GE Morton wrote: ↑August 1st, 2022, 2:24 pm
3017Metaphysician wrote: ↑August 1st, 2022, 8:41 am
All kidding aside, after reviewing your latest response, we also maybe further apart than once thought. I have a host of questions for you, but before we even go there, one glaring 'deficiency' or concern was relative to the basics/nature of language and mathematics itself, and their existence. You implied they in-themselves were not metaphysical. Let's assume they are physical things (physical languages), how is that logically possible?
Not everything not physical is "metaphysical." I take "physical" to be that which is the subject matter of physics, which comprises matter and energy. "Matter" is whatever occupies a defined spatiotemporal location and has mass; "energy" is any force having a measurable effect on matter. Language and mathematics (which is just a specialized language) are neither matter not energy, and thus are not physical (though any verbal or written expression is physical). They are conceptual artifacts, products of the human imagination.
I take "metaphysics" to be a philosophical discipline concerned with presumed "realities" which "transcend," or "go beyond" physical realities, and even phenomenal realities --- (the raw phenomena of experience). Kant's
noumena is such a metaphysical reality. That one is defensible (because it is so minimal), but most "metaphysical" speculations are incoherent nonsense.
Language, mathematics are not "metaphysical." Neither is history, or art, or literature, or economics, or such things as games, or laws, or logics, or moral codes. All those are members of another large ontological category, namely,
human conceptual constructs.
For example, as it relates to the OP, are you thinking that there are abstract mathematical structures in the universe somewhere that have physical qualities?
No, except in the sense that they exist in human minds, and those minds have physical qualities (being the products of physical human bodies).
And specific to our discussion about the mind, when I was driving while daydreaming about the beach then crashing the car, was the beach 'physical'?
There was no beach; there was only a thought about a beach. You seem to be having a hard time distinguishing between those.
Is the Will (intentionality) physical too?
The "will" is a certain propensity to act, inferred from an observable action. It is physical in the sense that, as with all other mental phenomena, it is a product of physical brains.
With respect to propagation of the species, are you also maybe thinking there is 'physical information' somewhere that's encoded into (all) biological life forms?
Yes, there is information physically encoded in all (known) lifeforms, information that determines the physical properties and behavioral propensities of the organism. It is encoded in each species' DNA, and differs from species to species.
GE!
I'm glad to see you've re-engaged! There are so many glaring deficiencies in what little response you provided, it almost deserves a kind of 101 summary of things. I see you are kind-of wanting to go there, but your equivocation is making things worse.
In a nut shell, there exists both physical and metaphysical phenomena in the world. Be it cosmology and information (the perception/feeling of time, quantum tunneling, Higgs Boson/God particle, Hawking black hole paradox, PAP, non-locality, etc.) or the human mind (the Will, intentionality, sentience/love, abstract thinking, etc.) there are all sorts of abstract structures that exist. Take music and music theory/composition for example, are they qualities of the mind (Qualia) that are physical? Is the language of music physical? You mentioned mathematics, how can that in-itself be physical? Did you know that both music and math have little if any biological survival advantages? For example, do we need to know the laws of gravity to evade falling objects in the jungle? Is time and gravity, the actual thing-in-itself, purely physical? Similarly, tell me how both knowledge of physics and music theory confers any biological survival advantages.
You may be conflating, or at least dichotomizing your view of physical/metaphysical phenomena. Again, your comments only beg other questions concerning the nature of reality, not to mention permanence and change.
Mathematical truths are unchanging truths, purely objective, and do not depend on how we feel about them for their truth value. In language, a priori analytic truths are similar. Yet, both are logically necessary to describe (and to a lessor degree) explain the world around us and its existence (physical/metaphysical). Math itself, is permanent. What is permanent must remain forever the same, like mathematical and objective truths as found in language. A bullet point summary may help you:
1. Math is objective
2. Math doesn't care what people thing about it (necessarily)
3. Math is metaphysical
4. Math is an unchanging truth
5. Math describes the universe
6. Math has no Darwinian survival advantages
7. Analytic propositions are the same (process of deduction/a priori) as the nature of Math.
Now, with respect to language, you seem to be a bit confused. In certain aspects of reality, language itself cannot change. Certainly many new concepts can evolve and new words/meanings can be developed (i.e., urban dictionary), but the meaning of those established concepts/words themselves have to stay the same and cannot change. If they changed, there would be no coherence in any communication. Yet, the world around us is in a constant state of change. A simple example of that inconsistency would relate to the simple act of speaking or writing. If we took change literally, as in everything is changing around us, one cannot even discuss anything absolute since no permanence exists. The illusion of time works similarly, but that's yet another metaphysical discussion for another time.
You mentioned the Will and biologically coded information. I'm confused with your response. Please explain in detail how information necessary for propagation and the will, is considered to be is all physical? What is physical that strives for existence? Doesn't everything strive and press toward existence? Please explain the
infinite willingness, facility, and exuberance with which the will to live presses impetuously into existence under a million forms everywhere and at every moment, if you can. And explain it exclusively in physical terms. Otherwise please consider these questions:
1. Is the will a metaphysical ineffable phenomenon?
2. Are feelings of desire, wonder, intention, etc. metaphysical qualities (Qualia) of consciousness?
3. Can the will be objectively explained?
4. Does the Will have similarities to quantum coherence in nature (biology and physics)?
5. Is the will yet another manifestation of biological propagation?
6. If the essence of the Will and its subjective nature, includes the will to live, what is objective about it?
7. Does this notion of Will presumably exist as a causational force not only subjectively/emotively
but have an independence beyond observable things-in-themselves?
8. Does the Will have any Darwinian biological survival advantages?
9. Does the Will to live precede the intellect (logic)-see Voluntarism?
10. Is the concept of Emergence a genetically coded Will for both animate and inanimate matter?
Finally, with respect to your comment about daydreaming, what you are suggesting doesn't square with reality at all. Are you saying that driving while daydreaming and crashing, was caused intentionally? How can that be? For all that person knew, they were physically on the beach watching a cute babe swimming. He did not care about driving at all.
But if in all reality, he was not on the beach as you suggest, where was he?
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein