From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: VERY fundamental question
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:13:14 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <1992Oct15.084914.23500@nuscc.nus.sg> matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Mcinnes B T (Dr)) writes:
>crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>: 
>:      The difficulty with admitting 'why' questions of a certain nature
>:      is that you get answers like Albian's.  At some point it stops
>:      being 'how' and becomes 'why'.  You apparently consider the sequence
>:      of questions leading to that difficulty a series of 'why' questions,
>:      rather than a series of 'what' and 'how' questions.  It seems to make
>:      more sense, though, to admit the different nature of the question
>:      by describing them as different types of questions.
>: 
>:      And I believe that Mach and other positivists would have held
>:      to the 'popular' view (actually not so popular when you hear
>:      some of us speaking or writing).
>
>Nobody believes in positivism anymore, do they?

     All of us do, to a certain degree ..

> I am using the words "how" and "why" in the usual way. "How" does the
>Earth go around the Sun? On an orbit which is approximately like an
>ellipse, but not exactly. "Why does it go around?" You are asking this
>question because you are unable to perceive that spacetime is curved. If
>you had been aware of it directly, then the question would not have
>occurred to you. This is how we answer "why" questions [in the rare
>cases in which they can be answered].

     Absolutely.  Our inability to see that spacetime is curved is the
     reason that offering curved spacetime as the answer to 'Why' seems a bit
     silly.   'Null geodesic' and 'Curved spacetime' are our current 
     answers to 'How'.  In going from Ptolemy to Copernicus to 
     Kepler to Newton to Einstein (damn, I didn't get Galileo in there),
     we did not get any closer to the answer to 'Why'.  We just kept
     getting better at 'How'.
     
     In the final analysis, all we are left with for physical reality 
     is the phenomenon itself.

>: 
>:      When was the last time you saw the 5th dimension?  Your whole
>:      answer is simply an approximate construct invented by us to explain *what*
>:      happens, not why it happens.  The phenomenon does not know whether
>:      we have developed this current explanation or that current
>:      explanation.  It simply continues to do what it has always been
>:      doing.
>: 
>:      So the answer is, as with all physics is 'Because it does'.
>: 
>:                             dale bass
>: 
>Wow, Dale, you are an anti-Barbie! Physics must be so easy for you!
>Why are there three generations of particles? Because there are.
>Why is gravity so hard to quantise? Because it is.
>What is the correct ground state for strings? Whatever it is.

     'Why' is easy.  'How' or 'What' is often very hard.  Since 'How'
     and 'What' constitute science, I don't feel that the job is that easy.

     Also, you implicitly assume in your questions that 'three generations',
     'gravity' and 'strings' constitute some element of physical
     reality.  Ignoring for the moment the thought that *no* construct
     constitutes an element of physical reality, physical reality
     may not be well represented by several of these constructs anyway.
     So, searching for 'Why' these things are the way we think they are 
     seems a bit silly.

>Come back Hannu, all is forgiven........

     Really?  Hannu is always telling you 'Why' and avoiding the
     difficult, interesting and truly scientific problems. 

>No offence, Dale: I just find it hard to believe that you got into
>physics in order to learn that all the really interesting questions are
>fundamentally meaningless. :)

     I do not find the meaning in answering 'Why' questions, and I do
     not know why you do.  My 'meaning' is found in answering 'How'
     questions, a domain where there are any number of interesting 
     questions (replace 'why's in your questions above with
     'how's), and where there may be definite answers.

     My nightmare would be to be put in a room with a bunch of
     philosphers being asked to defend 'Why'.

                             dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math