Metaphysics: Things we can know to be true about reality without the scientific method

[ProdglArchitect]

Metaphysics is simply one unproven premise followed by a series of assumptions.

This is, literally, the opposite of what I’ve seen from most serious metaphysical discussion. Most of the time they start from observations of the world, and work their way back towards a metaphysical cause. Aquinas is an excellent example of this.

 

[Wesrock]

There’s no depth to these objections. It feels like a surface impression.

 

[Wesrock]

ProdglArchitect:

Aquinas is an excellent example of this.

Yes, Aquinas is a perfect example. He begins in his First Way by stating that it’s evident to our senses that things change, but what appears to be true to our senses isn’t necessarily and objectively true. Things may not actually change at all, but it may simply be our perception of those things that changes. Without being able to tell the difference its impossible to push this line of reasoning any further.

We can’t prove there’s a world beyond our perception, yet we accept it. In fact, we can’t even prove it to the point that science actually makes objective sense in its predictions about reality, because scientific understanding has to run through the framework of our perceptions to begin with.

Anyway, Aquinas doesn’t just start with “things change.” The First Way, does, but you’re writing as if no consideration has been made as to whether the first premise is sound. Maybe there is no change. Or maybe there is no persistence. Or any number of things. While we can’t empirically test the nature of reality itself, it doesn’t mean we just make an arbitrary assumption or can’t ever know anything about the nature of reality. The beginning of metaphysics is not “things change.”

In Aquinas’ Third Way he argues that there are things for which it is possible for them not to exist. But there’s absolutely no evidence that this is true. As I stated earlier, to prove that this is true one would have to present a counterfactual…a reality in which the thing didn’t exist. Since that’s impossible, the whole argument is based upon an assumption.

So Aquinas presumes the nature of reality in his attempt to explain the nature of reality.

I take issue with your reliance on counterfactuals, but we can ignore that for now. Necessary and contingent in the third way did not mean the same thing they do nowadays. He simply meant some things begin to be, and some things have a tendency to eventually go out of existence. To corrupt. To not last forever. To be contingent is to have a tendency to not eventually no longer be (at least, no longer be the same thing substantially as what it was before)… At least, that’s what it meant in context of the Third Way.

 

[Damian]

the principle of non-contradiction

Idea born out by our language we use. This only works when everyone agrees on the definitions of the words used. All that agreement on definitions gets you to is to come to logical proofs. However, if everyone agrees on my terms and definitions for a logical truth / conclusion, did I just define something into existence? No, No I did not. I can have all the logical proofs I want and everyone can agree on my logical proofs, but when applying that conclusion to reality, it’s reality that lets me know if that conclusion is actually part of reality or not. I can’t define something into existence. It has to first exists for it to be part of reality and then I go look for it’s affects on reality to find it through logical conclusions to filter down how to look for it in the most efficient means. Remember, every hypothesis ever presented was logically correct to the person presenting it. Does that now mean that every logically correct hypothesis matched what reality actually was before we investigated? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It’s reality that tells us what is possible, not our logic.

one can know that if there were absolutely nothing

Claim about something in reality. Again, it’s reality that tells us what is possible regardless of our logic. Since we have never had an example of a true “Nothing”, it is irresponsible to assume we can conclude what a “Nothing” can and can not do. Again, it’s the assumption the hypothesis is correct without ever running a test to see if reality matches our logical conclusion. Reality is the arbiter of truth, not our logic. Our logic just helps us narrow down the search or refine the experiments so we don’t waste our time on absurd testings.

Metaphysics stands for beyond or after physics

So outside of reality? Never had an example of that. So how is this different from every other made up universe from the comic books? Can you demonstrate that this is even possible? We can imagine what it would be like, but that doesn’t mean that is possible in reality. Just like how we can imagine Hogwarts. Doesn’t make Hogwarts exists or even possible for existence.
The unmoved mover just points to a first cause, doesn’t point to a deity.

 

[Sophia]

Does it? The scientific method cannot test the purpose of an eye, yet in biology and medicine it is common to speak of it as having a purpose of seeing (relaying EM sensory data to the brain). But there is no strictly empirical way to test for purpose. Neither can the scientific method alone strictly measure or detect perceptual experiences. Neither is there any strictly empirical way to test ethics. Yet we can, through observation and reason, make qualitative conclusions about properties that can’t be measured.

The point here isn’t even about whether the eye has a purpose. The point is that the scientific method, by definition, is incapable of measuring qualitative properties of the physical world, if there are any. It’s not something the scientific method would ever be capable of measuring. It’s not simply a matter of needing more technology. That doesn’t mean there is any such thing as the qualitative.

Everything you said is correct. But none of what you mentioned are “objectively existing”. They are subjective assessments, which do not exist objectively.

A dish can have a certain amount of spices in it, “salt” for example. The amount of salt can be measured objectively. But whether the dish is overly salty, or too bland or just right is subjective, and as such it cannot be measured. There is no problem here. As a matter of fact, if we had the sufficiently fine measuring system, it might happen that simply performing the necessary measurements we could predict that dish “X” will be too salty for person “A” and too bland for person “B”. Of course there is no reason to develop such refined measuring method, even if it is possible. There are many possible advances for the scientific method, which offere better return for the time and money invested.

However, the proponents of religion speak about some objectively existing gods, angels and demons, and are unable to present some objective method to ascertain the validity of their existence.

 

[IWantGod]

Yes, Aquinas is a perfect example. He begins in his First Way by stating that it’s evident to our senses that things change, but what appears to be true to our senses isn’t necessarily and objectively true.

You are being very selective about what we experience on a daily basis, night and day. I wonder why? No, actually don’t answer that because i already know why.

Things are evidently changing. To deny that change is occuring, that each thought you have proceeds another, that biological organisms are moving around giving birth to other organisms and even evolving, that the universe proceeded and expanded from the moment of the big bang, that there really is such a thing as time and space, is not just to reject metaphysics, it is also to reject science. It is to assent to a contradiction.

Stop deceiving yourself. You can’t say that we cannot rely on our senses and then pretend to be pro-science.

Even if only one thing is changing, and all else is just an illusion, there is certain logical consequences to that which would require an intelligent uncaused cause in-order for change to exist.

 

[IWantGod]

Idea born out by our language we use.

Really?..

1. Intelligibility.

When faced with the experience of reality, the fact that things exist ( whatever their nature may be ), we are presented with the irrefutable fact that insofar as they have an act of reality they are not also their opposite. Ontologically speaking, we do not have a situation where a thing exists and does not exist at the same time. In other-words the very act of reality is fundamentally intelligible.

This is where intelligibility fundamentally begins for metaphysics. It is the evidence that we can apply the principle of non-contradiction to the act of reality universally.

 

[AlNg]

Because the principle of non-contradiction applies universally

No. that is not true. There are some statements which are both true and false, so the principleof non-contradiction would not apply to them. For example, a liar says “everything I say is false”. This was known and discussed by St. Jerome Homily on Psalm 115 (116B), translated by Sr. Marie Liguori Ewald, IHM, in The Homilies of Saint Jerome, Volume I (1-59 On the Psalms), The Fathers of the Church 48 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1964), 294

 

[IWantGod]

For example, a liar says “everything I say is false”.

This is not evidence that a contradiction can actually exist. If everything i say is false, then this is true about me but that is not same thing as saying that my lie (assuming that it is not mixed up with an element of truth) is both true and false at the same time. It cannot be true that i exist and at the same time be untrue. It is not the same thing as a square-circle.

 

[AlNg]

…everything i say is false…

If that is true, then it is false.

This is not evidence that a contradiction can actually exist.

Do mathematical statements really exist? Do logical statements really exist? Do they actually exist?

 

[neophyte]

In Aquinas’ Third Way he argues that there are things for which it is possible for them not to exist. But there’s absolutely no evidence that this is true

Wow. Just… wow… have you ever looked in a mirror? You’ve just called into question your ability to make any observation or any coherent asessment of fact.

walks off shaking his head

 

[AlNg]

You’ve just called into question your ability to make any observation or any coherent asessment of fact.

No he has not. He has said it is possible for some things, not everything. There is a huge difference.

 

[HarryStotle]

Metaphysics is simply the intellectual equivalent of a stone tool.

Ironic that you had to appeal to a physical object to explain away the pre-eminence of intellect in the understanding of reality.

It is by intelligence, a non-physical phenomenon, that we come to comprehend the workings of the physical world. ALL of our understanding is idea-based. Without ideas we would have no grasp on reality whatsoever.

So to characterize metaphysics as a “stone-tool” is comical – laughable, actually – considering that it is you who are attempting to establish the material world (complex stonework) as the only reality.

Even more comedic is that in order to conclude material reality is the ONLY reality, you would have to venture into the territory of metaphysics since observation of the physical world, by itself, doesn’t permit that kind of metaphysical conclusion.

True, the observable world is the only one we are permitted access to by our senses, but that would seem a limitation of human beings, not a limitation of reality, unless you are wont to believe that only what human beings observe can possibly exist.

That would be like the drunk searching for his keys under a lamppost and insisting that they must be there because the light is better in that place.

I suppose you have never heard the expression *Making your method your metaphysics.

If reality is limited by our capacity to observe it, then reality can be nothing more than what we are capable of observing, by definition. So the dependency is not that we strive to comprehend reality but that we dictate what reality must be according to our limitations.

Seems a very hobbled metaphysics you subscribe to at the same time as you deny subscribing to it.

 

[HarryStotle]

ProdglArchitect:

Except for that physics is limited to the study of physical reality. It cannot say anything about non-physical realities or experiences. It can’t even speak to the nature of the numbers it relies on, which are not physical constructs.

Physical reality is the only ontologically existing reality. I have no idea what you mean by “non-physical reality” or how can one “experience” that “non-physical reality” - after all we use our senses (and their extensions) to “experience” something. Numbers have no “nature”. They are abstractions, based upon the physical reality.

There are two branches of epistemology. One is the study of the objective, physical reality, which is based upon observations. It is called the “scientific method”, because all science relies on it. The other one is the deductive, axiomatic system, which is based upon arbitrarily selected axioms. This kind is abstract, it does not rely on empirical verification.

Metaphysics? Bah, humbug!

So the axioms are merely arbitrarily determined? In no way can they be verified as true or false?

Wouldn’t at least some axioms rely on empirical verification? That would mean they are not merely arbitrarily selected, would it not?

 

[HarryStotle]

Numbers are abstractions, they do not exist as ontological reality. In a hypothetical world without any beings who would be advanced enough to conceptualize - there are no numbers. You say that one plus one is two - as if that would be independent of the axioms of mathematics. But the axioms also do not exist, if there is no one to “invent them”.

This would be a good example of you doing metaphysics but doing it very badly. You are drawing conclusions about what does not exist in reality by your conception of reality as that which is purely empirical. Yet, your empiricism does not justify the conclusion that numbers do not exist unless you assume your empiricism is necessarily and metaphysically true.

To do so, you have to beg the entire question and argue with circular consistency. Empiricism must be true, says you, because you cannot empirically determine how it isn’t.

Nothing like assuming what you know to be true because you know it is.

I wonder what @oldnskeptical would have to say about that? I mean if he half lives up to his moniker.

 

[HarryStotle]

It doesn’t really matter where you begin, you’re going to run into the same problem…you have to presume something about the nature of reality in your attempt to explain the nature of reality.

And it is right at that point that you begin to do metaphysics, which you should now understand is inevitable.

The problem for you, however, is that not all metaphysics are equally presumptive. It isn’t merely that all beginnings are arbitrarily forwarded as if they have no connection to observable and non-observable reality.

Basic metaphysical principles – the law of non-contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason, to name two – are a far more solid starting points than merely assuming empiricism.

 

[STT]

Metaphysics is physics if physical reality is the only reality.

 

[neophyte]

No he has not. He has said it is possible for some things, not everything.

He explicitly denied that there is evidence that things exist that could have not always existed, but such evidence has been slapping him in the face almost continuously since he was an infant. He himself is one of those things.

 

[Sophia]

So the axioms are merely arbitrarily determined? In no way can they be verified as true or false?

Axioms are basic concepts in an abstract system. They are accepted to be true - by definition. Read on.

Wouldn’t at least some axioms rely on empirical verification? That would mean they are not merely arbitrarily selected, would it not?

I think that your understanding of axioms (and axiomatic systems) is deficient. Any set of basic rules, which are declared to be axiomatic are accepted as true. For example, the game of chess is an abstract system, and the axioms are the size of the chessboard (8 x 8), the pieces and the rules of the movements, along with the outcome of the game. All these are arbitrary, but once accepted, they are true - by definition. Propositions in that “world” are the games and the puzzles. They are “true” if you can achieve the position starting with the opening setup, and applying the rules of movements for the pieces.

Of course if you don’t “like” an abstract system, you can always create a different one. (Fairy chess comes to mind.) Whether it will be accepted, is not important. Whether it is “useful” is irrelevant. There is only one requirement in an axiomatic system: “the axioms must be without internal contradiction”. If it can be useful for some purpose, all the better. That would be mathematics. Some of the mathematical objects have a referent in the physical reality, others don’t. But axiomatic systems do not have to have a referent in the physical reality.

This would be a good example of you doing metaphysics but doing it very badly. You are drawing conclusions about what does not exist in reality by your conception of reality as that which is purely empirical.

Actually, this is the only way to do “metaphysics” correctly. The question of “but what is reality, independent from our senses?” is a meaningless question. Read up about the “matrix” problem.

 

[Sophia]

Empiricism must be true, says you, because you cannot empirically determine how it isn’t.

Not at all. Empiricism is true, because there is nothing else. How could you try to falsify the result reported by your senses? Because you can only rely on the result of what the senses report to you. If you wish to be skeptical about your senses, your position can be translated into the truly crazy proposition: “we cannot see BECAUSE we have eyes, and we cannot hear BECAUSE we have ears”, The senses are the “window” into the reality, not an impediment to learn about reality.

As a matter of fact all your assertions about God are founded upon your assumption of a “revelation”, which was supposed to have come from a person-to-person information exchange between God and some humans. Revelation is inherently empirical in nature… or it would be if it ever happened. If only you could have physical, empirical evidence for it, it would be wonderful. You should remember the aphorism: “Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu”. Of course we can extrapolate from the raw data our senses give us. But the starting point is always the senses.

Basic metaphysical principles – the law of non-contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason, to name two – are a far more solid starting points than merely assuming empiricism.

The law of non-contradiction is a law of logic and it refers to propositions. The PSR is not generally applicable, because it would lead to an infinite descent of explanations. There always must be a starting point for explanations, the “axioms” in a formal system, and the “basic principles” in physics. One basic (metaphysical) principle is the reliability of our senses (and their extensions).

Metaphysics is physics if physical reality is the only reality.

How do you plan to substantiate that there is non-physical, yet objective reality?