CB: “In other words, JA seems to be arguing that any conclusions he reaches about metaphysical matters are sounder, simply because he reached them through his reliance on a material process.”
Science says nothing about metaphysical matters; these constructs are outside science’s purview, and senseless therein.
However, I can say something about metaphysics. Wittgenstein was correct when he wrote, “The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena”; was wrong when he asserted the insensibility of making propositions about the world as a whole (see Godel, Incompleteness); and was right when he wrote:
“The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science — and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person…this method would be the only strictly correct one.”
The question “Why existence?” will forever be senseless and therefore unanswerable. “The facts all contribute only to setting the problem, not to its solution.”
