Metaphysical means that a claim lies beyond our current knowledge.
So the truth value of it is unknown. So no its not wrong.
In my comment I explain that , in order to avoid all metaphysical assumptions we will have to accept Objectivity as an observer dependent term based on the regular nature of reality that our methods and senses detect , register and verify.
Do you agree with that statement? — Nickolasgaspar

I envy your clarity of mind! I'm in a bit of a fog you see, as regards metaphysics. The Wikipedia article says metaphysics is about first principles, about what is fundamental, but for the life of me I can't detect a common thread that runs through the various topics that come under metaphysics. As far as I'm concerned metaphysics is just an assortment of unrelated ideas and a faithful translation of "metaphysics" should be "miscellaneous".

What sayest thou?

'Objective' means pertaining to the object"
— Nickolasgaspar

'Objective' means pertaining to the object
— Tobias

Gracias! I didn't know that!
— Agent Smith

:lol: — Hillary

:smile:

Well you are not wrong. Many subjects do fall beyond our current epistemology so miscellaneous would be a fair description.
Metaphysics as a term informs us for their currently unknown nature of those things.
Meta in Greek means After and physics (physika/modern epistimi/scientia thus science) so the etymology of the word does tell us what the term is all about.(not to be confused with the term Supernatural/what lies beyond the Natural).
Since we are unable to have answer about first principles or the ultimate foundations of reality, I always avoid to use Metaphysical assumptions in my philosophy.
I.e. I acknowledge that our claims often enjoy objective verification but I won't take the step and say that Reality is Objective. What we can say is that all our interactions with the world register Empirical Regularity and that allows us to do science, make descriptions produce predictions and technical applications through objectively demonstrable frameworks.

The problem with Philosophical forums is that most of their participants usually subscribe to the extremes. We have philosophical naturalists and objectivists that go all the way in to the metaphysical realm and make absolute statements about the Ultimate nature of reality and Idealists/supernaturalists that pull the rope all the way to the other side.
I prefer to remain a Methodological Naturalist (what we can describe objectively) and acknowledge that our Methods and Observations are limited, tentative, they could be wrong but its the only steady foundation and metric we currently have to evaluate our claims to a specific standard.

This is the only reason why I point out to that Objective Observation and Verification/Falsification is our foundations without underplaying the value of imagination in the construction of Hypothesis. Objectivity in our Observations is how we put in check our imagination (reality check) or reasoning our assumptions, how we evaluate different competing claims and how we recognize knowledge from arbitrary opinions.

Since we are unable to have answer about first principles or the ultimate foundations of reality, I always avoid to use Metaphysical assumptions in my philosophy. — Nickolasgaspar

Wow! I didn't know we could do that, sir/ma'am! You're the very soul of clarity as far as I'm concerned.

The rest of your post, superb! Isn't it better to stop arguing about, sensu lato, noumena and just focus our scarce supply of energy on the phenomena.

The sleep of reason begets monsters. — Francisco Goya

.

Metaphysics as a term informs us for their currently unknown nature of those things. — Nickolasgaspar

No. That's what physics or science is about. Not metaphysics. As the name implies, it's what comes after physics (as if physics is that important, quite a misnomer of dear Aristotle).

I am not arguing for a linear approach. I only argue for an order of importance of Objective verification in the process of justifying our Descriptions. Sure a theoretical quantity is always necessary.
This is why toddlers do not have the way to communicate concepts. They lack the theory but they also lack the observations that will allow the emergence of concepts.
Those depend on each other as you said, but your argument was not about the importance of theory, but on how fundamental imagination is.
We are off topic again. — Nickolasgaspar

I think we are actually not very far off. My original comment which you reacted to was that "we need fantasy and imagination too to establish our criteria for evidence". The reason is that ordering sense data needs more mental faculties that just perception. Imagination means 'forming an image' we need that because to make sense of our perception and establish something as 'fact' we need to isolate it from the rest of our perceptions. What we perceive is merely a whole bundle of impressions. The ordering is a mental activity, as we know from Kant.

Now in order to establish criteria for evidence, we need to be able to imagine a world other than we find it. We need to establish what counts as a marker for truth. In order to do that we need to think in scenario's and stories, what if we would not accept it, what if we would. That was my original remark. We were not talking about axioms and principles, but we can if you like.

Like all our principles and axioms, its an educated conclusion based on all available observations from the past and present and the success we get from our predictions. None of our faith based claims enjoys such epistemic foundations. — Nickolasgaspar

No, they are not. In order to come to a 'conclusion' we need a process of reasoning. that process cannot itself come from observation because this process of reasoning consists i applying axioms and principles. According to you they are based on conclusions obtained from observation. That is circular. The solution can be found in the debates between Huma and Kant. Those forms of reasoning can only be a priori.

Your angle projects this quality on the facts "'Objective' means pertaining to the object"...but again facts are neutral. The facts are what we evaluate to render the value of a claim. — Nickolasgaspar

Facts are not neutral. They are isolated bits of information, taken out of the context of a relationship to all kinds of states of affairs to use more analytic language. This process of abstraction is mental and already laden with value judgments. They are the result of a process to establish 'what matters'.

If we understand that simple fact then we can look out which characteristics render a claim objective or not. — Nickolasgaspar

Here for instance. You think your description of terms is neutral, but it is not. It is the description used in analytic philosophy. However continental philosophy might hold a slightly different conception. So too for the concept of imagination. Analytics like to strictly define terms, which is great of course. Continentals never cease to point out the historic origins of terms, which can be enlightening too.

I am sure you didn't know the work I expect from induction but if you read my post...now you know — Nickolasgaspar

I have an inkling.... it is classical pre-Kantian empiricism and it does not work. It lead to skepticism in the end, for precisely the reasons I outlined. you bootstrap the fundamental role of empirical data to empirical data itself. However the data will never tell you how to interpret it.

Now that holds a fortiori for the rules of evidence, as you seem to have conceded yourself. That was what my remark to @universeness was about.

This is the only reason why I point out to ↪Tobias that Objective Observation and Verification/Falsification is our foundations without underplaying the value of imagination in the construction of Hypothesis. Objectivity in our Observations is how we put in check our imagination (reality check) or reasoning our assumptions, how we evaluate different competing claims and how we recognize knowledge from arbitrary opinions. — Nickolasgaspar

We are not far off. The difference is one of nuance. I agree with everything here except that I think the last sentence paints a too simple picture. In many realms objective verification is not possible, for instance not in the field of law. I do hold onto the rationalist opinion that conceptual analysis matters too.

Well it is simple because we can not include all the scenarios in a generalization.
I believe that we can both agree human imagination can produce amazing things, superpowers, aliens, creatures of horrors, con artists, scams, car design, Hollywood movies etc etc
The only reason why we are able to demarcate fantasy from real life (and not everyone...check Hillary's picture of reality) is our ability to constantly compare the picture we receive from reality with the picture and the ideas our imagination produces.
If your argument is that without imagination and creativity our conscious states would never be so advanced....I am going to agree with that. My point is that "reality check" under specific principles allows us to see which imaginative ideas of ours has epistemic value and which is part of a "different scenario".
Listen, I am an interior designer and 3d artist. So I make my living by "exploiting" my imagination. I am doing this for 27 years.
Part of my job is also CAD design, meaning that along with my fancy ideas and renders I need to provide the technical designs that will allow those ideas to be realized in the Physical world.
So every day I can see economic budgets, static regulations, temporal regulations(dead lines),material properties, structural limitations taking a toll on the end product of my imagination.
Sure If I didn't have the ability to imagine things I wouldn't be in the business, but a more important ability is to conform your imagination to the rules of reality.
I knew we weren't far off but its hard work to present a position accurately and even harder to overcome the other side's preconceptions ( i include my self too).

lol.....

Your second, pretty good argument! :rofl:

Metaphysics is not just about words and their meaning. It's about the truth value of words. It's about what the words stand for. It applies to physics as well theology. Metaphysics and metatheology are quite alike.

Wow! I didn't know we could do that, sir/ma'am! You're the very soul of clarity as far as I'm concerned.

The rest of your post, superb! Isn't it better to stop arguing about, sensu lato, noumena and just focus our scarce supply of energy on the phenomena. — Agent Smith

-Well for me the important question is not if we can do that (be rational and reserve belief....thus reject all metaphysical worldviews until one can meet its burden) but why more of us don't see how reasonable this is.

All these metaphysical ideas (Philosophical Naturalism, Physicalism, idealism,supernaturalism, occasionalism, solipsism etc etc) are part of our system of beliefs for ages. We have observed zero advances in their supportive facts or our arguments.
People should allow them to be part of the History of Philosophy but they need to stop dragging them in our Philosophy.

What explains the persistence of this, what in your universe is a, delusion?

One fool can ask more questions in a minute than 12 wise men can answer in an hour. — Vladimir Lenin

what comes after physics — Hillary

Physics $\to$ Chemistry $\to$ Biology $\to$...

Yes. I should have written Physica. All forms of matter and their magic ingredients: physical charges (hypercolors, colors, electrics). It's all a crazy dance of charged massless entities!

One fool can ask more questions in a minute than 12 wise men can answer in an hour. — Vladimir Lenin

Are you the mad fool? He hasn't been seen here since you showed up...

As far as I'm concerned metaphysics is just an assortment of unrelated ideas and a faithful translation of "metaphysics" should be "miscellaneous". — Agent Smith

It is not at all miscellaneous. There are different schools of thought with a different definition of the object. At the fringes there will be there will be disagreement, just like there is with all categorization. Other than that it is pretty straight forward what metaphysics is, the study of the question that Aristotle posed: what makes a thing the thing that it is. So indeed metaphysics is the investigation in the fundamental structures of reality and, no less important, the conditions of our access to knowing these structures. Is that an uncontested definition? Certainly not. However all quibbles take as a point of departure Aristotle and Plato's questions. If it seems muddled to you I recommend you to study more metaphysics.

↪Agent Smith Well it is simple because we can not include all the scenarios in a generalization. — Nickolasgaspar

Is that post directed to Mr. Smith or me?

I believe that we can both agree human imagination can produce amazing things, superpowers, aliens, creatures of horrors, con artists, scams, car design, Hollywood movies etc etc — Nickolasgaspar

You take an everyday definition of imagination. That is not what I am talking about. We do not need to imagine aliens to account for rules of evidence. This is the STEP definition: "To imagine is to represent without aiming at things as they actually, presently, and subjectively are. One can use imagination to represent possibilities other than the actual, to represent times other than the present, and to represent perspectives other than one's own."

Now for any ability of forward looking, or assessing, one needs to know how things might be other than they are. Still the definition is too analytically minded for me. This article is already better: https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/imagination/v-2

Imagination played a role in the history of philosophy and means something like: to imprint. We need that to order impressions we get from sense data and literally 'make sense' of them. We need it to form ourselves a world. You skip this whole conundrum between the rationalists and empiricists and just put your eggs in the empiricist basket.
We certainly need imagination when drafting criteria for what counts as evidence. Accepting something as evidence entails counter factual reasoning: given information that points to a situation being a situation of Y, can it still be a situation of X? Or does this information conclusively prove Y?

Sure If I didn't have the ability to imagine things I wouldn't be in the business, but a more important ability is to conform your imagination to the rules of reality. — Nickolasgaspar

There are no 'rules of reality'. there is not rulebook given from the sky to tell you what reality is or isn't. especially since reality itself is a purely abstract concept devoid of any material content.. Moreover, you are incoherent on your own terms because you define imagination contrary to reality. Secondly, your example seems incoherent as well. Without imagination you as an artist would be out of business as well, so they seem equally important. It does not make sense to prioritize one over the other. As Kant stated: "Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions (sense impressions TA) without concepts are blind."

I knew we weren't far off but its hard work to present a position accurately and even harder to overcome the other side's preconceptions ( i include my self too). — Nickolasgaspar

It is hard work to present a position accurately.

All these metaphysical ideas (Philosophical Naturalism, Physicalism, idealism,supernaturalism, occasionalism, solipsism etc etc) are part of our system of beliefs for ages. We have observed zero advances in their supportive facts or our arguments.
People should allow them to be part of the History of Philosophy but they need to stop dragging them in our Philosophy. — Nickolasgaspar

Because you measure advance in metaphysics with the wrong yardstick. You want them to be displayed by evidence. However, metaphysics (epistemology) questions when evidence needs to be given, what can count as evidence, under what circumstances etc. Metaphysics informs our worldview and therefore questioning it from a certain worldview will lead to failure. You are asking the wrong question. As for "our Philosophy", I have no idea what you mean. Philosophy is not yours. Your division between history of philosophy and philosophy displays something else. An unhistorical view of philosophy, i.e., what is shown is your metaphysics. You think the history of a certain something is unimportant for the determination of that certain something, a claim I would contest.

So metaphysics is basically the follow up question to "what is it?" viz. "what is it really?" This particular, seemingly-improved-upon query being asked of everything under the sun, but specifically of certain universal paradigms/notions critical to the understanding of our world such as

1. Causality
2. Ontology
3. Identity & Change
4. Necessity & Possibility
5. Space & Time

From what I can tell, metaphysics is an attempt to get a handle on the conceptual schema that we utilize to comprehend reality.

Can you help me, preferrably with an example or two, how the aforementioned 5 topics in metaphysics constitute a framework for making sense of whatever all this is?

1. Causality
2. Ontology
3. Identity & Change
4. Necessity & Possibility
5. Space & Time

From what I can tell, metaphysics is an attempt to get a handle on the conceptual schema that we utilize to comprehend reality.

Can you help me, preferably with an example or two, how the aforementioned 5 topics in metaphysics constitute a framework for making sense of whatever all this is? — Agent Smith

This looks about right to me... These five categories are all aspects of what a thing is, not just what it accidentally is, but what it essentially is (this itself is a pair of metaphysical concepts).

The first, ontology: what is a thing. Is a thing its properties, or is there some essential 'thingness'(quiddity) what determines the thing. Ex. A cube of sugar. is it just a combination of whiteness, sweet taste, and cubical shape, or is there more? If there is more, ho can it be because if you take away all properties nothing is left, if there are just properties how come they seem combined in that one cube of sugar?

Identity and change: similar. we know the cube of sugar changes its properties all the time, little grains of sugar fall from it, changing its shape a bit. It may become old and the sugar stale etc. However, it is till the same lump of sugar, but if it dissolves in tea it is not anymore. When diid the change occur and what is the measure that determines essential difference?

Causality, we say that the heat of the water has caused the lump to become different from what it is, but the only thing we have discovered is that the two events always coincide. What makes us say one causes the other? Is that an empirically given fact and if so when did it happen, when are we allowed to make the generalization? In other words, is change something observable in the physical world or are mental operations necessary to effectuate this conclusion?

necessity and possibility, similar. are there worlds thinkable without causality or is it a necessary feature of our world and our mind? Is sugar necessary sweet or might there be a substance with the same chemical properties, but not sweet. Do we till call it sugar? I other words, what defines the thing and is that a necessary definition or a possible one. (I have severe difficulty with this subject I must confess).

Space and time are necessary conditions under which we perceive anything however we do not perceive space and time in anything except something in space and in time However for there to be something recognizable as something it needs to occupy space and time. So the question becomes are these categories pertaining to the object or of our perceptual apparatus? The lump of sugar is only recognizable as such because it occupies a different space from the cup of tea.

All these subjects are determinations of the conditions under which we recognize a lump of sugar as such.

Muchas gracias señor/señorita!

1. What is it? (Ontology)
2. What happens to it? (Causality)
3. Does it stay the same or does it become something else? (Change & Identity)
3. Does it have to be this/that way? Could it have been different? (Necessity & Possibility)
4. Where is it? When is it? (Space & Time)

An uncanny resemblance to the questions one would ask in threat assessment! :chin:

Metaphysics is not just about words and their meaning. It's about the truth value of words. It's about what the words stand for — Hillary

And not just about the truth value but the value in a more genera sense. In other words, metaphysics isnt just about what is true and false in words but about the conditions of possibility of a sense of meaning. A word does t just convey a truth value- what is or is not the case , but how something is the case.

An uncanny resemblance to the questions one would ask in threat assessment — Agent Smith

1. What is it? (Ontology)
2. What happens to it? (Causality)
3. Does it stay the same or does it become something else? (Change & Identity)
3. Does it have to be this/that way? Could it have been different? (Necessity & Possibility)
4. Where is it? When is it? (Space & Time)

1). It's a thermonuclear device!
2). It evaporates all of us!
3). It surely becomes something else! It could have been a flower.
4). Above you head, coming atya right now. Hide!



"about the conditions of possibility of a sense of meaning."

What do you mean?

What do you mean? — Hillary

Words are not identities , they don’t simply refer to concepts. They always produce a new, contextual sense of meaning. It is not just a question of what a word means, but how it means what it means. These aspects of concepts are hidden from view when we do physics , so we assume that. options like causal
determinism are completely coherent.

1. What is it? (Ontology)
2. What happens to it? (Causality)
3. Does it stay the same or does it become something else? (Change & Identity)
3. Does it have to be this/that way? Could it have been different? (Necessity & Possibility)
4. Where is it? When is it? (Space & Time) — Hillary

These are great examples of a way of thinking about reality that forgets the most important question. Not what is it but how is it. When one begins by assuming identity and existence prior to change and creativity one is forced to push aside the valuative aspect of meaning. What is needed is reversing the order between identity and change. We must place difference, change , creativity prior to identity. Identity is merely an effect of difference, not the other way around. Creativity is the the effect of a cause, the Will. Difference is prior to Willing. For this reason a god or gods isnt the condition. of possibility of creativity , but rather difference produces gods. They are mere effects.
This implants also on your notion of time , which also tries to generate change from identity rather than the other way around.

You know i like to quote , so here is a taste of what I’m talking about, from Gilles Deleuze:


“The natural sciences think time starting from movement; time is
understood as that which one has to presuppose in order to think the transition of something in space. Time is thus deduced from movement and movement is understood as the change in position on a spatial grid. This conception does not accord any signifi cant value to movement. After all, the moved thing only differs from the unmoved thing in that it has different numerical coordinates; it has not changed itself; it has not changed fundamentally. This implies that space, and thus also time, do not really infl uence the way in which change occurs; they are reduced to the neutral containers in which change or movement happen. Time and space are the frames within which change occurs.
The neutrality of time and space is then illustrated by the fact that they are understood as homogeneous entities; time and space are the same at every moment or position. Moments and positions are exchangeable. They only differ as variations on the same theme. This is the reason why Deleuze says that within this conception “all is given”,nothing new can ever happen.
Deleuze, in contrast, thinks – and he refers explicitly to Bergson here – that time is not the container in which things take place and in which movement occurs, but is movement or change itself. When time elapses, a thing does not only change its spatio-temporal position; it does not only change in a quantitative way, but also in a fundamental or qualitative way. Time is thus not the same at each of its moments.”(Judith Wambacq, Depth and Time in MP and D)

For this reason a god or gods isnt the condition. of possibility of creativity , but rather difference produces gods. They are mere effects. — Joshs

Unless gods are the creators of the material universe in which creativity develops as a natural process. These creative processes are needed for existence and temporally live life like the eternal gods. These gods are not the result of that same creative process but they are the result of reasoning to give our creative acts themselves a deeper meaning or reason. As such, creative acts, or life itself, cannot be explained scientifically, and because of that, creativity can't be achieved by computers, nor can computers or AI ever reach the conscious status they have in naturally evolved life.

As such, creative acts, or life itself, cannot be explained scientifically, and because of that, creativity can't be achieved by computers, nor can computers or AI ever reach the conscious status they have in naturally evolved life. — Hillary

It’s not computers that can’t produce creativity, it’s the moldy models we use to explain what the computers
are doing that are devoid of creativity.
I think that the science of enactivism and autopoietic self-organizing systems theory is a good start at explaining creativity scientifically. But that’s becuase they’ve updated their notion of the empirical and the natural. You model of physics is stuck in an older view of what science does.

:lol:

I think all living beings are beings that evolve between the periodic heat and cold of the Sun and the cosmic void, more and more away from thermodynamic equilibrium. All of them have to be enactive or autopoietic. How else can it be? But beneath all this activity, a basic substance resides to make this all possible in the first place. Our intelligences and actions do not differ significantly from all other forms of lifes. The bee is as intelligent as the whale or the humans, the ant or the chimpanzee. They all have there own habitats and niche. People are not bound to fixed patterns though. We design our own appearance (we are born naked), as well as our surrounding and inner being, the two of which enforce and shape each other. Computers and all we create, stem from naturally occurring processes but are themselves not naturally occurring processes, hence they are not creative. A theory of fundamental particles, the spacetime in which they live, is a thought process that corresponds, resonates with a real state of the world. Like all scientific theories and experiments associated. But these are all isolated resonances. They can only thrive in a larger process in which our whole being is involved and which can't be described scientifically itself.

It’s not computers that can’t produce creativity, it’s the moldy models we use to explain what the computers
are doing that are devoid of creativity. — Joshs

Computers are not naturally evolving processes. They are a product of these processes. Human products, that is. Naturally occurring processes can't be created. If you want to create creativity, you have to create a new universe with life evolving in it.

Computers and all we create, stem from naturally occurring processes but are themselves not naturally occurring processes, hence they are not creative. A theory of fundamental particles, the spacetime in which they live, is a thought process that corresponds, resonates with a real state of the world. Like all scientific theories and experiments associated. But these are all isolated resonances. They can only thrive in a larger process in which our whole being is involved and which can't be described scientifically itself. — Hillary

Computers are naturally occurring processes in the sense that all of their parts are naturally occurring and behave and age the one would expect of metals, silicon and plastic. A philosopher like Deleuze will argues that, while we are doing one thing with a computer( treating it as a non-natural , non-creative device) , its parts are busy making all kinds of natural, creative changes that we are oblivious to. Delving into the physics and chemistry of the parts of a computer is not enough to reveal its
creativity, ai. empirical present theories of physics and chemistry are based on dead matter. Eventually our natural sciences will catch up with where philosophy has arrived.

Do our theories simply ‘resonate’ with real states of the world, or are they designed to produce something absolutely new, that was never there before? Enacting is not just resonance. Knowledge is useful not because it copies pattens in the world but because it changes them. The only way to improve one’s ability to anticipate and predict events in a world is to rearrange the relation between that world and our experience of it. Knowledge is not a mirror or resonance , it is a constantly updated machine we are building.

You say we can’t describe scientifically the larger process our whole being is involved in. What about Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions? Can we describe a paradigm change, which gets to the essence of scientific ( as well as philosophical and artistic) creativity? Can we describe the basis of a gestalt shift? We can philosophically, and i. theory we should be able to scientifically, once we enrich our sciences.

Computers are not naturally evolving processes. They are a product of these processes. Human products, that is. Naturally occurring processes can't be created. If you want to create creativity, you have to create a new universe with life evolving in it. — Hillary

You are arguing that only living organisms are capable of creativity, because of their self-organization? I think the inorganic evolves also. Hydrogen evolved from
something simpler , and the higher elements from the lower elements. Organic molecules evolved from
inorganic. The inorganic components of the computer in front of you are still changing , albeit very slowly.