The Metaphysics Dilemma
Monday, November 21, 2011
Follow up to: The Magical Magician: A Naturalist’s Allegory, Reductionism Made Simple and Clarifying the Idea of Meaning
Editor’s Note: I was without internet access for awhile, so even though I did write one essay per day as I wanted to for NaNoWriMo, the essays weren’t able to be uploaded until now. I will solve this by changing the publication date of each essay to the date I intended to publish the essay on.
Metaphysics is a field of philosophy with the stated goal of determining what everything is made out of, what exists and what doesn’t, how things exist, in what forms existence can take, how things can exist, why certain things exist and others don’t, and what it means to say that something exists.
One specific position within metaphysics is that of metaphysical naturalism, and it’s closely related philosophical cousins materialism and physicalism that all come to the conclusion that “there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e., those required to understand our physical environment by mathematical modeling”.
However, what exactly should we anticipate when hearing these theories? What exactly does it mean to say that everything we know about the world reduces to some natural element?
And what would qualify as a natural element, as distinct from what? What could we potentially find that wouldn’t count as a natural element, allowing us to falsify the naturalism/physicalism/materialism trio as hypotheses? (And how are these three positions different anyway?)
The Dilemma
Potential answers to this question seem to set us up with a dilemma. Either:
…we specifically define naturalism. Perhaps we describe matter and energy as we currently know them, and argue that no other types of stuff will ever be found. On this theory, everything would reduce to arrangements of the specific particles we’ve found to date or naturalism would be false.
…we leave naturalism vague and incomplete. Here, everything would reduce to arrangements of matter-energy in space-time, and “matter” would just be the substance from which the objects we have discovered consist.
But it’s easy to see why both options appear undesirable:
…if we take the first option and specifically define naturalism using current physics, it will be false the moment we discover another particle, as we have done many times in the past and inevitably will do many more times in the future. Naturalism, defined by this option, will already be false with fairly high confidence.
…and if we take the second option and declare naturalism to be whatever the completed and perfect physics of the far future tells us exists to be what exists, then we will have no idea what naturalism even claims to exist. Additionally, if we leave terms like “matter” vague, then we’ll have no idea what naturalism is predicting to be the case, and will end up with a predictionless, therefore unfalsifiable, therefore not truth-apt, therefore meaningless theory.
So we have naturalism either being false or meaningless. Probably not a good start to the position I, and a wide variety of philosophers I respect, hold.
Is there any way we can be rescued?
A Theory Like Any Other
One thing we’ve learned when doing science is that knowledge is provisional.
In other words, we investigate and experiment, and discover some fact about the world around us. However, the discovery of this fact only gives us a certain degree of confidence that we have learned something that is actually true, and it could turn out to be false. In fact, many of our theories have turned out to have been false the whole time, only for us to find out after further investigation and analysis.
This teaches us two lessons: (1) Knowledge is rooted in predictions about the future and (2) these predictions can not work out, meaning that we have no absolute knowledge. Thus what we know can only be considered true by virtue of being the best we currently have, ready to be thrown out if we ever were to come up with something better.
However, the very fact that our current attempt might not be right is not enough basis to throw out our attempt, give up, and go home. Instead, we just need to accept the inherently provisional nature of knowledge and make do with what we have.
This line of thinking might be what saves naturalism, provided we rethink metaphysics in this light. More precisely, we can draw on the arguments and rethinking made by Andrew Melnyk in A Physicalist Manifesto: Thoroughly Modern Materialism.
Our plan for resolving the dilemma becomes to accept the first option and specifically define naturalism using current physics, even though we know it very likely will turn out to be false — and that this shouldn’t bother us because all it means is that our naturalism is provisional. All this means is that we will have to update our view of naturalism the moment we discover new information, just as we would update any other theory.
This does seem to resolve the unpleasantness of the dilemma and allow us to emerge victorious, but gives us a few lingering implications to work out and worry about.
Reject What’s Not Truth-Apt, Reject Metaphysics
One implication of adopting a provisional understanding of the universe is that it might drastically rule out a lot of metaphysics as a discipline. Specifically, if we decide that the make-up of the universe is whatever we currently understand it to be with future updates pending, then metaphysics simply becomes… well… physics.
We’ll end up having no need for metaphysics to answer what the universe is made up of, because the answer will be that the universe is made of whatever physics currently tells us the universe is made of. Metaphysics seems to be a buck-passing enterprise.
But perhaps we saw this coming. In “Clarifying the Idea of Meaning” I already resolved to dismiss all claims that are not truth-apt (not capable of making testable-in-principle predictions) as meaningless (not worth talking about). Metaphysical claims seem to be one of those claims that are not truth-apt.
If we decide to blaze our own path, ignore what physics says, and argue for a sweeping claim that arrangements of matter-energy in space-time is all that there is and ever will be, then we’re left with all those nagging questions in the beginning — what is this matter-energy, and what could we discover that wouldn’t be considered matter-energy?
We’d be stuck in the dilemma again, and if we went with option two we’d have a statement that is hopelessly circular (the universe is made of matter, and matter is that which the universe is made of) or hopelessly incoherent (the universe is made of matter, and I honestly don’t know what matter is) — neither of which can make the predictions necessary for a truth-apt statement.
We need physics to describe the universe, and will not be successful in going outside physics to make further claims. Thus we should reject attempts to go outside physics with metaphysics as not being truth-apt, and consider leaving metaphysics to the physicists.
The Future of Naturalism?
But if we’re rejecting metaphysics for being merely physics, why not reject naturalism for being merely physics? In what sense is naturalism any different from just saying “I believe in the conclusions of physics”?
For this, I turn to how I have been personally defining naturalism all this time. I have never been making sweeping claims like “the universe is made of matter-energy in space-time and nothing more”. Instead, I’ve been defining naturalism as the following three claims:
- there is no good reason to believe that something exists which is not solely the result of a combination of matter-energy in space-time
- there is no good reason to believe that something can happen with no mechanism behind the action (even if we may not know what that mechanism is)
- there is no good reason to believe that it is possible for the laws of physics to be or become suspended or transcended
These are specifically epistemic claims, not metaphysical ones — they’re not claims about what is, but about what we have good reason to believe. Essentially, naturalism is a position that can be seen as a direct rejection of supernaturalism, where supernaturalism referring to a class of objects that are “fundamentally, ontologically, irreducibly mental” with “something normative, subjective/perspectival, purposive, or intentional at the basic level of analysis” — entities that decidedly do not reduce to matter-energy in space-time.
Why Reject Supernaturalism?
But why reject such irreducibly mental entities?
Ironically, for all the reasons we just rejected metaphysics — such entities are not truth-apt! How would one ever establish the existence or nonexistence of an irreducibly mental entity? What would the universe look like with an irreducibly mental entity compared to one without? On what legitimate, justified reasons is a belief in the existence of irreducibly mental entities grounded upon?
Quite simply, irreducibly mental entities are like solipsism or Cartesian Demons — entailing nothing different about the world that you could ever know of, even in principle.
Until such entities are made into coherent, testable concepts, we are justified in rejecting them. Well, technically we can’t reject them, since that would mean the claim is truth-apt and false — but we can dismiss them as incoherent and unfalsifiable.
The New Definition of Naturalism
So while those three prongs make for a sufficient theory of naturalism, I think naturalism here could be conceived as strong negative epistemic naturalism, which will be a claim specifically about supernaturalism — namely supernaturalism is meaningless because irreducibly mental entities are an incoherent concept.
To the degree that God, moral duties, souls, spirits, demons, magic, Bigfoot, or Pluto are all irreducibly mental entities they will be considered incoherent too.
This is the naturalism that I’m defending on my blog, and the rejection of not truth-apt and therefore meaningless claims in favor of the conclusions of physics is what will constitute my metaphysical beliefs.
The Future of Metaphysics?
But surely it would be too drastic to kick all philosophers involved in metaphysics out of their jobs. Surely there still are some questions of metaphysics worth answering.
Here, I think there actually are some worthy questions metaphysics should be directed to answer — they can definitely create theories about the meaning of existence and explain how and why things exist, though they definitely should draw on outside science for help in formulating all of this.
Additionally, metaphysics still can be concerned with ontology — explaining where things come from and in what sense they exist. More specifically, ontology can be directed to explaining the nitty gritty of the reductionism to which current physics advocates — explain how arrangements of matter-energy, such as the motions of atoms, can give rise to complex systems like human philosophers who study ontology, or moral duties, or justice.
Conclusion
I’ll make this conclusion a short and sweet summary of the points I want to make with this essay:
(1) We should dismiss metaphysical claims about the makeup of the universe in favor of the provisional conclusions of physics.
(2) Metaphysics should be more focused on explaining existence and formulating theories of ontology.
(3) Naturalism should be defined as the theory that claims about irreducibly mental entities are incoherent.
Followed up in: Making the Question Go Away
Liked this Essay?
- You can get more Greatplay.net by looking at these categories: All, Naturalism.
- Or perhaps you'd be interested in a complete table of contents of all essays?
- You could also subscribing to the RSS feed, or use the sidebar to subscribe for email updates!
- Or you could follow me on Twitter or like me on Facebook
- If you feel particularly participatory, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment.
Meta-physics and physics are pretty much complementary. Physics will never replace it because by its nature is not metaphysics. The hypothesis and concepts that Physics works with are not metaphysical, so it will never be.
Physics can describe an electron but will never tell anything about why a form of exists actually exists in the first place. Not ‘why’ in the teleological sense, but rather simply how come something exists. Physics will never be able to escape the interior of this questions by simply describing the state of facts. It will just stay inside and will never acquire an outside view of existence.
I don’t think that’s true — there is a lot of work being done in physics into the origins of things, and could explain how it is that electrons came to form in the early universe.
On the flipside, I have no idea how else you could ever answer that question. I’m skeptical that metaphysical speculation will explain anything about how the universe came to be, if it ever came to be at all — at best, it could explain what it is a successful explanation would look like.
~
What does this outside view even mean? What question are you seeking to answer?
“Naturalism either being false or meaningless”
I’d note the same can be said of dualism for the same reasons.
I once read a metaphysicist who paraphrased Churchill, something like “Physicalism is a terrible choice of metaphysics but everything else is worse”.
Definitely. I thought I made that rather clear that I think dualism, along with every other position involving irreducible mental entities, is utterly incoherent. See
“Making the Question Go Away” for more.
I think that we should do away with both metaphysical naturalism and the idea that philosophers should make sweeping and vague-or-false claims about what reality is made out of.
Instead, I turn naturalism to epistemic naturalism.
It’s simple Peter. A physical explanation for a physical phenomenon or object is still physics and within physics. You still have to answer the question why and how come ‘anything’ physical exists.
There are two possible answers
1. Physical objects (the ones that we are aware of, or those behind them, on a deeper level of reality) exist by themself and since forever and will exist forever.
2. Somebody/something of non-physical nature created them out of nothing. If it’s a something, than you can’t really talk about creation ex nihilo, but rather generation, out of the same substance that something is made of. If it’s a somebody, than it must out of free will. I will not elaborate.
My point is that both explanations are really metaphysical. It’s an ontological question (isn’t it surprising that we capable of something like this?) with an ontological answer.
“Outside” means outside all that we know it exists, matter and laws.
Sure. I think that question is a legitimate one, but I don’t think such a question is solely in the domain of philosophers. I actually think that physics itself is going to be the study most likely to figure out an answer with studies into the Big Bang and other such things.
Right now, I’m largely ignorant on the current theories in physics about the origin of the universe and things, though I do intend to learn, eventually.
~
Seems fine to me, but with two caveats:
First, just because objects have been here forever (see 1) does not necessarily mean they will be here forever. Or at least I see no reason that would be the case.
Second, both 1 and 2 have a vast variety of potential answers that fit within each category. Everything from a Steady State Universe to a multiverse fit as answers to 1, and everything from the specifically Christian God to vague ruminations about vacuum energy fit as answers to 2.
~
First, I do think this is a legitimate question that could be considered metaphysical — I was just arguing against making claims about what the universe is made out of.
However, my second point is that studies into physics seems better poised to answer this question of ontology, and I see no reason why physicists couldn’t answer an ontological question.
~
How do we get knowledge about things we don’t know to exist? I don’t think we ever could go “outside” — we’re stuck inside since we’re inside.
I like the Stanford Encyclopedia on Nothingness, which explains quite a few ways in which “why is there something rather than nothing?” is a bizarre, if not impossible to answer question.
What does this distinction come to? If there is no good reason to believe, you are saying, somewhat imprecisely, that you think the likelihood of it being so is very low. If you say instead, “the universe is made of…”, as long as you aren’t professing certainty, you’re saying the same thing.
Your preferred locution is perhaps equivocal. I can say, for instance, that there’s no good reason to expect the coin to land heads, when I think there’s a .5 chance of it so landing. If I say the coin won’t land heads, I am committing myself to a higher likelihood estimate–and that’s what you intend, I had supposed, when you professed naturalism.
You have an essay where you define atheism and agnosticism (Muehlhauser style) as orthogonal axes referring to belief and certainty of belief, but this distinction isn’t coherent, at least not for a Bayesian: degree of belief is the subjective probability that it is true. An atheist has a high subjective probability that God doesn’t exist; an agnostic has an intermediate probability. That’s the only distinction I can make sense of.
Perhaps problematic is the case of the agnostic who says he knows too little to assign any probability. A Bayesian would deny the possibility of there being an agnostic so defined.
“Perhaps problematic is the case of the agnostic who says he knows too little to assign any probability. A Bayesian would deny the possibility of there being an agnostic so defined.”
I mean to say, a Bayesian would deny the possibility of an agnostic who knows too little to assign any probability, not as I carelessly wrote, an agnostic who says he he knows too little. That is all too possible.
Stephen R. Diamond,
I’ve posted a bit of stuff on “Continuing comments on Randomness and Naturalism”, which is basically a page where Peter kindly lets me waffle privately to myself (in a manner similar to the Bursar of the Unseen University) without anyone getting hurt.
Orthogonally Defined Atheism-Agnosticism
You’re right. I’m going to have to ditch my current essay and write a new one.
~
That Other Thread
Ha. Sometime when I get like ten free hours (this summer?!), I’ll have a through reply to everything there.
~
No Good Reasons, and the Definition of Naturalism
Not quite. The distinction I was trying to make with this essay was that saying “the universe is made of matter-energy in space-time” isn’t very useful, because of the dilemma I outlined.
I agree that the “no good reason” thing is a vague way of saying the likelihood is low. I’d argue we currently don’t have evidence for anything other than reductionism to matter, and that something happening without mechanisms is logically impossible.
The essay you link to says its logically impossible because it would involve two things interacting without a way for them to interact. This might show that interaction is impossible without mechanism, but it doesn’t show that nothing can happen without … interaction.
You would seem to come up against Hume’s demonstration that cause is not a logical relationship. I don’t see a _logical_ problem with creation ex nihilo. The principle, if it is one, must be metaphysical rather than analytic.