METAPHYSICS
Contents:
The basis of any knowledge is a set of axioms, i.e. irreducible facts underlying everything in the scope of the field of study, underlying any observation, derivation, proof, etc. The axioms of reality are facts underlying everything in the scope of reality. Metaphysics is the study of these axioms and their implications, i.e. it is the study of the nature of reality as a whole. Metaphysics is fundamental to all thought and action; its truths — grasped implicitly or explicitly — are presupposed in any conscious thought or action, because one’s basic view of reality is what guides one’s basic approach to dealing with it.
Since axioms are the basis of proof, axioms themselves cannot be proved. In particular, the axioms of reality are self-evident, i.e. the evidence of their existence is the direct awareness of their existence. This does not mean they must be accepted on faith; we can show that the axioms are indeed self-evident and axiomatic by showing that they are the irreducible basis of anything we can know, say or act upon further. Hence, a valid metaphysical axiom, i.e. an axiom pertaining to the nature of reality as a whole, cannot even be denied without first affirming it — denying it would be self-refuting.
Short note on “proof” and “validation”:
Validation is the process of showing that an idea or a statement is or refers to a part of reality, i.e. that it is fact. Proof is a kind of validation that uses logic (i.e. the method of applying the law of identity and its corollaries). Logic relies on axioms which cannot themselves be subjected to logic (as they are the base of logic, logic presupposes them). But we can show that these axioms correspond to reality through (1) ostensive definitions (pointing and showing, i.e. relying on self-evident facts that any consciousness can turn its focus to and grasp) and (2) the process of showing them as inescapable through “reaffirmation through denial” (i.e. showing that each axiom is relied upon even when trying to deny it).
NOTE: An idea being axiomatic does not mean it cannot be described in more detail. An axiomatic idea, such as existence or consciousness, is the abstraction of a vast range of particular observations in particular contexts. In particular, existence is a fact that unites everything in reality, whereas consciousness is a fact that unites every thought and deliberate action. Both these facts exist in a range of contexts that condition their more specific natures.
NOTE: The definition for “existence” is ultimately ostensive, but an indication about its nature is given below.
Existence:
A thing, as opposed to nothing, exists. A “thing” may be anything that exists. Existence is the sum of all things that exist and any “thing” is a subset of existence. Note that the term “subset of existence” may be known or unknown in size. Also note that “subset” does not refer only to a subset in a perceptual sense, i.e. concretes that can be directly observed, but also to a subset in a conceptual sense, wherein the subset includes all the known and unknown concretes subsumed under a concept (more on concepts discussed in epistemology).
Fact:
A fact is that which corresponds to reality. At the most concrete level, facts are discovered by the very act of awareness. In general, a fact is of anything that exists, e.g. an entity, an event, a system, an attribute, an abstraction, etc. Later in metaphysics, we shall see that things are what they are, i.e. reality is what it is; it is up to us to find the facts based on the observations, valid concepts and valid generalisations we hold. Note that “validity” is with respect to our existing base of knowledge (i.e. facts and integrations of facts).
Identity:
An identity of a thing X is a set of facts that as a whole applies only to X in the given context; some or most of these facts may apply to something else, but not all. In seeking to know the nature of something, we search for the set of facts that distinguishes this thing from another; this set of facts is this thing’s identity.
An extra definition for certain discussions…
Conscious unit:
Any particular part of active consciousness, such as a particular sensation, perception, concept, thought, emotion, etc.
One must hold as inescapable and sacrosanct that what is, is, and what is not, is not. Is it possible to deny it, namely to say that what is, is not, or what is not, is? To say something is possible is to say that it has some basis in existence. On what basis could one say that it is possible for a thing to exist and not exist at once, i.e. to be existent and non-existent at once? Any way you try to see it, the non-existent has no place in existence; then, on what basis can one deny that what is, is, and what is not, is not? None whatsoever in reality.
Reaffirmation through denial:
In trying to deny it, you must accept that your denial is a denial and not an acceptance; thus, even here, you rely on this principle. If you both accept and deny it, you treat the existent as non-existent, and the non-existent as existent; here, you have given up on reality altogether.
Reference:
Parmenides:
Come now, I will tell thee—and do thou hearken to my saying and carry it away—the only two ways of search that can be thought of. The first, namely, that It is, and that it is impossible for it not to be, is the way of belief, for truth is its companion. The other, namely, that It is not, and that it must needs not be,—that, I tell thee, is a path that none can learn of at all. For thou canst not know what is not—that is impossible—nor utter it; for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be.
Existence exists. More precisely, only existence exists, and existence only exists. (1) If not only existence exists, then something outside existence exists. But this must be a part of existence. Therefore, only existence exists. (2) If existence does not only exist, then existence also does not exist. But then, there would be nothing. Now, note that “nothing” is merely that which does not exist, i.e. that which is not. But what is, is, and what is not, is not. Hence, there cannot “be” nothing, since to be is to be something that exists. Therefore, existence only exists.
Existence is not an irreducible whole; we exist and are aware of things that exist as a part of existence. Any part of existence, which we shall call a “thing”, exists due to the nature of existence itself. Since a thing is a part of existence and not the whole, it is not true that only it exists, because saying so would deny the existence of other things that exist. However, since a thing is a part of existence, it is true that it only exists, because if it does not exist, then it is not a part of existence and hence is not a thing. After all, what is, is, and what is not, is not.
NOTE 1: When I say that a thing only exists, I mean that as long as it is a part of existence, it only exists. Of course, there are things that cease to exist, at which point they are not things anymore, i.e. they are nothing. In other words, as long as a thing exists, it only exists and cannot be in a state between existence and non-existence.
NOTE 2: The fact that multiplicity is inherent in existence shall be proved later.
Existence exists and I am aware of it. In other words, there exists a faculty of awareness, i.e. of perceiving that which exists. In other words, there exists consciousness. This is a fundamental, axiomatic (i.e. cognitively irreducible) fact; denying it is self-refuting, since to deny it would be to deny awareness, which is to deny that what is, is (since awareness is the affirmation of that which is). To deny that “what is, is” is to accept nothing, since to accept something is to accept that it is. Now, note that to accept nothing is to be unaware, i.e. to take in and hold nothing, in which case I can say nothing. To the extent that I say something, to that extent I affirm that I am aware and that there exists a faculty of awareness, i.e. consciousness. Hence, since to deny is to say something, even in denying consciousness I affirm it.
NOTE: Consciousness needs an object:
Consciousness is necessarily the consciousness of something. To say that consciousness need not be conscious of anything is to say that consciousness can be aware of nothing at all while still being “conscious”. This destroys the very meaning of consciousness, because it makes no distinction between the conscious, the unconscious, and the non-conscious. If this leads you to conclude that there is no consciousness, then you are contradicting the irreducible fact of your own existence. How are you identifying “consciousness” when there is no such thing? How are you identifying “unconsciousness” without being aware of anything, i.e. without having the capacity to identify anything?
A thing is what it is, and this is the law of identity. If a thing is not what it is, it would both exist (i.e. be itself) and not exist (i.e. not be itself) at the same time. But what is, is and what is not, is not. Moreover, as a part of existence, it must only exist. Hence, the law of identity is absolute.
SIDE NOTE: One in the many, many in the one:
One might say that a thing may be multiple things at once, or multiple things may be referred to as one. However, this conflates abstractions with their concrete referents. When I say “thing”, I am referring to a particular, concrete part of reality, which can be identified through a variety of abstractions that focus on some attributes and omit the rest. Note also that when multiple things are referred to as one, I am abstracting their similarities, omitting their differences and retaining this abstraction as a unified whole that can be broken down into its concrete referents when necessary. Thus, to re-emphasise, by “thing” here, I am referring to a particular, concrete part of reality rather than the abstractions derived from it. However, the law of identity naturally extends to abstractions too, in the sense that any abstraction in a given context refers to only a particular subset of reality and no other, and thus, has only a particular meaning in the given context and no other.
If A contradicts B, that means if A exists, then B does not, and if B exists, then A does not. If both hold true, then (1) A exists and does not exist, i.e. A has to be both A and not A, and (2) B exists and does not exist, i.e. B has to be both B and not B. This violates the law of identity. Hence, if A contradicts B, then A and B cannot both exist at once, which means either A exists or B exists or both do not exist (if possible). This is the law of non-contradiction and is a corollary of the law of identity.
The previous paragraphs point to the fact that to exist is to be something, i.e. to have identity. In other words, existence is identity. To reiterate a previous point in other terms, if X does not have an identity, then X is not X, i.e. X does not exist. This is to reiterate the fact that identity is not something that just “happens to be the case in existence”, but rather, identity is integral to and inseparable from the fact of existence. In fact, the two axioms given so far are the same one self-evident truth; the law of identity is essentially the axiom of existence from the perspective of particulars.
NOTE: The law of identity does not logically depend on the axiom of existence; there can be no logical dependence in the truths that presuppose logic. Rather, the axioms are the same one self-evident truth affirmed explicitly in two ways: one way affirms the fact of existence for all particulars together (the axiom of existence), the other way affirms the fact of existence for any given particular (the law of identity). In essence, both these axioms are restatements of the fact that what is, is, and what is not, is not.
To expand on the concept of identity, note that a thing cannot have contradictory attributes, i.e. attributes that negate each other. Furthermore, a thing can have neither more attributes than its identity allows nor less attributes than its identity demands, since by the law of identity, a thing is what it is and only what it is.
For example, observing that the presence of a colour negates the presence of other colours in a given space, we can say that an object cannot be all red and all green at the same time. Similarly, observing that various attributes of a stone and a leaf contradict each other (e.g. a stone is rigid and hard while a leaf is flexible and soft, a stone does not grow from plants while a leaf is a vital part of a plant, etc.), we can say that an object cannot be a stone and a leaf at the same time.
As another example, consider a light bulb. Saying that a light bulb is also an ornament does not contradict its identity, because its use as an ornament involves some subset of its existing attributes, such as solidity, aesthetics, etc., and no contradicting attributes. Now, note that it would be wrong to state that a light bulb is only an ornament, because it would omit a variety of existing attributes demanded by its identity. Similarly, it would be wrong to call every ornament a light bulb, because an ornament may not have all the attributes needed to be a light bulb.
NOTE: Entities and actions must ultimately be defined through ostensive definitions since they are concepts from direct perceptions that are irreducible to other perceptions; on some basic level, an entity is grasped as a whole and an action or a change is a single perception. But I shall indicate some defining aspects that can show where to look.
Entity:
An entity is a thing whose identity is independent of one’s consciousness; it is a concrete, or a concrete referent of an abstraction (hence, everything that exists is either an entity or a metaphysically inseparable aspect of an entity). It can be composed of one or more entities — components — each with its own identity, or it can be irreducible, but it exists and is what it is independent of consciousness. Hence, note that all entities are either irreducible entities or arrangements of irreducible entities. Note that an entity can be a specific arrangement of other entities to which different non-identifying facts may apply at different times (e.g. position, movement, change in shape — given that the arrangement is not tied to the shape).
NOTE: Given the above concept of entity, facts are thus facts of entities, i.e. facts are metaphysically inseparable from and ultimately derived from entities (i.e. maybe indirectly, but certainly).
Change:
A change is a difference in the past and the present* of an entity or a set of entities (the terms “difference”, “past”, “present” are defined ostensively; “past” and “present” in particular are defined by pointing to the relationship between one’s awareness in the moment and one’s memory, memory being retained awareness). Hence, change not only applies to intrinsic changes (change in an entity’s own features) but also relational changes (e.g. relative spatial movement/repositioning). Needless to say, being a part of reality, a particular change has a particular identity.
* Note that time is a concept derived from change, since time is, in essence, a measure of change (i.e. a relationship between a change and a unit of change; a unit of change is a perceptually-grasped change that recurs and whose recurrences are constantly spaced in memory). Hence, by speaking of “past” and “present”, I am speaking not of time as such but of the direct awareness of change; the concept of time comes from this awareness. Note here that time is not a perceptually derived construct; like any measurement, it relates things in reality through observations of the facts, and thus, the properties of things in reality reflect on measured time.
Action:
An action is a change in or by an entity, i.e. an action is a change in the entity’s form of existence, or by the entity’s contact with some part of reality, either directly or indirectly (i.e. through some medium). Since existence exists independent of consciousness, entities, i.e. things whose identities are independent of consciousness **, are the material of existence, i.e. they are what existence comprises of, at its root.
The argument for this is straightforward; something (call it A) whose identity is dependent on something else (call it B) has no existence apart from B, and thus, the existence of such things depends on something whose identity is independent within existence, i.e. that can exist as it is. Thus, nothing exists apart from entities. Furthermore, by the law of non-contradiction, nothing can exist in contradiction to entities and their identities. Thus, we also have that since a change is a relationship, and thus has an identity that is dependent on the things being related, no change exists apart from nor in contradiction to entities.
Now, an action of an entity, being a change directly tied to an entity, is the fundamental form of change (since an indirect connection implies a chain of connections that, in the end, resolves in a direct connection). Given our premises so far, an action can exist neither apart from nor in contradiction to an entity and its identity; an action is hence an inseparable aspect of the entity’s identity (just to clarify, an action is inseparable from the entity, the entity is inseparable from its identity, thus the action is inseparable from the entity’s identity). Thus, an entity’s action cannot in any way be arbitrary (i.e. without a basis in the entity’s identity), and cannot be impossible to the entity’s identity. Hence, an action is an expression and extension of the entity’s identity; what an entity is and what it does are inextricably tied together (note that to mention both “entity” and “entity’s identity” in this context is redundant, but it is done for the sake of clarity).
** Note that even a conscious being exists independent of consciousness; consciousness is an aspect of such a being that is inseparable from the being as a whole. Hence, consciousness is not an entity but does exist as an aspect of an entity. Therefore, man acts with consciousness, but consciousness does not “act” by itself, i.e. independent of the entity that is man.
NOTE: It is key to identify an entity’s action as the fundamental form of change, because it makes it clear that while there can be changes in things other than entities (e.g. attributes, events, thoughts, feelings, etc.), these changes are ultimately tied to entities and their actions. Consider: if a change happens in an attribute, or an event, or a thought or a feeling, the natural questions are (1) an attribute of what (i.e. what entity)? (2) an event involving what (i.e. what entities)? (3) a thought or feeling of what or of whom (i.e. what being, which is also an entity)?
Causality is the law of identity applied to actions, and by extension, change (which is the result of the actions and/or interactions of one or more entities). As a part of existence, an action has an identity. Furthermore, an entity’s action can exist neither apart from nor in contradiction to the entity’s identity, which is to say that an entity can act only according to its identity. Hence, by extension, a subset of existence can only change according to the identities of the entities acting and interacting within it.
NOTE: Pointing out that actions cannot exist apart from entities and their identities is key in showing that their identities (i.e. their natures) result in certain actions in a certain context, i.e. their actions are based on their identities. This, of course, is necessary to reach the law of causality.
Hence, we get the law of causality: actions have identities that are metaphysically inseparable from and derived from the identities of the entities that act. Hence, given an entity with a particular identity, its action (in a certain relation to other entities and their actions) can have only a particular corresponding identity and nothing else.
To extend the idea further, note that the identity of the change in any part of reality is inseparable from and derived from the identity of that part of reality, particularly from the entities acting and interacting in that part of reality. Thus, the law of causality means that given the same set of facts, no other change or kind of change can happen. In other words, the same entities in the same conditions can act only in a certain way and no other (i.e. their actions can have only a certain identity with respect to their own identities and no other).
The interactive nature of causality…
Any entity is necessarily within some part of reality. Let us pick some part of reality and call it X. Now, since the identities of the entities within X as well as the identities of their actions affect the identity of any change in X as a whole, it stands to reason that the actions of any entity within X are or can be affected by the actions of the other entities within X. Furthermore, drawing from our observations, we observe that entities can and often do act according to the actions of other entities in their environment, i.e. reactions and thus interactions exist; it is an easily-made observation that reveals that interactivity is consistent not only with causality in abstract terms but also with causality in concrete terms.
NOTE: The fact that interactivity is inherent in existence shall be proved later.
Extending the idea of causality…
The concept of causality can be applied to entities as such (rather than just actions) only when the given entities, by their nature, had to be formed through some process at some point. In such cases, the cause of an entity refers to the action or actions of some entity or entities that led to its formation. However, for existence as a whole, there can be no prior cause; by the nature of existence, only it exists and it only exists. It is also invalid to say it was its own cause; saying so implies that it existed before it existed — a contradiction. There can be no cause of existence, since cause presupposes existence.
Given that everything that exists is a part of reality that exists in a certain context (i.e. with respect to certain facts), a cause is not merely the actions of a set of entities, but the actions of a set of entities in a certain context (i.e. with respect to certain facts, e.g. conditions, relationships, etc.). Since causality applies to any part of reality and hence to any context, the actions of a set of entities are or can be conditioned by the context that subsumes them. Here, note also that the nature of a narrower context is or can be conditioned by the nature of a broader context that subsumes it.
The law of causality is a necessary, inseparable implication of the law of identity; the law of causality is the law of identity applied to change. To go even further, causality is inherent in the very fact of existence; no part of existence exists nor can exist apart from causality. More precisely, no change or lack of change (i.e. zero difference between the past and the present of an entity) exists apart from causality.
Any way you put it, there must always exist entities at the basis of any phenomenon, since any phenomenon that exists presupposes things that exist in and of themselves, i.e. entities. Note that consciousness is not an entity but an aspect (albeit an essential aspect) of the self, i.e. the integration of mind and body that makes you what you are. Consciousness can only act via its apparatus.
A change without a cause, i.e. disconnected from any past or present entities in one or more ways, is a change without an identity, i.e. a non-existent. This is because such a change would be a change that is both of entities (i.e. based on entities, as any change must be) and not of entities (i.e. not based on entities). This is a contradiction.
Metaphysically, existence is not defined in terms of “physical”, “mental”, etc., only in terms of existence qua existence, i.e. existence as such. The self-evident facts validated as axioms are: (1) Existence is absolute. (2) Everything that exists must be something in particular, i.e. it must exist as what it is; the law of identity. (3) What an entity does is an extension of what the entity is; the law of causality. (4) Consciousness exists and is the faculty that perceives that which exists. Whatever one’s worldview is, it is the case that consciousness is indeed the faculty that perceives that which exists, no matter what “that” is, be it the product of one’s mind, the external world, etc.
Consciousness exists and is thus a part of existence. The law of identity applies to anything that exists, and thus, consciousness has a particular identity. Its identity is distinct from its contents, because one is a faculty with a potential to take in a variety of inputs while the other is the input provided to the faculty. Hence, consciousness cannot include the whole of existence. Therefore, existence exists independently of consciousness. Note that by this, I do not mean that each thing that exists is independent of consciousness, since there are things — such as percepts, concepts, ideas, etc. — that are dependent on consciousness. Rather, I mean that — apart from conscious units — things have identity whether or not there is a consciousness to perceive them.
How do we grasp the external world (i.e. the world beyond our consciousness)? In other words, what inputs provided to our faculty of awareness are derived from the external world? This is a matter of epistemology not metaphysics, but I shall briefly touch upon this. Seeing how sense-perception is the irreducible input provided to our consciousness (irreducible in terms of any conscious units), we can know that it is the input derived from the external world, i.e. some part of reality outside our consciousness, whatever that may turn out to be. In this view, we see that consciousness is not what fundamentally creates reality, but rather that reality fundamentally exists and consciousness is a part of it. In other words, existence is primary and consciousness is secondary; the reverse would contradict the nature of both existence and consciousness. What is self-evident to us is that consciousness perceives that which exists, whatever “that” is.
Let us assume the inverse, i.e. the primacy of consciousness. Then, consciousness fundamentally creates reality, i.e. it creates everything that it perceives. If this were the case, then consciousness has to exist prior to what it perceives. But if this were the case, consciousness would have to be conscious of nothing, or unconscious, i.e. it would have to not exist when it creates something it can be conscious of — a contradiction. If consciousness were conscious of something when it created something to be conscious of, then we have the same situation but with an extra step. This results in an infinite regress that (1) does not serve to identify consciousness, and (2) contradicts the fact that one’s consciousness has a starting point (note also that an infinite regress presupposes an infinite extension into the past, but, as I shall show later, no extension into the past can be infinite). Hence, consciousness necessarily has a starting point.
To reaffirm what has been said, imagine that consciousness is eternal and conscious units are all there is. But the law of identity and the law of causality still apply, since existence still exists. Hence, consciousness has a certain identity and can act only in certain ways that lead to certain results. Hence, reality is still not fundamentally “up to” consciousness, since consciousness has a certain nature that it can act neither apart from or in contradiction to. Hence, consciousness always presupposes existence as such whereas existence does not presuppose consciousness, which means existence can exist apart from consciousness but not vice versa. Now, note that a conscious unit is a part of consciousness that is inseparable from and derived from consciousness, which means that since consciousness always presupposes existence, conscious units also always presuppose existence ultimately (i.e. directly or indirectly). Hence, conscious units always presuppose things in existence apart from consciousness. In other words, a conscious unit is ultimately (i.e. directly or indirectly) the effect on consciousness of things in existence outside consciousness.
Reference:
Ayn Rand:
The primacy of existence (of reality) is the axiom that existence exists, i.e., that the universe exists independent of consciousness (of any consciousness), that things are what they are, that they possess a specific nature, an identity. The epistemological corollary is the axiom that consciousness is the faculty of perceiving that which exists—and that man gains knowledge of reality by looking outward. The rejection of these axioms represents a reversal: the primacy of consciousness—the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both). The epistemological corollary is the notion that man gains knowledge of reality by looking inward (either at his own consciousness or at the revelations it receives from another, superior consciousness).
Source: “The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made” from Philosophy: Who Needs It
Identity and causality are implicit and inherent in the very fact of existence itself; there neither is nor can be existence apart from identity and causality. Hence, since the fact of existence is an absolute, so are the laws of identity and causality and their implications (such as the intelligibility of reality, the absolute validity of logic and reason, etc.).
NOTE: The laws of logic are essentially the law of identity and its corollaries. It is self-defeating to “disprove” the absolutism of logic, since to even try to do so, you must show that the law of identity is not an absolute, in which case there is no basis to identify anything as what it is, including the supposed “proof” against the absolutism of logic.
Metaphysics is about the truths arising from the most basic material we can grasp, i.e. the barest essence of the material given to us directly by reality. Hence, metaphysics is the study of existence as such; not of how reality is in particular but of what reality is in general.
Apart from the axioms and their corollaries drawn from the self-evident facts of existence and consciousness, metaphysics does not make any claims about the specific structure and composition of either consciousness or reality itself; the study of these is the rightful domain of the special sciences. However, metaphysics underlies any further pursuit of knowledge and its truths are absolute within any field of study. The same level of absolute truth applies to any knowledge whose sole context (apart from other direct, self-evident observations) is metaphysics itself, which includes epistemology and extends to ethics (whose context includes epistemology as well as metaphysics).
Hence, metaphysics is not astronomy, physics, chemistry, etc., though it underlies these disciplines. Whether the world we know is a simulation, part of a multiverse or anything else that we may find it out to be, the same metaphysics applies, as well as the same epistemology and ethics. Whatever specific structure or composition reality has, the basic nature of reality is what it is. Similarly, metaphysics is not biology, psychology, neuroscience, etc., though — again — it underlies these disciplines. Whatever model of consciousness we may uncover, the basic nature of consciousness and its relationship to the rest of reality is what it is.