There could have been many first causes. In theory, there could be first causes happening in the universe now that we're unaware of. But much like multiverse theory, its something we really can't test easily, if at all. — Philosophim

It is my understanding of quantum mechanics, that matter and energy are continually being created and destroyed from nothing and to nothing in the quantum vacuum state.

meta-metaphysics — Janus

There's already a term for meta-metaphysics. It's "metaphysics." As I noted in a recent post, it's metaphysics all the way down.

Whereas in a lot of modern thinking, the idea of there even being 'an eternal order' is passé. Positivism says straight out that metaphysics is empty words, and a lot of people agree. I think you feel the pull of something beyond - hence your attraction to the Tao Te Ching - but find it very frustrating and difficult to pin down or articulate what it is, as you say in your post. — Wayfarer

I don't think I am searching for "something beyond." I'm looking for the most mundane, scotch tape, macaroni and cheese thing there is. Metaphysics is not something beyond, it's mayonnaise, salt and pepper, those chicken cutlets on the counter in the kitchen. As you can see, I'm late for dinner. Metaphysics isn't beyond, it's before.

I've started two threads prior to this one about defining specific philosophic terms. Those were for "mysticism" and "consciousness." The conclusions I came to for those two terms is the same one I've come to for this one - I don't need to understand them better, I need to find a new word, because the old one doesn't work any more, generally because they're hung with so many different and discordant meanings and connotations that they obscure more than they enlighten.

Next time I am confused about a term, I'll know how to handle it. Don't try to understand it. Don't start a new discussion. Just come up with a different word. That, by the way, is why there are so much dumb-ass jargon in philosophy. Too many people like me wanting to wipe the slate clean.

What do you think is shiba the next rockstar? — TheQuestion

As far as I can see, all the digital currencies are just pyramid schemes. The coins have no intrinsic value, so when the bottom drops out, and it will, you'll left with a hand full of turd. Do you think you are one of the few who will be able to jump in and jump back out at just the right time to make a fortune? If so, you're are probably wrong.

But what is the goal here? To arrive at a definitive meaning of "metaphysics"? How will we know when we arrive there? Seems to me on par with trying to find the world's longest sentence -- as soon as you get there, you can also add a word. — Xtrix

Metaphysics, in Collingwood's sense, is very important to me. It is central to my understanding of the nature of reality and our relationship to it. In order to talk about it effectively, I need a good word for the idea I'm trying to get across. I've spent years here on the forum trying to force the word "metaphysics" to fit that bill, but, as everyone acknowledges, it just means too many different things to too many different people. The epiphany I've just had is that I should just give up. Screw it. I'll make up a new word. Here's some ideas:

[1] Potrzebics
[2] Stuff n' things
[3] Collingwood's metaphysics (C-metaphysics)
[4] Craptastics
[5] Rigamarole

I think I'll use number 3.

Quite. Unfortunately, it's less precise while also being more effort. So as a model, it's objectively worse, and there is no situation in which it would be preferrable to use it. But I take your point. The standard is the one that modern physics applies to itself, primarily, and applying it outside of that domain can be a bit absurd. — onomatomanic

As I said, I understand the point you are trying to make.

Which if you feel that way, is fine. But why? — Philosophim

For the reason I described - I thought my point was not central to your argument and I didn't want to send your discussion off on a tangent. Here are a few thoughts. I haven't written about this much, so this is not well developed argument:

The idea that causation is not a good way of thinking about how the word works is not a new one. Bertrand Russell wrote about it more than 100 years ago.

Sometimes it seems like all of philosophy comes back to the infinite regress argument. I've been surprised at some places it has shown up. People act as if it makes a difference, but it seems more of an aesthetic affectation than anything substantive. It seems like more trouble than it's worth.

The pool table is a metaphor often used to clarify the idea of causality. It represents a very simple closed system with no energy input from outside except for a single specific force applied at a specific point at a specific time. Nothing in the real world is that simple or that isolated.

In reality, if events are effects at all, they are caused by multiple, independent, long chains of events. Practically speaking, in almost any realistic real-world situation, those chains are impossible to chase back more than a step or two, it that.

Most of our understanding of the world is based on statistical effects. It's not the action of two balls on a pool table, it's the mass action of trillions of molecules in a tank. Pressure and temperature are not caused by molecular motion, they are defined by it.

I've run out of steam, but there's more I'm sure.

Models approximate reality. Newton's model doesn't approximate it as well as Einstein's, so it's worse in that sense. But it's also considerably lower-effort, which is a point in its favour. Choosing a model to apply is like choosing a tool to use: The optimal choice depends on the job at hand. — onomatomanic

By that standard, Ptolemaic astronomy isn't wrong, it's just less precise than Kepler. Which is ok with me. I understand what you're trying to say.

Interestingly enough, Newton wasn't wrong. It was simply not precise enough for large bodies. You can take the theory of relativity and reduce it down to Newton's equation for regular sized bodies. It is evidence that certain equations are useful for particular scales, but breakdown in others. — Philosophim

A quibble.

Fair enough, I am presupposing some knowledge here. — Philosophim

I know what causation means. I am familiar with pool tables. I don't think that's a good model for how the world, or causation, works. No need to go any further into it or send your discussion off on a tangent. I just wanted it to be clear that your assumption is not self-evident.

Ask the person who you're debating with what they mean by metaphysics. Get them to define their particular terms. Phrases are digests of complex simple ideas. The act of doing philosophy should be to breaking down those phrases into complex simple terms with the person who you are discussing with. You're not debating the phrase, you're debating the underlying logical components. Those transcend any labels or ideologies. — Philosophim

I agree. The failure to do as you specify is the cause of many, most?, of the misunderstandings and disagreements here on the forum. Discussions often end up being derailed by what you call "debatingi the phrase."

In short precision is a very significant aspect of scientific theories. An example: Newton's gravity theory was imprecise when it came to predicting the planet Mercury's behavior. Enter Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and it solved the problem - Mercury's orbit could now be predicted precisely. — TheMadFool

No. The relevance of precision in this case is that precise measurement of Mercury's orbit showed that Newton's theory was not imprecise but wrong.

Either all things have a prior cause for their existence, or there is at least one first cause of existence from which a chain of events follows. — Philosophim

I don't follow the logic of your discussion, but that doesn't matter, since I don't see why this is true.

That's actually valid. Academics do it all the time. — Artemis

So, what you're saying is that I am a brilliant, towering genius. Thank you. Thank you very much.

It seems the problem with the term is here to stay. — Manuel

My only problem with the term was that I couldn't get people to use it the way I want them to.

It just seems to me that we could come up with all manner of rules and principles that are perhaps internally intelligible, but don't apply to the reality we actually deal with. Like solipsism. It makes a strange kind of sense, but it doesn't compute with the data available to us. — Artemis

That's the problem. We have many definitions, sometimes incompatible with each other, so we have to choose one. Or leave the topic ambiguous. — Manuel

As I noted in my previous post, I've solved the "metaphysics" problem once and for all, at least for myself. It's taken years, but I've finally figured out how to handle it. The only metaphysics I'm really interested in discussing is metaphysics as define by Collingwood:

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

From now on, I'm just going to use the term "C-metaphysics" to denote that usage. I'm serious. I mean it. You guys can all go fry ice. I don't care what you say....No.. No.. La, la, la, la, la, la, la...

I really am serious.

there's no technical notion of metaphysics. — Xtrix

I don't think that's true, unless I misunderstand what you mean by "technical." Collingwood's definition fits the bill:

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

That's what I want to talk about when I talk about "metaphysics." Maybe I'll just change the word so it won't get so confusing. I'm going to start calling it "Collingwood's metaphysics," "C-metaphysics" for short.

Seriously. That's what I'm going to do from now on.

Good poem - "Reason." Good poet - Carl Dennis.

I hope I never speak ill of you,
Dependable homely friend who prods me gently
To turn to the hour that’s now arriving,
Not to the hour I let slip by
Twenty years back. No way now, you say,
To welcome a friend I failed to welcome
When she returned to town in sorrow,
Fresh from her discovery that the man
Who seemed to outshine all the others
Could also cast the densest shade.

You’re right to label it magical thinking
When I say to a phantom what I never said
To flesh and blood, as if the words, repeated enough,
Could somehow work their way back to an old page
And nudge the silence aside and settle in, a delusion
Not appropriate for a man no longer young
At the end of a century where many nations
Have set many things in motion they can’t call back
Though the vote for reversal is unanimous.

I’m glad you ask, clear-sighted Reason,
Before what audience, if my speech can’t reach her ears,
I imagine myself performing. Who is it
I want to convince I’d do things differently
This time around if the chance were offered.
You’re right to say that half an hour a day is enough
For these gods or angels to get the point
If they’re ever going to get it, which is doubtful.
Right again that if part of myself
After all my efforts still needs convincing
I should leave that dullard behind
With the empty dream of wholeness and move on.

I should move along the road that is not the road
I’d be moving along had I said what I didn’t say
To someone who might have been ready to listen,
But a road as good, you assure me, Reason,
One that might lead to a life I can be proud of
So the man I might have been can’t pity me.
Thanks for contending I can solve the problems
He may have wanted to solve but hadn’t the time for,
Preoccupied as he was with another life,
The one I too might be caught up in
Had I heard the words you now speak clearly
Just as clearly long ago.

Would you agree that what I'll call a naive worldview - that of a child or a caveman, say, developed on the basis of unaided senses and common sense - will be more static than what I'll call a modern worldview - developed on the basis of modern equipment and insight? This appears obvious to me, as things that seem simple at the scale of the unaided senses invariably turn out to be complicated at other scales. — onomatomanic

A naive world view might be less complex, but not necessarily more static. I don't think static vs. dynamic is a good distinction to describe the situation.

I like all the quotes you provided. If you take them all, add all the ones I included in my post along with 1,000 more I could have provided if I wanted to take the time, you get an, at best, impressionistic picture of meaning that looks like one of those paintings done by elephants. Maybe that's the best we can do.

The problem is that I want to talk about a very specific sense of the word, the one I presented in the OP. I'd be happy to call it something else, but that would only make things worse.

there is a knowable external, objective reality; truth represents a correspondence between external reality and some representation of it
— T Clark

I reject both of these, because I think the "subject/object" distinction, though very old, is not very useful. So I guess that rules me out of discussion. — Xtrix

Those statements were presented as examples of metaphysical statements, not as metaphysical positions to be discussed. The point of this thread is to discuss the meaning of the word "metaphysics" not to discuss any particular metaphysical issue unless it is relevant to the meaning of the word.

You can't do much with this though. I have noticed you like to make divisions. A break-up can be made into physical stuff and metaphysical stuff. But together they form a whole bigger than their parts. — Verdi

You and I just had a similar discussion in another thread. As I noted, I've started this so the participants in that discussion can all work from the same meaning.

Are you suggesting that the change I'm talking about is less a binary contrast between un-scientific and scientific approaches, and more an ongoing process that takes place within science just as much? If so, the point is well taken. — onomatomanic

Sort of. The contrast between stasis and dynamism is one that gets argued about in many sciences. Catastrophism vs. gradualism. Cycles vs. progress. One will be up for a while, then the other will reassert itself. Everyone knows evolution just toot toot toodles along. Then in the 1970s they discover that the Cretaceous extinction 65 million years ago was likely caused by the most catastrophic of all catastrophes.

Which is right? Neither? Both?

To account for this, our models tend to become less and less static over time. — onomatomanic

I don't know if that's true or not.

I like philosophizing about knowledge, but I don't need to know anything about it. — Verdi

This conversation has been fun and interesting.

It's no battle we are fighting. — Verdi

Does this seem like a battle to you? I thought it was a discussion. I've been friendly and civil.

Here I disagree. — Verdi

What can you offer to back that up against my testimony of 30 years of daily, nose to the grindstone, data collection, management, and use when I had to face the consequences of being wrong in very concrete, professional, financial, and personal terms. I know what it feels like to be wrong. I don't like it.

Here you misunderstood what I read. I read you have to make divisions. But what's divided should be kept also. It's the mutual interaction between the divisions, science and philosophy, that gives the quality absent from each apart. The fire that can only be produced by a lighter with gas only (science) and a lighter with a firestone only (philosophy). — Verdi

I don't think I misunderstand, I disagree, at least in part.

First - Making distinctions can be misleading - agreed.

Second - Some distinctions, such as the one between philosophy and science, are important and useful.

I suppose the most straightforward example of the former is the Newtonian take on motion - that, without dissipative effects like friction, a body, once in motion, will stay in motion - replacing the Classical take - that the natural state of a body is to be at rest. — onomatomanic

This seems like an artificial distinction to me. Here's the first law - "A body continues in its state of rest, or in uniform motion in a straight line, unless acted upon by a force." "Continues in its state" seems pretty static to me.

It is my understanding that Einstein believed so strongly that the universe had to be static and eternal that he invented a fudge factor, the cosmological constant, to explain why it didn't collapse. Then, in the late 1920s, Edwin Hubble observed cosmological red shifts and concluded that the universe is expanding after all. Apparently Einstein was relieved he didn't need the cosmological constant any more.

Something similar happened in geology in the 1950s and 60s. The idea that continents might move had been proposed a number of times in the past, but there was no mechanism for that movement that was considered plausible. Then the theory of plate tectonics was developed. After that, the idea that the continents can move is part of our fundamental understand of the world.

True. In ancient Greece they were torn apart and we're left with the mess. So, they are separable, and in that sense no unseparable whole. What I mean though is that the whole is a wholistic whole, to which qualities can be assigned not present in one of both. If I have two lighters of which one contains gas only but no brimstone, and the other vice-versa, I can't light my cigarette with either of them. But combined, I can light it up. — Verdi

By this logic, we should go through the world not making distinctions. Not separating the whole into parts. But we do, and we can't not. I assume it's wired into the circuits at a very early stage of evolution. Might that lead to confusion and misdirection? It does all the time. It's a fundamental human intellectual foible. If you look too closely at the plants, you miss the ecology. If you look too closely at your face in the mirror, you don't notice your zipper is down.

It's the hand played on this forum. It's even called the philosophy forum. Why shouldn't there be a place for me? You don't say this directly, but I sense this from your wording, and that's all I can cling to. — Verdi

Of course there's a place for you on the forum. And there's a place for you in this discussion. I have bad news for you - Denial of the value of philosophy is a philosophical position. A claim that metaphysics is not needed is a metaphysical statement. You're trapped.

Beyond that, I think the philosophy/science distinction is a useful and important one. I've seen many discussions go haywire because participants fail to know which is which.

I don't deny philosophy or attack it, not at all. It's a pity though that no attempt is made to regain the connection with the stuff it talks about. Regaining the assembled whole doesn't destroy philosophy nor science. It merely brings to bear unimagined new qualities. — Verdi

I doubt that "no attempt is made to regain the connection with the stuff it talks about." When making distinctions, it's important to recognize the importance of putting the cuts in appropriate places and also to recognize when making distinctions does not clarify the situation. I think some of us here do that. You can make distinctions without loosing sight of the whole kit and caboodle.

It can be a usefull one. But for making the distinction what is metaphysics or physics, one needs to know both first, because the division can't be made if there is nothing to divide. — Verdi

Agreed.

In order to trust knowledge, you don't need epistemology. You need to know that that knowledge works out fine for you. Knowing about the knowledge involved, or the methodology one must use for approaching a problem will only paralyze you. You may claim that epistemology or methodology are exactly what philosophy is about, and that that's the stuff discussed here, but philosophy is not invented to restrict knowledge and its gathering. Philosophy is meant to set free from restrictions. Or at least to further scientific knowledge. — Verdi

I spent 30 years as an engineer understanding and using information, knowledge, in order to make decisions about actions in the real, expensive world. I have a strong understanding of how knowledge works at a very concrete level and how to use it to choose the right thing to do next. In engineering, data collection is sometimes separate from data validation, data processing, and data usage. Different people often do each of these separate tasks. It is the engineer's job to know how everything fits together and to see that it does.

So... Yes... Epistemology is real and important and the distinction between knowledge and epistemology is real and important.

Also, welcome to the forum.

Looking at other such "debates" from that angle, this match recurs, I'd say: Biblical literalists presumably imagine the Earth as more or less unchanging, except for the effects of The Flood and catastrophism of that ilk; science says it changes both globally (temperature-wise, first and foremost) and locally (plate tectonics, and so forth). Flat-Earthers imagine it at rest, under a celestial dome; science says it spins and wobbles its way along a multitude of superimposed orbits. Steady-Staters imagine the universe as homogeneous and isotropic in time as well as in space; science says Big Bang. — onomatomanic

This seems like a very simplistic characterization. It seems like you're trying to make a distinction - static vs. dynamic - which isn't 1) represented by your examples or 2) useful.

I think there is an interesting logical jump here which may require some scrutiny first. While in biology the result of the scientific method can be characterized as 'dynamic', the scientific method itself is actually not necessarily 'dynamic' at all. It can be considered very conservative, even 'static' in some aspects since it usually prefers to take the proven as basis, and always reaches into unproven with keeping the utmost respect to the 'proven

This is from the comment you provided from the science forum. I was thinking something similar - I don't know what you mean when you say that science is dynamic vs. static.

Philosophy and science form an inseparable whole. I don't know the word for that whole (naturalism?) but the both shape each other and to have a good understanding you need both. On their own they are empty talk. — Verdi

Ok..., but... Somebody else pulled them apart and we're left here to deal with it. Again, the hand we're playing. Also, nothing is an "inseparable whole." In a sense, metaphysics is the process by which we divide the original, primordial inseparable whole, the Tao perhaps, into apples, electrons, and mutual funds.

Beyond which, I think the distinction between metaphysics and science is a useful one. If I'm going to use knowledge to make decisions about actions in the real world, I have to have a good idea of how much I can trust that knowledge. In order to do that, I need to establish and enforce rules for information gathering and processing. That's one of the things epistemology is.

So, what would you people say is the most moral course of action in this situation? Where should she go? — Amalac

This is a thoughtful, generous, realistic, clear, moving, and deeply self-aware description of your situation. It allowed me to try to put myself in your place. In my mind, I substituted myself for you and my children for your sister and reran the tape. I have no advice for you or any moral opinion. I can only tell you what my heart tells me I would do, or rather, what I would not do. There is no way I could ever decide to cut one of my children out of my life. I could never tell myself it was not my problem. I would do something and continue to do something until something worked or until... All that is easy to say. Maybe I'm fooling myself. Who knows what I'd do if it actually happened.

I know - children are different than siblings. I have two brothers and one sister, all of whom I love. All of whom are 50 years old or older. What would I do? I'd like to think I'd feel the same as for my children except that it would be less intense. I'd be able to spread the responsibility out among the rest of my family.

Again, easier said (me) than done (you). This is not a moral question. It is a question for your heart.

One piece of advice - never take advice from someone you don't know on a philosophy forum.

Any philosophy, be it eastern or western, is the love for talking about the specific knowledge contained in a specific knowledge system, be it science, the knowledge of the eight-fold way, the knowledge of nature and gods in the universe in a magical outlook, the knowledge of astrology, homeopathic knowledge, etc. You get the picture. — Verdi

Then science, under the influence of the very idea that there is a difference between knowing and the talking about it, like the idea got hold that there is an independent reality about which things can only be known approximately, like Plato's realm of an independent realm of mathematics. The stuff known likewise separated from the subjective talk about it. — Verdi

The philosophy of science is the talking about scientific knowledge, and it is this scientific knowledge that western philosophy is talking about. But science is a large area, an philosophy is talking about political knowledge. Philosophy of the mind is talking about the knowledge of the mind. Philosophy of math, physics, the law, economy, theology, history, language, philosophy about any subject taught at the academia, being taught at a separate faculty. Western philosophy is philosophy of science. Showing love for scientific wisdom, as is the usually ascribed meaning. The subject matter being science.

In short, western philosophy is a Grreek invention to separate the knowledge from the talking about it. A separation being present in western thought only. — Verdi

You've addressed the issue by explaining why the issue doesn't really exist or isn't really important, which is a valid philosophical and rhetorical strategy. We know stuff and philosophy is just talking about the stuff we know. But we are playing the philosophy game here. Here on the forum we think philosophy exists and is important. We think it comes before knowledge, in a sense that it's more important than knowledge. More basic.

So I think you've got it backwards. First comes the world, then comes metaphysics, then comes knowledge. At least that's the hand we're playing here on the forum. That's the hand I'm playing.

In any case, both are required to do science as we now do it and philosophy too. — Manuel

I agree that subject/object duality is needed for science, but not necessarily for philosophy. I don't think this is the place to go into that any deeper.

Rights should only be accorded to beings to whom the concept is meaningful. But this is not to say that all beings should not be treated humanely. — Wayfarer

I think rights are primarily about the one who grants those rights rather than the beneficiary. When I say that someone or something has a right, I mean that I have made a commitment to treat them in a certain way. When they said "All men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights..." they meant that they, the signers of the Declaration, made a commitment supported by a pledge of "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." That's what a right is, a declaration of commitment.

I'm not sure I understand. If you were to say the world is related to how we think about it, then that's fine. If we are thinking about ourselves the world is of secondary importance at best. — Manuel

I was getting a bit poetic, metaphoric, in my previous post. That can be confusing, but sometimes I can't help myself. I want to play.

As for your question - If I don't see my self as existing, that takes the support framework from around the world. Suddenly I don't know where I am. At what scale. Am I looking at galaxies or quarks? The whole subject/object distinction depends on me being at the heart of things.

I'd argue then when a scientific experiment reaches the theorum phase it is philosophy, for this and that together create 'it'(pronoun). — Varde

This distinction between scientific theorizing - the generalization of models and theories from scientific data - and philosophy has come up several times in this thread. I think they are different. Theorizing and model building are part of science, not philosophy. Maybe this sounds nitpicky, but I think it's important.

yes, perhaps I was too hasty, but nonetheless, a small edict on my point, a similar argument. — Varde

@Verdi

[joke]One of the two of you will have to change your name. It's hard to keep you straight. [/joke]

The philosophy of science is simple. Science tries to capture the natural world. By means of gaining knowledge about it. By examining the stuff that constitutes it. — Verdi

Most of what you write about the philosophy of science is about the goals of science. That's fine, but I don't think it's the most interesting or important part.

Once science and philosophy were not separated. Knowledge and talking about it were one and the same. In our time, I think philosophy should be more than just talking about science. — Verdi

You talk about the philosophy of science, but you don't really deal with the difference between that and science itself. This is one place you do:

And on and on. The philosophy of science includes the scientific methodology, which is just a quasi-scientific attempt to frame the whole scientific enterprise in the quasi-scientific language of The Methodology. As if the human enterprise, erratically, non-rationally, non-programmed, or even maybe randomly, evolves. Scientists try crazingly to stick to this method, but that's merely empty verbiage. — Verdi

I don't agree with this, especially the cynical tone. Epistemology, which the philosophy of science is part of, is not "quasi-scientific." It's pre-scientific, that's the point. Based on what you've written, it doesn't seem like you think the philosophy of science is very important.

Maybe a separate thread on the philosophy of science would be a good idea. In almost any discussion about science here on the forum, science and the philosophy of science end up being all tangled together as if they are the same thing. Which, importantly, they are not.