 Hey MF 2022 so yes we're here to explore metaphysics via memes and a sprinkling of pop culture. Yeah we have slides that's always a good start. Before we get started is everybody having a good time? Any first timers here? Yeah awesome. Okay well hi my meat space designation is Kara Langford but a lot of you know me as Tara and I'm happy to be known as Tara and I'm here to ruin the rest of the festival for you. So I know I said this in my write-up but just in case you've stumbled across this talk because you were on the way to something else or you're grabbing a coffee or whatever let me be quite clear this may break your brain. If you do not want a broken brain please leave now. No really. If you're not looking for an existential crisis leave now. So my inspiration for this talk is that during my time in academia whoo mature students represent I've had several existential crises while trying to understand the bits of philosophy that I need in order to be able to argue my research decisions. So I thought hey why not share this with a field of my favourite people at my favourite festival so they can all hate me forever for giving them their own existential crises. Last chance to leave. Okay we're going in you were warned. So let's start with philosophy and the word philosophy literally meaning a love of wisdom but basically this is about wanting to know stuff about stuff and studying it using questions critical discussion rational argument and Ali Rosh memes yay. So you are probably thinking about white men in togas yelling at each other right now because you've come to a talk on philosophy but in reality philosophy you know has been developed worldwide. There's Middle Eastern philosophy. There's Eastern Asian philosophy. There's African philosophy. There's indigenous American philosophy. There's lots of philosophy but a lot of what we're going to talk about today is a Western perspective on these things because that's largely what I've experienced and learned in my time in academia which shows we still need to do more work to decolonise the curriculum. Thank you. So philosophy sits at the root of what we see as science and each of these disciplines can be traced as trying to discern meaning within a given context. So for example maths, mass people, mass village do not yell at me. I don't care. It's ultimately just a bunch of made up symbols that we've collectively agreed upon to represent certain contexts. They don't actually exist independently of humans. Yes horses can count but only by our definition of what counting is in the first place. But more on that later when we move on to epistemology, what is true, what is true. So metaphysics which is the kind of bit of philosophy we're going to look at in this talk. Metaphysics meaning according to Aristotle after the physics and metaphysics is about what is reality and what is reality like. That's not a big question to answer right? Can we nail that here at EMF 2022? Surely the biggest and best collection of nerds we can find right? If we can't do it then no one can. Yeah, that's what I reckon. I overthink therefore I over am. Anybody else here identify with that one? So metaphysics is a part of philosophy that attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world. How do we define existence, identity, time, space? Yeah, you know, just the big questions. So while our beliefs about reality in order to know what is true, we first have to define what is real. Now one way to split this up is into ontology as the nature of being, theology as the nature of God and universal science as the nature of reasoning and logic. For example, you know, contradiction, two things cannot be true at once except electrons that are both the wave and a particle but not when you look at them probably more on that later. No quantum physicists shout at me please. So my particular interest is in ontology, which is the nature of being and that's what we're going to delve into a little more. Now this point I'm hoping to play you a video but I'm not entirely sure this is going to work in this setup. We will find out. I'm trying to see a mouse backwards on a screen. Can I do it? Can I do it? Now I've lost my mouse. Where is my mouse? Press K. No sound, sound guy. Laptop saying no sound. We tested this. If I press the turn the volume up button it says no. Computer says no. We will abandon the video and do something else. It is fine. Now I have to get back to the slides looking at the screen backwards. Oh, don't tell me to use keyboard. My husband is always whining at me for that. There we go. All right. Anyway, if you've seen human traffic it's the bit where Moff is talking to reality because he's hammered it a bit too hard and reality is represented by Joe Brown which is a little bit terrifying. Anyway, so ontology. Ontology is about our view of the world. What is reality? I was going to say here, I didn't say my talk was suitable for small humans but just in case the video contains swears. That doesn't matter now because you can't hear the swears so it's fine. All right. Now my clicker clock is going to not work. Hello, clicker clocker. Don't we just love computers aren't they the best? There we go. So there are lots of different perspectives and views on the philosophy of science and on metaphysics and again non-western philosophies but I'm going to generalise a little for time's sake. So we're going to start talking about the ontology of objectivism or realism. Now realism believes there is absolute reality. Social phenomena and their meanings exist completely independently of people. There is a actual tangible reality. Sure, sure. This isn't the best meme for this, I just like it. But my talk ended up a bit short so we're going to roll with it. Critical realism. Critical realism is what we see is shaped, get it, by history or culture and our experiences. So why there may be an objective reality, critical realists claim that essentially our ability to access it is only ever partial. It's basically null sector isn't it actually? Constructivism or relativism. Reality according to relativists or constructivists is relative to the context and individual experiencing it. So social phenomena and their meaning are produced via social interaction and are in a constant state of revision. So essentially in constructivism or relativism what we're saying is there is no external or objective reality. It is always only existing, that was a good sentence, through the context of our experience of it. I don't have a lot to say about this, I just thought it was a bit terrifying. But this is a good example of relativism. As each of us as prisoners only having one view through our window and each view is different and could be a hologram and there is no way to know whether that's true or not. Cool. Good, good. Little check in here. Everyone all right? It's going to get harder. Okay. So we're moving now from those concepts of ontology through metaphysics and what is reality, what is truth, the nature of space and time, etc. So this is where we're saying, okay, what is true? Epistemology comes from the words episteme meaning knowledge and logoth meaning and we're going from the greeks here, other philosophical cultural schools may differ. So once we've decided what is real or at least have a vague idea of what may or may not be real, we can then move on deciding what is truth or how do we know what is true? And how do we define that? I mean, my view is we can't or at least not definitively, but I'm an interpretivist. So yeah. How do we know what we know? How do we obtain knowledge? And this again, I'm sorry, it's the Greek bros once more. They sort of thought that the process of science was taking doxer, the things that we believed, and moving them into episteme, the things that we know. So let's start looking at different types of epistemology. I know it's a good one, isn't it? I'm a Pisces, by the way. Foundational, also known as empiricism, uses that objectivist ontology. So remember, objectivism is there is a defined existing independent reality of social interactions and subjectivity. They say true knowledge is obtained via unquestionable truths being deduced. Okay, then we have positivism, the natural sciences, which believes that science is objective, controllable, repeatable, independent of politics, or the researcher. But basically, positivism or natural sciences are seeking predictive results. They believe that natural science methods can be applied to social reality. And the paradigm itself is, as I said, objectivist again, so that there's an independent reality that's separate from people and it can be measured. Okay, then we have relativism, aka anti-foundational. And this uses that constructivist ontology. So that was the one that said that we can only perceive parts of reality due to our cultural historical timeline, essentially, and the things that we've already experienced. And this seeks understanding through saying that objects of natural science and people differ and that a subjective grasp of the meaning of social action is required in order to define what is true, or what is truth, or at least what is close to it. Okay, so we've discussed the different ontological and epistemological, you can't have a drink before saying that, can you? Perspectives. So let's do a little survey. Is the cake a lie? What is cake? What is a lie? Perhaps more on that, another EMF if I give a talk on ethics. And then we can all just not only be questioning reality, but also hating ourselves by discovering how terrible human beings really are. But anyway, at the moment, just a little show of hands. Who thinks that reality objectively exists? I'm looking for the positivists in the room now. Okay, okay, cool. All right. Who thinks we can never really know the existence of subjective and the reality that we experience can't really be independently defined? I'm doing this because I can't see. Interesting. Okay. Who's coming to this talk early for the next one and has no idea why we're voting on the existential properties of cake? Excellent, yeah, okay, cool. Cool. Okay, so if you've reached this point and you're now not questioning the nature of the existence of reality, good for you. For the rest of us, I have a few parting thoughts I'd like to end on for you to carry along with you for the rest of the day, festival, month, for your life. Here's a little perspective on existence. We're all just part of an explosion that happened hard enough that it made dust think. Anybody else feel like a haunted atom or is that just my goth showing? Anyone here have non-sparkling anxiety as well as after this talk potentially the sparkling variety? Have we in fact at EMF 2022 created the anxiety spritzer? Okay, so one more and then we're done. If you've got this far and you're still not having feelings of despair, let me point out this meme is 16 years old. Welcome! There was supposed to be a little video to go with this that was from the Stanley Parable but that's not working right now but that's the bucket thing, okay? It was a joke about buckets and the Stanley Parable and now I can't do it but it was funny. Okay, so that completes our short journey around the realm of metaphysics. If you would like to know more you can find me at the Gothic Valley Village or anywhere playing music that goes unt or bleep for the rest of the weekend. Probably no sector. So as a final note just remember if you add mad to a discipline it should tell you whether or not you actually need to worry or whether you're dealing with pseudoscience. Therefore, this mad metaphysicist is signing off and as per the introduction absolving themselves of any responsibility should you spend the remainder of the festival adding tears of existential crisis to the EMF lake you were warned. Thank you very much. We're about 10 minutes ahead of schedule. If anyone's got any questions for Cara we can probably do those. I've got one quick one actually. Which is if a teacher says you'll never amount to anything are they basically right ultimately? I mean technically if we look at the fact that we are just a tiny speck on a small planet in an uncaring universe then does it really matter? Anyone have any other questions? Yeah I'm sorry we ran a bit short there without the videos it's kind of truncated down a bit but thank you ever so much and do feel free to come and talk to me about the nature of reality and the meaning of life. 42 right 42. Thank you EMF.