Universal Metaphysics
The development of natural science especially physics allows us to understand to a large extent the material world. However, the world also contains a large amount of concepts that are non-material and abstract, which are often poorly described by our language, let alone being well understood. In or...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Technical Report |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
2019
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123331 |
| _version_ | 1826214426997424128 |
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| author | Liao, Qianli |
| author2 | Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines |
| author_facet | Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines Liao, Qianli |
| author_sort | Liao, Qianli |
| collection | MIT |
| description | The development of natural science especially physics allows us to understand to a large extent the material world. However, the world also contains a large amount of concepts that are non-material and abstract, which are often poorly described by our language, let alone being well understood. In order to provide a comprehensive and coherent account of the structure of the world, we argue that it is important to create an explicit system and language to describe the composition and working of the world, especially the non-material components. This is reminiscent of the goal of the millennia-old subject metaphysics. Yet instead of focusing on isolated topics like most existing metaphysical studies, we argue it is beneficial to develop a roadmap for metaphysics (or mind) — a unified and coherent theory of what exist in the world, how to describe them, how they interact and how they are organized. Such development might lead to new insight into research in the science and engineering of intelligence and perhaps also how we view the world. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:04:50Z |
| format | Technical Report |
| id | mit-1721.1/123331 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2025-03-10T13:36:35Z |
| publishDate | 2019 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1233312025-02-27T21:19:36Z Universal Metaphysics Liao, Qianli Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines The development of natural science especially physics allows us to understand to a large extent the material world. However, the world also contains a large amount of concepts that are non-material and abstract, which are often poorly described by our language, let alone being well understood. In order to provide a comprehensive and coherent account of the structure of the world, we argue that it is important to create an explicit system and language to describe the composition and working of the world, especially the non-material components. This is reminiscent of the goal of the millennia-old subject metaphysics. Yet instead of focusing on isolated topics like most existing metaphysical studies, we argue it is beneficial to develop a roadmap for metaphysics (or mind) — a unified and coherent theory of what exist in the world, how to describe them, how they interact and how they are organized. Such development might lead to new insight into research in the science and engineering of intelligence and perhaps also how we view the world. This work was supported by the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM), funded by NSF STC award CCF - 1231216. 2019-12-31T23:38:32Z 2019-12-31T23:38:32Z 2019-12-31 Technical Report Working Paper Other https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123331 en_US application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Liao, Qianli Universal Metaphysics |
| title | Universal Metaphysics |
| title_full | Universal Metaphysics |
| title_fullStr | Universal Metaphysics |
| title_full_unstemmed | Universal Metaphysics |
| title_short | Universal Metaphysics |
| title_sort | universal metaphysics |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123331 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT liaoqianli universalmetaphysics |