On 7/13/2014 8:51 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
That being said, I tend to become a postmodernist when the word "explanation" shows up.
I see science as pure description. I find it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing
"explanation" where none is given. People say to kids: the moon orbits the earth because
the earth has more mass and generates a stronger attractive force. But if we look at the
equations, this is not what they say. They contain no "because". They just describe.
The "why?" is a human construct. Possibly a language construct. I don't find it so
unthinkable that it throws us into an ontological loop like Brent describes.
I don't agree with postmodernist epistemology. I bet that truth can be approximated by
the scientific method. But still, I cannot do more than bet on this. The problem is that
I'm not convinced that explanations or causations are part of The Truth. I see them more
as tricks that the human mind uses to navigate reality, not so different from the ad hoc
conventions we use to communicate.
I agree. What we generally call a scientific explanation is just a description in terms
of something we understand better than the thing being explained. It includes things we
can imagine being different or manipulating and it provides a model that predicts the
result of such changes. In the example of Newtonian gravity, the two masses and the
distance between them are things we understand and can imagine manipulating. But notice
that this was not immediately considered a good explanation at the time. Newton was
asked, "But what provides the force?"
Brent
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
