in article cj86ng$2tbb$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org, Anthony Cerrato at
tcerrato{at}optonline.net wrote on 9/26/04 9:59 PM:

> "Guy Hoelzer"  wrote in message
> news:cj4nbg$1t01$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
>> in article cj1f0m$s7d$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org, Anthony
> Cerrato at
>> tcerrato{at}optonline.net wrote on 9/24/04 8:37 AM:
>> 
>>> "Guy Hoelzer"  wrote in message
>>> news:civ2db$2sf$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
>>>> in article cis9gj$29h0$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org, Anthony Cerrato at
>>>> tcerrato{at}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?
>> 
>> No.  I meant that your view is inconsistent with the EXISTENCE of universal
>> laws.  In other words, the existence of a universal law, whether or not we
>> know of the law, would demonstrate that the universe does indeed
have concern
>> for the concept of "why" in the sense that universal
laws would by definition
>> provide ultimate answers to "why" questions. My view is
that universal laws,
>> like those of thermodynamics, exist and provide a scientific basis
for asking
>> and answering "why" questions.
> 
> But that is just my point--universal laws may prompt the
> question, "why?", but they do not answer it"!

As you note below, we are getting unfortunately entangled in semantics here,
but I will try to clarify my position once more.  It does not appear to me
that we are really at odds.  My point was that, although we cannot at
present answer the question of where the universal laws come from, their
universality (if you accept them) makes it unnecessary to look any deeper in
answering "why" questions about higher order phenomena.  I would take these
"why" questions and answers to be scientific if acceptance of the existence
of universal laws is allowed to underpin scientific thinking.

> They cannot
> answer it except to possibly at most provide a causal chain
> explaining it, and that chain, of necessity becomes either
> infinitely recursive or purely axiomatic in the final
> analysis--there simply is no reason, for example, that the
> Law of Conservation of (mass-)Energy should apply, even in
> pure logic. It's nature lies outside the universe,
> inaccessible to us. Also, the use of the word "concern" is
> inappropriate here except as metaphor of course...it implies
> an element of conscious thought which, likely is not true,
> or, in nay event, cannot (and has not been) be so proven.

I agree with you about our use of the word "concern" here.  There is
probably a much longer phraseology required to get the idea across
accurately in English.
 
>>> 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?"
>> 
>> Answers to "how" questions are not concerned with
ultimate causation, the way
>> that "why" questions are; so they don't generally reach
as deep as universal
>> laws (e.g., thermodynamics).
> 
> "How?" questions may not be applicable to ultimate causation
> either, but they are also often asked anyway (usually by
> non-scientists) in conjunction with "why?". However, it is
> easy to get bogged down in semantics here on the distinction
> between how/why in various contexts, which I think we are
> doing. I will agree that, "why?" is deeper than "how?" in
> your usage here.
> 
>>> 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.
>> 
>> I'm not sure I agree with you on the particular questions you listed, but it
>> would certainly outside the scope of science to even posit the existence of
>> anything outside of the universe.  That would surely lie exclusively in the
>> realm of philosophy.  I would argue that universal laws, should they exist,
>> reflect incontrovertible logics, hence need not emanate from outside the
>> universe.
> 
> OK--then what is the (non-axiomatic, non-circular) logic
> behind Conservation of Mass-Energy?

If I had a good answer to that question my name would appear in the
textbooks for a long time to come.  I keep stressing the existence of
universal laws, rather than trying to explain them because my position does
not rest on an explanation for their existence.  It flows entirely from the
fact of their existence, which is a proposition open to scientific
refutation.  Statements proposed as universal laws are most refutable,
because any counterexample in any context will do.  The laws of
thermodynamics have been around for a while, yet not a single counter
example has ever been revealed.  I, and most other scientists that I know,
am comfortable assuming that universal laws exist, even if I have no idea
why.
 
>>>>> 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.
>> 
>> There is, of course, no evidence that universal laws were ever conditionally
>> "set-up," as if the universe could have gone another
way. I disagree with you
>> on the value of trying to understand the bases of universal laws, although
>> you might be right.  I think this is all a diversion from my claim, however,
>> that the existence of universal laws is all that is necessary to
>> scientifically address "why" questions.
> 
>  OK, it is true that there is no evidence that these laws
> were "set-up" although that is the preponderance of opinion
> in science. The point is though, that just stating such laws
> is not an answer to the question, "why?".

We agree that it does not address the question of why these universal laws
exist, but their existence does allow us to answer "why" questions about
macroscopic phenomena in the universe.

Best Wishes,

Guy
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