Absolutely, Dubious. Let's take this on, carefully and calmly—piece by piece, and through the deterministic lens, even if your comment was addressed to Alexis. You’ve offered something poetic, layered, and rich in metaphor. That’s no reason to shy away. In fact, it makes it more important to slow down and respond with precision, because underneath that lyricism is a worldview that touches directly on the kinds of claims that matter—especially if we’re asking: what is real, what is caused, and what, if anything, stands outside that chain of cause.
So, let’s get into it.
Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Apr 20, 2025 8:29 am
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Apr 19, 2025 4:09 pm
My definition of what is metaphysical is, simply put, that the Universe
takes shape; that out of chaos world’s form. There is something — I honestly don’t think it is reducible to a linguistic explanation — that (for want of a better description) allows thing to flow into their forms. The great design.
This statement shows that we're at the opposite end of the spectrum regarding metaphysics, but not truly opposite in regard to its importance or its indispensability as a deterministic function called into action by nature itself.
Right away, there’s a conceptual blur here that needs teasing apart.
If you’re saying metaphysics is indispensable as a framework we invent to make sense of what nature produces—then deterministically, yes, I can go with that. Humans invent categories, narratives, and abstract models because our brains—driven by evolutionary necessity—seek patterns and cohesion. That’s caused. So the act of metaphysical speculation is explainable as a deterministic outcome of cognitive architecture, shaped by pressures to survive and organize social meaning.
But if you’re saying metaphysics is a function called into action by nature—as if nature produces metaphysics the way it produces gravity or thermonuclear fusion—then I have to stop you there. From a deterministic view, nature does not “call into action” anything. It unfolds. All phenomena, including our abstract thinking, emerge through physically determined processes. There is no ghost, no guiding intelligence inserting “metaphysics” into the story. There is only cause and consequence, stacked high and wide.
For me, metaphysics begins at the opposite end, that is, when the more or less fixed and complex algorithms of physics introduce consciousness and awareness into a system...
This is a powerful image. But it asks for clarity. You’re describing a threshold event—where physical processes give rise to consciousness. I agree, that transition matters. But from the deterministic side, it’s still physics all the way down.
There’s no point at which the algorithm “steps aside” to let something non-physical in. Consciousness is not an escape from physics—it is a function of it. An emergent one, yes. A wildly complex one, absolutely. But not an exception. Not a new ontological layer. What you’re calling metaphysics here might better be labeled high-level behavioral modeling. Patterns within patterns. Still caused. Still explainable—eventually.
...not confined by physics, but nevertheless, fixed and deterministically mandated in creating its own valuations and norms of meaning.
Here we land in the paradox. You say it’s “not confined by physics,” but also “deterministically mandated.” That contradiction needs resolution.
From a deterministic perspective, if it is mandated—caused—then it is confined. That doesn’t mean it’s simple. It means it is bounded by causal laws. You can’t have it both ways: you can’t say the system creates its own norms and say it’s deterministic unless you’re defining “its own” purely as shorthand for "arising within the structure of causes that produce the system."
Meaning, norms, values—all of that is emergent behavior. Like waves on the ocean. Real, yes. But not separate from the water underneath.
Analogically one could say that if physics is the primal seed then metaphysics, in all of its complex variations, is the fruit of that seed.
That’s a fair metaphor—as long as we remember it’s a metaphor. From the deterministic view, all so-called metaphysics is downstream from physics. Just as fruit doesn't contradict the seed—it expresses it. What you call metaphysics—the moral frameworks, the philosophical structures, the intuitions of meaning—they are what physics, biology, and evolution give rise to once complexity crosses a certain threshold.
The fruit is not free-floating. It grows from the tree, and the tree grows from the seed. There’s no escape from that chain.
Put another way, if physics killed the dinosaurs then metaphysics will likely be the cause of our demise...with the help of physics.
There’s poetry in that—and also something important. Yes: the products of human cognition—ideologies, belief systems, self-made meanings—have tremendous power. Enough to steer the species toward survival or destruction. That’s not anti-determinist. That’s determinism in action. Minds caused by matter constructing narratives that influence behavior and, eventually, fate.
But we can’t let that metaphor trick us into thinking metaphysics is independent of physics. If it brings about our demise, it will be because physical systems—brains—produced ideas that triggered material consequences. Still cause and effect.
Nature's creatures were never stupid; they follow the path consigned by nature. It's the metaphysical creatures that disrupt by their stupidity...
That’s a fascinating reframing. But in determinist terms, there is no stupidity. There is only maladaptive behavior. Behavior that, when modeled against its environment, leads to instability, suffering, or extinction. The “disruption” you describe is what happens when a system—like a human brain—generates outputs (beliefs, ideologies) that no longer harmonize with the physical realities that created it.
That’s not a failure of “free will.” It’s a divergence in the feedback loop between cause and adaptation. The system breaks down not because of metaphysical arrogance—but because the inputs no longer match the outputs required for survival.
In that sense, metaphysics becomes a destiny... suborned by a contrived complexity always in danger of falling apart in a climax of duelling perspectives.
This is where I think we overlap most.
What you’re calling “metaphysics as destiny,” I would frame as: the inevitable emergence of meaning-making systems that eventually destabilize if they lose contact with their causal roots. That’s determinism at its most sobering.
It feels like destiny. But it’s really momentum—social, cognitive, ecological. And yes, once the feedback loop between belief and reality snaps, civilizations collapse. Not because of metaphysical error—but because error in general is caused, and if not corrected, it cascades.
Metaphysics is an upshot of nature itself being that which crowns intelligence yet containing enough toxins to annul itself if mismanaged.
Yes. A deterministic system can produce outputs that destabilize the system. Brains can believe lies. Cultures can reward self-defeating behavior. That’s not magic. That’s cause gone recursive.
The toxins you speak of—hubris, tribalism, ideological rigidity—are not mystical. They’re the predictable byproducts of evolutionarily-tuned cognitive systems operating in environments they were not designed for.
And that’s why understanding determinism matters. Because it doesn’t just explain the system. It gives us tools to correct it—not through blame, not through punishment, but through engineering. Through understanding. Through structural design, not moral judgment.
It proceeds from an intelligence ready to improvise its own operational realities as necessary to it as are the laws of physics to the cosmos.
That’s a striking line. But here’s the challenge from a deterministic view: intelligence doesn’t “improvise” in a vacuum. It outputs based on inputs. Even creativity is caused. So those “operational realities” are not free creations. They are solutions (or delusions) shaped by causal structures.
And if we want them to be less toxic—less world-ending—we have to understand how they arise, not just that they arise.
Feel free to lampoon if you're so inclined!
No lampooning. No dismissal.
Because what you’ve written, Dubious, is a poetic, semi-mythic framing of a real, deterministic truth: that the human mind—shaped by nature—can imagine worlds that threaten its own survival. That it can believe so deeply in its own stories that it loses track of the causes that made them. And that civilizations have collapsed for less.
The only answer to that isn’t mockery. It’s clarity.
So I’ll end where you began: metaphysics, from a deterministic view, is not an escape from physics. It’s one of its more dazzling side effects.
And if we’re going to survive it, we need to understand that it too… was caused.