.
According to our contemporary criteria we can make a distinction between the "science of first principles" (Metaphysics) and empirical knowledge (Physics or natural science), but this is our distinction and it is not clear what Aristotle would think of it.
As for the authorship of Aristotle's major works, I believe this is hardly in dispute. He was thoroughly literate, unlike many of the pre-socratics, and many of his major works were preserved. He was tutor to Alexander the Great, so a thoroughly historical figure. 'Iron age', tosh.
Well, I guess my position isn’t neo-positivism at all! I agree that metaphysical statements - those that are irreducible to scientific hypotheses - are not empirically verifiable, but I would argue that they are not meaningless as such. Rather, they contribute to our perception of potential and value in the world, which in turn enables us make predictions and test them by interacting with the world and increasing awareness, connection and collaboration, scientifically or otherwise.
Quoting David Mo
What’s to clarify? Metaphysics should be inclusive of science, logic and philosophy. That’s what ‘meta-’ means. Doing metaphysics is how we make sense of the world in order to interact with it - how we conceptualise reality.
Quoting David Mo
I don’t see this as an aspiration of mine. Knowledge in my view is all relative, not factual. But I think I get what you’re saying.
Quoting David Mo
I agree. But we can approach an understanding of the Universe as a whole by testing the potentiality of metaphysical statements against our subjective experiences. And we can also relate descriptions of the experiences of others. At each level, there is relative uncertainty in the information available, but it’s still better than ignorance, isolation and exclusion.
Aristotle's metaphysics is not a book made up of one hand. It is a series of readings for the Lyceum. What has come down to us is either some notes from Aristotle himself or the notes collected by some disciples. From Werner Jaeger' study on Aristotle it is assumed that they were written in various periods and put together more or less correctly (we see contradictions between some parts and others). The most radical critics, such as J. Zucher, think that much of Aristotle's work is actually attributable to others -specially Theophrastus (371-287 BCE). As Joseph Moreau -another scholar of reference- says, we should not go that far, but the truth is that we are not dealing with a homogeneous body of writings more or less faithfully collected by tradition. This idea is untenable. "Texts that are collected under the same common name can go back to different times, without prejudice to successive additions or revisions".
That is why, as I said, metaphysics is not a book written by Aristotle. In fact, its title comes from the first century CE, more or less.
Some of what I have told you can be found in a Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics_(Aristotle) or in https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/#AriCorChaPriDiv .
From here I wanted to comment on what Aristotle's writings mean by science has little to do with what we understand now, but I don't have time now. I'll leave it for tomorrow.
I have not understood what you mean by 'Iron age', tosh
Yes, I know. But it's the content, not the title that I refer to as "Meta-physics". For the purposes of my thesis I adopted the term, but added a hyphen to emphasize the relationship of Mind to Matter. This is my definition, not a dictionary definition that equates Metaphysics with Spiritualism. The common usage is based on a mis-application of Aristotle's implicit distinction between the objective physical realm of Matter, and the subjective "meta-physical" realm of Mind. Volume Two was mis-interpreted, not as "after" Volume One, but as "above & beyond" Physics. Ari was not talking about spooky supernatural stuff, but mundane human ideas about nature. "Aboutness" is the essence of Consciousness. :nerd:
Meta-physics :
[i]The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).[/i]
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
Aboutness : "Aboutness and function, says Deacon, is not something added on top of things, but something that emerges from constraints on matter and ..."
http://somatosphere.net/2014/terrence-deacons-incomplete-nature.html/
Ok, maths and physics are not my strength, so bear with me.
A laser speed gun does measure how long it takes for the laser to be reflected off the car and return - this gives us an initial distance measurement to the device. To get speed, it still needs to take several of these measurements and calculate the rate of change. But unless the speed gun is directly in front of the car at all times, then what you’re measuring is the rate of change in distance from the device, which is technically not the actual speed of the car. The information manifests a triangular shape which changes over time: three-dimensional.
Yes, distance is always relative to the observer, so we need to reduce this relativity to a zero point in spacetime (ie. take its relative position into account) in order to obtain an objectively accurate measurement of speed for the car. It seems arbitrary in this example, but as I said before, if the device was attached to a police car travelling the other way, or perhaps a helicopter flying over it, then the four-dimensional information is vital.
So long as one variable is assumed constant relative to the others (ie. the device) - and all points are assumed to be on a plane - then you can reliably reduce this three dimensional information (with a zeroed 4th dimension) to distance over time (speed) for the passing car - that is, you can calculate the changing distance of the car over time relative to a zero point in spacetime.
Quoting Echarmion
And a shape without space isn’t really considered a shape, either, is it? Yet space and shape are different dimensions because a shape can change in relation to space, just as language can change in relation to meaning.
A term to describe each dimension is difficult to pin down, because they’re all relative. But I tend to list them in emerging order as: distance, shape, space, time, value and meaning. This makes the most sense to me, from my position. I think it’s important not to define the relations as such, though. They’re not always in order, can be chemical or qualitative in nature, and therefore not always spatially defined. If you think of them structurally in terms of ratios (without assuming quantitative variables), then each relation takes into account only some of the available information. The rest of the variables are ignored, zeroed or assumed constant, for instance, but they still exist.
I don't know if a little history of philosophy is helpful to our subject. Anyway, since we are...
Aristotle never made a distinction between inductive science and rational science. This is a further interpretation of his writings. His division was between science and opinion. Science is universal and necessary. Opinion is contingent and particular. Intuition is in the middle. It can help the intellect in the search for the first principles, but as a mere assistant to making hypothesis.
So Aristotle breaks the strict Platonic distinction between two worlds, the ideal and the empirical. This is an advantage for science because it encourages the empirical study of nature. And an obstacle -which lasted for centuries- because he subordinated natural science to metaphysics (in our modern language).
Modern science had to make a long journey to get rid of this pernicious influence by fighting with Aristotelian Scholastica. No modern philosopher (marginal exceptions are possible) tries to impose "first principles" on any science now. Science makes its way without internal restrictions (social determinants are something else). The only link between philosophy and science is a posteriori, not a priori. That is to say: interpretation, not guidance. Analysis, not synthesis.
In what sense is interpretation metaphysical? I do not see the point.
This is a marginal case I was referring to earlier. One of the battles of science against medieval scholasticism was the elimination of final causes (purpose) in the study of nature. The author you quote introduces this old concept -the purpose of Universe-, but does not make it clear whether he is interpreting science or adding a first, purely speculative principle. In the first case it would be a very personal interpretation, without any basis, in my opinion. In the second case he would be trying to impose a metaphysical principle on science. This is even much odder and more retrograde.
Aristotle did make a distinction between a> empirical Induction and b> rational Deduction, which roughly parallel the methods of a> Science and b> Philosophy. Are you saying that Philosophy is mere opinion, hence of no value to science? That has been the "opinion" of some prominent modern scientists. But, whether they realize it or not, most scientists use both methods.
Induction vs Deduction : https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/
Quoting David Mo
They are now called "axioms".
First Principles : A first principle is an axiom that cannot be deduced from any other within that system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_principle
Quoting David Mo
I'm not sure which "interpretation" you are referring to. A> That Science has rid itself of the "pernicious influence" of Philosophy, or B> That "Analysis" is superior to "Synthesis"?
Oh. Maybe you are questioning my implicit assertion that human opinions are metaphysical "interpretations", not physical Facts. The Closer To Truth TV series was a philosophy of science program, based on the understanding that Science deals not in final truths, but in pragmatic information, useful for specific applications. All Theories are philosophical conjectures. Ultimately, all human "facts" are somebody's "opinion". They are always subject to revision and update.
Apparently you didn't see the point of my reason for making a special definition of "Metaphysics" as it relates to Information Theory. But don't worry --- it's just my opinion. It doesn't matter to Science. :joke:
PS___Scientists are fooling themselves if they think their work has been purged from the pernicious influence of Metaphysics. Quantum Physics is full of such (literal) nonsense.
"Metaphysics is the science of immaterial Non-Things such as Ideas, Concepts, Processes, & Universals. Non-things are Agents (subjects), Actions (verbs), or Categories (adverbs, adjectives)."
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
Yes. But post-20th-century scientists --- since the advent of Quantum Theory --- are losing that battle. We discuss some of the Teleological implications of modern science in the various Teleology threads on this forum. :cool:
Final Causes : "But I was surprised to read that biologists especially (including Darwin himself) have begun to tackle even Teleology, the Fourth Cause. Is this appropriate in Modern Science?"
https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/1896/does-science-reject-aristotles-final-cause
Systems Theory : https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Systems_Theory/Goal_Structure_(Teleological_Behavior)
You're talking about argument types, not science types.
On the other hand, the author of the Stanford encyclopedia article (R. Smith) warns that the concept of "syllogism" and "epogee" do not exactly coincide with deduction and induction in the modern sense.
Finally, Moreau warns that, contrary to what Smith says, the inductive procedure is insufficient to scientifically demonstrate the first principles (Analytica priora, II, 23, 68 b 13-29). The induction guides knowledge. Only rational demonstration shows the necessity and causality.
The separation of science and philosophy does not belong to Aristotle. According to him, philosophy is the way to higher knowledge, or superior science. Not opinion, in any case.
Are you asking my opinion or Aristotle's?
Quoting Gnomon
Currently, the term axiom is reserved for the formal sciences, mathematics and logic. But the Aristotelian first principles covered the physical sciences.
Quoting Gnomon
The two options you propose do not relate to my question.
I was asking you why you consider the theories that interpret science to be metaphysical. For example, the Copenhagen school's interpretation of quantum mechanics versus Einstein's. Do you see any difference between metaphysics and philosophy of science? I think there's a difference.
I don't know what quantum mechanics has to do with final causes. I don't know of any studies about the purposes of elementary particles.
Quoting Gnomon
I suppose in biology and anthropology it is impossible to work without some teleological explanations. But they are always abandoned when they can be explained in terms of efficient causes. The role of final causes in Darwinism seems to me to be secondary, if it exists at all. Its explanatory principles are based on mechanisms of response to the environment. It was Lamarck who was the finalist. There are not many Lamarckian biologists today.
There seems to be retrocausation in qm. Not that there's much consensus about this. This is not the same as final cause, since this latter implies purpose, but it is almost as if the past must now conform to the future.
that was a response about remark made by another poster, that Aristotle was still in thrall to 'iron age ideas'. But I agree with your description of Aristotle's works.
Regards your remarks on teleology, have a glance at the Wiki entry on teleonomy.
Can you give me a reference? Thank you.
https://futurism.com/physicists-may-have-discovered-one-of-the-missing-pieces-of-quantum-theory
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-physicists-retrocausal-quantum-theory-future.html
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-retrocausality/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality#Quantum_physics
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1907.09688.pdf
And as an on-topic aside, the possibility of retrocausality is an issue I would put in metaphysics and since it is discussed and experimented around in physics, it seems to me that science does weigh in on metaphysical issues. Physics deals, for example, with ontology. It tries to get answers to fundamental issues that do fall under metaphysics' baliwick.
Thanks for the links.
As far as we can see, retrocausation is a hypothesis maintained by some isolated scientists -and pseudo-scientists- that is neither unitary nor admitted by the immense majority of scientists. Some of the formulations that were made in the past by respectable scientists (Feynman) have been refuted.
No conclusions of any kind can be drawn on such a poor basis. If we admit that possibility we would have to admit the action of consciousness on matter, the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin or telepathy, to cite some of the absurdities that have been defended as hypotheses by scientists.
Note that this skeptical comment comes from a proponent of the theory.
Nice Lonergan quote! Mathematics is the bridge between phenomenal experience and metaphysical ideas; this is because metaphysics is impossible without distinctness or distinction, and distinction is nothing but number.
You might find something here:
https://library.memoryoftheworld.org/#/search/authors/bernard%20lonergan
or here:
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=bernard+lonergan&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def