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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.
