Definition of Metaphysics: Appearance and Reality

Definition of Metaphysics: Appearance and Reality



The totality of all physical things is matter.
"Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?"

This sounds like the question confronted in Descartes' Meditations. But despite the similarity, the problem raised has changed little over the intervening 250 years.
Does such knowledge derive from sense experience? What precisely is it that our experiences make us know? Not at all what one might think at first instance.
Example of the table:

If we are to know anything about the table, it must be by means of sense data - but what, precisely is the relation between the table and the sense data?
The table, if it really exists, is a physical thing; the totality of all physical things is matter.

The senses actually perceive the table. But scientifically the table is made up of atoms. These atoms are made up of electrons. And these electrons are not stationary. They are in a state of constant motion...as vibrating energy!
So does the table really exist as a vibration in space?

Thus we arrive at two more general questions:

- Is there any such thing as matter?

- If so, what is its nature?

Matter; anything that is composed of particles with a half-integer spin (fermions). Hope this helps!

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Matter; anything that is composed of particles with a half-integer spin (fermions). Hope this helps!

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That's just a model that's been invented to explain what we see, but we don't see fermions, we see objects: tables, soda cans, laptops.

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Originally Posted by Belisarius

That's just a model that's been invented to explain what we see, but we don't see fermions, we see objects: tables, soda cans, laptops.

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That depends on what you mean by see. Are you limiting the scope of human awareness to the five basic perceptive senses?

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

That depends on what you mean by see. Are you limiting the scope of human awareness to the five basic perceptive senses?

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No, by see I actually mean all things we percieve: the physical senses, thought, memory, and anything I forgot. The materialist model is just one of a number of equally possible models that explain our experience of life.

Okay, so you are disregarding radio imaging, ultrasound, electron microscopy, EEG and the rest of vast host of inventions currently used to expand the human perceptive capabilities. By your reasoning, you can't even be sure that you have a brain. If you deny fermions, you must also deny atoms, which are an intregral part of the OP. No one has ever seen an atom in the way that you are describing either.

If you ask me, the materialist model sucks. It's just Nihilism gone haywire.

The fact that Nihilism contradicts itself in it's very definition doesn't seem to matter to an extreme Nihilist. Since they believe "truth does not exist", and that statement in itself is a truth, shows the whole mindset to be inconsistent.

Any other mode of thought is leagues more interesting than Materialism or Nihilism.

I would say your interpretation of the two is a little skewed; they are almost entirely unrelated.

Also, the interest you find in a philosophy or belief system has no bearing on its truth or lack thereof.

True, my view of them is irrelevant. I was just saying that the materialist's perspective that matter and it's movements are the only thing that exists is premature and nihilist in nature by the sheer fact that it denies any type of spiritual nature or knowledge, in essence deeming life meaningless or at best an ongoing accident.

Well firstly, materialism doesn't address spirituality specifically. I'd also like to point out that one's acceptance of certain material characteristics of the world does not require them to disregard the possibility of anything else existing as well. I've never understood the view that since you believe there is something more than what you can physically see, it must mean that you have to disregard the entire body of evidence pointing at the material nature of the world around us; that because you feel like there is some 'deeper meaning' that has yet to be witnessed, it must mean that the physical model of the world and the mountains of evidence supporting it is an "invention" created by humans to explain things we cannot see (even though in reality we can see them, just not with the naked eye).

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Well firstly, materialism doesn't address spirituality specifically. I'd also like to point out that one's acceptance of certain material characteristics of the world does not require them to disregard the possibility of anything else existing as well. I've never understood the view that since you believe there is something more than what you can physically see, it must mean that you have to disregard the entire body of evidence pointing at the material nature of the world around us; that because you feel like there is some 'deeper meaning' that has yet to be witnessed, it must mean that the physical model of the world and the mountains of evidence supporting it is an "invention" created by humans to explain things we cannot see (even though in reality we can see them, just not with the naked eye).

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By not addressing spiritualism, you mean outright denial and disinterest in it, right? Because, it says that in the very definition of materialism. In general, the metaphysical theory of materialism entails the denial of the reality of spiritual beings, consciousness and mental or psychic states or processes, as ontologically distinct from, or independent of material changes or processes. Since it denies the existence of spiritual beings or forces, materialism typically is allied with atheism or agnosticism.

I never mentioned disregarding the materialist's viewpoint, I just find that standing ONLY from that viewpoint leaves you seeing a half-truth where you ultimately bite your own tail by using your own human condition to marginalize itself. The materialist mood in the twentieth century has been poised between an almost triumphalist self-confidence and a more modest perplexity. The triumphalism is produced by the success of science, which makes materialism seem obviously true. In this mood, materialists are prepared to deny what seem to be the most obvious facts of mental life if their theory requires it. The difference between someone who sees a spiritual world as well, is they can entertain the materialist's viewpoint and see a bigger picture of unknowns within it. Therefore, those people would not be considered materialists...