Rich Freeman <ri...@gentoo.org> wrote: > On Fri, Apr 3, 2015 at 7:02 PM, Peter Humphrey > <pe...@prh.myzen.co.uk> wrote: > > On Friday 03 April 2015 17:11:11 Fernando Rodriguez wrote: > > > >> That's the problem with science in general. The one thing it may > >> never be able to answer is "why?". > > > > I think that's the crux of the problem with some current approaches > > to physics. Science does not answer the question "why?". That isn't > > its job. Its job is to explain show "this is how the world works." > > I think the ultimate goal though is to get down to root cause. > > I can have a model that does a great job explaining the behavior of a > magnet without ever mentioning what a photon or electron is. However, > compared to our current understanding of electromagnetism such a model > is rather poor. > > This is how science has worked for hundreds of years. It has really > only become a fashion in the last few decades to lower the bar and say > "well, we'll probably never understand how this works - that isn't > science's job - my theory predicts the results of most of the > experiments we can do within some realm of precision and that is good > enough." > > As I said, I think this is hubris. We think that the fact that we > haven't figured out the answer means that nobody can figure out the > answer.
Maybe I'm wrong but I'm tending to assume that we can't figure out what's really behind the scene as a matter of principle. I think that all we can do is making theories which are able to predict the processes that we are detect. Mathematics is our basic tool to build these theories. A fundamental question is, whether the mathematical axioms are existing "for real" and we just discovered them or are they grounded by the functionality of our mind/brain. In the latter case it would probably be impossible for us to find "the answer". (42!;) Nevertheless we always should try to get a deeper understanding of the underlaying mechanisms. But I really have my doubts that we ever will reaching the "ground", if there is one at all. And even if there is something like a "absolute reality" or a "reason for everything", we maybe are not able to really understand it. -- Regards wabe
