Conception Of Metaphysics

fact that this profound posit is logically indefensible and thus perverse. There can be no evidence to fortify it unless the macrocosm is paradoxical. If the postulation that Mind or Matter are fundamental categories were logically defensible then metaphysics would be a simple affair. As it is, and it is quite facile to verify, all metaphysical quandaries are found to be intractable once this postulation has been made. These quandaries are intricately and intimately connected, and every one of them is found to be ‘hard’ in precisely the same way. The conception that we might overturn the result of some thousands of years of rational analysis by discovering incipient scientific evidence is incredible, and a clear misunderstanding of the relationship

It is so often made, however, that it is additionally widely surmised, as a corollary, that the metaphysically flawed and ineluctably nonreductive worldview that arises from it must be the only one that can be considered ‘scientific’ or ‘naturalistic’. We must then conclude that in order for a theory to be considered ‘scientific’ or ‘naturalistic’ it must fail in metaphysics. And so we are led to the conception that for a naturalistic and scientific worldview we must disregard the results of human reasoning. But, of course, a little thought shows that it is simply not the case that this posit about metaphysical questions or the worldview that emerges from it is uniquely or even indispensably scientific or naturalistic. If a worldview can legitimately call itself scientific or naturalistic then it would not ineluctably follow that it is consistent with the scientific data or survives logical analysis. It may yet be a poorly constructed or hopelessly erroneous theory. If it is found to have ramifications inconsistently erratic with logic and reason then calling it ‘scientific’ or ‘naturalistic’ is not going to make it any more plausible. Once we have postulated that metaphysical quandaries are either intractable or decidable, however, then for a ‘scientific’ or ‘naturalistic’ theory of consciousness we must stay well clear of metaphysical issues, and we could certainly never revisit this metaphysical posit to examine it more proximately. According to our postulation there would be no cogency in doing so. We forsook metaphysics when we commence making posits in lieu of doing the calculations. Having made this postulation we have no cull but to conclude, not a little ironically, that the quandary of consciousness is too ‘hard’ for the natural sciences and scientific consciousness studies and that its solution, if there is one, would have