The End of Metaphysics or the Reality of the Factual

Over centuries, philosophy has developed a variety of metaphysics, often arbitrary and interchangeable in their execution and underlying epistemology.

These approaches are characterized by a lack of justification and reversible premises. The following are some examples of this arbitrariness and reversibility:

Idealism vs. Materialism:

Idealism asserts that the world is primarily spiritual in nature, with matter being a manifestation of spirit. Hegel sees the world as a manifestation of the absolute spirit, while Kant separates the world of phenomena from the thing-in-itself.

Materialism, on the other hand, sees the world as primarily material, with spirit as the product of matter. Marx sees the world as a product of material relations, and Hobbes as a collection of material bodies.

Determinism vs. Indeterminism:

Determinists believe that all events are causally determined by previous events and reject the existence of free will. Spinoza sees the world determined by the laws of nature, and Hobbes sees free will as an illusion.

Indeterminists, on the other hand, hold that there are events that are not determined by previous events and affirm the existence of free will. Hume denies causal links between events, and Popper sees the future as open and indeterminate.

Monism vs. Dualism:

Monists argue that there is only one kind of substance, like Spinoza, who assumes only one substance, the Godhead.

Dualists such as Descartes and Locke recognize two types of substances: spirit and matter, with Locke viewing the soul as an immaterial substance.

Conventionalism vs. Realism:

Conventionalists see the truth of statements as dependent on conventions and language use. Quine and Kuhn view scientific paradigms as social conventions.

Realists, on the other hand, believe in an objective reality that exists independently of human perception, such as Aristotle and Russell, who see the truth of statements as independent of language use.

Skepticism vs. Dogmatism:

Skeptics doubt the possibility of gaining knowledge about the world. Pyrrho and Hume argue that our knowledge is based on habit and faith.

Dogmatists such as Descartes and Locke argue that knowledge can be gained through doubt of clear and distinct ideas, or through experience.

Subjectivism vs. Objectivism:

Subjectivists view moral values as subjective and individual. Hume and Nietzsche see morality as subjective or as a product of power relations.

Objectivists such as Kant and Mill argue that moral values are objective and universal, with Kant seeing an objective moral law and Mill seeing the greatest possible happiness for the greatest possible number as moral goals.

Nativism vs. Empiricism:

Nativists like Chomsky and Fodor believe that knowledge and skills are innate.

Empiricists, on the other hand, such as Locke and Hume, hold that knowledge and skills are acquired through experience.

Rationalism vs. Empiricism:

Rationalists such as Descartes and Leibniz see reason as the source of knowledge and emphasize the importance of innate ideas.

Empiricists such as Locke and Hume, on the other hand, derive knowledge from experience and regard reason as a tool of experience.

Continental Philosophy vs. Analytic Philosophy:

Continental philosophy emphasizes the meaning, understanding, and interpretation of texts. Heidegger presents the question of being as the core of philosophy, while Derrida emphasizes the infinite deconstructibility of texts.

Analytic philosophy focuses on logic, argumentation and conceptual analysis. Russell sees philosophy as the analysis of language, and Wittgenstein attributes most philosophical problems to language confusions.

Pragmatism vs. Idealism:

Pragmatism measures the value of ideas and theories by their practical use. James and Dewey emphasize the practical applicability of theories and their contribution to problem solving.

Idealism evaluates ideas and theories according to their truth and inner content. Kant distinguishes between formal truth, which is in accordance with the rules of logic, and material truth, which is in agreement with the object.

Choosing a philosophical approach is often a matter of personal preference, cultural influences, or scientific paradigms, with no clear preference for either approach. The supposed truth cannot be definitively verified or falsified in any of the approaches.

In other words, not a single one of these approaches has an epistemology, metaphysical or logical justification that begins in the here and now and is therefore ‘realistic’. Without exception, they are completely arbitrary statements, from which metaphysics are then constructed.

In order to develop a perspective that does justice to the human mind and the development of human intelligence, we must recognize that development in the evolutionary sense means above all adaptation and does not imply objective or transcendent knowledge. Our knowledge is always limited to what we can grasp from our human perspective and with our human means. This is particularly evident in classical and quantum physics, which are epistemically distinct theories.

Heisenberg argued that classical and quantum physics offer complementary descriptions of the world that complement each other but are incompatible. Classical physics is deterministic, while quantum physics is probabilistic. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle shows the limits of the simultaneous determination of the position and momentum of a particle.

Bohr saw quantum physics as a new interpretation of reality that depends on our observation. Bohm, on the other hand, developed an alternative interpretation of quantum mechanics, Bohm theory, which preserves deterministic elements while preserving the essential properties of quantum mechanics. This theory postulates a hidden variable that determines the state of a particle, but is not directly observable.

Classical and quantum physics offer different descriptions of nature based on different scales. A metaphysical justification is not required for this. Epistemology must therefore start where our human abilities and perspectives allow it.

So what should an epistemology look like that begins inductively and at the same time acknowledges that we can only ever gain knowledge from our point of view as human beings in this perspective?

It begins with the indisputable statement that we are epistemically transforming the world into a modality that suits us. Thus, the world is a subjective one from the outset. This happens through our specific interaction with the world, through which we form neural patterns. This neural transformat is the epistemic core of our consciousness.

So there is no objective world, therefore no thing in itself, no metaphysics. This ends with the realization that there is no objective world, it virtually cancels itself out.

We’re doing the same thing here as any entity. By confronting the world in a way that is appropriate to us, it becomes a world that corresponds to us, that is, a world that is subjective. The term entity can be resolved arbitrarily and can also be understood as a relation. This does not change anything.

Let’s take an electron, it ‘sees’ the world electronically. Thus, the world is subjective for him from the outset and excludes any form of objectivity in the transcendent sense.

A metaphysics based on this is valid only until the logical step from the transformation of the world into a subjective one has been completed. After that, it becomes obsolete. And since this logical step is an intransitivity, this obsolescence applies from the beginning, since every entity is instantiated as such from the beginning.

In this way we have reduced metaphysics to the point of absurdity in an inductive and logical way.

As I have already mentioned in several places [1] [2] [3], it is an epistemic relativity, which I have also referred to as anthropic relativism. This means that there are things that determine us without us being able to perceive them. In contrast to known matter and energy, I call the stuff of which these ‘things’ are made quasi-matter and quasi-energy. Both can only be researched indirectly. It is possible that dark matter and dark energy are such quasi-’things’.

What conclusions can be drawn from this? We are talking about a realism that refers exclusively to our world, taking into account material influences as the sum of matter and quasi-matter, as well as energy and quasi-energy. These influences can show up on all scales (e.g. virtual particles), the problem is always being able to assign them to things or quasi-things.

These quasi-things, moreover, have nothing to do with the mind in the idealistic or dualistic sense. That spirit is a categorical extrapolation of our thinking, which is unjustifiably substantiated here as a concept and thus appears as a separate entity.

Nor can such epistemic or anthropic relativism explain our consciousness, because it is part of our anthropic existence and can only be explained from there.

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[1] Stegemann, W., Epistemology — Anthropic Relativism, https://medium.com/neo-cybernetics/epistemology-anthropic-relativism-2773dc8c77b7

[2] Stegemann, W., Anthropic Relativism — Part 2, https://medium.com/neo-cybernetics/anthropic-relativism-part-2-c5d77761125e

[3] Stegemann, W., Why we don’t know what gravity is!, https://medium.com/@drwolfgangstegemann/why-we-dont-know-what-gravity-is-02abca135128