Yes, Collingwood. Example - materialism, realism, physicalism, idealism, anti-realism, monism, dualism, solipsism, and all the other ontological isms are metaphysical positions. Determinism and free will are also. I don't know if Collingwood would agree with these examples or not, but he's dead so I can say what I want. — T Clark

To say that these are metaphysical positions, you have to define "metaphysical" first.
I would agree if you said "these are conceptual positions", or "intangible positions", or even "non-physical positions".

However, saying that they are metaphyscal positions is a false. Metaphysics is not a concept, it is a bunch of thoughts (originally, at least), that Aristotle came up with, which he could not categorize.

So are you saying, that the list you said are things that can't be categorized in the categories established by Aristotle?

I have encountered no other useful, workable definition of "metaphysics". Ask any philosopher what it means. I have, and they all said "well, it is not defined."

What "metaphysics" has boiled down to, is a popular term for something irreligiously supernatural, something kind of other-wordly. This is the best acceptable use in the vernacular of common informal English. Is that what you meant?

You start to argue about that? On what basis? — god must be atheist

On the basis that the examples you gave, e.g. "my spirit is green," are not metaphysical statements.

. In this case it would be like two people observing and one saying they see a fork and another a spoon. — Darkneos

... and yet still agreeing that if they swapped places then they would also swap observations. The one would see the spoon, the other the fork.

Ok, you missed the point. Not my problem.

So quantum tunnelling ain't quantum physics. You learn something new everyday. :roll:

On the basis that the examples you gave, e.g. "my spirit is green," are not metaphysical statements. — T Clark

The examples you gave are also not metaphysical statements.

The claim by 180 Proof, or by T Clark was that metaphysical claims can't be evaluated for truth or falsehood. I said, that's false, and proved it. — god must be atheist

As far as I'm concerned, you've not "proved" anything yet, gmba.

If Wigner swapped places with his friend, what would change?

They agree as to what is the case.

and all the other ontological isms are metaphysical positions. — T Clark

Gotcha. But those are positions not statements. I assume you don't only mean statements like "materialism is true"; that's a weird sentence anyway, and hardly a statement of the position of materialism. Would you look for statements that maybe make up the position we call "materialism" and mark all of those statements as neither true or false?

I just like to see concrete examples. What's it look like in practice? Do you find yourself pointing to specific statements and saying "That's metaphysical and therefore not truth-apt"?

Axioms are statements not subject to empirical verification. Thus they are not true or false. — T Clark

Does a statement's not being subject to empirical verification entail that it cannot be true or false? Smells like positivist spirit! So in the spirit of the detractors of logical positivism, I can now ask whether your claim that a statement's not being subject to empirical verification means that it cannot be true or false, is itself true or false or neither?

Thank you for admitting to intellectual blindness.

Yours, of course; not mine, sir.

↪god must be atheist Yours, of course; not mine, sir. — 180 Proof

More proof of your intellectual blindness.

Problem of the criterion – you're aware of it's significance?

To say that these are metaphysical positions, you have to define "metaphysical" first. — god must be atheist

A presupposition is an assumption that establishes the context for a philosophical discussion.

This from "An Essay on Metaphysics" by R.G. Collingwood:

An absolute presupposition is one which stands, relatively to all questions to which it is related, as a presupposition, never as an answer.

Metaphysics is the attempt to find out what absolute presuppositions have been made by this or that person or group of persons, on this or that occasion or group of occasions, in the course of this or that piece of thinking...

...the logical efficacy of an absolute presupposition is independent of its being true: it is that the distinction between truth and falsehood does not apply to absolute presuppositions at all, that distinction being peculiar to propositions...

I think you are being disingenuous in your posts. You have participated in discussions in the past where these issues were discussed, so you should be familiar with the distinctions that are being made, even if you do not agree with them.

My one unending, drum beating message for almost all the time I've been on the forum has been that metaphysical statements are not true or false. They have not truth value. — T Clark

You talk past my point about counterfactuals. Metaphysical claims are empty if they are "not even wrong" as theories. But if they claim something measurable, then you have something to compare and contrast.

To say reality is continuous is on its own pretty meaningless. But saying it is continuous rather than discrete is where we can start figuring out how to start measuring that. That's why Fermilab built a holometer.

The Peircean wrinkle is that such dichotomies must themselves emerge into being. Or at least that is his metaphysical claim when if comes to his logic of vagueness.

But hey. That only means you can now oppose vagueness to crispness. You have established counterfactuality at that deeper ontological level – one that speaks direct to emergent holism as the counterfactual alternative to brute realism.

Now the scientific prediction is that the discrete and the continuous must be scalefree emergent states of reality. They become the mutually opposed limits on physical being.

And suddenly decoherent quantum physics and the Planck scale reciprocal constants make much more sense. That is exactly what we see in the conformal lightcone structure of the Universe. Integration and differentiation - as the continuous and the discrete – emerging over all available cosmic scales.

Axioms are statements not subject to empirical verification. Thus they are not true or false. — T Clark

That's where you are wrong. They can be true or they can be false inasmuch as they apply to reality falsely or truly. But their true falsehood or truth lies in their a priori adherence to rules of logic.

I think you are being disingenuous in your posts. You have participated in discussions in the past where these issues were discussed, so you should know the distinctions that are being made, even if you do not agree with them. — T Clark

This discussion may resemble other discussions. But my "catch" was that you said metaphysical statements can't be true or false. That is false.

(Thanks, by the way, to show the one definition of "metaphysics" that you want to use. I don't doubt that this definition can be used if all in the discussions accept it. I would accept it, if I understood it. But it does not take away from the fact that a metaphysical statement is NOT exempt from rules of logic. That includes a necessary adherence to the rule of the excluded middle.)

Are there any proposed experiments that could show which of locality and counterfactual definiteness is incorrect, or is it entirely dependent on an untestable interpretation? — Michael

No to the experiments. But it's worth noting that Bohmian Mechanics and objective collapse theories aren't interpretations, they are distinct theories. So in principle, they are testable against QM.

That leaves comparing the pros and cons of QM interpretations and theories per the constraints of no-go theorems such as Bell's Theorem. Here's a recent Bell-type no-go theorem (relevant to Wigner's Friend) that states all the assumptions:

Theorem 1. (No-go theorem for “observer-independent facts”) The following statements are incompatible (i.e., lead to a contradiction)

1. “Universal validity of quantum theory”. Quantum predictions hold at any scale, even if the measured system contains objects as large as an “observer“ (including her laboratory, memory etc.).

2. “Locality”. The choice of the measurement settings of one observer has no influence on the outcomes of the other distant observer(s).

3. “Freedom of choice”. The choice of measurement settings is statistically independent from the rest of the experiment.

4. “Observer-independent facts”. One can jointly assign truth values to the propositions about observed outcomes (“facts”) of different observers (as specified in the postulate above). — A No-Go Theorem for Observer-Independent Facts - Caslav Brukner

Assumption 3 is the superdeterminism loophole. Assumption 4 is counterfactual-definiteness.

@god must be atheist, @180 Proof, @Janus, @apokrisis, @Srap Tasmaner, @Darkneos

I'm getting way behind on responses and comments are coming in from all directions. I don't think this will answer all the questions out there, but it may answer some of them. It may at least make it clear what I mean when I talk about metaphysics. It comes from a post I made in the "Metaphysics of Materialism" thread a few months ago.

R.G. Collingwood wrote that metaphysics is the study of absolute presuppositions. Absolute presuppositions are the unspoken, perhaps unconscious, assumptions that underpin how we understand reality. Collingwood wrote that absolute presuppositions are neither true nor false, but we won’t get into that argument here. I would like to enumerate and discuss the absolute presuppositions, the underlying assumptions, of classical physics/materialism. In my OP, I specified only presuppositions relevant to science before 1905 would be included. Here is a provisional list.

[1] We live in an ordered universe that can be understood by humans.
[2] The universe consists entirely of physical substances - matter and energy.
[3] These substances behave in accordance with scientific principles, laws.
[4] Scientific laws are mathematical in nature.
[5] The same scientific laws apply throughout the universe and at all times.
[6] The behaviors of substances are caused.
[7] Substances are indestructible, although they can change to something else.
[8] The universe is continuous. Between any two points there is at least one other point.[/quote]
[9] Space and time are separate and absolute.
[10] Something can not be created from nothing.

My intention is not to reopen this discussion. I won't participate if anyone else decides to do so. I am only trying to show what I mean when I say metaphysics.

Prediction - This will not end well.

Problem of the criterion – you're aware of it's significance? — 180 Proof

Yes, but it's an epistemological problem AFAIK. So, I wasn't asking whether, if a statement has no possibility of empirical verification, we can know it to be true or false, but whether we can know that it could not be true or false.

This discussion may resemble other discussions. But my "catch" was that you said metaphysical statements can't be true or false. That is false. — god must be atheist

You participated heavily in this exact discussion four months ago.

You talk past my point about counterfactuals. — apokrisis

Can you clarify what you mean.

Metaphysical claims are empty if they are "not even wrong" as theories. But if they claim something measurable, then you have something to compare and contrast. — apokrisis

According to my formulation, metaphysics does not include things that are measurable. Can you give me an example of what you mean.

Okey doke. Here's a link to that discussion. Having a look at Collingwood. Cheers.

@apokrisis

While I defer to your knowledge of science, I would point out that the question as to whether QM has metaphysical interpretations is not itself a scientific question, which means that no matter how great your scientific knowledge, that will not put you in any better position to answer it. Philosophical questions generally are not susceptible of definitive answers; if they were philosophy would have long since been done and dusted.

Yes, but it's an epistemological problem AFAIK. So, I wasn't asking whether, if a statement has no possibility of empirical verification, we can know it to be true or false, but whether we can know that it could not be true or false. — Janus

So, a non-epistemic "true or false"? :chin:

Quantum physics says something more, that the real-unreal dichotomy is old, outdated, and useless.

I would point out that the question as to whether QM has metaphysical interpretations is not itself a scientific question, which means that no matter how great your scientific knowledge, that will not put you in any better position to answer it. — Janus

Interesting. Is this right? Could we not say that the physicist Sean Carroll (for instance) is in a better position to answer whether QM has metaphysical implications, primarily because he actually understands QM, which is surely the first and most necessary prerequisite to answering this question? And presumably he would see far more clearly than others what the actual gaps in QM are likely to be, where the science 'runs out' and the point where the metaphysical interpretations can begin.

because he actually understands QM — Tom Storm

Assuming that's a thing people do.

But knowledge and understanding are on a scale anyway, so it's tempting to say that you only need to know enough about how QM works to know what kind of theory it is and how it intersects with metaphysics, so there should be a level of detail below which physicists will care, but for philosophers these are differences that don't make a difference.

In theory, but in practice a lot of us just aren't clear what sort of animal QM is.

And presumably he would see far more clearly than others what the actual gaps in QM are likely to be, where the science 'runs out' and the point where the metaphysical interpretations can begin. — Tom Storm

But on the other hand, will he recognize metaphysics, or where metaphysics should go, when he sees it? Or will scientists always perceive gaps as places to be filled in with more science later? The working hypothesis ought to be the latter. I doubt there is ever a clear point at which you can't do any more science, and it's probably best not to think, even in theory, that there is a lawn for us to chase them off. So maybe not recognizing the opportunity to go metaphysical is a feature rather than a bug.

So I'm back to thinking that philosophy is defined as whatever's left over, that it's whatever science hasn't been able to do much with yet. A mere science incubator — or nursery! — as it always has been. Maybe that's okay if we take that role seriously and try to raise good responsible little sciences.

Another good one:

So maybe not recognizing the opportunity to go metaphysical is a feature rather than a bug. — Srap Tasmaner

What does it mean to “go metaphysical”. The word is being used a lot, but do we all have the same understanding of it?

Drawing a hard line between domains of human inquiry seems a mistake. I’m happy when folk just show some good knowledge of the history of metaphysics and then take a certain kind of scholarly approach that melds logic and evidence. It is an attitude of “rational inquiry” that seems easy enough to recognise when it is being employed.

Then if we must draw a tighter line - one meant to rule out theism, idealism, logicism, and other forms of speculation with low empirical content - then we can say we are natural philosophers, starting from the viewpoint that the Cosmos is something of the nature that science typically believes it to be. A deliberately loose definition, but one that emphasises how one ends up having to think about things in the light of the models of reality that prove “unreasonably effective”.

Even within science, there is plenty of metaphysical speculation that just seems plain woo to me. This is the “maths gone made” type thinking that gives you the many worlds interpretation, the ergodic principle, the cyclic universe, and so on.

The reductionist and mechanical basis of most scientific models does then lead to these “exploding landscapes” as the model don’t incorporate their own bounding constraints. They are not holistically closed in the way that a systems description requires.

So from my point of view, much of the metaphysics within physics is fundamentally muddled because physicists are unused to thinking outside this particular box.

But in terms of being freely speculative, I don’t think you could find any other fields like cosmology and particle physics that really let rip in an institutional way. It is the hot zone of metaphysical speculation, even if only sometimes for the also institutional reason that Big Science needs excuses to keep its Big Funding rolling. :lol:

So I'm back to thinking that philosophy is defined as whatever's left over, that it's whatever science hasn't been able to do much with yet. A mere science incubator — or nursery! — as it always has been. Maybe that's okay if we take that role seriously and try to raise good responsible little sciences. — Srap Tasmaner

Many may see the job of philosophy is to be anti-science - its challenger rather than its supporter.

That critic role is also helpful - especially when informed and focused on Scientism.