1. Avoiding points raised by those would won’t indulge you. Your choice of course.

2. Avoiding Matt’s argument. Again, your choice, but it seems to be a bit of odd one given the source of this “conversation”.

3. While not stated, an underlying point I think you’re avoiding is that metaphysics won’t really help make your religion any more “real”. Bit of biggie, really, in my book seeing that this seems to be the reason for your interest in “metaphysics”.

Anyone is welcome to correct my thoughts below (but, please, without theological agendas).

As far as I can see anything claimed to be “metaphysical” can’t be shown to be a ‘truth’ (or ‘true’). It seems to me that all metaphysical arguments start with assumptions (assertions, whatever). It would follow that at most, they can only be shown to be self-consistent. You could of course show that they would have certain properties if the starting assumptions hold, but there’s the catch: you’re limited by the assumptions the argument started with. (By contrast scientific arguments try work with respect to observations and a methodology that tries to ensure that the findings are independent of the observer among other things.)

Following this, it seems to me that a religious followers trying to assert that their religion is “metaphysical” in nature have to then accept that their religions can’t never be shown to be “true” and hence that they can never claim it to be “true” either. Which is to say that making their religions “metaphysical” in nature doesn’t seem to be helpful: it won’t make the religion more real (or even more convincing).

(A practical reality is that some try set this up as a justification for long-winded impressive sounding arguments, which on closer examination are empty. Bafflegab, in other words.)

I am thinking of writing a post on the “metaphysical” argument as used by Matt Flannaghan and another one on his naive scientific epistemology. I don’t think one could pin him down on definitions but, nevertheless, I think it would be interesting (and possibly worthwhile) to analyse his arguments and find their motivation.

1. Due to time constraints, I’m keen to keep my engagement focussed mostly on the fruitful interaction with U.C. Of course, no body needs permission from me to comment and exchange with eachother, but at the moment, I’ll be mostly interacting with U.C. But I do have time to interact with others, esp. when I sense it will be fruitful. So I’ll do so here briefly.

2. I’ve followed Matt’s recent post/discussion a bit, and felt that his argument was too complex, and that a different argument would have been more effective and less mis-leading. For this reason, I’ve not got the time to try and compare my thoughts with his (esp. as presented in the recent post/discussion).

As for a definition of ‘metaphysics’, for the moment I think it’s always best to be as ‘concrete’ as possible, and that my examples of ‘worth’, ‘dignity’, ‘value’, etc. are sufficient examples of ‘things’ which are squarely in the metaphysical category, and things for which the ‘evidence’ will be other-than-physical/empirical. This is not an anti-science statement or a science-avoiding tactic; rather it’s merely a generally accepted distinction. (I refer again to the ’skepdic’[tionary] entry on ‘metaphysics’)

Matt Flannaghan’s use of the term did provide me with some insight – in the sense that the “metaphysical” argument provides a useful way to avoid or deny scientific knowledge. He is claiming, in effect, that “metaphysical knowledge should trump evidential knowledge. That in determining truth we should take theological, “metaphysical” knowledge into account.

Therefore he will claim that evolutionary science offers the best scientific knowledge – but this can be trumped by theology. Hence fundamentalists can deny the right of children to learn about evolutionary science because it offends their (fundamentalist) beliefs – their theological, “metaphysical” knowledge.

Now, I can see the logic of having philosophical/”metaphysical” concepts but if these conflict with reality as determined by evidence then they are being applied too concretely, too specifically – inappropriately. Actually, dishonestly, because they are being used as a way of bolstering prejudices against evidence.

You can measure values, it’s just the measurements are relative, not absolute; subjective, i.e. is from a particular individual’s point of view; and are not fixed “for all in time”, but changing over time. We do this all the time, it’s part of how we decide preferences to one thing over another. It would be more accurate to say that for some things there is no universal absolute measure of “worth” that can be used by all individuals.

I get a feeling you may not be understanding what is being mean by “useful lies” here either.

Nonetheless, I’ll share the thoughts that this raises in my mind.

Of course, a sun-set is not a ‘thing’ per se, but more a term we use to describe our experience of the earth’s rotation causing us to progressively see less and less of the sun as the earth blocks it progressively more and more.

As for me, I think a more immediate example would be that of worth/dignity – be that of soil, a symphony or a son. To use the overly-cliched phrase, you cannot put worth, dignity or value ‘in a test tube’. These qualities are undeniably in the realm of metaphysics. We have no ‘unit of measure’ for them.

(on ‘units of measure’, you may find my post measuring value of some interest – fairly brief as well…)

So then, far from ‘metaphysical truths’ refering to some invisible bullet-point list of metaphysical truths in the sky. I’m rather refering to things that we take for granted every day.

This is where your language of ‘useful lies’ comes in. I contend that whatever we may think about the limited ’seeming-ness’ of our perception of the world, the lack of certainty certainly does not point this or that way concerning things like worth/value. In other words, no matter how fuzzy our perception of the world may be, it does not follow from this that things like worth/value are ‘useful lies’. It is equally possible that they are ‘useful truths’.

And perhaps if we take the word ‘useful’ seriously, we could infer that if they are actually and truly ‘useful’ then their ‘useful-ness’ may point toward their being ‘truths’ as opposed to ‘lies’.

Anyway, that’s enough from me for the moment. And by the way, don’t worry about digesting that entire paper I linked to – I certainly haven’t either (let alone his massive work ‘Insight’). You might want to just try to discern the relevant sections?

Anyway, cheers for now. Look forward to your reply when you get time.

Hey Dale,

Note quite back yet – still a bit stretched, and working my way through the text you linked to.

The back of my mind’s been ticking over our discussion. Just after your opinion on so I can better shape my thinking as I go.

Considering our two premises:

1a. Metaphysical truth (if such a thing exists) cannot be ‘got to’ via seeming.
1b. We can ‘get to’ metaphysical truth.

It seems like we’re going to need some kind of working definition of ‘metaphysical truth’ for this discussion. I’m unfond of dictionary definitions for this kind of discussion – they rarely fit the context well.

Here’s my take on what is meant by metaphysical truth.

Consider a sunset.

We have the idea of a sunset. We have the definition of a sunset. We have the perception of a sunset.

None of these things are ‘metaphysical truths’.

The metaphysical truth of what a sunset really is is the essence of what it is to be a sunset. By necessity, this metaphysical truth is unimanginable, undefinable, and unperceivable.

If this context works for you, I am interpreting your premise (1b) to mean that we can ‘get to’ metaphysical truth by inference from our imaginings, definitions, and perceptions.

Is this a fair account to you?

‘does’ should be ‘doesn’t', sorry.

The new coinage ’scientism’ would appear to have arisen from religious people who insist on opposing science (rather than just noting is a another way of working), who note the remarks about how religions/religious people sometimes (often in my experience), make statements beyond what they can say. The new terms seems to be an effort to reply in kind, except is flawed as science doesn’t work in the same way as religion to start with. This might reflect these people seeing the world in terms of how they do things, not realising or recognising (or accepting) that others work in other ways.

I may be some time having a mull over things, so I’ll have to ask you to forgive me if I remain silent for a week or so. I’m also stupidly busy at work right now. I’ve been away from work for two weeks due to unplanned personal reasons, and my schedule for the immediate future was completely crammed anyway. I’m looking at a succession of 50-60 hour weeks, here.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve been online. Engaging the mind in something other than software development gives me just enough distraction to take the edge off.

Anyway, while I’m busy, might I suggest something to keep you company while I’m gone. I try not to draw too much attention to it, but Nietzsche has been a huge influence over me. I say I don’t like to draw attention to it, because it implies I agree with Nietzsche, which is not necessarily the case. However, I find that he phrases problems in a such a way as to dramatically shift the way you look at them.

There is an essay of Nietzsche’s that keeps springing to my mind in the context of this discussion: On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense. There’s a nicely-formatted version available here:

http://faculty.uml.edu/enelson/truth&lies.htm

As I said – not a requirement, and I don’t plan to quote from this. But you may find it an interesting read given the context nonetheless.

I’d recommend copying and pasting the essay into a word editor, and rearranging the screen settings to make it easier to read.