Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science

From: Albert (albertwagner_at_cox.net)
Date: 03/02/05 

Date: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 13:00:12 -0600

robert j. kolker wrote:
>
>
> Albert wrote:
>
>> "At the basis of the whole modern view of the world
>> lies the illusion that the so-called laws of nature
>> are the explanations of natural phenomena."
>>
>> 6.371 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
>> Ludwig Wittgenstein

You will note that I restored the source of the quote. You
snipped it without notification, giving the impression that it
was mine.

> Explanations are not causes. A model explains in the sense that it
> predicts and relates phenomena. Explanation very often consists of
> providing hypothetical causes for observed phenomena. For example, why
> don't we float off the ground. Answer: because the force of gravity
> keeps us on the ground and there we stay unless a greater force lifts us
> up. I call that an explantion.

Wittgenstein disagrees. It certainly wasn't an explanation of
gravity, which is what your question called for. Of course, being
a mathematiker, you are free to define anything in any way
convenient for you.

> Physical explanations and laws are very good just-so stories. What makes
> them better than fairy tails is:

I didn't know fairies had tails.
>
> 1. They make testable quantitative predictions.
>
> 2. They lead to useful technology.
>
> Bob Kolker
The kosmos is expanding because that is what it does. 

-- 
"Mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence"
	-- Time Bandits

Relevant Pages