Metaphysics

Metaphysics got its name not from Aristotle but from a librarian's organizational dilemma. When Andronicus of Rhodes compiled Aristotle's works around 60 BCE, he placed unnamed treatises about being and causation "after the physics" (meta ta physika) simply because he didn't know what else to call them. This random filing decision became one of philosophy's most enduring branch names, turning a spatial description into an inquiry into what lies beyond the physical world.

Every parent recognizes the metaphysical interrogation: "Why is there something instead of nothing?" Kids around age 4-7 spontaneously generate classic metaphysical questions about existence, identity, and possibility before being socialized into "practical" thinking. Developmental psychologists have found that young children actually find metaphysical scenarios (like teleportation identity paradoxes) less confusing than adults do, suggesting we may unlearn our natural philosophical intuitions. Reclaiming this childhood wonder isn't naive—it's recovering a critical cognitive tool for examining assumptions we've stopped questioning.

Today's tech entrepreneurs are practical metaphysicians, whether they realize it or not. When Elon Musk discusses simulation theory or quantum computing pioneers build devices exploiting superposition, they're grappling with ancient metaphysical questions about reality's fundamental structure. The most consequential business decisions often rest on implicit metaphysical assumptions: Is consciousness computational? Can identity persist through digital uploading? Your stance on these "abstract" questions directly shapes product development in AI, biotech, and virtual reality.

Gottfried Leibniz proposed one of history's wildest metaphysical systems: reality consists of infinite "monads"—windowless, soul-like units that don't actually interact but appear synchronized through "pre-established harmony," like perfectly coordinated clocks God wound up at creation. This seemingly bizarre idea anticipated modern physics' insights about quantum entanglement and the observer problem, where particles seem coordinated without local causation. Sometimes the most outlandish metaphysics turns out to describe reality better than common sense does.

Modern AI researchers are unwitting metaphysicians hired as "ontology engineers" to define what exists in knowledge graphs and databases. When Google builds its Knowledge Graph or when medical AI systems categorize diseases, engineers must answer Aristotelian questions: What are the fundamental categories? How do properties relate to objects? Is a "person" the same entity across time? These ancient debates now determine how search engines understand queries and how autonomous systems make life-or-death decisions.

Every murder trial wrestles with metaphysical puzzles about personal identity and causation. Did the person who committed a crime 20 years ago truly "persist" as the defendant today, or are they physically and psychologically different? If neurons firing "caused" an action deterministically, can we assign moral responsibility? Lawyers don't cite Aristotle, but jury instructions about intent, identity, and culpability embed metaphysical commitments that determine whether someone lives or dies. Justice isn't just applied ethics—it's applied metaphysics.