From: jimruttshow8596
Forrest Landry, a philosopher and guest on the Jim Rutt Show, discusses his unique approach to metaphysics, contrasting it with historical philosophical traditions and emphasizing its practical utility [00:32:00]. His work, known as immanent philosophy, is presented primarily through a website version that is considered more readable and current than his book [01:14:00].
Defining Metaphysics
Jim Rutt initially expresses a common skepticism towards metaphysics, often associating it with ungrounded speculation [01:38:00]. However, Landry’s work is acknowledged as a “serious attempt to build an understanding of the universe for some pretty basic fundamentals,” avoiding the typical pitfalls of unsubstantiated claims [01:58:00].
Landry defines his domain of metaphysics as an inquiry into the nature of the relation between self and reality, specifically focusing on the interaction between the subjective and the objective [04:59:00]. Historically, metaphysics addresses two primary questions: “what is” (ontology, the study of existence and the nature of being) and “how do we know” (epistemology, the nature of knowledge and the phenomenology of consciousness) [05:28:00]. Other branches like axiology (what’s valuable) and aesthetics (what’s beautiful) extend from these fundamental metaphysical premises [06:20:00].
Historical Philosophical Context
Landry’s work engages with and refines traditional philosophical concepts:
Aristotle and Kant
Historically, philosophers like Kant and Aristotle discussed metaphysics often in relation to theology or the nature of the ground of being [04:40:00].
Kant’s observation was that perception does not necessarily provide perfect information about what is perceived, nor about the perceiver [08:08:00]. If the objective world is treated as real, perception itself doesn’t offer perfect information, leading Kant to reject metaphysics as a means to understand objective existence [09:39:00].
Descartes and Cartesian Dualism
Cartesian dualism, particularly famously expressed as “I think, therefore I am,” explores the relationship between mind and matter, or subjective consciousness and objective substance [00:58:38]. Descartes’ approach sought indubitable ground truth by rejecting anything that could be doubted [01:02:44].
In this framework, the act of thinking (a process) is the basis for establishing being, suggesting that ontology is dependent upon epistemology [01:01:29].
Forrest Landry’s Immanent Metaphysics: A Contemporary Approach
Landry’s immanent metaphysics differs from traditional views by positing the relationship between the subjective and the objective as primary and unconditional, rather than asserting the unconditional existence of either the subjective or the objective alone [01:00:51].
Key aspects of Landry’s approach:
- Relationship as Ontological Class: The relationship between the perceiver and the perceived, or the process of perception itself, is considered more fundamental than both the perceiver and the perceived [01:11:00]. This relationship, like that between content and context, is its own fundamental notion [01:11:00].
- Refining Concepts: Landry distinguishes between “to exist,” “to be real,” and “to be objective,” terms often conflated in philosophical literature [09:55:00]. This careful distinction is crucial for foundational inquiry.
- Interaction as Fundamental: Landry argues that interaction is more fundamental than existence or even creation. To establish that something exists, one must interact with it [00:40:28]. Therefore, the process of interaction (e.g., the scientific method) provides the basis of knowledge, rather than a presupposition of deterministic existence [00:41:01].
- Definition of Self: In this work, the “self” is defined as the product of all choices one has made and all choices one could make, encompassing both actuality (memory) and potentiality (capabilities) [01:13:00]. This concept links directly to choice as a fundamental element of the subjective [01:46:00].
- Process as Primal Concept: Landry identifies process as “probably the single most primal concept” [01:43:40]. Concepts like comparison, measurement, signaling, choice, change, and causation are all manifestations or examples of the underlying notion of process [01:49:58]. The axioms and modalities explore the intrinsic characteristics of process itself [01:04:15], [01:17:10].
- Relation vs. Interaction: A key distinction is made between “relation” (atemporal, like in mathematics, focusing on structures) and “interaction” (temporal, involving flow of information and change, like in physics) [00:30:51]. An observer is considered an “epiphenomenon of the interaction” [00:32:28], implying that the concept of an observer is inherent in the notion of interaction [00:34:46].
- Reifying Power: Rather than seeking absolute “proof” (which he relates to mathematical validity), Landry focuses on “soundness” for metaphysics, which is a “very practical” concept [00:45:31]. Soundness in metaphysics is about the “reifying power” of concepts—their ability to clarify vague relationships and improve understanding and utility [00:52:44]. This is analogous to how scientific experiments clarify questions [00:25:22].
- Mind from Brain: Landry acknowledges that neuroscience can show correlations between subjective experience and brain tissue [01:09:07]. However, he argues that even perfect knowledge of neural correlates would not answer the “hard problem” of consciousness, which deals with why a subjective experience is happening now, emphasizing the role of time and inherent potentiality [01:10:06]. This distinction between first-person and third-person perspectives is crucial; while science moves from first-person observation to third-person understanding, the reverse (deriving first-person experience from third-person models) requires a different philosophical toolset [01:22:55].
Landry suggests that physics helps answer “why” questions through modeling, while metaphysics is for answering “what” questions through descriptive processes, aiming to create clear concepts for use in other fields like computer science [00:22:48]. The value of metaphysics lies not in producing testable experiments, but in clarifying concepts that lead to testable experiments [00:25:19].