I open Minerva’s Gambit with a quote by Immanuel Kant in that: Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.
Okay, not quite a definition; more of a declarative on the perils of trying to define it. That said, metaphysics is considered to be a transitory concept. It is the study of how the world works – world, meaning the construct of all things that make up reality.
Examples: By what mechanism do we understand the abstract concepts of beauty or love? What drives humans toward perfection? What binds our spiritual being with material reality? Do we have free agency, or are we just playing out some nucleic-acid based preprogrammed biological routine, that only allows for a few insignificant variations?
Metaphysis is the study of aspects that cannot be measured to a set standard or gauge, a one size fits all. We formulate truths by measuring new events against our standing belief framework and if relevant, we augment that belief structure. These structures are constantly forming – always in transition. Are we born with a pre-existing framework, or are humans born tabula rosa – blank-slate? Without a framework for reference, can we see truths? Chicken and the egg?
Consider Augustine’s famous Crede, ut intelligas. – Believe, so that you may understand.
So, belief must come first?
This is the stuff of metaphysics.
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Does Matter matter?
The Two-Tonic Twits are at it again. This time its a biker bar in Zenda. Having come across two boats that seem to have collided at an intersection, multidimensional universe comes to the fore. Alex argues the impossibility of coexistent realities only to have it thrown back at him. Is reality static? Faith and Truth collide in this examination of metaphysics.
Revelation vs. Reason
While sitting at Chuck’s tavern in Fontana on a boat-bum infested midsummer day. A deckchair philosopher aimlessly ponders existence deeper than the average navel. Ambushed by one of the Tall Twits known to habit that area, he is drawn into a two-fall match on human reasoning vs. divine revelation that few fear to tolerate outside the solace of alcohol-induced neural seppuku.
On The Duality of Human Existence
In philosophy, it has been considered that Human Beings, as opposed to other Beings, consist of two ontological aspects: the spiritual and the natural. These are made up of two uniquely different but intertwined elements—the physical and the metaphysical. When we look at the metaphysical, the nonmaterialistic, there is no gradient scale to measure up to so science has no instrumentation to define it. We are relegated to using ontological argument, and because this process is not definitive, it leaves a lot of messy questions on the true nature of humans, like: do we have purpose? The materialistic world of science says no, the spiritual side of metaphysics says: Hell yeah!
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How is rationality defined?
By the application of logical proofs or reason to support a behavior. These can be helpful, but rationality is apophatic to irrationality meaning in absence of it. We can not directly define a rational aspect due to the accompanying moral aspects of accepted rational thought, but we can define an irrational aspect.
Thank you!!1