Open question: What is "metaphysical thought"

[Zareal]

What can we say about Metaphysical thoughts in relation to regular thoughts? Are the same thing, fundmentally, as regular tboughts, or do they come from an altered type of thought, just as an electron also has other forms that are no less electrons, but so much more.

[Dean Duder]

What do you mean by “metaphysical thoughts”?

[BobG9638]

Just by asking the question What is “metaphysical thought”, you are thinking metaphysical thoughts, so there ya go 🙂

[Nax]

100 Dude points for Bob 🙂

[juliusthejules]

I found this definition:

1. the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.

[KalHyahDelo]

Open your mind and seek the truth wherever you can find it.

[AlejandroRuizPesantes]

Myetaphysical thinking questions everything that is beyond the physical, speaks of the subtle fluids and other knowledge that are only possible to achieve in altered states of consciousness. At that point there is a relationship with the department of PSYCHEMISTRY.

[Dr.Killinger]

[quote quote=16268]Just by asking the question What is “metaphysical thought”, you are thinking metaphysical thoughts, so there ya go

[/quote]
Brilliant!

 

[Daralis]

Basic physics state that energy can neither be created nor destroyed but only changes form. Therefore, I postulate, that basic thoughts are, in fact, metaphysical thoughts having taken on a different form in the consciousness of the thinker.

 

 

[Exist_cat]

Wikipedia defines Meta as

Meta (from the Greek μετα-, meta-, meaning “after” or “beyond”) is a prefix meaning more comprehensive or transcending

However within the modern English lexicon, there is a sub-meaning as found on Urban Dictionary which I find more useful:

1. Meta means about the thing itself. It’s seeing the thing from a higher perspective instead of from within the thing, like being self-aware.

If we take this definition, and pair it with the older (Greek) definition of physics (per wikipedia):

Physics (from Ancient Greek: φυσική (ἐπιστήμη), romanized: physikḗ (epistḗmē), lit. ’knowledge of nature’, from φύσις phýsis ‘nature’)

We come to a definition roughly along the line of: The knowledge of knowledge itself. I think there can be no better understanding of what metaphysics is. It is the contemplation of contemplation. The seeking of enlightenment through trying to define enlightenment.

It is, perhaps useful to look at Plato’s allegory of the cave. For those unfamiliar (Again from Wikipedia):

In the allegory, Socrates describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners’ reality, but are not accurate representations of the real world.

Metaphysics, then is to try and, as the people in the cave, to define not the objects casting the shadows, but to try and define the fire itself.

But that’s just like, my opinion, man.

[Jaycutza]

I found a really good but somewhat dense essay that addresses this question at http://summit.sfu.ca/system/files/iritems1/9412/etd4407.pdf — lots of historical background and analysis, but not overly long.

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