This talk is about the "existence of time". If I understood correctly, the speaker rejects the relativity based block universe view of spacetime (s.t.), and seems to prefer the quantum mechanics based variable-future s.t. instead. Personally, the only resolution I know of is a larger block multiverse, with all possible s.t. states - if I am not mistaken, this has previously been suggested by Max Tegmark - this allows for both perceived variability per QM and also for a relativity based block.
Could quantum mechanics represent the physics of ‘time’ itself as a physical process with an emergent future unfolding photon by photon? In such a theory the movement of positive and negative charge forms a two dimensional boundary condition with classical physics representing processes over a period of time as in Newton’s differential equations.
At the micro scale quantum phenomena both change the past (quantum eraser) and provide a indeterminate future. This is a short time duration and not at the macro level because of coherence. We don't know the future because there are too many variable to figure out the further in the future you go. You cannot accurately predict what someone will eat for every meal next week you can predict they will eat something (baring catastrophe). This is no mystery. The block spacetime as a whole is not effected by quantum phenomena.
Why not do some experiments to decide between block,growing block, presentism etc? What! no experimental differences? Then this is all pointless metaphysical nonsense. Just different ways of describing exactly the same thing. Arguing about no differences at all.
+Paul Hill _I suppose there are two categories of people relevant to this one. First come those who think that the only questions worth bothering with are the ones that are amenable to empirical investigation, measurement, observation, and so on. Then there are the ones whose curiosity is not so limited._ The first part of the above is a mischaracterization of what I said. My concerns weren't that the concerns weren't "worth worrying about". You use this as a distraction from the point that I was promoting by making an ad hominin argument against my personality tying the mischaracterization to personality types and using it to conclude that I suffer from limited curiosity about the issues that had been discussed. It is then a straw man argument against in-curiosity rather than addressing my point that the situation is just having two different ways of describing exactly the same experimental/experiential circumstances. _True, theories like the ones discussed here cannot be settled scientifically. It may even be that they can never be totally settled._ But how can they ever be settled at all? Even partially? Neither one, by definition, has any more to say about the world that we experience than the other. Logical consistency? If either, or both, are found to be logically inconsistent then they could "prove" anything. Even that has empirical implications. _But that doesn't mean that they cannot be sensibly debated._ Actually it does. They cannot be settled by any information that can be sensed. The discussion is literally senseless - unrelated to our sensory input/experience. _The universe is under no obligation to present us only with problems of the sort our science can cope with._ This is pure rhetoric. Bringing up "obligations of the universe" means very little. It is another straw man since I certainly made no such claim yet it is introduced to very indirectly support your notion that differing descriptions of exactly the same empirical/experiential circumstances has an importance beyond the different emotional appeals to their promoters. Science can't settle the issue because there is none. Actually physics can't settle it, if we develop psychology enough then it ought to be possible to sort out what causes someone to have preference for one description over another when they are describing exactly the same experiences. _We are greeted by mystery and it seems churlish to say to it - "Go away! I'm not interested". I think this is a certain kind of short-sightedness._ I can only repeat here that it is not a "lack of interest". It is the denial of the of the assertion that it is any more than just different descriptions of exactly the same set of experiences. I suppose that you consider the character flaw of being short sighted going along with the previous adhomin criticism of limited curiosity. Finally... _But something more devastating remains. How about the following principle: . Is THIS idea itself empirically testable? No! It is tested all the time. Nothing has ever come out of such metaphysical "distinctions". Nothing that occurs in in the world of our experiences. Your terminology of "worth holding" is rather vague however so if you want to include the emotional satisfaction that thinking there is more to it then, in that sense, you might consider the non-worldly ideas worth having. Then is this principal itself just 'metaphysical nonsense'? It is certainly self-defeating. Unlike the far more sensible metaphysics discussed in the video, this silly slice of metaphysics rules out its self._ Science has advanced very well by not becoming lost in worrying about which of two entirely equivalent ways of describing something is the *true* description. P.S. I hope that I don't sound strident or come across as rude or pushy. If I try to parse everything to avoid the bluntness I'm afraid that it would become muddled. PPS. Are you the Paul Hill at WES? There's another Paul Hill in "Philosophy" the cosmetics company. Just curious.
+Paul Hill I'll address the really important issues first. I kidnapped Bill Nye - The Science Guy for my avatar. Not as an intellectual hero but because he has a fun , not terribly reverent approach. _Italics_ can be had by putting an underscore just before and after the intended text. *Bold* is accomplished by using an asterix in the same places. Now you should be able to *_EIGHT_* different levels of emphasis with the various combinations of lower case / uppercase , regular/italics and plain-face/bold. As for _You say, in response that, "It is tested all the time. Nothing has ever come out of such metaphysical distinctions". You then nuance that by adding, "Nothing that occurs in in the world of our experiences." That nuance is important because wouldn't the sheer fact that nothing in our experience has tested it, in your very own books, mean that it remains UNtested and indeed untestABLE? What other putative test would even count as a test, in YOUR account of things?_ What is tested is _the merit of having any metaphysical distinctions at all_, not which version of equivalent descriptions is "correct". If something has no empirical significance then it fails the test of having anything to do with our experiences. I believe that you are thinking that the test is which metaphysical description is correct/better. Of course there is no empirical test for that. There is a test though as to whether or not the "distinctions" make any sense at all. By definition of them being metaphysical they don't. In mathematics it is possible to have two very different mathematical descriptions of exactly the same mathematics. It's called an isomorphism. There is no ontological issue here, neither is considered right or wrong they are entirely equivalent. The visualizations/conceptualizations associated with each can be extremely different. Applied to physics we get matrix mechanics v wave mechanics, Lagrangian mechanics v Newtonian mechanics. In such instances both descriptions are equally correct - they make exactly the same predictions. Each can be derived from the other and visa versa because the terminology is well defined. They are informationally equivalent but not always equally convenient to use. One uses whichever version one prefers based on familiarity and simplifying calculations. simplifies the calculation. Metaphysics comes in when one claims that two different descriptions of exactly the same thing indicates a "reality" beyond our senses. In reality the "distinction" is literally senseless.
***** Yes it only shows up after "reply". It also goes away if you go into edit mode. _a) Almost everything in your post is philosophical. That doesn't make it wrong, (though I think much of it is) but it is philosophical._ You said something like this before, I think that you are overreacting to my concerns.My concern is with what is called metaphysics not philosophy per se. By metaphysics here I mean issues that have no hope of resolution by logical or empirical means. I trust that you do not equate philosophy with metaphysics. The proper role of philosophy is itself another topic. _b) You yourself have a metaphysic. It seems to be this: there is no reality beyond the empirical._ I think that I've peen pretty careful to avoid any such pronouncement. By the way the concept of reality has had problems since quantum mechanics. It is impossible for quantum "objects" to have values for their "physical properties" except at points of measurement/interaction/observation. It's not that we just don't know the values they can't have actual values. At any rate I do not profess the sentiment above that you attach to me. _c) The denial of a metaphysical statement is itself metaphysical._ If I were to claim that some metaphysical statement were actually false, yes. I'm not claiming that metaphysical statements can be shown to be false. My position is more like "Not even wrong." The problem I have with your statement above is the vagueness of "denial". There is a big difference between denying the meaningfulness of something that looks like a statement and claiming that the statement is false. "Twas brillig and the slythy toves did guyre and gimble in the wabe. " Isn't _wrong_. If I were to claim that it was _wrong_ then, as you say below, I'd have to have some understanding of it. It does however lack any literal meaning and that is why it is called nonsense. Fun nonsense, I'm not opposed to all nonsense. _d) You seem to skirt close to the old verification principle of meaning: only propositions, etc., that can be verified can be meaningful._ Those in metaphysics have to repeat this over and over, that the above is false. And that statements which cannot ever come under logical or empirical scrutiny have some sort of "meaningfulness." And where does this "meaningfulness" come from? As far as I've ever heard it is supposed to come from intuition or "reason" somehow. _e) The trouble is that one needs to know the meaning of any proposition already in order to tell whether or not it can be tested. It cannot, hence, be literally "senseless"._ Not quite. If the purported proposition has no empirical content, if it's "claims" are not , directly or indirectly, in any way amenable to observation/experience then that is what we mean when we say that something cannot be tested. We _*would*_have to know the meaning of a purported statement to be able to say that the statement was actually false. Meaningless statements cannot be tested. * I definitely disagree with your statement that have to know the meaning of a purported proposition in order to determine if it can be tested.* If that were true we would have to know the meaning of meaningless "statements" in order to determine if they could be tested. I however claim that meaningless statements cannot be tested *because* they are meaningless. It is also not possible to understand the meaning of a meaningless "statement". I would agree with the idea that we have to understand the meaning of a proposition in order to develop a test for it. _f) the above remains as is even if one replaces 'verify' with 'refute' or just plain old 'empirically testable'_ I agree that shifting these words around has nothing to do with the actual issue.
***** What I call metaphysics are concerns with any "assertions" that aren't logical or empirical in nature. The two "theories" of time in this video are both supposed to describe our experiences which we call time. Neither is presumed to be demonstratively incorrect. One doesn't say that there's only 10 hours in a day for instance. Both are supposed to be consistent with all experiences. I would then say that they are just two different ways of describing exactly the same thing, our experiences of what we call time. Does our ability to use different conceptualizations for exactly the same situation tell us anything about the things described? you can describe a square as a figure with four sides of equal length joined ar right angles or two equilateral triangles with a common hypotenuse (or a whole lot of other ways. None of the descriptions is more or less right , more or less wrong at all. One description or another may be more or less convenient depending on what you're up to in using it but it makes no sense to try to figure out which is better abstractly. They are very different descriptions of exactly the same thing but that's all. How are metaphysical distinctions any different? If a metaphysical claim goes beyond the experiences it is derived from where does the additional information come from? It isn't, by definition, needed to accurately describe the experience. If it makes any observable predictions that couldn't be made without it then it is a physical theory not metaphysics. You'll never prove it wrong because it isn't saying anything. But, not being sense related, it is literally senseless. Why a person may prefer one description over another is a matter for psychology. Metaphysics does have a very practical application in philosophy however. Philosophers have to publish something and metaphysics provides for endless discussions. Job security is enhanced.
+Paul Hill Thanks for a very thoughtful and detailed response. I'll provide my take "between the lines". Can Metaphysics Be Defended & Tested? Different Views on The Status of Metaphysics It may amuse you to be aware that there are even philosophers who are apt to decry metaphysics. Good for them! The so-called Logical Positivists did so. One big question in Philosophy in our own day is: Is metaphysics possible? And yes, many papers have been written on this, thus doubtless providing enhanced job security. There have also been philosophers - WVO Quine, in particular, who have thought metaphysics to be continuous with science. _I got kinda excited when I heard about his "The Two Dogmas of Empiricism". Somehow he was supposed to have "made metaphysics respectable again." I poured over the paper for a few weeks going over the arguments against the analytic synthetic distinction and the inscrutability of translation. In the end I agreed with him that the analytic synthetic distinction isn't always clear cut but it didn't seem like a big deal, ambiguities could be resolved by clarifying terms to whatever degree of clarity was desired. I guess that it seemed important because it hadn't been noticed before. The inscrutability of translation turned out to be nothing more than the other minds problem when dealing with translations._ The suggestion here is that metaphysics may point the way to further scientific enquiry. Thus, metaphysics becomes a kind of front-line thinking machine that may guide future research. _Science, certainly in the past, would use the concept of "things existing" which is decidedly metaphysical. It wasn't necessary though since it was just a shorthand for patterns of experience. Nowadays "things existing" is on really thin ice. Quantum mechanical predictions (and theory) are inconsistent with realistic accounts of nature. I believe it was Bohr who said that quantum mechanics (when it is needed for correct predictions) was the end of physical reality. Our concept of physical reality emerges from a descriptive system that forbids it! I think that this is about as wild as anything in metaphysics._ Like many, I don’t think I would go along with either of these groups. I think that metaphysics consists of substantive factual claims about reality. So, how would I defend it? _Based on the fact that "physical reality" has never been accessible and is now run out of town by quantum mechanics I hold any notion of factual claims about "reality" in considerable doubt._ Metaphysics is inevitable Firstly, I think that everyone carries with them a certain baggage of metaphysical presuppositions. These are many and varied. Here are some: _I'm not much persuaded by "everybody thinks" arguments. Truth is certainly not settled by popular vote. Even at that if you look at the historical record for what everybody thinks you might want to back away from it pretty quick. Over the haul of history do you think that "what everybody thinks" has a great track record on the shape of the earth, the earth going around the sun, etc?_ a) There exists a real world ‘out there’ independently of our minds. (This is Metaphysical Realism.) _As I've said QM indicates that our concept of reality is flawed/confused somehow. Our experiences exist, somehow and relating/predicting them over time has gone pretty well for physics._ b) Time flows like an ever rolling stream. _That's just a metaphor. I have no notion of time "flowing like a stream". Are we in the stream seeing the shore change or on shore watching things float away? Time is change. If nothing changed no time would pass. If anything changes time has passed._ c) We all have a self. _I've never understood exactly what "a self" is supposed to be. I'm conscious - is that what it means? I suppose that if a person had no consciousness at all then they wouldn't have "a self"?_ d) God exists. _You think that everyone believes this? Is the existence of God up for a vote?_ e) We have free wills. _Again there are a lot of people don't believe this. And there is much evidence that heredity and environment have enormous influence on behavior._ Given the prevalence of these beliefs, it is as well to bring them into the open and discuss them, so that we can come to decide whether they hold water. To do this (or bluntly to deny their truth) is already to be engaged in metaphysics. _Engaged_ *_in_* metaphysics is very different from engaged *_to_* metaphysics. You are confusing being engaged in a conversation about metaphysical notions with adhering to and using metaphysical notions to promote an argument/reach a conclusion. Engaging in a conversation/debate about football is not the same as engaging in (a game of) football. Wording that blurs the distinction is a way to completely discount everything that anyone says critical of the subject. _ _And besides, like I started , it doesn't matter who or how many believe something anyway. _ But Can Metaphysical Theories Be Tested? Of course they can. It’s just that the tests (except for the first two) are not shared by science. Here are four tests. Test One The theory must be internally logically consistent. If it is not, it should be adjusted or ditched. Test Two It should be logically consistent with anything else at all that can be said to be true. If not ..ditto.. Test Three We can see if it accords with what we take to be the best conceptual schemes that are use in talking about the world. We can then ask questions about this. (e.g., Do such schemes require selves and free wills as a precondition of the very intelligibility of these schemes?) Test Four We can even test them against experience - in a sense - though not by experiment or measurement, as scientific theories can. And I mean (often) tested against experience itself, not the objects of experience. For example, adherents of the Static Theory of time are obliged to re-interpret tensed statements into non-tensed statements. Very well, we can ask if our seeming experience of time’s flow can be eliminated as needed. Say one remarks, after a visit to the dentist, “I’m glad that’s now all over”. (Tensed) Can that statement be reduced to: “I am glad that the time at which I am making this statement is later than the time of my dental appointment”? (Untensed) In my own philosophical research, I examined certain phenomenological features of mental imagery to show that such experience could not plausibly be reduced to a mere cognitive state. So, metaphysical theory is in no way experientially neutral. _If you could show that the experiences one would have according to one theory, in some set of circumstances, were different from the experiences predicted by the other theory then great, that's science. If you can't do that then you haven't tested anything. You can call anything you want "a test", you can say that the theory is checked for spelling errors as a test. Logical consistency and consistency with other theories is not a test of the validity of the theory itself. Inspecting a car without trying to start it is not a test of whether or not the car will start._ _I believe that referring to "inspections" as "tests" is a way to convey an objective air to metaphysical notions. It makes them sound "testable" as if they were expressing something about experiential relationships. In an age when, after 300 years of overwhelming scientific progress, with results that, beyond providing "explanatory" satisfaction have changes virtually every aspect of life , human and nonhuman, life on earth it is natural to want to at least appear to emulate it's methods._ _This, and the example of equating someone engaging in a conversation about metaphysics with using metaphysical notions themselves, reminds me of Orwell's "new speak" in his novel 1984. He pointed out how language can be structured to obscure the very situations it is being used to describe. If you can think that merely talking about metaphysics is actually engaging in metaphysics and that metaphysical theories are testable then it's critics can be , must be, confused. This usage of terminology is generally completely accepted by whatever group it serves. The phraseology itself is simply used as a more or less unconscious tool and a way to establish a group identity. Questioning it risks expulsion from the group._ _In addition I don't think that even if metaphysical thinking is inevitable that it has any bearing on it's validity or desirability. Such a consideration isn't a justification for metaphysical concepts or theories. It doesn't even begin to have anything to do with validity. Death is inevitable that doesn't make it "correct" or "good". You might ask yourself why you would include inevitability as a substitute for validity. _ _All in all, metaphysical arguments and notions seem very appropriately described as being concerned about placing too much importance on equivalent descriptions of the same experiences. If they don't lead to different predictions, under identical conditions, then they don't differ at all about what they say about our world of experiences. _
George Ellis is on the right path
All his ideas makes sense
Time does not exist, how long is now? Only now ever exists.
This talk is about the "existence of time". If I understood correctly, the speaker rejects the relativity based block universe view of spacetime (s.t.), and seems to prefer the quantum mechanics based variable-future s.t. instead. Personally, the only resolution I know of is a larger block multiverse, with all possible s.t. states - if I am not mistaken, this has previously been suggested by Max Tegmark - this allows for both perceived variability per QM and also for a relativity based block.
Could quantum mechanics represent the physics of ‘time’ itself as a physical process with an emergent future unfolding photon by photon? In such a theory the movement of positive and negative charge forms a two dimensional boundary condition with classical physics representing processes over a period of time as in Newton’s differential equations.
I think it is seven F:s at 23:59, right? not 8.
At the micro scale quantum phenomena both change the past (quantum eraser) and provide a indeterminate future. This is a short time duration and not at the macro level because of coherence. We don't know the future because there are too many variable to figure out the further in the future you go. You cannot accurately predict what someone will eat for every meal next week you can predict they will eat something (baring catastrophe). This is no mystery. The block spacetime as a whole is not effected by quantum phenomena.
I thought he made it clear that the key change was observation of the wavefunction.
Why not do some experiments to decide between block,growing block, presentism etc? What! no experimental differences? Then this is all pointless metaphysical nonsense. Just different ways of describing exactly the same thing. Arguing about no differences at all.
+Paul Hill
_I suppose there are two categories of people relevant to this one. First come those who think that the only questions worth bothering with are the ones that are amenable to empirical investigation, measurement, observation, and so on. Then there are the ones whose curiosity is not so limited._
The first part of the above is a mischaracterization of what I said.
My concerns weren't that the concerns weren't "worth worrying about". You use this as a distraction from the point that I was promoting by making an ad hominin argument against my personality tying the mischaracterization to personality types and using it to conclude that I suffer from limited curiosity about the issues that had been discussed. It is then a straw man argument against in-curiosity rather than addressing my point that the situation is just having two different ways of describing exactly the same experimental/experiential circumstances.
_True, theories like the ones discussed here cannot be settled
scientifically. It may even be that they can never be totally settled._
But how can they ever be settled at all? Even partially? Neither one, by definition, has any more to say about the world that we experience than the other. Logical consistency? If either, or both, are found to be logically inconsistent then they could "prove" anything. Even that has empirical implications.
_But that doesn't mean that they cannot be sensibly debated._
Actually it does. They cannot be settled by any information that can be sensed. The discussion is literally senseless - unrelated to our sensory input/experience.
_The universe is under no obligation to present us only with problems of the sort our science can cope with._
This is pure rhetoric. Bringing up "obligations of the universe" means very little. It is another straw man since I certainly made no such claim yet it is introduced to very indirectly support your notion that differing descriptions of exactly the same empirical/experiential circumstances has an importance beyond the different emotional appeals to their promoters.
Science can't settle the issue because there is none. Actually physics can't settle it, if we develop psychology enough then it ought to be possible to sort out what causes someone to have preference for one description over another when they are describing exactly the same experiences.
_We are greeted by mystery and it seems churlish to say to it - "Go away! I'm not interested". I think this is a certain kind of
short-sightedness._
I can only repeat here that it is not a "lack of interest". It is the denial of the of the assertion that it is any more than just different descriptions of exactly the same set of experiences. I suppose that you consider the character flaw of being short sighted going along with the previous adhomin criticism of limited curiosity.
Finally...
_But something more devastating remains. How about the following principle: . Is THIS idea itself empirically testable? No!
It is tested all the time. Nothing has ever come out of such metaphysical "distinctions". Nothing that occurs in in the world of our experiences. Your terminology of "worth holding" is rather vague however so if you want to include the emotional satisfaction that thinking there is more to it then, in that sense, you might consider the non-worldly ideas worth having.
Then is this principal itself just 'metaphysical nonsense'? It is certainly self-defeating. Unlike the far more sensible metaphysics discussed in the video, this silly slice of metaphysics rules out its self._
Science has advanced very well by not becoming lost in worrying about which of two entirely equivalent ways of describing something is the *true* description.
P.S. I hope that I don't sound strident or come across as rude or pushy. If I try to parse everything to avoid the bluntness I'm afraid that it would become muddled.
PPS. Are you the Paul Hill at WES? There's another Paul Hill in "Philosophy" the cosmetics company. Just curious.
+Paul Hill I'll address the really important issues first.
I kidnapped Bill Nye - The Science Guy for my avatar. Not as an intellectual hero but because he has a fun , not terribly reverent approach.
_Italics_ can be had by putting an underscore just before and after the intended text. *Bold* is accomplished by using an asterix in the same places. Now you should be able to *_EIGHT_* different levels of emphasis with the various combinations of lower case / uppercase , regular/italics and plain-face/bold.
As for
_You say, in response that, "It is tested all the time. Nothing has ever
come out of such metaphysical distinctions". You then nuance that by adding, "Nothing that occurs in in the world of our experiences." That nuance is important because wouldn't the sheer fact that nothing in our experience has tested it, in your very own books, mean that it remains UNtested and indeed untestABLE? What other putative test would even count as a test, in YOUR account of things?_
What is tested is _the merit of having any metaphysical distinctions at all_, not which version of equivalent descriptions is "correct". If something has no empirical significance then it fails the test of having anything to do with our experiences. I believe that you are thinking that the test is which metaphysical description is correct/better. Of course there is no empirical test for that. There is a test though as to whether or not the "distinctions" make any sense at all. By definition of them being metaphysical they don't. In mathematics it is possible to have two very different mathematical descriptions of exactly the same mathematics. It's called an isomorphism. There is no ontological issue here, neither is considered right or wrong they are entirely equivalent. The visualizations/conceptualizations associated with each can be extremely different. Applied to physics we get matrix mechanics v wave mechanics, Lagrangian mechanics v Newtonian mechanics. In such instances both descriptions are equally correct - they make exactly the same predictions. Each can be derived from the other and visa versa because the terminology is well defined. They are informationally equivalent but not always equally convenient to use. One uses whichever version one prefers based on familiarity and simplifying calculations. simplifies the calculation. Metaphysics comes in when one claims that two different descriptions of exactly the same thing indicates a "reality" beyond our senses. In reality the "distinction" is literally senseless.
*****
Yes it only shows up after "reply". It also goes away if you go into edit mode.
_a) Almost everything in your post is philosophical. That doesn't make it wrong, (though I think much of it is) but it is philosophical._
You said something like this before, I think that you are overreacting to my concerns.My concern is with what is called metaphysics not philosophy per se. By metaphysics here I mean issues that have no hope of resolution by logical or empirical means. I trust that you do not equate philosophy with metaphysics. The proper role of philosophy is itself another topic.
_b) You yourself have a metaphysic. It seems to be this: there is no reality beyond the empirical._
I think that I've peen pretty careful to avoid any such pronouncement. By the way the concept of reality has had problems since quantum mechanics. It is impossible for quantum "objects" to have values for their "physical properties" except at points of measurement/interaction/observation. It's not that we just don't know the values they can't have actual values. At any rate I do not profess the sentiment above that you attach to me.
_c) The denial of a metaphysical statement is itself metaphysical._
If I were to claim that some metaphysical statement were actually false, yes. I'm not claiming that metaphysical statements can be shown to be false. My position is more like "Not even wrong." The problem I have with your statement above is the vagueness of "denial". There is a big difference between denying the meaningfulness of something that looks like a statement and claiming that the statement is false.
"Twas brillig and the slythy toves did guyre and gimble in the wabe. "
Isn't _wrong_. If I were to claim that it was _wrong_ then, as you say below, I'd have to have some understanding of it. It does however lack any literal meaning and that is why it is called nonsense. Fun nonsense, I'm not opposed to all nonsense.
_d) You seem to skirt close to the old verification principle of meaning: only propositions, etc., that can be verified can be meaningful._
Those in metaphysics have to repeat this over and over, that the above is false. And that statements which cannot ever come under logical or empirical scrutiny have some sort of "meaningfulness." And where does this "meaningfulness" come from? As far as I've ever heard it is supposed to come from intuition or "reason" somehow.
_e) The trouble is that one needs to know the meaning of any proposition already in order to tell whether or not it can be tested. It cannot, hence, be literally "senseless"._
Not quite. If the purported proposition has no empirical content, if it's "claims" are not , directly or indirectly, in any way amenable to observation/experience then that is what we mean when we say that something cannot be tested.
We _*would*_have to know the meaning of a purported statement to be able to say that the statement was actually false.
Meaningless statements cannot be tested. * I definitely disagree with your statement that have to know the meaning of a purported proposition in order to determine if it can be tested.* If that were true we would have to know the meaning of meaningless "statements" in order to determine if they could be tested. I however claim that meaningless statements cannot be tested *because* they are meaningless. It is also not possible to understand the meaning of a meaningless "statement".
I would agree with the idea that we have to understand the meaning of a proposition in order to develop a test for it.
_f) the above remains as is even if one replaces 'verify' with 'refute' or just plain old 'empirically testable'_
I agree that shifting these words around has nothing to do with the actual issue.
*****
What I call metaphysics are concerns with any "assertions" that aren't logical or empirical in nature. The two "theories" of time in this video are both supposed to describe our experiences which we call time. Neither is presumed to be demonstratively incorrect. One doesn't say that there's only 10 hours in a day for instance. Both are supposed to be consistent with all experiences. I would then say that they are just two different ways of describing exactly the same thing, our experiences of what we call time. Does our ability to use different conceptualizations for exactly the same situation tell us anything about the things described? you can describe a square as a figure with four sides of equal length joined ar right angles or two equilateral triangles with a common hypotenuse (or a whole lot of other ways. None of the descriptions is more or less right , more or less wrong at all. One description or another may be more or less convenient depending on what you're up to in using it but it makes no sense to try to figure out which is better abstractly. They are very different descriptions of exactly the same thing but that's all.
How are metaphysical distinctions any different? If a metaphysical claim goes beyond the experiences it is derived from where does the additional information come from? It isn't, by definition, needed to accurately describe the experience. If it makes any observable predictions that couldn't be made without it then it is a physical theory not metaphysics. You'll never prove it wrong because it isn't saying anything. But, not being sense related, it is literally senseless. Why a person may prefer one description over another is a matter for psychology.
Metaphysics does have a very practical application in philosophy however. Philosophers have to publish something and metaphysics provides for endless discussions. Job security is enhanced.
+Paul Hill
Thanks for a very thoughtful and detailed response.
I'll provide my take "between the lines".
Can Metaphysics Be Defended & Tested?
Different Views on The Status of Metaphysics
It may amuse you to be aware that there are even philosophers who are apt to decry metaphysics.
Good for them!
The so-called Logical Positivists did so. One big question in Philosophy in our own day is: Is metaphysics possible? And yes, many papers have been written on this, thus doubtless providing enhanced job security. There have also been philosophers - WVO Quine, in particular, who have thought metaphysics to be continuous with science.
_I got kinda excited when I heard about his "The Two Dogmas of Empiricism". Somehow he was supposed to have "made metaphysics respectable again." I poured over the paper for a few weeks going over the arguments against the analytic synthetic distinction and the inscrutability of translation. In the end I agreed with him that the analytic synthetic distinction isn't always clear cut but it didn't seem like a big deal, ambiguities could be resolved by clarifying terms to whatever degree of clarity was desired. I guess that it seemed important because it hadn't been noticed before. The inscrutability of translation turned out to be nothing more than the other minds problem when dealing with translations._
The suggestion here is that metaphysics may point the way to further scientific enquiry. Thus, metaphysics becomes a kind of front-line thinking machine that may guide future research.
_Science, certainly in the past, would use the concept of "things existing" which is decidedly metaphysical. It wasn't necessary though since it was just a shorthand for patterns of experience. Nowadays "things existing" is on really thin ice. Quantum mechanical predictions (and theory) are inconsistent with realistic accounts of nature. I believe it was Bohr who said that quantum mechanics (when it is needed for correct predictions) was the end of physical reality. Our concept of physical reality emerges from a descriptive system that forbids it! I think that this is about as wild as anything in metaphysics._
Like many, I don’t think I would go along with either of these groups. I think that metaphysics consists of substantive factual claims about reality. So, how would I defend it?
_Based on the fact that "physical reality" has never been accessible and is now run out of town by quantum mechanics I hold any notion of factual claims about "reality" in considerable doubt._
Metaphysics is inevitable
Firstly, I think that everyone carries with them a certain baggage of metaphysical presuppositions. These are many and varied. Here are some:
_I'm not much persuaded by "everybody thinks" arguments. Truth is certainly not settled by popular vote. Even at that if you look at the historical record for what everybody thinks you might want to back away from it pretty quick. Over the haul of history do you think that "what everybody thinks" has a great track record on the shape of the earth, the earth going around the sun, etc?_
a) There exists a real world ‘out there’ independently of our minds.
(This is Metaphysical Realism.)
_As I've said QM indicates that our concept of reality is flawed/confused somehow. Our experiences exist, somehow and relating/predicting them over time has gone pretty well for physics._
b) Time flows like an ever rolling stream.
_That's just a metaphor. I have no notion of time "flowing like a stream". Are we in the stream seeing the shore change or on shore watching things float away? Time is change. If nothing changed no time would pass. If anything changes time has passed._
c) We all have a self.
_I've never understood exactly what "a self" is supposed to be. I'm conscious - is that what it means? I suppose that if a person had no consciousness at all then they wouldn't have "a self"?_
d) God exists.
_You think that everyone believes this? Is the existence of God up for a vote?_
e) We have free wills.
_Again there are a lot of people don't believe this. And there is much evidence that heredity and environment have enormous influence on behavior._
Given the prevalence of these beliefs, it is as well to bring them into the open and discuss them, so that we can come to decide whether they hold water. To do this (or bluntly to deny their truth) is already to be engaged in metaphysics.
_Engaged_ *_in_* metaphysics is very different from engaged *_to_* metaphysics. You are confusing being engaged in a conversation about metaphysical notions with adhering to and using metaphysical notions to promote an argument/reach a conclusion. Engaging in a conversation/debate about football is not the same as engaging in (a game of) football. Wording that blurs the distinction is a way to completely discount everything that anyone says critical of the subject. _
_And besides, like I started , it doesn't matter who or how many believe something anyway. _
But Can Metaphysical Theories Be Tested?
Of course they can. It’s just that the tests (except for the first two) are not shared by science. Here are four tests.
Test One
The theory must be internally logically consistent. If it is not, it should be adjusted or ditched.
Test Two
It should be logically consistent with anything else at all that can be said to be true. If not ..ditto..
Test Three
We can see if it accords with what we take to be the best conceptual schemes that are use in talking about the world. We can then ask questions about this. (e.g., Do such schemes require selves and free wills as a precondition of the very intelligibility of these schemes?)
Test Four
We can even test them against experience - in a sense - though not by experiment or measurement, as scientific theories can. And I mean (often) tested against experience itself, not the objects of experience. For example, adherents of the Static Theory of time are obliged to re-interpret tensed statements into non-tensed statements. Very well, we can ask if our seeming experience of time’s flow can be eliminated as needed. Say one remarks, after a visit to the dentist, “I’m glad that’s now all over”. (Tensed) Can that statement be reduced to: “I am glad that the time at which I am making this statement is later than the time of my dental appointment”? (Untensed) In my own philosophical research, I examined certain phenomenological features of mental imagery to show that such experience could not plausibly be reduced to a mere cognitive state. So, metaphysical theory is in no way experientially neutral.
_If you could show that the experiences one would have according to one theory, in some set of circumstances, were different from the experiences predicted by the other theory then great, that's science. If you can't do that then you haven't tested anything. You can call anything you want "a test", you can say that the theory is checked for spelling errors as a test. Logical consistency and consistency with other theories is not a test of the validity of the theory itself. Inspecting a car without trying to start it is not a test of whether or not the car will start._
_I believe that referring to "inspections" as "tests" is a way to convey an objective air to metaphysical notions. It makes them sound "testable" as if they were expressing something about experiential relationships. In an age when, after 300 years of overwhelming scientific progress, with results that, beyond providing "explanatory" satisfaction have changes virtually every aspect of life , human and nonhuman, life on earth it is natural to want to at least appear to emulate it's methods._
_This, and the example of equating someone engaging in a conversation about metaphysics with using metaphysical notions themselves, reminds me of Orwell's "new speak" in his novel 1984. He pointed out how language can be structured to obscure the very situations it is being used to describe. If you can think that merely talking about metaphysics is actually engaging in metaphysics and that metaphysical theories are testable then it's critics can be , must be, confused. This usage of terminology is generally completely accepted by whatever group it serves. The phraseology itself is simply used as a more or less unconscious tool and a way to establish a group identity. Questioning it risks expulsion from the group._
_In addition I don't think that even if metaphysical thinking is inevitable that it has any bearing on it's validity or desirability. Such a consideration isn't a justification for metaphysical concepts or theories. It doesn't even begin to have anything to do with validity. Death is inevitable that doesn't make it "correct" or "good". You might ask yourself why you would include inevitability as a substitute for validity. _
_All in all, metaphysical arguments and notions seem very appropriately described as being concerned about placing too much importance on equivalent descriptions of the same experiences. If they don't lead to different predictions, under identical conditions, then they don't differ at all about what they say about our world of experiences. _