Magnus, Marsha, The "Unmetaphysics Party" - sign me up - I like that. To find what is better is all James meant by "cash value". Cashing in your philosophical debate into a real life decision - does it change anything for the better ? (Cash, change, oh, oh ...Oh-Bama ?)
Interesting that "The Metaphysical Club" James / Dewey et al was deliberately ironic, since pragmatic philosophers don't really believe in metaphysics. My position is not secret, so I'll shut up and await others. Ian On 2/28/08, MarshaV <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi Magnus, > > Like the Unbirthday Party in Alice in Wonderland, I'm looking for an > Unmetaphysics. In other words, I'm looking at reality to discover > what it is not. Not this. Not that. My drive is to find what is > new and better. > > Marsha > > > > > > > At 05:09 AM 2/28/2008, you wrote: > >Hi all > > > >After reading, and being engaged in, a couple of head-on discussions > >here, I'm > >beginning to wonder if we have any common ground to stand on. One such common > >ground should be (IMO) the notion of what a metaphysics is. If we don't share > >that, we will end up like the people with no sense of direction running 100 > >yards on Monty Python's silly Olympics. Everyone will end up at their own 100 > >yard line and yell "I won!". > > > >I have a certain feeling we will get at least 2 different goals to aim for. > >We've had discussions about this before but I can't find them right now. > > > >I can start: > > > >To me, metaphysics has the same relationship to physics as metadata > >has to data > >in a database. For example, if you have an address book, the > >metadata is name, > >address, phone and email. Using that metadata, you can describe all > >your friends. > > > >A metaphysics should do the same with the reality/physics we want to describe > >with it. Your metadata describes your friends, and your metaphysics describes > >the reality. > > > >However, IMO there's one crucial difference between the two: > >If one of your friends gets one of those nifty things called mobile > >phone, your > >metadata is insufficient to describe this friend. You have to add a "Mobile > >phone" to your metadata. This is ok for metadata. > > > >But, IMO, it's *not* ok to do that for a metaphysics. Of course we > >can do that > >with our understanding/model of the metaphysics, but not to the metaphysics > >itself. The metaphysics has been working for ~15 billion years according to > >current research, and since time is a physical concept, the > >metaphysics has been > >ruling time as well, perhaps even initiating it from a timeless soup > >some "time" > >before the big bang. > > > >So, to me, a metaphysics is really outside our reality. We can't see it, we > >can't change it, we can only see it working in our reality. The only thing we > >can do is to describe it as good as we can and in doing so, understand the > >reality better. > > > >Anyone else? > > > >P.S. Let's try to keep this as civil as possible, please. The "This Event" > >thread starring SA and Ron is a great example. It would, for > >example, be prudent > >to lay out your own view of what a metaphysics is before criticizing > >anyone else's. > > > > Magnus > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >Moq_Discuss mailing list > >Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > >http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > >Archives: > >http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > >http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > > > > Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars... > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
