The following short essay on metaphysics explains the limitations of science and how these can be overcome with a correct understanding of metaphysics. Please realise that we are considering metaphysics as it was conceived by Aristotle, Hume, Einstein (and other great philosophers) as the study of the hidden cause of our limited senses – not modern ‘new age’ metaphysics that is ‘beyond’ our senses and leads to all sorts of fanciful imaginary nonsense.
It is common knowledge that the sciences (including physics) are founded on two sources of truth;
i) Logic from principles. i.e. Theories. (a priori knowledge)
ii) Empirical knowledge from our senses. i.e. observation and experiment. (a posteriori knowledge)
The aim is to unite these two sources of truth with the most simple principles.
However, there are four central problems that we must first understand if we are to correctly understand metaphysics and its relation to science. This is important as it does lead to a simple solution for describing physical reality.
1. Although logic from principles is necessary and certain, it does not mean that the things we assume to exist (as stated by our principles) actually exist in reality. An example of this is the assumption that light is a ‘particle’ (photon). While it is true that light energy is emitted and absorbed in discrete amounts, it is a further theoretical assumption that light is a ‘particle’. (As the Wave Structure of Matter explains, light is actually caused by standing wave interactions, which cause the discrete standing wave states and thus discrete energy states of matter.)
As Einstein writes;The skeptic will say: “It may well be true that this system of equations is reasonable from a logical standpoint. But this does not prove that it corresponds to nature.” You are right, dear skeptic. Experience alone can decide on truth. … Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world: all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it. (Albert Einstein, 1954)
2. Further difficulties arise because our senses also deceive us. Philosophers have known for thousands of years that our mind represents our senses, thus the world we see and taste and touch is different (naive real) to the real world which causes our senses.
Basically, we never see the hidden connection between things, only the effects of that connection. e.g. When we drop a rock, we see it fall to the earth, but we do not see the connection between the rock and the earth.
Likewise, our sense of color is an obvious example of how our mind represents a certain frequency of light.
If we are to describe Reality then it must be founded on real things which exist and cause our senses, not on the naive real representation of our senses. Thus Science, by being empirically founded, is not well suited to describing Reality itself. As Aristotle and Hume wrote;
Rather, they start this, displaying it to the senses, …. and go on to offer more or less rigorous demonstrations of the per se attributes of their proprietary genera. This sort of procedure is inductive (empirical) and it is as plain as a pikestaff that it does not amount to a demonstration of essence or of what it is to be a thing. … But also philosophy is not about perceptible substances (they, you see, are prone to destruction) (Aristotle, Metaphysics)
When we look about us towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary connexion; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other. … experience only teaches us, how one event constantly follows another; without instructing us in the secret connexion, which binds them together, and renders them inseparable. (David Hume, 1737)
3. When we see things, we are actually seeing a discrete energy change (light quanta) so we do not directly observe what matter is, we only see it when it changes its energy state.
4. Finally, science is founded on the observation of matter and its interconnected motions (many things). Since the time of Newton’s Mechanics, Space and Time have been a ‘background stage’ in which matter ‘particles’ move about. So science is founded on observations of many material things we experience, and space has been largely ignored. However, as explained below, this then means that we must add ‘forces / fields’ to connect the matter ‘particles’ in space and time. The problem is that by working from the many things we experience, we have ignored the one thing (space) that these many things (matter) exist in.
Thus Science / Physics is inclined to be misled because both of its truths (logic & senses) are deceptive. Metaphysics aims to overcome this problem by using reason to try and understand what the real world is, which causes both our logic and our senses (and ourselves!).
Given the above, we can now show in a very simple way how to resolve these problems. The solution is to realise the error of founding science on the many observable things (matter) rather than the one thing that they all exist in (Space) which causes and connects matter. i.e. For many thousands of years the great philosophers / metaphysicists have known that for matter to be interconnected throughout the universe, then there must be one thing that connects the many things (matter) together. That a complete description of reality must be founded on one thing / substance. As Gottfried Leibniz and Friedrich Nietzsche write;
Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. (Leibniz, 1670)
Greek philosophy seems to begin with a preposterous fancy, with the proposition that water is the origin and mother-womb of all things. Is it really necessary to stop there and become serious? Yes, and for three reasons: firstly, because the preposition does enunciate something about the origin of things; secondly, because it does so without figure and fable; thirdly and lastly, because it contained, although only in the chrysalis state, the idea :everything is one. … That which drove him (Thales) to this generalization was a metaphysical dogma, which had its origin in a mystic intuition and which together with the ever renewed endeavors to express it better, we find in all philosophies- the proposition: everything is one! (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Greeks)
Thus metaphysics is ‘beyond our senses’ because it realises that though we don’t see an obvious causal connection between matter, reason tells us there is (e.g. earth orbiting sun, that we can see stars across the universe).
Further, since the time of Kant, it has become increasingly clear that we cannot describe reality correctly (i.e. from one metaphysical foundation), while we have theories founded on many separate / discrete things. Thus Space and Time cannot both exist, nor can particles and forces / fields (the current paradigm). This explains why we now live in a postmodern relative culture of no absolute truths, because our theories are founded on many things, thus at the end of the day these are merely human constructions, ideas approximating reality, but not absolutely true.
So how do we overcome this? By rejecting particles, forces and time, and explaining / connecting these many things from One thing Space. As Aristotle wrote in his Metaphysics;
The first philosophy (Metaphysics) is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. … And here we will have the science to study that which is just as that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which, just as a thing that is, it has. ….That among entities there must be some cause which moves and combines things. … There must then be a principle of such a kind that its substance is activity. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 340BC)
The Wave Structure of Matter assumes that one thing Space exists as a substance with the Properties of a wave medium. Matter is formed from spherical standing waves in this space (it is this wave motion of space that causes matter’s activity and the phenomena of Time). This then solves the fundamental problem of metaphysics and philosophy, the problem of the one and the many, by connecting matter, time and forces back to the spherical wave motions of space. Matter is large not small, but we only ’see’ the Wave-Center of the spherical waves and have been deluded into the belief of ‘particles’. Thus we can now understand how Matter interacts with other matter due to interactions of the spherical in-waves which ultimately determine the future location of the wave-center (what we now call forces and action-at-a-distance).
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