Metaphysics: Is metaphysics better than science?

[gnostic]

Science doesn't exist without language. Even mathematics needs a mathematical language to exist.

You are stating the obvious, cladking.

Of course, language is important, and I have never claim it don’t.

Both science and philosophy used language, including metaphysics, so what you are saying is moot.

There is no word in the English language that really means precisely what I mean by "metaphysics". But according to the 1952 unabridged Funk and Wagnalls this word means almost exactly what I mean by the "definitions and axioms that underlie science". I'm not talking about empty words, rhetoric, semantics, or philosophy here; I'm talking about the meaning of science and this meaning only exists in the terms that define science and how it works. I can't just say that the moon is made of green cheese and then continually adjust my data, experiments, and definitions in order to prove my point because this lies outside of the "basis of science".

A dictionary only give general definitions, is not really useful because it don’t really provide specifics in metaphysics.

Metaphysics only provide assumptions of something that exist, it doesn’t tell people to do experiment, to find evidences, to observe.

You keep trying to distinguish observation from experiments, but that’s what experiments are for, observation.

You keep ignorantly saying the “Look and see science” isn’t real science, but that’s what experimental science and empirical science are, observation through evidences gathering and experiments.

It is clear that you don’t understand the importance of evidences to science, and you are overrating the values of your outdated and utterly useless metaphysics.

You miss my point. When we perform a complex experiment we don't simultaneously test or experiment on its component parts. I'm not talking about checking the pressure gauges, I'm talking about not checking to make sure that theory related to pressure works.

Here, you are talking nonsense.

I was a former civil engineer, part of it was understanding the physics that applied to civil engineering, in hydrodynamics. Part of the curriculum in hydrodynamics understanding the pressure, flow rate, optimal inclination of the pipes, type of materials used in the pipes, the type of liquid that may affect the flow rates (eg viscous and density of liquid), etc.

Do you think we wouldn’t would make sure that the reality matched with theory or vice versa? If the theory don’t apply to actual measurements of pressures and flow rates, we wouldn’t be using this theory in our course?

You don’t need metaphysics to understand the fluid mechanics. If anything metaphysics is more of hindered than useful.

Please, cladking, stop trying give example that you clearly are too ignorant to understand. Or you are doing is providing strawman argument thinking that physicists and engineers don’t understand how pressures work.

I wouldn’t study a theory that doesn’t apply to my work. So your errant example is nothing more than pointless exercise of your ego.

 

[cladking]

You keep ignorantly saying the “Look and see science” isn’t real science, but that’s what experimental science and empirical science are, observation through evidences gathering and experiments.

...And it's starting to look like you are intentionally deconstructing my every sentence wrong.

Rather than trying to understand the meaning in context of what I'm saying you are choosing definitions for words such that what I say is nonsense. You are doing this because you BELIEVE I am ignorant, religious, unscientific, and confused. The point of argument and all conversation is to try to understand the others' thoughts and you continue to ignore a logical deconstruction and then argue words and semantics.

I don't do semantics.

The average person who is a graduate of our failed educational system believes he understands reality by merely looking. Then he will fight tooth and nail to maintain his beliefs that he chose long ago and his good hard look at reality. Or to say it another way, there is a huge difference between "observation and "experiment" and an even bigger difference between "looking" and "understanding". A baby can look but that hardly shows understanding. If I say that "Look and See Science" is nonsense then it is your duty as the reader to deduce my meaning. Then if you choose you can argue the finer points or challenge me to present some of the fantastic nonsense that has passed as "science" for the last few decades. There have actually been "scientists" using Ouija boards to communicate with the profoundly autistic. This was a world wide phenomenon that wasted tremendous resources. Most of the scientific basis of our economy is highly unsound so we waste far more than we consume as billions go without.

I might not respond to any posts that continue on your current tack.

 

[Polymath257]

...And it's starting to look like you are intentionally deconstructing my every sentence wrong.

Rather than trying to understand the meaning in context of what I'm saying you are choosing definitions for words such that what I say is nonsense. You are doing this because you BELIEVE I am ignorant, religious, unscientific, and confused. The point of argument and all conversation is to try to understand the others' thoughts and you continue to ignore a logical deconstruction and then argue words and semantics.

I have tried to figure out your meaning and have found nothing that makes sense. I fully admit I could be missing something, so could you please be a bit more clear in your wiriting? More specifically, could you be less vague and add more details to your expositions?

I don't do semantics.

Semantics is sometimes necessary when two people have *very* different uses for some aspects of language. it is then important for both sides to be clear about what they mean.

The average person who is a graduate of our failed educational system believes he understands reality by merely looking.

Interesting. I don't know of a single person who thinks that way.

Then he will fight tooth and nail to maintain his beliefhttps://www.linuxmint.com/start/sarah/s that he chose long ago and his good hard look at reality. Or to say it another way, there is a huge difference between "observation and "experiment" and an even bigger difference between "looking" and "understanding".

Yes, experimentation is a type of observation. And looking at something does not imply understanding. Who said it does?

A baby can look but that hardly shows understanding. If I say that "Look and See Science" is nonsense then it is your duty as the reader to deduce my meaning.

But as far as i can see, it has no consistent meaning in the contexts in which you use it. So, to be clear, what *do* you mean by that phrase?

Then if you choose you can argue the finer points or challenge me to present some of the fantastic nonsense that has passed as "science" for the last few decades. There have actually been "scientists" using Ouija boards to communicate with the profoundly autistic. This was a world wide phenomenon that wasted tremendous resources. Most of the scientific basis of our economy is highly unsound so we waste far more than we consume as billions go without.

Hmm...as far as I can see, very little of our economy is based on any science. That is partly because economics isn't a full-fledged science as yet.

Can you give some more mainline examples of what you think are wastes of resources?

I might not respond to any posts that continue on your current tack.

 

[gnostic]

Or to say it another way, there is a huge difference between "observation and "experiment" and an even bigger difference between "looking" and "understanding".

It isn’t merely semantics, cladking.

If you bother to study even basic science, you would know that “observation” would include “experiment” and “testing”.

Observation, in science, is not just about “seeing” or “looking”. Observation include hearing, smelling, touching, but also detecting, quantifying, measuring, testing, verifying, and yes, experimenting too.

The whole purpose of observation is to test any hypothesis or any theory, as a mean of refuting or verifying the theory or hypothesis.

You have narrow unscientific definition of observation, if you are so ignorant enough to think it is only “Looking and seeing”.

In science we know that it is not always possible to see, hear, touch or smell, so we could use specific devices that will “detect” (hence observation), and often these detection devices offer functions that capable of “measuring” (again, observation) and “quantifying” what we are trying to detect.

To give you some examples of devices that human sensory perceptions cannot normally perceive, like

1. telescopes to see distant objects in deep space, or radio telescopes that can detect and measure anything outside the visible light spectrum (eg x-ray, microwave, infrared),
2. microscopes that enable anyone see that are too small see,
3. multimeters, voltmeters, ammeters, ohmmeters, etc, to measure electric voltage, current, power, energy),
4. oscilloscopes, function generator, that can be use to detect, measure, quantify and test waveforms and frequencies of electric/electromagnetic/audio inputs/outputs,
5. speed camera that measure speeds of moving vehicle,
6. the ultrasound devices that penetrate barriers and allow us to see underneath, the Geiger counter used to detect and measure radioactivity and ionizing radiations,
7. television and radio has antennas that can receive and detect radio waves (EM) and transmitted signals, while mobile phones can both transmit and receive calls that are relay via cell towers.
8. etc, etc

Do I need to go on?

Each of these devices can be used in some laboratories, for controlled experiments, but they can also be taken outside of the labs, in the fields, for detecting, measuring and testing.

Another thing, you seem incapable of understanding, is that science isn’t stuck in the labs and isn’t stuck with experiments. Some tests used by science, can be done out in the fields.

But back to my points, experiments are a form of observation, and the test results are data of observation, hence evidences.

All evidences are observation, regardless if you can see it with the naked eye or not. And as I said earlier, observation in science isn’t just about sight or seeing, it include any other human perception, like sound and smell.

You really should know all of these thing, if you bother to learn the basic of observation, evidence and experiment. Observation has much broader and yet specific meanings in science, all depending on contexts.

Hopefully you would learn something from this reply, including learning from your mistakes, because you have a very limited view of what is or isn’t science, and narrow view of scientific evidences and observation.

 

[gnostic]

Yes, experimentation is a type of observation. And looking at something does not imply understanding. Who said it does?

Cladking doesn’t understand experimentation is observation.

Observation is evidence-gathering, and experiments are just one way to observe and gather evidence.

He doesn’t understand that science isn’t stuck in the labs.

 

[cladking]

Can you give some more mainline examples of what you think are wastes of resources?

The entire economy is based on waste, consumption, and destruction of resources. Wealth is only created by the mutual profit of both parties involved in a transaction but in today's economy it is common that both parties lose. A company sells a piece of junk shaped like a refrigerator that cost hundreds of dollars to produce and ship at an artificially low price made possible by financial and currency manipulations and within a year or two it must be shoveled into landfill (or recycled at a loss) taking with it the earth's resources and leaving the "consumer" to buy a new one that isn't worth the stupid low price he pays for it.

This waste cuts across the board because wealthy people make money when money flows now days instead of when wealth is created. "Gasahol" is the best example. This stuff always acted like a wet blanket on my cars. It was 10% alcohol but my mileage would decrease up to 12% making it wasteful. Worse is that the production of alcohol that impedes the car from moving actually (still) requires more energy than the energy they calculate is being released when burned! In other words we pay 2% extra to get who knows how much less (12%?) less mileage. Meanwhile everyone associated with its production and distribution gets rich at our expense. Lobbyists grow fat and buy more skyscrapers in Washington as they exacerbate a "gas shortage" that has been over for 40 years. The price of corn is artificially high and if we ever have a corn shortage (virtually all of it is grown in one small area called "Iowa") the gasahol plants have first dibs on the corn.

Not that this matters since so much of the fuel is just being wasted in industry and by "consumers" who use it for unnecessary, redundant, or wasteful purposes anyway. And of course politicians have to move about to discuss ways of selling global warming and telling the rest of us how we must cut back as they continue to encourage their inbred buddies in business to sell garbage at a loss to make money.

Garbage, prisons, legal actions, destruction, foreclosures, bankruptcy and mayhem are the new road to riches in an economy built on "education" purchased from prestigious universities. Government virtually micromanages most industry and commerce while allowing bankers free reign.

 

[cladking]

The entire economy is based on waste, consumption, and destruction of resources. Wealth is only created by the mutual profit of both parties involved in a transaction but in today's economy it is common that both parties loss.

This is only made possible by the computer and internet revolution of the early 1980's that allowed the creation of immense new wealth by making it much easier to find transactions in which both parties could profit and creating the efficiencies that allowed both parties to maximize profit. But most of this new wealth was all funneled to the few and it was used to destroy parts of the economy for personal profit. Government has somehow found a means to increase debt (it's great for bankers) during the most impressive increase in the commonweal in human history. They have borrowed extensively from the future in the probably mistaken belief that new efficiencies will be coming down the line automatically. The only major new efficiency will be robotics but we don't pay people who actually do the work any longer. We call them "illegals" or pay them even less than minimum wage. When we do put millions out of work over the next several years the profits won't accumulate to those doing the work to design, build, and install robots. Their taxes will continue to swell to pay off the exploding national debt.

OK, back to metaphysics when I find a little time...

 

[gnostic]

@cladking

I find your arrogance and hypocrisy to be outrageously absurd. You often move the goalpost, whenever anyone tried to understand your position and opinions, or when they find errors in your views.

You expressed the importance of language used in science and in metaphysics, and the importance of usages of definitions and axioms in metaphysics, but you reject actual SCIENTIFIC DEFINITIONS of terms used in science, eg “observation”, “experiment”.

And you have also stressed the importance of using the correct contexts, and yet you have continually ignore contexts as used in science, in favor of your context that you cherrypicked.

Your usages of terms, definitions and contexts showed that you don’t care to use them in the proper and precise definition and context as used in science.

Experiment means evidence-testing, evidence gathering, which are form of observation.

You use the word observation only the everyday English term of simply “sight”, “looking” and “seeing”, but you don’t use the definition as given and used in science.

There is a lot more to observation that you are completely ignoring. Have you ever look up the word in science dictionary?

Why do you do that?

When you used your own definition and context and not the one used in science, then you are nothing more than a big hypocrite when you state how important using the correct language, the correct definition, the correct context.

I think the large problem is your ego, refused to acknowledge your errors. Instead of learning from your mistakes, you preferred to make excuses, you move the goalposts, or as often do, twist words around so they fit in your twisted agenda.

Look up what actual definition as used in science, the scientific contexts of observation, and learn from your mistake.

You stated that you are going to ignore my comments if I don’t agree with you, i say you should use the proper basic scientific vocabulary or else get the hell of my thread.

This is a debate forum, not a discussion forum, and there are bound to be disagreements. I don’t have any issue with you disagreeing with me, but I find it hypocritical of you when you don’t use the correct definition and context in science after you stressed the importance of definition and context.

 

[cladking]

When you used your own definition and context and not the one used in science, then you are nothing more than a big hypocrite when you state how important using the correct language, the correct definition, the correct context.

I have never said one single word about a "correct definition". I don't believe a "correct definition" even exists for any word because all words can be deconstructed. It is the reader's job to deduce the definition based on context. I've said many times I don't play semantics and that the task at hand is communication. Instead most people want to respond to individual words and with semantics.

If you aren't trying to take my meaning I'm certain you never will because I'm not talking about something mundane or workaday. These ideas are unusual and are hard to see from your perspective.

 

[gnostic]

The entire economy is based on waste, consumption, and destruction of resources. Wealth is only created by the mutual profit of both parties involved in a transaction but in today's economy it is common that both parties lose. A company sells a piece of junk shaped like a refrigerator that cost hundreds of dollars to produce and ship at an artificially low price made possible by financial and currency manipulations and within a year or two it must be shoveled into landfill (or recycled at a loss) taking with it the earth's resources and leaving the "consumer" to buy a new one that isn't worth the stupid low price he pays for it.

This waste cuts across the board because wealthy people make money when money flows now days instead of when wealth is created. "Gasahol" is the best example. This stuff always acted like a wet blanket on my cars. It was 10% alcohol but my mileage would decrease up to 12% making it wasteful. Worse is that the production of alcohol that impedes the car from moving actually (still) requires more energy than the energy they calculate is being released when burned! In other words we pay 2% extra to get who knows how much less (12%?) less mileage. Meanwhile everyone associated with its production and distribution gets rich at our expense. Lobbyists grow fat and buy more skyscrapers in Washington as they exacerbate a "gas shortage" that has been over for 40 years. The price of corn is artificially high and if we ever have a corn shortage (virtually all of it is grown in one small area called "Iowa") the gasahol plants have first dibs on the corn.

Not that this matters since so much of the fuel is just being wasted in industry and by "consumers" who use it for unnecessary, redundant, or wasteful purposes anyway. And of course politicians have to move about to discuss ways of selling global warming and telling the rest of us how we must cut back as they continue to encourage their inbred buddies in business to sell garbage at a loss to make money.

Garbage, prisons, legal actions, destruction, foreclosures, bankruptcy and mayhem are the new road to riches in an economy built on "education" purchased from prestigious universities. Government virtually micromanages most industry and commerce while allowing bankers free reign.

Sorry but that still examples of the problems of economy and examples of greeds among companies, which are not science itself.

You cannot really blame science for how companies mismanage resources or misuse science, because generally these people in executive positions are business people, not scientists, so they are far more interested in making profits in whatever they financed and they are in the business of making products to sell.

That companies, businesses and people as consumers buy such products that are wasteful to natural resources, again you can blame all of them, but that also have nothing to do with science.

And the government and politicians that support the industry that waste natural resources, are generally not scientists. Most politicians have backgrounds in business and lawyers. There are some medical doctors who managed to gain ministerial or cabinet roles, but i have yet to see any physicists or chemists or astronomers in politics.

So your real issues are with politicians, political leaders, businesses and companies directors and executives, who generally don’t have any scientific background.

You are not at all being logical or realistic, here.

 

[gnostic]

I have never said one single word about a "correct definition". I don't believe a "correct definition" even exists for any word because all words can be deconstructed. It is the reader's job to deduce the definition based on context. I've said many times I don't play semantics and that the task at hand is communication. Instead most people want to respond to individual words and with semantics.

If you aren't trying to take my meaning I'm certain you never will because I'm not talking about something mundane or workaday. These ideas are unusual and are hard to see from your perspective.

Right.

That exactly what I mean by your hypocrisy.

You stressed the importance like your fricking Ancient Language and Ancient Science, how they use precise language to convey scientific ideas, and yet you refused to understand modern scientific definitions and contexts.

Why won’t you learn what observation actually means IN SCIENCE, instead of cherry picking the definitions that suit you?

You saying that you don’t do semantics, but that exactly what you have been doing. You have been playing word game all along, but blaming others for semantics. Every replies you have posted are just word games.

That’s really rich, coming from you. What a Hypocrite you are.

 

[cladking]

Semantics is sometimes necessary when two people have *very* different uses for some aspects of language. it is then important for both sides to be clear about what they mean.

I use the word "semantics" to refer to a semantical argument or word play. Obviously we must define terms if we don't recognize their use.

Yes, experimentation is a type of observation. And looking at something does not imply understanding. Who said it does?

Yes, but experiment and observation have different meanings.

Yet Egyptologists look at the Pyramid Texts and know they don't understand and pronounce it magic. Ouija boards do not allow the autistic to communicate. Shoveling wealth into landfill is not a productive use of resources.

But as far as i can see, it has no consistent meaning in the contexts in which you use it. So, to be clear, what *do* you mean by that phrase?

Look and See Science is what is produced by an expert who believes he can understand complex processes by simply looking at them and writing up a peer reviewed paper.

 

[cladking]

All evidences are observation, regardless if you can see it with the naked eye or not.

We see what we believe not what's there.

 

[Polymath257]

Look and See Science is what is produced by an expert who believes he can understand complex processes by simply looking at them and writing up a peer reviewed paper.

That seems like an incredibly naive way to look at the process. I don't think *anyone* believes you can understand a complex system by simply looking at it. There is considerably more to the process than that. Among other things: hypothesis formation, prediction, using competing explanations to formulate better tests (even if those tests are 'looking at it'), etc.

 

[Polymath257]

We see what we believe not what's there.

Only up to a point. At some point, the belief isn't enough to over-rule the observation. Or someone with a different bias comes along and points out the mistake.

 

[cladking]

You stressed the importance like your fricking Ancient Language and Ancient Science, how they use precise language to convey scientific ideas, and yet you refused to understand modern scientific definitions and contexts.

We don't have the luxury of a language which is logical and can not be misunderstood. We have to make do with words that are defined in terms of other words which are in turn defined in other words. Any of us can form daisy chains of words and play semantics until observation and experiment are the same thing just like airplane and Timbuktu.

There was nothing "magical" about Ancient Language or ancient science, just as there is nothing "magical" about experiment or modern science. Math doesn't work because we are so damn smart, it works because it is quantified logic and logic really is "magical". Logic is what nature provides all of her animals in order to model reality itself and experienced as consciousness (though animals and ancients experience consciousness chiefly as emotion). This logic is the "magic" of the fractal growth of the brain in utero. The wiring of the brain obeys the logic of nature so the output of the brain models reality itself.

But we modern people have a confused language that arose in the dust of babel and instead of modeling reality we choose beliefs and model them. We see our beliefs so they are forever reinforced through experience itself until we eventually become those beliefs which we chose.

Despite these being simple ideas you'll pick out a word or phrase and ignore the content of what I'm suggesting. You'll say I have no evidence despite the vast tracts of evidence and ability to predict. You'll ignore the fact that I claim this is supported by all experiment: all REAL SCIENCE. No , it is not supported by Look and see Science like "they mustta used ramps" or "animals are dumb". It is not supported by your beliefs and what you learned on your parents' knees.

 

[cladking]

Only up to a point. At some point, the belief isn't enough to over-rule the observation. Or someone with a different bias comes along and points out the mistake.

Are you really so sure of that?

Obviously people can "change their minds" and this can be set in motion by seeing something that is outside our belief system.

I maintain that we must be willing to acquire a new mind before we can see what we did the precipitated that change. Certainly scientists are more capable of this on average and certainly scientists can be much more dispassionate; less invested in their beliefs.

Why didn't anyone else than Newton get hit in the head by an apple? I've been hit a few times by stuff but I never invented a new math or discovered magic.

 

[gnostic]

We don't have the luxury of a language which is logical and can not be misunderstood. We have to make do with words that are defined in terms of other words which are in turn defined in other words. Any of us can form daisy chains of words and play semantics until observation and experiment are the same thing just like airplane and Timbuktu.

Experiments are observations.

You are not being logical here.

Whenever you perform an experiment, and you are using measurements something, then those measurements are the result of observations.

Whenever you are counting some things in an experiment, you are using observation.

And when you compare one test result against another, that another observation.

Mind, not everything observed involve direct sight. You might use an oscilloscope to measure the wavelengths or frequencies of some input or out signals.

You cannot look at the some circuits and actually know voltage, current or resistance by sight, so you would use a multimeter.

As a civil engineer, I used to have to test the tensile strength or compression strength or the stress level of concrete, with various instruments, because I cannot do by just looking at them. All these tests I have performed are still considered observation.

You clearly don’t understanding that experiment is a form of observation.

Look up the damn words observation and experiment, but not in a mere dictionary. Look them up in some science textbooks or science dictionary, for goodness sake.

Or ask physicist or chemist or even a biologist.

Polymath257 is our resident mathematician and physicist, who would know far more than you and me.

My background in those areas (maths and physics) are only limited to those that applied to my civil engineering and computer science courses. I was never taught Relativity or Quantum Mechanics, Particle Physics, Astronomy, etc, in either courses, so in the last 15 years I learned them in my free time. I just learn enough to understand the basics, but it doesn’t mean I am qualified or expert. I would never deluded myself by calling myself a physicist or scientist. It is a matter of curiosity, that I have acquainted myself on those subjects.

 

[gnostic]

We don't have the luxury of a language which is logical and can not be misunderstood. We have to make do with words that are defined in terms of other words which are in turn defined in other words. Any of us can form daisy chains of words and play semantics until observation and experiment are the same thing just like airplane and Timbuktu.

There was nothing "magical" about Ancient Language or ancient science, just as there is nothing "magical" about experiment or modern science.

Cladking.

How many times must I tell you?

You cannot read any ancient language, especially those that exist prior 2000 BCE, let alone speak those languages, so how could you possibly know that their languages were logical or not.

You are merely speculating the ancient did or didn’t do,

You said it yourself, language is important to convey ideas, but science is precise explanations to what something is and how does it work.

I have read enough literature prior to 2000 BCE, that there are no scientific treatises in the early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BCE) or earlier (earlier as in Chalcolithic period, Neolithic period, Palaeolithic period, etc). There are no engineering treatises too.

Even the ideas of metaphysics never existed before the 1st millennium BCE.

All you are doing is using anachronism.

 

[Skwim]

Metaphysics: Is metaphysics better than science?

To me, this like asking what is better, plants or speech? Each concerns itself with its own niche of reality; with those of science being far more adaptable to the health and welfare of mankind. So, in that sense science is better; however, if one is more interested in philosophical issues such as existence and its constituent parts, then metaphysics would be your choice.

Science is a hammer while metaphysics is a baseball.

.