Elements of Metaphysics

Physics, as opposed to metaphysics, is the scientific studies of the natural world. Any controversial in physics is rooted in the understanding/misunderstanding of metaphysics. This writing aims at the detailed observations of the metaphysical subject studies. Without physics, metaphysics cannot stand, and it would be odd to discuss elements of metaphysics alone.

Human beings’ intellectual development relies on our innate quality received at our birth. Arguably, a fetus’ brain may start developing in a mother’s womb as early as two months, the very reason that the Texas abortion laws exist, so is controversial that the Texas laws are undergoing scrutiny at the Supreme Court currently. Unlike what is stated in the title, Elements of Metaphysics, I will describe the most important source of knowledge discovery, human sense, originated in human body organs; consequently, human experience, grown/accumulated during the entire human life-span. Arguably, also, human sensibility of an individual being may vary significantly, which, in turn, makes human individual experience grow in various speeds and space (broad vs. narrow, coherently,) and which is the fundamental faculty to the discovery of scientific knowledge and truth. Now let’s look at elements of metaphysics.

On logic

Dagobert D. Runes (1902-1982) is the editor of Treasury of Philosophy (1955), who introduced me to Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. (Written before 1918 and published officially in 1922.)

According to Runes, Wittgenstein (1889-1951) and his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) made great consequence to the development of logical positivism or scientific empiricism, while being inspired by older thinkers like Moritz Schlick, Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead. Before giving his excerpt selections of the original writing of Wittgenstein, Runes wrote: “In this treatise, Wittgenstein offers a general way of removing philosophical difficulties by investigating the logical structure of language. Incapability of seeing through the logic of language, or at least neglect of its importance, is the cause of apparently or really insoluble philosophical problems. Wittgenstein insists that whatever can be said, can be said clearly. Philosophy is not a doctrine but, rather, an activity. Its result is not new propositions but clarification of propositions. Philosophy will mean the inexpressible by presenting the expressible as clearly as possible.” His excerpt selections are consecutive from 1 to 2.0131, which has attracted my attention to the writing ever since. It is more than a hundred-year now, I would even go further in his opinions on logic: language is logic and using of language shows each individual’s logical space because the facts in logical space are the world. (T1.13) Each individual’s world is limited by the individual’s logical space.

On thoughts

Thoughts without contents are empty, to quote Kant (1724-1804) directly. But Wittgenstein said it better: The thought is the significant proposition. (T4) The totality of propositions is the language. (T4.001)

On ideas

To quote Kant again, intuitions without the concepts are blind. In this quote, the concepts are ideas.

On reason

It is the quality of human beings to use their logic to analyze their facts and to express their thoughts formed around their facts. All expressed thoughts are opinions, whether they are truths or not. The truth about facts and opinion is well captured by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003): “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.”

On judgment and insight

Quote Kant again, all knowledge begins with experience, but it is not sufficient that all knowledge arises from experience. There are two kinds of knowledge, a priori and a posteriori knowledge. All a priori knowledge is metaphysical, relying on our faculty, such as judgment and insight. All a posteriori knowledge is physical, corresponding to our senses and our experience. Human understanding for comprehending the natural world of knowledge is a priori.

On sense and sensibility

We all have sensibilities that are different from each other even if sharing the same body organs, such as in Siamese’s twins which have body connections. Hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, to name a few.

On experience

Nobody is identical with another even if the two are born into the same family with the same biological parents. Nobody has exactly the same experience even if they have experienced the same event with similar educational backgrounds.

On teaching and learning

Teaching is external while learning is internal. Any forced teaching can result in a rote learning that is possible without human understanding of the learning.

On truth

Truth is positively proportional to time because the more time the humankind had to experience on an individual truth, the clearer we have the understanding of the truth. For example, the geocentric model of the earth as a true scientific fact had lasted longer than the heliocentric model of the earth among scientists, even though the latter was the substitution of the former.

Concluding remarks

Elements of metaphysics are inside everyone of us. Intellectuals learn by teaching via the story telling, and hands on demonstrations, as well as by using the quotable of the wise with or without elaborations of the quotable to their students. The fact is that depending on each individual’s circumstance as a learner, that is, our sense and our experience as a learner are not the same.

Metaphysics, Meta-knowledge, and Meta–the new face of Facebook

Metaphysics is the scientific study of philosophy, which is my passion, my curiosity, and my study of the natural world around me.

Meta-knowledge is a scientific term in computer systems. As a professional computer systems engineer, I have worked on many computer systems. It is true that modern computer systems uses Database, a computer software product, either the commercial-of-the-shelf or the hybrid with home-grown product, a part of embedded middle-ware inside computer systems. Note that I have used the singular form of a verb “uses” because Database by itself is a computer system. As the matter of the fact, any full-fledged modern computer project/product always includes more than one computer system in it. Thus, systems, the plural form of the word, is preferred, such as “computer systems engineer” in one of my professional titles. In general, a mechanism used to store and retrieve data from database is called metadata – structured data/indices approaching to the raw/elementary data. If the computer systems could be luckily called AI systems or knowledge-based systems, their mechanisms used to handle elementary data would be called meta-knowledge.

Although metaphysics has been defined rather diversely in different dictionaries and thesaurus, I have been ignore the fact at all, thus far, while researching and writing about metaphysics. For example, Roget’s International Thesaurus has the term defined rather derogatorily carrying on the legacy of Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869); sadly, the thesaurus defines it as what a metaphysician’s professional work, and metaphysicians are also called psychicists. Some believers of Marxism, in the name of Karl Marx (1818-1883), including almost all of the members of the CCP, who are holding the official doctrine of the CCP, take the term, metaphysics — a mystical subject, opposite to their view of the world. On the other hand, Webster’s new world dictionary and thesaurus defines it as a speculative philosophy and a branch of philosophy, which is also not to my liking. In my opinion, metaphysics is a fundamental quality in humankind that is necessary to produce the natural science knowledge; without metaphysics of human beings, there will be no human understanding or lack of it. Wittgenstein (1889-1951) has it rightly defined down to the earth. Philosophy is to clarify human thoughts expressed in language, while some of the human thoughts are metaphysical subjects ground in human senses and human experience within each individual human beings. Metaphysics is so much necessary to human understanding in order to produce both a priori and a posteriori knowledge. It is elementary toward making human progress in our civilization.

Now, let us look at the motivational fact of this writing, the new name of the Facebook, Meta.”With a buzzy push for next-wave virtual reality hardware, the tech giant is trying to outrun its mounting woes….” reported by Dwoskin, Zakrzewski and Miroff on September 24, 2021, in the Technology section of The Washington Post, How Facebook’s Metaverse became a political strategy in Washington. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/09/24/facebook-washington-strategy-metaverse/

A huge company like Facebook with a huge ambition to make impacts on civilization, I think that Meta, as a new face of Facebook, is rather appropriate.

Theory of Knowledge

Continue the train of thoughts in the article posted on Oct. 21, 2021, Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Logic.

Human understanding leads to the discovery of the natural science because human beings have the innate quality of using logic to reason, and the totality of true propositions is the total natural science, stated in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, (Wittgenstein, 1922, 4.11, hence T4.11) Logical investigation is to find regularity in the world. Everything outside of logic is accidental. (T6.3)

The accumulated discovery of the total natural science is defined as knowledge. The theory of knowledge is a field of philosophy, (see my writing on April 3, 2021, on subdivisions of philosophy) Quoting Wittgenstein on this field of study: If I know an object, then I also know all the possibility of its occurrence in atomic facts. (T2.0123) In order to know an object, I must know not its external but all its internal qualities. (T2.01231) ( references seen in my writings on July 13 and July 31, 2021, which explain atomic facts.)

Natural science knowledge is expressed in propositions that can be judged as either true or false. These propositions can be represented in a picture of reality, the truth of positions shows how things stand, and how “I” understand it. The “I” here represents humankind, not in psychological sense but philosophical sense. These true/false positions have primitive signs/clear defined names, and they can be explained by elucidations, which can be understood when the meanings of these signs are already known (T3.263)

Human understanding can differentiate two names whether they signify the same thing or two different things. Using Wittgenstein’s example in language translation, If I know the meaning of an English and a synonymous German word, it is impossible for me not to know that they are synonymous, it is impossible for me not to be able to translate them into one another. (T4.243)

If the elementary proposition is true, the atomic fact exists; if it is false the atomic fact does not exist. (T4.25) The specification of all true elementary propositions describes the world completely. The world is completely described by the specification of all elementary propositions plus the specification, which of them are true and which false. (T4.26)

Mathematics and Logic

Mathematics is a method of logic. (T6.234) Logic is shown in propositions that are expressed by language. The propositions of logic are tautologies, which shows the properties of language, and of the world categorized as the theory of knowledge. If the relations among propositions are connected together in a deterministic way, it may yield a tautology, which means they must have deterministic properties of structure. (T6.12) That is the reason that “…not only must a proposition of logic be incapable of being contradicted by any possible experience, but it must also be incapable of being established by any such.” (T6.1222)

Natural Science and Truth

The aim of this writing is to continue the train of thoughts in the article posted on Oct 21, 2021, Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Logic. In it, my first and last meaningful/true propositions, the two quotations of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922), ought to be mentioned again here. The first one is The totality of true propositions is the total natural science. (Tractatus 4.11, hence, T4.11) Hence, the title of this article, Natural Science and Truth. The second one is What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think. (T5.61). It could not be better said about human understanding ( also known as the metaphysical quality of the humankind.) In other words, there must be no limits to thoughts resulted from thinking.

The thought is the significant proposition. (T4) The totality of propositions is the language. (T4.001) Language is logic. Colloquial language is a part of the human organism and is not less complicated than it. (T4.002) All propositions of our colloquial language are logically completely in order, the essential meaning of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus 5.5563.

Logic is the core attribute to human understanding, the essential element of the metaphysics of humankind. The curiosity of each individual human being to the environment, such as the sun, the earth, the plants, and the animals, as the matter of the fact that includes everything upon which human beings can sense and experience, drives the build-up of the total natural science. Indeed, the best individual human beings of the ages contribute to the build-up of the natural science, Aristotle (384-322BC), Copernicus (1473-1543), Newton (1643-1727), Einstein (1879-1955), to name a few in the theoretical physics.

The essential elements of logic is the understanding of the space and time, which are best stated by Immanuel Kant ( 1724-1804) in his Critique of Pure Reason. (1781) As the metaphysical truth, they are the foundation of human understanding. Any discovery of physical truth mainly requires the sense and experience of an individual human body and mind. With human understanding (via logical methods/processes — induction and deduction) natural science as a body of knowledge grows effectively and efficiently. As time goes by, there are more senses and experiences accumulated and contributed to a body of physical truth; consequently and inevitably contradictions and non-logical conclusions may lead to revolutionary changes in human understanding of the body of knowledge.

For example, the dominating geocentric theory (Aristotle) has been taken as the physical truth from the third century BC to 15th century AD, until the heliocentric model of the world (Copernicus) was accepted only within the natural science community. It took two more century to settle the truth politically. The physical truth, the solar system, has officially entered into dictionary in 1704.

Human understanding changes not only in theory, but also in practice. For example, alchemy is officially defined, in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, as a medieval science during 14th century. At the time it was a scientific endeavor based on the fact that steel was made by adding carbon into iron, which had been a practice for two hundred years, since 12^th century. Until the periodic law, discovered by Russian chemist, Dmitriy Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907), and Periodic table established soon after, alchemy migrated from a field of natural science into a field of superstition. I wish that more scientists can recognize that psychology is in the same category with alchemy since there is no true elementary proposition can be said in psychology as a field of natural science, in theory or in practice.

Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Logic, what are the relationships among three concepts?

My thoughts have been clarified through reading the wonderful Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein, 1922), and I have had a series of writings, Thought and Language, (Feb. 5,2021) Language and Logic, (July 31, 2021) and Metaphysics (Feb. 1, 2021) so far. It is time to put them all together coherently in this article.

What is Philosophy?

Let’s quote Wittgenstein.

The totality of true propositions is the total natural science. (Tractatus 4.11, hence, T4.11) Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences. (T4.11) The object of Philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. (T4.112) Philosophy is an activity. (T4.112) The world and life are one. (T5.621) I am my world. (T5.63) In philosophy the fact is that the “world is my world.” The philosophical I is not the man, not the human body or the human soul of which psychology treats, but the metaphysical subject, the limit–not a part of the world. (T5.641)

Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be noted? (T5.633) Wittgenstein questioned about the concept of metaphysics in his Tractatus 5.633. He wrote, with the following elucidation, from nothing in the field of sight can one be concluded that it is seen from an eye because the field of sight has no form that ensures what has seen.

What is Metaphysics?

Metaphysics is a natural science, which is a scientific study of philosophy as an activity of clarifying thoughts logically. Metaphysics is about human understanding at philosophical level. It is a priori knowledge, a subject of philosophy, resulting in the theory of knowledge, applicable to all fields of the natural sciences. Any a priori knowledge does not rely on our experience as in Wittgenstein’s words: No part of our experience is also a priori. (T5.643)  Everything we see could also be otherwise. (T5.634) Everything we describe at all could also be otherwise. (T5.634) There is no order of things a priori. (T5.634)

What is Logic?

Let us look at Wittgenstein descriptions.

One of the most important facts is that the truth or falsehood of non-logical propositions cannot be recognized from the propositions alone. (T6.113) The fact that the propositions of logic are tautologies shows the formal — logical — properties of language, of the world. (T6.12) The tautology is the proposition that is true for all the truth-possibilities of the elementary propositions. (T4.46) The propositions of logic demonstrate the logical properties of propositions, by combining them into propositions, which say nothing. (T6.121) Hence it follows that we can get on without logical propositions, for we can recognize in an adequate notation the  formal properties of the propositions by mere inspection. (T6.122) Logical propositions can no more be empirically confirmed that they can be empirically refuted. (T6.1222) In other words, formally, a proposition of logic must be incapable of being contradicted by any possible experience, and it must  also be incapable of being confirmed by any such. (T6.1222) In a contradiction, the proposition is false for all the truth-possibilities of the elementary positions.  (T4.46)

It now becomes clear why we often feel as though “logical truths” must be “postulated” by us. (T6.1223) We can in fact postulate them in so far as we can postulate an adequate notation. (T6.1223) It also becomes clear why logic has been called the theory of forms and of inference. (T6.1224) The logical propositions “treat” of nothing. They presuppose that names have meaning, and that elementary propositions have sense. This is their connection with the world. (T6.124) Empirical reality is limited by the totality of objects. The boundary appears again in the totality of elementary propositions. (T5.5561) The hierarchies are and must be independent of reality. (T5.5561) If we know [implying the theory of knowledge, which is the philosophy of psychology (T4.1121),] on purely logical grounds, there must be elementary propositions. (T5.5562) If the elementary proposition is true, the atomic fact exists; if it is false the atomic fact does not exist. (T4.25)

The totality of propositions is the language. (T4.001)  Colloquial language is a part of the human organism and is not less complicated than it. (T4.002) All propositions of our colloquial language are actually, just as they are, logically completely in order. (T5.5563) The simple thing which we ought to give here is not a model of the truth but the complete truth itself. (T5.5563)

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. (T5.6) Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also the limits of logic, (T5.61) [which implies the logical space of an individual world. The facts in logical space are the world. (T1.13)] The limits of our language is the limits of our logical space. Logic, a metaphysical quality of an individual human being is the metaphysics of that individual, all of us included.

What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think. (T5.61)