Who cares about metaphysics?
by P. Brannock - 2008. as published on politac.org

On the relevance of metaphisics to reasoned lives.

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Who cares about Metaphysics? If you are in a relationship that you hope will continue to be a harmonious and successful one, you should be very interested in knowing what your partner's metaphysical beliefs are. Different beliefs in this area give rise to very serious difficulties between marital partners. Metaphysics is the study of reality. We recognize that the universe around us is made up of energy, light, and matter, that actually exists apart from us and our perceptions of it and that things within the universe, including living things, move and act within their own realm and according to their own nature. For us, mastering our universe is in coming to understand it for what it actually is. Do you share this view? Does your life partner?

Some philosophies hold that nothing exists in reality apart from our perceptions of it. Some interpret and apply such philosophy in their life to mean that nothing actually exists at all beyond being a figment of our imagination. Accordingly, they rationalize, whatever limited control we perceive ourselves to achieve over the world around us is a fleeting figment of our imagination that has little to do with our sustained effort and calculated resolve and more to do with chance and random luck. Think about the impact on one's motivation in life between the two notions of metaphysics and the impact of such notions as they carry over into one's ethics and epistemology.

People with different notions of metaphysics have very different values and very different feelings of motivation in life. They sometimes make very different choices and rationalize those choices in very different ways. Should you take drugs or drink yourself into a drunken stupor every night? Why not? Is brain chemistry really affected, or do we just imagine it to be affected. Is there a risk of permanent alteration to the synaptic firing of neurons or is that just the imagined rhetoric of doctors who make a living off our fear? Is the brain a delicate organism that processes intricately balanced electromagnetic impulses that result in accurate and useful perceptions of physical realities external to ourselves when they are working properly and not disrupted? Or are our unaltered mental perceptions of our reality no more useful to us in a constructive manner in a healthy and unaffected state than they are under the influence of LSD or some other hallucinogen owing to the belief that one figment of the imagination is just as useful and enlightening as another? What do you believe? What do your kids believe? What do your kids best friends who have a serious impact on the development of their philosophical take on life in the absence of any guidance from you believe? Think about it!

Metaphysics matters. It matters a lot. It has most definately impacted on your choices in life and it will most definately impact on the choices of your children. If you think everyone in the world subscribes to the same beliefs in the area of metaphysics, you are sadly mistaken. Your children will likely be exposed to influence in this area from every extreme and variation of metaphyisical ideas. They will make choices on the basis of their chosen philosophy. Those choices will likely impact greatly on their lives.

See also: Who Cares about Philosophy?

See also: What about Religion?
See also: Other Interview Responses and Articles