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From: gwyn@BRL.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re:  meta-physics
Message-ID: <422@sri-arpa.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 18-Jul-85 11:42:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.422
Posted: Thu Jul 18 11:42:12 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 12:17:24 EDT
Lines: 37

From:  Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn@BRL.ARPA>

"Metaphysics" was the name of a book by Aristotle.
It has come to mean the study of the ontological
aspects of the world, by which is meant pondering
whether there are "things" that "exist", and what
do these terms mean.  There are several opinions
held by reputable philosophers on these matters,
including:
	- "ideal" entities exist but all we can
	  detect are imperfect projections of them;
	- consciousness is primary and "existents"
	  are produced by acts of consciousness;
	- existence and consciousness are both
	  inventions of some divine entity;
	- there are real objects and consciousness,
	  each with specific innate characteristics,
	  and what is perceived is the result of
	  interaction of these.
The general idea is, "metaphysics" is the branch
of philosophy that treats the questions of what
is truly fundamental in existence or experience.
The branch that treats how we acquire knowledge
and what knowledge consists of is "epistemology".
There are other branches of philosophy such as
"ethics", "aesthetics", etc.

Physics is not normally considered to be closely
related to these; however, it should be apparent
that some questions in physics are fundamentally
epistemological questions.  Most physicists give
rather short shrift to metaphysical speculation,
on the grounds that the same general issues are
still unresolved after thousands of years of
debate and that physics can proceed without
answers to such questions.  It may be wrong,
but that seems to be the general consensus.