What is Metaphysics?

fresco,

My degree was joint honours with psychology, so I have studied Piaget's theory of cognitive development, and my acqaintance with cognitive psychology is more than superficial.

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I am not surprised that as "a graduate" interested in the "frontiers of knowledge" you think you can actually get away with a superficial acquaintance with physics or cognitive psychology. This attitude to rigour is an adjunct to the "dumbing down" process.

If the summer holidays were over, and if you were the convenor of one of my modules, my attitude would be completely different.

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You say you want to learn ? ...then have the sense to know that some of these references cannot be condensed into "digestible bullet points" for consumption of the educational masses with limited attention span.

So write longer posts... I don't mind that. I'm not asking you to write short bullet points, I'm asking you to explain things fully, and to respond to our questions and objections with further clarification.

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I don't intend to comment further here on these points. They are peripheral to this thread.

And nor do you intend to comment on the points we make which aren't peripheral to the thread.

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Jean Piaget (1926) describes that a child moves slowly from an "a-dual" to a more and more dualistic "world-view" and that it does not separate between an "object" and its "description" until the age of five or six. It rather believes that through learning a new "name" the object "appears" ("realism of names", Piaget, 1926). This world-view harmonizes well with the (Eastern) proposal of our reality as a "conventionally real" reality that has been constructed in interaction with other humans.

ANDREA CHRISTOPH-GAUGUSCH University of Vienna

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I came across an interesting quote from Karl Popper about the role of metaphysics in science:

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In science, problem situations are the result, as a rule, of three factors. One is the discovery of an inconsistency within the ruling theory. A second is the discovery of an inconsistency between theory and experiment - the experimental falsification of the theory. The third, and perhaps the most important one, is the relation between the theory and what may be called the "metaphysical research programme".

In using this term I wish to draw attention to the fact that in almost every phase of the development of science we are under the sway of metaphysical - that is, untestable - ideas; ideas which not only determine what problems of explanation we shall choose to attack, but also what kinds of answers we shall consider as fitting or satisfactory or acceptable, and as improvements of, or advances on, earlier answers.

By raising the problems of explanation, which the theory is designed to solve, the metaphysical research programme makes it possible to judge the success of the theory as an explanation. On the other hand, the critical discussion of the theory and its results may lead to a change in the research programme (usually an unconscious change, as the programme is often held unconsciously, and taken for granted), or to its replacement by another programme. These programmes are only occasionally discussed as such: more often, they are implicit in the theories and in the attitudes and judgements of the scientists.

I call these research programmes 'metaphysical' also because they result from general views of the structure of the world and, at the same time, from general views of the problem situation in physical cosmology. I call them 'research programmes' because they incorporate, together with a view of what the most pressing problems are, a general idea of what a satisfactory solution of these problems would look like.

Karl Popper: Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery, Edited by W. W. Bartley, 1983, Volume Three, page 161.

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agrote wrote:

Hume's 'problems' are only a problem if you think empiricism is the be-all and end-all. So what if we cant observe necessary connections? It doesn't mean there aren't any.

Hume thought necessary connections - between wholly distinct thigs - are not only unobserved and unobservable but unintelligible. If X and Y are wholly distinct then they're distinguishable. If they're distinguishable, then they're separable. If they're separable, then they can exist separately. And if they can exist separately, then they're not necessarily connected.

So he said. Roughly.

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esmagalhaes

Nice point.

This seems to be a corollary of an observation I have used in attacking simple "objectivity"....

Any two "things" are necessarily both "similar" and "different". In the extreme, they are similar because they are both "objects of comparison" and different because "there are two".

This leads to the position that both division and connectivity of "reality" are a function of "the observer". In as much that observers are "similar" then so is "reality" and vice versa.

Hume's point depends on "wholly distinct things". Mine implies this is a myth, hence the "unintelligibility".

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fresco wrote:

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Jean Piaget (1926) describes that a child moves slowly from an "a-dual" to a more and more dualistic "world-view" and that it does not separate between an "object" and its "description" until the age of five or six. It rather believes that through learning a new "name" the object "appears" ("realism of names", Piaget, 1926). This world-view harmonizes well with the (Eastern) proposal of our reality as a "conventionally real" reality that has been constructed in interaction with other humans.

ANDREA CHRISTOPH-GAUGUSCH University of Vienna

Thanks for the quote. Some of Piaget's claims have now been refuted; for example, studies have now shown that his stages of development were too simplistic, and that he often underestimated the cognitive capabilities of young infants. Do you know what evidence there is for the claims you've just quoted, such as realism of names? Do you know whether the above claims are still accepted by cognitive psychologists, or whether they have fallen out of favour?

esmagalhaes wrote:

Hume thought necessary connections - between wholly distinct thigs - are not only unobserved and unobservable but unintelligible. If X and Y are wholly distinct then they're distinguishable. If they're distinguishable, then they're separable. If they're separable, then they can exist separately. And if they can exist separately, then they're not necessarily connected.

But are what we call 'causes' and 'effects' wholly distinct things? I'm not sure about this.

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agrote,

I refer to Piaget's epistemology, not his experimental methodology, criticism of which is well documented. Piagetian stages per se are not the issue. There is a direct philosphical line which runs from Kant's concept of the a priori via Piagets self organizational schemata through to Maturana's autopoietic systems of which "cognition" is one example. Such a line encompasses Piagets "metalogic" behind "adaptatation", and the non-linear mathematics of modern "systems theory" which describes the sustainability and spontaneous restructuring of dynamic systems.

Such a philosophical or "metaphysical" trend takes "life" and "communication" as its starting points. Both "observation" and its constructs such as "material objects" and "physiological systems" are derivations from those origins, not explanatory bases for them.

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fresco wrote:

Such a philosophical or "metaphysical" trend takes "life" and "communication" as its starting points. Both "observation" and its constructs such as "material objects" and "physiological systems" are derivations from those origins, not explanatory bases for them.

I'm not sure I follow this. I think you're saying that material objects and physiological systems do not have any real metaphysical existence, but they are man-made concepts which we derive from... (this is where I get confused)... life and communication. I suppose I can understand how we might form concepts through communication. What do you mean by "life" here? It would be good if you could clarify this paragraph.

Going back to the quote about Piaget, assuming that he was right about infants thinking that objects "appear" when they learn new names, I can't see that this implies that reality is only "conventionally real". It makes just as much sense to infer, from the adult distinction between an object and its name, that there is a metaphysical distinction between an object and our concept of it. Why is the infant's experience a better indication of the nature reality than the adult's? I would assume that the infant simply has a poor grip on reality.

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agrote,

"Existence" is a metaphysical issue. You cannot talk about "real metaphysical existence". In the system I describe, "existence" involves "relationship between concepts. There are no "things" only concepts of things. The child gradually develops a concept of "self" relative to its concept of "the world". Language plays the primary role in conceptualization. Whence the major issues of "communication" and "social reality".

Perhaps this will give you some answers about "life".

http://www.tcd.ie/Physics/news/seminars/Schrodinger/Lecture3.html

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fresco wrote:

"Existence" is a metaphysical issue. You cannot talk about "real metaphysical existence".

I may have used the wrong terms, but I think my point still stands. Your quotation said that the infant's lack of a distinction between objects and their names supports the idea of a "conventional reality" made up only of concepts. I am suggesting that the presence of such a distinction amongst adults supports the idea that objects are "things", distinct from our concepts of them."

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There are no "things" only concepts of things.

How can we have concepts of things if there are no things?

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We never experience the world, only the results of our interactions with it (paraphrase of Heisenberg)

Human segmentation of "the world" comes largely with social interactions involving language. The abstract (timeless) labels for aspects of "reality" evoke functional "object permanence" relative to our lifespans, when in essence all is in flux. "Object properties" are expectancies of our projected interactions with "the world". These expectancies or "concepts" provide a network of social nodes (or a "semantic" network) which enables us to forward plan via dialogue (self with other,or self with self) "Knowledge" is successful aquisition of the "node map" thereby facilitating prediction and control. Paradigm shifts are consensual re-drawings of the map to account for altered expectancies and additional nodes and outdated routes.

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fresco,

You're re-asserting your position very elegantly, but you aren't really providing an argument for it. What reason is there to be a 'non-dualist' (or whatever this is called) instead of a realist?

And anyway, some correspondence between our 'understanding' of 'the world' and the world in itself is consistent with your view. I think I might even agree with the Heisenberg sentence... it seems to say that we do interact with a real world, even if our only access to it is mediated by our sensations.

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agrote wrote:

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There are no "things" only concepts of things.

How can we have concepts of things if there are no things?

How can we have concepts of things but no "things" if concepts are things? And if concepts aren't "things," what are they?

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agrote,

Non-dualism is supported by quantum mechanics. Reading Capra, the current ecological "fashion" would seem to favour it over naive realism.

"Reality" is always relative to species specific perceptual mechanisms. (Frogs starve to death surrounded by dead flies because their apparatus is tuned only to moving insects )To argue (from Heisenberg say) for some "ultimate reality" is functionally vacuous or metaphysically ineffable.

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By saying a "tree" is a "concept", I am implying that the linguistic token "tree" evokes expectancies for interaction with the world. For example in conjunction with the concept "my garden" , "tree" might evoke "root problemness" or "neighbour troubleness" or "attractive featureness". "Trees" do not exist without specific conceptualizers. There is no "platonic essence" of "a tree". There may be consensus regarding mutual expectancies of "treeness."

Apologies to those who have read this one.....

Croc Dundees Girlfriend: "Watch out, that mugger's got a knife !"
Dundee: Thats not a knife ! (Pulling out his own) "Now, thats a knife !".

....consensus is negotiable......concepts involve potential interaction.

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fresco wrote:

"Reality" is always relative to species specific perceptual mechanisms. (Frogs starve to death surrounded by dead flies because their apparatus is tuned only to moving insects )To argue (from Heisenberg say) for some "ultimate reality" is functionally vacuous or metaphysically ineffable.

You're using the term 'reality' to refer to perception, or percieved reality. Obviously our perceptions are relative to our perceptual mechanisms; that goes without saying. But just because frogs can't see the dead flies, that doesn't mean they aren't there in the real world. You seem to think that, since we and frogs have different perceptual experiences, there must be no absolute truth about what we are perceiving.

This is rather like one of the arguments for moral relativism... moral codes vary, therefore morality is not absolute. The problem with that argument is that moral variance can just as easily be explained by moral realism (or by error theory): moral codes vary because some people (or all people) get things wrong and hold false beliefs about morality. Similarly, the differing experiences of frogs and humans can be explained by saying that humans and frogs both see the same world through different kinds of spectacles. Our experiences differ not because there is no 'ultimate reality', but because our different sensory equipment filters our experience of that ultimate reality in different ways. We don't see everything that there is, and we sometimes (or often, or maybe even always) perceive things incorrectly.

I believe that our perceptions are just that: perceptions, not hallucinations which we all happen to share and agree upon. Our experiences are of reality, and we often share the same experiences because we inhabit the same objective reality.

I know I've said this before, but your view of reality simply seems to be solipsistic. Last time I said that, you agreed that solipsism is absurd, yet you didn't explain why your views are not solipsistic. Or perhaps you did, and I've forgotten. I'd be grateful for an explanation from you (or a link to an explanation from you) of why you are not a solipsist.

As far as I know, we're at a standstill here; I am aware of no independent reason to favour one view over the other (nondualism or naive realism), unless nondualism is in fact solipsistic. I'll have to look into Capra and see what the problem is with realism.

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Reality is not the result of "perception".It is the process of "living exchage" of organism with surroundings, perception being a significant part of such a process. If the activities of the organism are "the river current" and its surroundings are "the river bed" then reality is "the river".

Solipsism implies "individual existence". My model starts wth dynamic social reality and communication as a priori . Now it may be that such a model allows for "holistic consciousness" from the point of view of successive transcendent nested systems (Von Foerster), but the nature of such "consciousness" would be a far cry from that of the musings of an individual.

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So it sounds like you are a realist to some extent... would you say that other human beings, with whom you form a consensus about reality, exist independently of your experience of them?

The river bed still exists regardless of whether the water runs through it, right?

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Agrote, I agree that there is an ultimate reality, but the perception of that reality is not just our privilege (i.e., no more a human than a frog perspective). The experience of "ultimate" reallity consists of the perspectives of humans, frogs, flies, and all other forms of consciousness.
I believe that my experience, and everyone else's, IS reality rather than OF reality. To the extent that I realize this I am being "enlightened". To the extent that I think my experience is from a priviliged perspective I am being deluded. This is part of the mystical orientation as I understand it.
I do not think that we see reality through optical windows; we process sensations into experiences that differ from those of frogs because of our contrasting neural constitutions. You are holding onto naive realism, I suspect, because of the nature of your particular constitution; I reject that because of mine. Relativism exists as a feature of the Absolute.

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agrote,

"Self" and "others" mutually exist. "River beds" presuppose the existence of "rivers" i.e. acts of observation. Oberver and observed are two sides of the same coin. There is no "out there" without an "in here". As JLN says "experience IS reality". In systems terms, experience is "structural coupling". The concept of "the Absolute" corresponds to closure of the transcendent processes of "observer domains" or all "rivers" merging as a unity.

When considering "hallucinations" etc, look at theism in terms of "consensual reality" especially in the light of "denial of evidence". From the non-dualistic perpective arguments about "existence of God" are futile because they presuppose naive realism. "God" is a (functional) concept which mutually exists with a theist's concept of "self"......end of conversation!

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