Philosophy

Metaphysics

"The hypothesis of a physical universe survives."

On my Philosophy 101 page, I wrote that metaphysics is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world. Cosmology and ontology are the two traditional branches of metaphysics. Cosmology seeks to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order. Ontology is the investigation into what types of things there are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. Ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences. Before the development of modern science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as "natural philosophy." The scientific method, however, made natural philosophy an empirical and experimental activity unlike the rest of philosophy, and by the end of the eighteenth century it had begun to be called "science" in order to distinguish it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics became the philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.

As discussed in epistemology, life emerged and began gathering information about the universe it lives in. Due to all of the limitations we face in that endeavour, there will always be unknowns that life may speculate about. Some of the speculations lead to useful actions and discoveries. Some of these speculations provide useful fictions to band people together or give them hope for the future. None of these speculations, however, should be held with any certainty for they have no evidence to support them.

There have been many, many attempts in the history of philosophy to prove the existence of non-natural entities (gods, ideas, minds, consciousness, etc., etc.). Therefore, the best way to explore the arguments against this barrage is by reading the metaphysical overview section in the essay on What I Learned From 100 Philosophy Thought Experiments. If any arguments for physicalism don't seem to hold up to you, dive into the details in that particular thought experiment.

In summary, the hypothesis that we live in a single, unified, natural universe has yet to be disproven. That hypothesis has provided us with the most fruitful and robust program for action. Metaphysical speculations beyond this natural world may prove useful to some, or possibly even true, but wherever they are beyond the possibility of empirical testing they are beyond the scope of an evolutionary philosophy. No matter what unknowns we have yet to discover, we know for now that all life shares one history, we are all related, and we have much to make sense of in order to keep surviving together. That project should be enough to unite us in research and action.

On May 24, 2022, I gave a talk on evolutionary metaphysics to the Evolutionary Philosophy Circle. In addition to reinforcing this physicalist stance in evolutionary philosophy, this talk also emphasised the usefulness that an evolutionary lens can bring to philosophy. The recognition of the fact of evolution — that the universe is not full of essential, hard edged, in-or-out boxes, but rather is composed of smooth, gradual processes that started from a position of absolute ignorance — is a metaphysical perspective about the composition of the universe that has great impact on all of philosophy. To read more about the wide-ranging repercussions of this, see the slides and script from my talk below:

Evolutionary Metaphysics: How This View of Life Can Deeply Alter Other Branches of Philosophy

Currently, the most difficult question for naturalists is probably considered to be the "hard problem" of consciousness. Starting in early 2020, I wrote a series of essays on this topic and the related question of free will. Using Tinbergen's four questions, I developed a new and unique theory to explain these phenomena. The entirety of that series (including a 6-page executive summary at the start) has been collated into a pdf booklet. A lo-res version can be found at the link below where a few tables are a bit blurry. (This is due to file size limitation on this website. For the full hi-res version, just contact me and tell me where to email it.)

An Evolutionary Theory of Consciousness and Free Will: Developed from an Analysis of Tinbergen's Four Questions

Metaphysics

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