Such a theory would obviously be priceless for judging and constructing more specific physical theories. When we understand language as a hierarchical model of reality, i.e. a device which produces predictions, and not as a true static picture of the world, metaphysics is understood as much more valuable than just the "free fantasy" of philosophers. To say that the real nature of the world is a certain way means to propose the construction of a model of the world along those lines. Metaphysics creates a linguistic model (logical or conceptual structure) to serve as a basis for further refinements. Even though a mature physical theory fastidiously distinguishes itself from metaphysics by formalizing its basic notions and introducing verifiable criteria, metaphysics, in a very important sense, is physics.
Philosophies traditionally start with an ontology or metaphysics: a theory of being in itself, of the essence of things, of the fundamental principles of existence and reality. In a traditional systemic philosophy, "organization" might be seen as the fundamental principle of being, rather than God, matter, or the laws of nature. However this still begs the question of where this organization comes from. In a constructive systemic philosophy, on the other hand, the essence is the process through which this organization is created.
Robert Rosen's definition of "metaphysics": Speculative philosophy dealing with questions of how material reality came to be (ontology of the universe). Anything that is speculative cannot be defined as science, in his view. Theory is not speculation (unless it is done poorly), therefore, a fundamental difference exists between metaphysics (philosophy) and theoretical physics (science). The fact that there is a difference does not mean that the two are unrelated or cannot enrich each other. Indeed, my father tended to view philosophy with enormous love and respect. He felt science and philosophy were complementary in that they are different aspects of human thought. But theoretical science is markedly different from philosophy. It would fall on the science end of that complementary relationship. In the definition of metaphysics, above, those lines are decidedly blurred. On the one hand, it speaks of judging and constructing more specific physical theories. But goes on to make claims that are not based in logic, like this one: When we understand language as a hierarchical model of reality, i.e. a device which produces predictions, and not as a true static picture of the world, metaphysics is understood as much more valuable than just the "free fantasy" of philosophers. In what sense is language a device which produces predictions about the world? Only in "self-fulfilling prophecy", it seems to me. The definition of what metaphysics is, as I found it on this website, attempts to straddle a definition of both philosophy and theoretical science.
(While my father considered himself a theoretical biologist, Rosennean Complexity Theory could actually be called a foundational theory of theoretical physics. To him, it was all "Science". So, the designation of physics was not something he would have thought important. In Monty Python speak... The People's Front of Judea or the Judean People's Front; whatever.)
According to my sources, "meta" in ancient Greek means "after", which has a significantly different meaning in English than "over". Whatever Aristotle meant by the word "metaphysics" is probably not what it ultimately meant when my father was talking about it. That is partly because any translation of Aristotle's treatise on it would (and should) be suspect. Translations of ancient languages are notorious for being wrong. It's really hard to find someone who knows the nuances of an ancient language well enough to be able to recognize that the translation is wrong. Look at Michelangelo's sculpture of Moses, with horns growing out of his hair... the translation he was basing his sculpture on said that Moses came down off the mountain with the Ten Commandments and had horns on his head. The supposedly more accurate modern translation said it should have been that he had an "aura" around his head. So, as a lasting memorial to the vagaries of biblical translations, we have this gorgeous sculpture in Carrera marble, of Moses with horns. That brings us to the other aspect complicating matters here; we are dealing with the nature of the religious spin that got built into all of Aristotle's translated philosophy and we are also dealing with the backlash within science, all of which developed over the history of the relationship between science and religion.
I will end this brief analysis with a quote of my father's, excerpted from "Essays on Life, Itself', page 254:
"I have come to believe that a theory of fabrication, and in particular a theory of fabrication of organisms, leads us directly to ontological questions of this type. These are questions that have been excluded from science, since at least the time of Newton, and left entirely in the hands of metaphysicians. Their language is therefore the only one presently available for articulating them; I hope to show, however, that there is nothing unscientific about the questions themselves. Quite the contrary, in fact."
Judith
