1252 hours. I have again been reading over Wikipedia’s version of Metaphysics and find various divisions. For what we are doing it seems that only a couple of definitions are relevant because like a Higg’s boson it is in the realm of physics and we are clearly in the non-physical.
Narrowing the focus let’s first set down a relevant definition from The Skeptic’s [Online] Dictionary. - Amorella
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The term 'metaphysics' is often used to entail ideas and theories as to what kinds of beings are real, the nature of those beings and of the concepts and language used to think and speak or write about those beings. For example, a theory of mind would be a metaphysical theory concerned with mental phenomena and related concepts such as perception, idea, consciousness, memory, intention, motive, reasoning, etc. . . .
Why is there something rather than nothing? Is there free will or is every action determined by causes? Was the universe created or has it always existed? Are there spiritual beings? Is there life after death? What is the nature of the universe, of substance, causality, etc.? These are all metaphysical questions. . . .
Some consider metaphysics to represent what is highest in human nature, the drive to know and understand the nature of the universe in which we find ourselves while we move towards our inevitable end. Others consider metaphysics, specifically speculative metaphysics about non-empirical and transcendent realities, to be, more or less, bunk. Perhaps Kant was correct when he said that although we can never hope to answer our metaphysical questions, we can't help asking them anyway.
Edited from The Skeptic’s Dictionary: Metaphysics
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Qualia (singular "quale" from a Latin word meaning for "what sort" or "what kind," is a term used in philosophy to refer to subjective conscious experiences as 'raw feels'. Daniel Dennett writes that qualia is "an unfamiliar term for something that could not be more familiar to each of us: the ways things seem to us."[Erwin Schrodinger had this counter-materialist take: "The sensation of colour cannot be accounted for by the physicist's objective picture of light-waves. Could the physiologist account for it, if he had fuller knowledge than he has of the processes in the retina and the nervous processes set up by them in the optical nerve bundles and in the brain? I do not think so."
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Daniel Dennett identifies four properties that are commonly ascribed to qualia. According to these, qualia are:
▪ ineffable; that is, they cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any other means than direct experience.
▪ intrinsic; that is, they are non-relational properties, which do not change depending on the experience's relation to other things.
▪ private; that is, all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are systematically impossible.
▪ directly or immediately apprehensible in consciousness; that is, to experience a quale is to know one experiences a quale, and to know all there is to know about that quale.
If qualia of this sort exist, then a normally sighted person who sees red would be unable to describe the experience of this perception in such a way that a listener who has never experienced color will be able to know everything there is to know about that experience. Though it is possible to make an analogy, such as "red looks hot," or to provide a description of the conditions under which the experience occurs, such as "it's the color you see when light of 700-nm wavelength is directed at you," supporters of this kind of qualia contend that such a description is incapable of providing a complete description of the experience. - Wikipedia
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The inverted spectrum argument
Inverted qualia
The inverted spectrum thought experiment, originally developed by John Locke, invites us to imagine that we wake up one morning and find that for some unknown reason all the colors in the world have been inverted. Furthermore, we discover that no physical changes have occurred in our brains or bodies that would explain this phenomenon. Supporters of the existence of qualia argue that since we can imagine this happening without contradiction, it follows that we are imagining a change in a property that determines the way things look to us, but that has no physical basis. In more detail:
▪ Metaphysical identify holds of necessity.
▪ If something is possibly false, it is not necessary.
▪ It is conceivable that qualia could have a different relationship to physical brain-states.
▪ If it is conceivable, then it is possible.
▪ Since it is possible for qualia to have a different relationship with physical brain-states, they cannot be identical to brain states.
▪ Therefore, qualia are non-physical.
▪
The argument thus claims that if we find the inverted spectrum plausible, we must admit that qualia exist (and are non-physical). Some philosophers find it absurd that an armchair argument can prove something to exist, and the detailed argument does involve a lot of assumptions about conceivability and possibility, which are open to criticism. Perhaps it is not possible for a given brain state to produce anything other than a given quale in our universe, and that is all that matters.
The idea that an inverted spectrum would be undetectable in practice is also open to criticism on more scientific grounds. - Wikipedia
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Summary [last paragraph] in Wikipedia’s: ‘qualia’
The definition of qualia thus is governed by one's point of view, and that inevitably brings with it philosophical and neurophysiological presuppositions. The question, therefore, of what qualia can be raises profound issues in the philosophy of mind, since some materialist want to deny their existence altogether: on the other hand, if they are accepted, they cannot be easily accounted for as they raise the difficult problem of consciousness. There are committed dualists such as Richard L. Amoroso who believe that the mental and the material are two distinct aspects of reality. In contrast, there are tough-minded direct realists for whom the thought of qualia is unscientific as there appears to be no way of making them fit within the modern scientific picture; and there are committed proselytizers for a final truth who reject them as forcing knowledge out of reach.
Selected and Edited from Wikipedia: qualia
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In theory, an ontology is a "formal, explicit specification of a shared conceptualisation". An ontology renders shared vocabulary and taxonomy which models a domain with the definition of objects and/or concepts and their properties and relations.
Ontologies are the structural frameworks for organizing information and are used in artificial intelligence, Semantic Web, systems engineering, software engineering, biomedical informatics, library science, enterprise bookmarking, and information architecture as a form of knowledge representation about the world or some part of it. The creation of domain ontologies is also fundamental to the definition and use of an enterprise architecture framework.
Selected from Wikipedia: Ontologies (Information Sciences)
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The above material ‘fits’ within the framework of my concept of a ‘metaphysical’ heartansoulanmind within the Merlyn series of books and blog. I particularly like Locke’s inverted spectrum argument. I feel the ‘metaphysical’ is real in the sense that one of its properties is similar to color and how the human brain/mind perceives color and makes use of the phenomenon. This analogy can be expanded for a qualified extraterrestrial throughout the light spectrum. And, I add to this the last ‘summary of qualia’ paragraph above as from my perspective you, Amorella, qualify as qualia. The only sharable evidence of your possible ‘existence’ is derived from my very real fingertips. (1452)
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