The difference between science and metaphysics

Think of a computer game. In order to play a 3D game proficiently, we need to know how the game environment changes when the character moves and behaves in particular ways. The character you control who presses buttons in the game environment will cause certain things to happen in that environment. Shooting at certain spots will cause other things, such as "killing" a bot. And so on and so forth.

One can become extremely proficient at a game. Yet, at the same time, one might know absolutely nothing about what makes the game possible to exist in the first place, and why the game environment changes in the characteristic way it does. In other words, one might know nothing about CPU's, RAM, or anything else about the underlying machinery of the computer, even though one might be better at the game than anyone else.

I submit that our science, together with the technology it has spawned, is analogical to playing a computer game proficiently.  I submit, that is, that science deals exclusively with the patterns discerned in reality and how the world changes with particular actions on our parts. Similar to the game, science tells us absolutely nothing about the underlying machinery of reality. Science tells us nothing about how or why the world exists at all and why it has the particular physical laws it does. That is what metaphysics deals with.

It might be thought that the existence of forces like gravity refutes this.  Objects fall to the ground because the force of gravity compels objects to fall down.  On this view, gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, are intrinsic to reality and make reality behave as it does. 

But how do we know this?  We can observe an object falling, but we never observe the gravitational force that allegedly causes it to fall.  Or we never observe the warping of space-time that allegedly causes it to fall (indeed, what could a warping of space-time possibly mean?)

Consider the Earth as it orbits the Sun.  It is considered that the Earth is compelled to follow a circular path around the sun due to gravitational force.  If the force were to suddenly disappear, then the Earth would travel in a straight line at uniform velocity.   Now, why is it the case that motion in a straight line is considered to be natural motion with no forces requiring an object to move in such a manner, but circular motion is considered unnatural with a force required to constrain an object to follow such a path?  I suggest because it's simpler to think of reality in that way. 

At the end of the day, all we know about the world comes from our senses; mainly from our visual qualia.  Science is in the business of describing the patterns in our visual qualia.  In physics we find that mathematical equations, such as Newton's equation (F = G(m₁m₂)/R²), describe the falling process.  But these equations are all we need from a scientific perspective.  Postulating such forces like gravity might make it easier to derive such equations, but they are not strictly necessary.

Note I am not saying that forces like gravity do not exist.  They might exist (although I don't think they do), but if they do that is part of the underlying machinery of reality, and hence comes under the purview of metaphysics.


Think
back to our computer game. One's character can jump up and down. Why
does the character fall back down to the ground? Because of gravity?
Obviously not! The game operates according to its software instructions.



Now, let's consider our physical reality and why objects fall.  It might, as mainstream opinion holds, be due to some force intrinsic to reality. Or it might be because we're living in a kind of virtual reality created by beings existing "outside" of our reality, and the falling down process is just the way our reality is programmed.  Or it might be (to give my own personal opinion) that the explanation resides in the fact that reality is infused with teleology or entelechy, and that our scientific laws simply describes such innate propensities. But the point is that this is a metaphysical issue, not an empirical or scientific one.



Science is not in the business of providing literal explanations, rather it is merely in the business of describing reality. To suppose one can use physics to explain why reality exists at all, or why reality is described by the laws we find, is to misunderstand the legitimate scope of science.  For genuine explanations we have to look to metaphysics.

Similar posts by me:



Do scientific explanations actually explain?

What philosophical questions does science answer?

Is Reality real?

A very brief introduction to subjective idealism.

Reality and Quantum Mechanics

Excellent! Yes it seems that reality can be conceptualised in quite differing distinct ways. Many mutually conflicting hypotheses might describe reality. It seems quite possible that aliens won't have compartmentalised reality anything like we have.


I definitely disagree that mathematics is a man made construct though. I think that it exists and that we discover it, we don't invent it.

What I'm really interested in.

I am interested in what the world is, what I am, what we all are. I'm interested in why I'm here. Did I have a choice in being here? Am I supposed to be doing something now I am here? If so, then what? Is it possible I might never have existed? Does the Universe have a purpose? Do we have some ultimate purpose? Do all things have some ultimate purpose? Or are our lives and the Universe ultimately absurd? Is this the only reality? Or are there many realities or dimensions, whether afterlife realms, parallel Universes, or even magical lands like Narnia? I want to know what all things mean. These are the questions I'm interested in.

Classic Sesame Street - "Inch Worm"

A subversive message to children suggesting that reality consists of more than its quantifiable aspects and that colours, smells and beauty really truly exist! They are not just illusions like the modern western metaphysic holds. On the other hand I do have a propensity to read too much into things..

A very brief introduction to Immaterialism

We very strongly feel the world exists out there independently of us. We feel it is solid, has colours, that sounds are out there and so on.

However, the scientific story holds that we are profoundly mistaken in all of this. The apparent solidity of objects is -- scientists allege -- merely the repulsive force between the electrons in the tips of our fingers and the electrons near the surface of the "touched" object. Colours, in reality, are merely a certain wavelength of light that objects reflect. Sounds are merely rarefactions and compressions of the air. Smells are merely molecules in motion.

So reality is entirely divest of colours, sounds, and smells, and really nothing is solid either. These qualitative experiences are supposedly entirely a creation of the mind. The world out there is wholly quantitative and devoid of anything qualitative. And hence unimaginable. The greenness you experience when looking at a green object is entirely a creation of your mind. The perceived object is not actually green at all in the commonsensical use of the word green.

This scientific picture not only applies to materialism, but any position that holds that science depicts a literal state of affairs.

I want now to take a very brief look at the metaphysical ideas of the 18th Century philosopher, George Berkeley. He subscribed to a metaphysical view of the world called immaterialism, commonly referred to as subjective idealism. This rejects the notion that science depicts a literal state of affairs and, with commonsense, affirmed that colours really are out there in the world, as are sounds and smells. They are not merely entirely a creation of our own minds. The world is as it seems.

But, in another respect, his immaterialism radically departs from commonsense.  He is notorious for denying the existence of a mind-independent reality. Normally, we think that a coloured object is wholly independent of our minds, or indeed any minds whatsoever. But Berkeley held that our very perceptions constitute reality.   

Now, consider that when I see grass and I see it is green, this is clearly not entirely a creation of my own mind. There is, after all, a difference between my perceiving grass and when I think and hold an image in my mind of grass.

So, if what we think of as the external world doesn't have a mind-independent existence, but yet what we perceive is not entirely conjured from our own minds, then why do we have any perceptions of an ostensible external world like grass, trees, houses, stars and so on at all?  

The answer is that Berkeley held that when I see something, I am participating in God's conception of the world. Our various perceptual experiences -- vision, sounds, smell, tastes, sense of touch -- are a result of God directly conveying to us his conception. Our perceptual experiences of the external world are, in a sense, a direct communication with God.

Of course, one need not follow Berkeley all the way here. Perhaps all sentient minds somehow create physical reality. It is this collective mind that we are participating in when we experience "physical" reality.

It might be thought that immaterialism profoundly contradicts what science has discovered about the world. This is a mistake.  We can never break out of our world of perceptions. Science is purely in the business of describing the connections between our various perceptual experiences. There is no requirement that we hypothesize a reality forever beyond what we can in principle perceptually experience.

So, does this mean that something like atoms do not exist since they are in principle unperceivable? Let's step back a bit and consider a normal everyday macroscopic object. Let's consider an apple. What we call an apple has a certain physical appearance that shifts according to perspective, a certain feel, and a certain taste. But, according to George Berkeley, the apple I see and the apple I touch are not literally caused by a mind-independent apple out there causing both. Rather, certain visual appearances, and certain tactile (touch) sensations are constantly conjoined together. It is a family of associated perceptual experiences that we label an "apple".

So the apple itself and indeed all physical objects are an implicit hypothesis we all hold about the world. The existence of objects serves to explain the course of our perceptual experiences. The existence of unobservable entities such as atoms, although more hypothetical or theoretical, also play a fruitful role in our hypotheses and theories about the world. Therefore, they can be said to exist in a comparable manner to the common objects of our experience.

Why does the external world exhibit uniformity? If there is no mind-independent reality, what accounts for the fact that the tree outside remains there regardless of whether I look towards it or look away? The answer for Berkeley resides in the fact that the world is governed by physical laws. Compare to the environment in a computer game. The character I control might be facing towards a tree. I can turn the character a full revolution through 360 degrees and the tree will still be there.  The tree is still there because the computer game environment is governed by rules implemented by a computer programmer. Likewise, our external world exhibits uniformity due to physical laws, with physical laws simply being directly caused by God.

I'm not sure if I would follow Berkeley in everything he says, but he provides much food for thought and I would gravitate towards some type of idealism, even if not subjective idealism.

26/05/2021  Update:  I've just published another blog post on Berkeley's immaterialism.