- [Narrator] "Those who assert
"that the mathematical sciences
say nothing "of the beautiful or the good are in error.
"For these sciences say and prove a great deal about them.
"If they do not expressly mention them,
"but prove attributes which are their results
"or definitions,
"it is not true that they tell us nothing about them.
"The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry
"and definiteness,
"which the mathematical sciences demonstrate
"to a special degree."
Today we're gonna be delving back into philosophy.
So strap on your togas,
'cause this time we're going to be going deep
into the philosophy of all philosophies.
In past episodes, we've explored the plane of existence
in different states of being,
yet we've never done a video on exactly what it means
to just be.
What does it mean to experience reality
and how do we group or perceive the world around us
into a universe made up of objects and subjects?
(light music)
Now metaphysics is kind of like physics
but so much more meta, you know.
It's the exploration of the most extraordinary
as well as the most fundamental avenues of the mind
and the universe.
Today, it's one of the most popular branches of philosophy
and deals with the why of all things
in comparison with physics,
which generally deals with the how.
The concept itself first originated
in the anthologies of Aristotle's work
because it was usually anthologized
after the works on physics in complete editions.
And just on that basis alone,
scientists probably ought to take metaphysics
a bit more seriously,
given that Aristotle is kind of considered to be
the Father of Modern Logic.
And to him, it was logical to have this discussion.
And you know what else is logical?
Subscribing to this channel.
Because don't you want to get notified every week
when we upload brand new episodes?
Ironically though, Aristotle himself had the idea flipped
instead referring to the concept as the first philosophy
because he believed that an object's intrinsic property
should be its first point of study.
Now, Aristotle was a pretty big player in human history
what with the whole invention of logic thing.
And even the foundation of the scientific method,
logically speaking,
is all derived from his work.
Yet he was the one to explore what could happen
after physics,
looking at the cosmos in a perhaps more mystical way.
During the late middle ages,
our buddy Thomas Aquinas understood metaphysics
to simply be the order that we answered
philosophical questions in.
To him, metaphysics was the things that needed to be studied
after having mastered the sciences
that deal with the physical world,
what was left unexplained after we had explained everything.
(person screaming)
Funnily enough though, his hot take on the field
was actually misinterpreted by other philosophers
of the time,
to mean that metaphysics was the study of anything
beyond the physical world
and studied what came after our own physical existence.
Over time, this misunderstanding trickled down
into modern day
where the world is applied in the context
of alternative medicine circles
or spirits that don't exist in our physical world.
If you're getting a little lost,
try thinking of it like this.
Think of a forest.
Everywhere there's a path is where science has paved the way
for understanding
and made possible for others to follow
and reproduce their results.
Around the nicely kept paths though,
you have the forest filled with messy nature.
In this case, where any path meets the unkept wilderness,
represents the realm of metaphysics.
Places whose mystery lures academics in
but is always hard to follow.
While we may have some ordered paths through existence,
metaphysics deals with all of the chaos outside
and what's left.
Though humans have always had a knack
for solving problems through ingenuity,
there's also been a fascination throughout history
of delving deep into the mystical and the unknown.
Even when the extent of our scientific knowledge
was harnessing fire,
ancient cultures geologically separate
seem to share fascinating similar metaphysical notions.
Given the technology of the time,
they couldn't craft the most clear path through their ideas
but by looking at what they share,
we might be able to piece together
something rather profound.
Cognitive archeology is the branch of science
that generally deals with symbolic and abstract thought
in ancient cultures.
There even some discussions
that all of the world's religions and spiritual ideas
like the basic concept of the other world,
actually comes from some kind of perennial philosophy
that stretches back to the birth
of anatomically modern humans.
In fact, some academics have even argued
that this kind of spiritual or metaphysical philosophy
is what formed the basis of Platonism
and that Plato was simply articulating a spiritual system
of looking at the world that had been practiced
in one way or another since humans first left Africa.
It's hard to say from a human perspective
what's behind the common metaphysical element
of all cultures
and it really makes you wonder if somehow
we were given this information from somewhere.
Conversely however, most branches of metaphysics
seem to imply the pantheistic concept of God
rather than a personal one.
Pantheism is a philosophical stance
that says that the universe and God are identical,
that all the things in reality are a manifestation
of an imminent and all encompassing unifying force.
Think like the force in "Star Wars."
It is often the opposite of a personal God
like Yahweh or Allah,
i.e. human deities who judge your sins.
"As most pantheists,"
to quote Amy from the "Big Bang Theory,"
"don't reject the notions of a deity,
"but are baffled by the notions of ones
"who takes attendance on Sundays."
Even Albert Einstein took a pantheistic
or metaphysical stance when asked about God
saying, "The human mind, no matter how highly trained,
"can't grasp the universe."
We're in a position of a little child
entering a huge library
whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books
in many different tongues.
We know that someone must have written those books
but we don't know who or how.
We don't understand the languages in which they're written.
"The child notes a definite plan
"in the arrangement of the books,
"a mysterious order when it doesn't comprehend
"but only dimly suspects.
"Our limited minds cannot grasp
"the mysterious force that sways the constellations..."
Spinoza's pantheism deals with the soul
And the body as one,
not as two separate things.
Those who attempt to dismiss the significance
of metaphysical inquiry
and take a "science only" approach may be confounded
that one of the greatest scientists in history
did not share their attitude.
Even Stephen Hawking was known to have engaged
in discussions of extra sensory perception
during his time in secondary school.
Even his famous books on time and the universe
take a metaphysical approach to God at their core.
"The Hermetica," the writings attributed to the sage Hermes
describe the universe working through definite laws
which extend beyond space, time and gravity
and into the realms of consciousness.
So why should scientists care about the mysterious?
Well, as we've said before,
the known is where we can lay a path
that leads others down consistently
and the unknown is a dense wilderness.
Perhaps what Newton meant when he said
"if I have seen further than others,
"it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"
is that he found and led humanity down a new path
through the wilderness
by first reaching the end of the paths
discovered and tamed by those before him.
sometimes making a new pathway
may require a large amount of energy
to go a very short distance.
But perhaps the beauty described by so many legends
and science
is the act of discovering and connecting the clearings.
Without metaphysical inclination to explore the unknown,
we would still be wandering in a dense
and unrelenting wilderness.
So what are some of the mysteries that metaphysics
tackle so expertly?
Usually, it's things like ontology,
identity, space, time and the universe
and more stuff up our alley of thinking
like the nature of the soul and the mind.
Ideas about the soul are usually grouped in with identity;
whether individual, part of an ethnicity
or as relating to belief.
So our society right now is struggling
with some very metaphysical concepts
just in case you thought it's a philosophy
of old dead guys that isn't relevant anymore.
A fun example to think about is Leibniz's Law
which states that "if two things are identical,"
let's call them X and Y,
"any property that X has, Y must also have."
However, there's one glaring issue with this idea. Time.
Objects are known to change over time.
And if you were to look at a tree one day
with all of its leaves,
and then tomorrow it lost a leaf,
would you be looking at the same tree or a different one?
In other words, can something or someone's identity
and state of being change over time?
And what does it change into?
The two main theories that answer this question
are known as perdurantism,
which states that in its life cycle,
a tree is made up of different stages
and endurantism, which says that
"while the outside physical version of the tree may change,
"it's still the same tree at its core."
Some people even bring in the idea
of the fourth dimension into it
saying that while an object may change
in three dimensions physically,
it doesn't change in the fourth
and its soul remains unchanged.
So how does all this relate to spirituality?
Well, if we focus on time again,
metaphysics asks the question of
why do we experience time?
Or more specifically, why do we perceive time
as moving forward?
In something like quantum field theory,
notions of space, time and causality
get entangled with temporal orders of causations
becoming dependent on observation.
In classical mechanics,
the laws of physics are symmetrical in time.
So could just as easily be used to say
that time runs backwards.
So why do we perceive it as moving forwards?
Can an effect proceed it's cause?
Linear times has that events C follows B
and event B follows A.
But what if point C, the last event,
could influence event A?
Maybe this is the idea that every possible timeline
that could happen
has already happened or is happening in every moment.
Perhaps when we manifest things,
we're simply moving our consciousness to a reality
where what we want has already happened.
Like the moment you think of a potential future
you want, you create it
and then it's up to you to take the actions
in the present moment
to move that reality into being.
Further, the concept of the mind and the soul
are fundamentally metaphysical problems.
Are the mind and soul separate things?
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
understood that the soul must have
a sense of logic and reason
and was the cause of all conscious exercises.
At his defense trial,
Socrates even argued that all of his works
had simply been an attempt to urge his fellow Athenians
to excel in the matters of the soul.
So hopefully this video gives you an introduction
to what kind of questions metaphysics tackles
and maybe, even help you to apply it in your own life.
And if you want to apply metaphysics in your own life
on a daily basis,
just start by asking why to everything.
Electrons have charge.
Yeah. But why?
One is a number.
Yeah but like, why dude?
Two plus two equals four but why you're alive.
But why?
So drop some bombshell questions
about the nature of reality in the comments below
and we'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)