Is there a point in scientific discovery where the subject matter ceases to be purely empirical?
Is it possible to get to metaphysics through natural physics?
If the big bang truly was the beginning of contingent reality and not some other strange phenomenon governed by physical laws, then wouldn't we have already reached that point?
There are of course unstable quantum vacuum states but they are still physical and thus contingent, and no, they are not a case of "something from nothing."
>Is it possible to get to metaphysics through natural physics?
At that point it'd prolly just amount to the specific metaphors you used to describe natural physics. It'd be valid as long as there was an isomorphism between your metaphors and the natural physics.
Language games and all that... good old wittgenstein
>>7689734
Actually metaphysics is just the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of reality. So it would encompass physical as well as (hypothetical) non-physical entities.
>>7689734
>are still physical
top lel
next, you will tell me that the number 3 is physical.
>>7689743
No I won't.
Why would you think that?
>>7689751
why do you say that some complicated math like QFT is real when simpler math on which QFT is based is not real ?
>>7689743
I would tell you it very well could be.
You don't know. I don't know. Far as I know, and based on what I know about knowing, we don't know either.
>>7689769
I mean the physics that it models, not the theory itself.
For instance the physical nature of an actual quantum vacuum.
Also, what is the "simpler" math and what is the "complicated" math here?
>>7689771
If he means the concept of three, then, no it could not reasonably be physical unless you are willing to simply ignore the nature of the thing in question and say that it's neuron activity or something, sort of like this comic >>7689743
The only other option is to assume that contingent, physical, empirical reality is subject to something higher, that is, that it is built from the top down so to speak; from the logos.
Think for a moment, what do we have instantiating "three?" A few things; the numeral, the word etc.
From what are these things derived? ultimately speaking, the fecundity of our own universe, originating at creation.
The universe possesses such dynamism that we can, in light of conscience, inherit concepts that are instantiated by physical things yet themselves are higher than physicality in a transcendental way.
>>7689795
I have a headache and haven't eaten in 3 days. I'm not going to try to meaningfully respond to that.
The existence of three just requires that the way our mental faculties process the external world to delineate between objects, that is, create a "quantity", be ultimately correct. This relies on the idea of all wholes being composed of parts, and all parts themselves being wholes, having a point where it breaks down. Having an end.
At this end, a verifiably base constituent unit (or set of units) from which all else is derived, you could truly say that three of them exist. Threeness, and all numerical adding, subtracting, etc, existed.
There is another solution. Relative to us, whether the former is possible or not, quantities do exist. But they're dependent on scale and measurement device. But what if scale doesn't actually "exist" either? Being a sort of illusion. The most macro scale itself being an observer only to the most micro, which is also itself. Quantities inherently would exist as well.
We don't know. The universe affords what it affords, and that's it. You cannot claim to know its nature, nor what or if machinery drives it.
>>7689807
Quantities are only quantitative inasmuch as they partake in quantity itself.
Ontologically speaking everything you just said is a priori.
You're right, the universe affords what it affords, period.
But scientific knowledge simply cannot adjudicate questions of teleology, in fact, its only means of combating teleology (and philosophy in general) is by asserting that it is an abstraction upon science and is thus superfluous.
Saying that everything is physical gets you in trouble with the is-ought problem.
>>7689807
Why haven't you eaten in 3 days? Also, do you have a headache because of this?
>>7690410
