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What is Metaphysics: From Abstract to Concrete

Ved Liberty Schmidt

Metaphysics-Metaphysics explores questions that even science cannot answer. It explores inquiry processes surrounding our existence and reality. It is often critiqued as being vague, but this line of thinking heavily influences how we view the world.

Ved Devyn Nichols

From Abstract to Concrete: Exploring the Metaphysical Abstractions

Ved Tranum Johal

2014

Ved Adam Olson

Understanding Metaphysical questions through abstractions

what is the meaning of life?

Thomas aquinas was a firm believer in god and seemed to had found meaning in his life. He as many other philosophers of the time, studied the ideology/theory of humanism. Humanism is essentially the affirmation of our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good. So maybe, in all seriousness, the meaning of life is extremely simply in our ability to fulfill it as well as the level of difficulty to understand it. Leading ethical lives of perosonal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good seems simple enough; however, this just raises another question which is, what is the greater good? Is there a universal greater good, or for some areas of the world, do they see the greater good as something different then we do in North America? Once again, the question of subjectiveness arises, as it does with almost every other abstraction we've covered so far.

In todays age religion and spirituality aren't nearly as meaningful and important as they were centuries ago. For the longest time, God and salvation was the ultimate meaning of life. Have we become smarter, or have we abandoned the doctrines that were used and followed for so many years. Maybe if we want to understand the meaning of life, we must turn towards spirituality.

Isaac Newton studied many of the natural processes that take place in our lives and time was one of them. Time is equally as complicated as the question what is the meaning of life. Maybe the meaning of our lives is to complete as much as humanly possibly in the time we have to live. Or maybe the meaning of our lives is to slow the aging process so the we have more time to live.

Given how little Time we have to live on this planet, the abstraction, time might help us better understand the meaning of life.

What is our place in the universe?

The universe is so large the mind can't even comprehend it. So how are we expected to understand our place in it if we dont even know how big it is. Many philosophers have studied the complexity of the universe to better understand its origins and what exactly our place is in it. There are not very many answers to this that lie within the limits of our knowledge. Having said that, given the size of the universe, its possible that there are other civilizations that exist out in the cosmos, which could maybe point to our connection with something larger then just our known existence.

To understand our place in the universe, a look at the abstraction cosmology is probably a good place to start.

David Chalmers is a professor at the university of New York and is know for his work in conscientiousness. he argues that When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. There is a connection between all of these metaphysical questions, that is the idea of subjectiveness. Given the inability to fully understand conscientiousness, its extremely hard to understand the validity of our own existence. Unable to even understand if we exist outside of our own minds, how are we even able to begin to understand our place in the universe.

When trying to determine our place in the universe, the abstraction existence is likely the most logical place to start. Given the size of our universe and the amount of questions that still exist on its origins, we should explore the validity of of our own existence.

Do we have free will

Emmanuel Kant was a German Philosopher that worked in the field of the mind and more importantly conscientiousness. He believed that matters that were involved with the self, were a cognitive function of two things; percepts and concepts. This means that as much as the idea of free will deals with inquiry of actual facts, it deals equally as much with humans ability to perceive. So once again we see this idea that free will is almost impossible to determine given its attachment to perception.

Given what I've learned so far on the complexity of the question, "do we have free will", I believe that the answer to this question lies in the abstractions mind and matter. Mind deals with perceived reality which may lead us further into the extent of our own free will.

Aristotles law of identity argued that, anything that exists has a specific nature, and that it is recognizable by its properties. This theory involves the use of subjects of physical matter, however I believe we could use it to determine wether or not a question is true or not. On one hand, you could argue that there are examples of free will in our everyday lives which would have to mean we have free will. However, on the other hand, Thomas Hobbes Determinism ideology does make you think if we do have free will.

We could also look towards the abstraction of identity to come to a conclusion on wether or not we have free will or not. If free will does in fact exist, it must manifest itself in a particular form.

Thomas Hobbes was considered a determinist and was considered to be an atheist by many. Essentially determinism is the believe that all things that take place are not a consequence of free will but of a linear chain that cannot be broken. Everything that happened was going to happen not matter what. You can't change what's going to happen because that would then just be what was going to happen. Hobbes believed that anything that contradicted the idea of determinism was simply nonsense. This was largely the reason he was not liked by many, especially during a time where the majority of the population believed in God and also in the idea that people created there own paths in life. So for obvious reasons, Hobbes was not exactly a fan favourite.

Obviously, Free will and determinism would be the appropriate abstractions when wishing to determine if in fact we do have free will. This is a very complicated issue and I'm not sure if we would even be able know if we dont have free will. Take cows for example, to us they seem like slaves, tied up for years only harvested for their milk then used for meat once their milking years are finished; doesn't seem like free will. But maybe to them, they think, look at this old farmer, coming in every day to drain my utter and give me relief, not to mention he feeds me every time I make a lot of noise and cleans up my crap for me. What I'm saying is I dont know if we would even be able to comprehend what free will would look like, even is it was staring us right in the face.

Does God exist?

A philosopher that was largely involved with the idea of god and the origins of the cosmos was Benedict de Spinoza. His theory, Spinozism, focused majorly on the doctrine that the concept of a personal relationship with God comes from the position that one is a part of an infinite interdependent "organism." Spinoza argued that everything is a derivative of God, interconnected with all of existence. Although humans experience only thought and extension, what happens to one aspect of existence will affect others. This idea is quite complicated and unorthodox compared to the more traditional beliefs brought to be by reality and lived experience. I believe this idea is perplexing and could lead to more answers regarding Gods existence if studied more thoroughly. Through Spinozism, Spinoza teaches us about morality and God through theories such as ecology and determinism.

The abstraction of cosmology in my opinion might hold some value when wishing to determine wether or not god exists or not. When I think of heaven, I imagine it being somewhere high and beyond, potentially in space. So maybe when trying to figure out if god exists, we have to look to the cosmos.

Aristotle was one of the founding fathers of metaphysical ideologies in his work the treatise (although the term "metaphysics" wasn't coined until much later). In his works, he discusses "the law of probability and necessity". He talks quite a bit about cause and effect and how the everything that has become, must have became something from something else. When talking about about Gods existence, he is a creator; God would be the cause to the effect (humans) of being. In all honesty, the cause of our existence is unknown, however it does make you wonder if a supernatural father, such as god is in fact our genesis.

I believe possibility could be another abstraction that could possibly better our understanding on gods validity.

Some philosophers who worked on the idea of religion and god include, John Locke, who was for the idea of religion and David Hume who was against the idea of God. Locke was the founder of the "empiricism" ideology. Empiricism deals with knowledge that is conducted through experience rather than rational inquiry and Locke used this ideology to consolidate and preach his understanding of God. At the same time, his work belongs to the history of liberal theology, and was intimately connected with the deism which followed; it treats religion like any other subject, and interprets the Bible like any other book; and, in his view of the nature of religion, he tends to describe it as if it consisted almost entirely in an attitude of intellectual belief—a tendency which became more prominent in the course of the eighteenth century.

religion and spirituality; Although theology could be considered a separate branch to Philosophy, there is no question that studying religious and spiritual philosophers beliefs could help us understand the metaphysical question of, "Does god exist?".