Free will and the necessary evil

[Jehanne]

"Meta" means "beyond", and so metaphysics would mean "beyond physics".

You're not helping yourself.

The word ‘metaphysics’ is notoriously hard to define. Twentieth-century coinages like ‘meta-language’ and ‘metaphilosophy’ encourage the impression that metaphysics is a study that somehow “goes beyond” physics, a study devoted to matters that transcend the mundane concerns of Newton and Einstein and Heisenberg. This impression is mistaken. The word ‘metaphysics’ is derived from a collective title of the fourteen books by Aristotle that we currently think of as making up Aristotle's Metaphysics. Aristotle himself did not know the word. (He had four names for the branch of philosophy that is the subject-matter of Metaphysics: ‘first philosophy’, ‘first science’, ‘wisdom’, and ‘theology’.) At least one hundred years after Aristotle's death, an editor of his works (in all probability, Andronicus of Rhodes) titled those fourteen books “Ta meta ta phusika”—“the after the physicals” or “the ones after the physical ones”—the “physical ones” being the books contained in what we now call Aristotle's Physics. The title was probably meant to warn students of Aristotle's philosophy that they should attempt Metaphysics only after they had mastered “the physical ones”, the books about nature or the natural world—that is to say, about change, for change is the defining feature of the natural world.

Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy || Metaphysics

Merriam-Webster -- Metaphysics

Did you know?

Just as physics deals with the laws that govern the physical world (such as those of gravity or the properties of waves), metaphysics describes what is beyond physics—the nature and origin of reality itself, the immortal soul, and the existence of a supreme being. Opinions about these metaphysical topics vary widely, since what's being discussed can't be observed or measured or even truly known to exist. So most metaphysical questions are still as far from a final answer as they were when Plato and Aristotle were asking them.

[Angrboda]

You're not helping yourself.

Merriam-Webster -- Metaphysics

Did you know?

Just as physics deals with the laws that govern the physical world (such as those of gravity or the properties of waves), metaphysics describes what is beyond physics—the nature and origin of reality itself, the immortal soul, and the existence of a supreme being. Opinions about these metaphysical topics vary widely, since what's being discussed can't be observed or measured or even truly known to exist. So most metaphysical questions are still as far from a final answer as they were when Plato and Aristotle were asking them.

That's nice. That still doesn't help you. Try actually supporting your idea instead of arguing based upon etymological nonsense. Even if metaphysics were "beyond physics" -- whatever that means -- it doesn't show that doing one is a prerequisite to doing the other.

[The Grand Nudger]

I think that insomuch as a person engages in metaphysics as a way to explain life, the universe, and everything- why the regular old physics is the way it is, it probably would be useful to have a good idea of what they're attempting to explain.

[Jehanne]

Merriam-Webster -- Metaphysics

That's nice. That still doesn't help you. Try actually supporting your idea instead of arguing based upon etymological nonsense. Even if metaphysics were "beyond physics" -- whatever that means -- it doesn't show that doing one is a prerequisite to doing the other.

Metaphysical ideas are not testable, which means that they will never rise beyond the level of conjecture. I could claim the Cosmos is eternal and uncaused, pointing to peer-reviewed papers in The Physical Review Letters to support that POV, while others will appeal to "God did it". The former claim can be modeled, and, perhaps, even tested; the latter claim, even if true, is not testable barring God's participation in some controlled and observable experiment (say, a randomized, double-blinded prayer study or the spontaneous healing of an adult amputee or something similar). And, so, metaphysicians disagree with one another, some atheistic and others theistic with still others deistic and pantheistic and no mechanisms exist to adjudicate the disagreements amongst them.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why would adding a god help? They don't seem to know shit.

[Jehanne]

Why would adding a god help? They don't seem to know shit.

Fairies at the bottom of wells.

[Angrboda]

That's nice.  That still doesn't help you.  Try actually supporting your idea instead of arguing based upon etymological nonsense.  Even if metaphysics were "beyond physics" -- whatever that means -- it doesn't show that doing one is a prerequisite to doing the other.

Metaphysical ideas are not testable, which means that they will never rise beyond the level of conjecture.  I could claim the Cosmos is eternal and uncaused, pointing to peer-reviewed papers in The Physical Review Letters to support that POV, while others will appeal to "God did it".  The former claim can be modeled, and, perhaps, even tested; the latter claim, even if true, is not testable barring God's participation in some controlled and observable experiment (say, a randomized, double-blinded prayer study or the spontaneous healing of an adult amputee or something similar).  And, so, metaphysicians disagree with one another, some atheistic and others theistic with still others deistic and pantheistic and no mechanisms exist to adjudicate the disagreements amongst them.

I'm not following you. Even if that were true, what does that have to do with anything?

[Jehanne]

Metaphysical ideas are not testable, which means that they will never rise beyond the level of conjecture.  I could claim the Cosmos is eternal and uncaused, pointing to peer-reviewed papers in The Physical Review Letters to support that POV, while others will appeal to "God did it".  The former claim can be modeled, and, perhaps, even tested; the latter claim, even if true, is not testable barring God's participation in some controlled and observable experiment (say, a randomized, double-blinded prayer study or the spontaneous healing of an adult amputee or something similar).  And, so, metaphysicians disagree with one another, some atheistic and others theistic with still others deistic and pantheistic and no mechanisms exist to adjudicate the disagreements amongst them.

I'm not following you. Even if that were true, what does that have to do with anything?

All scholars agree that the findings of modern physics has had a significant impact on modern philosophy over the last century; the opposite is, however, not true. Physicists do not care what philosophers think, except when they are trying to be polite about not caring.

[arewethereyet]

Pretty sure it's reaching to say 'all'.

[Jehanne]

Pretty sure it's reaching to say 'all'.

A handful of physicists have dual appointments, in physics and philosophy; I do not think that even they care what philosophers think.