Text 153, 89 rader
Skriven 2004-09-24 12:56:00 av Anthony Cerrato (1:278/230)
Ärende: Re: the why question
============================



"Guy Hoelzer" <hoelzer@unr.edu> wrote in message
news:civ2db$2sf$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
> Tony,
>
> in article cis9gj$29h0$1@darwin.ediacara.org, Anthony
Cerrato at
> tcerrato@optonline.net wrote on 9/22/04 9:33 AM:
>
> > It isn't the job of scientists to ask "why?"--they only
ask
> > how. It is up to philosophers and ethicists to probe the
> > "why" questions if they wish. You must realize that
"why" is
> > a man-made concept
> > -- the universe has no concern for this concept.
>
> You might be correct, but this viewpoint is inconsistent
with the existence
> of universal laws.

I assume you mean that universal laws demand a reason for
their existence? Why (NPI) should they? Anyway, this is
still more of a "how?" question on a deeper level. We don't
really even have proper answers to the big "how?"
questions--how were the values for the physical constants of
the universe specified...how did the Big Bang "creation
event" occur, etc.? Ultimately such questions cannot be
answered--they lie _"outside"_ the universe
and are undeterminable from within.

> > To ask anything like "why?" is to get the answer "why
not?"!
>
> A scientific answer to "why not?" might be something like
"it violates one
> of the laws of thermodynamics."

True, but the laws of thermo are really axioms of the
universe--they are part of all the laws set up when the
universe began and there is no way they can be justified,
certainly not from "within."
To attempt to do so is folly--or at least, metaphysics, not
science.

>
> > All big scientific theories and questions are in fact,
in
> > essence, a tautology; this includes Darwin's Thy. of
> > Evolution, the Anthropic
> > Principle,and the Fermi Paradox as well as physical
theories
> > like classical and quantum mechanics and more advanced
ones.
> >
> > My philosophy is not to ask why we are here and other
such
> > questions, but to find those reasons within our own
lives.
> > Not easy, but it can be done.
>
> I agree with you here.  Ultimately, we are here for the
same (thermodynamic,
> IMHO) reasons that anything else is or has existed, but
that answer is
> probably not the sort of answer that would satisfy anyone
asking this
> question.  It often implicitly assumes, for example, that
we are more
> special than other things.

Exactly! And we should have learned long ago that
anthropocentrism is unscientific. and
wrong. Bye,        ...tonyC

> Cheers,
>
> Guy
>
>
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