h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Science can too provide answers to 'why' questions. You've said one in the entry:
"why does water flow downhill?"
"because of gravity"
"because water and the earth both have mass, so water is attracted to the center of the earth"
"because of the curvature of space-time in the region of the water"
"because of the effect of the earth's mass on the curvature of space-time"
"because mass curves space-time"
"because of the nature of space-time"
"we don't know any further yet, but we will."

Science provides a plethora of answers to 'why' questions. What it doesn't do is provide a definitive, final answer. If you take 'Why does water flow downhill?' to mean 'What causes water to flow downhill?', then that's a totally answerable question. The answers provided won't be absolute, definate, final answers, but they will still be answers.

Heck, *none* of Science's answers are absolute, definate, final: they're all models and theories, and if fresh evidence comes along then they'll be replaced. That's no different for 'why' answers as for 'how' answers.

> "In the case of gravity, for example, it assumes that there is a causal explanation for mass-mass attraction. It further assumes that this lies in the relationship between the two masses concerned."

That's just silly. Science doesn't assume that there's a causal explanation - it *looks* for such an explanation. If there isn't such a causal explanation, then Science won't find one. And there are many problems where science hasn't yet found a causal explanation - this may mean that there is no such explanation, or it may mean that there is such an explanation but it's not been found yet.

Put another way, you don't have to believe that everything has a causal explanation to do good science. *some* scientists believe this, but that doesn't mean that science needs such an assumption.

It certainly doesn't assume that it lies in the relationship between the two masses - heck, isn't relativity partly the claim that it isn't? That it's to do with each mass's individual relation with space-time.

On the other hand, Science cannot answer 'why?' questions which are in the sense of 'what is the purpose of...?' But that's a narrower issue than what your entry claims: a complete inability of science to deal with this particular three letter word.

> "There are no answers to why questions which will ultimately satisfy the inquirer."

That's just opinion. Lots of people are 'ultimately satisfied' by 'because of gravity'. I'd go so far as to say the vast majority of people. Certainly there are no absolutely objective answers, but not everyone requires absolutely objective answers to be satisfied.

> "although, philosophically speaking, one cannot actually derive knowledge from science"

Well, that's an interesting throw-away line. What do you mean by it?

Thank you for your comments.

Science uses empirical data to formulate its theories. Science is unable ever to prove a theory to be true, since all further proof would have to be theoretical. Science can, however, build an ever stronger case for its theories by accumulation of additional supporting data. This tends towards increased belief. Bayes created a theorem which is now known imaginatively as Bayes Theorem to show how supporting data (evidence) tends towards increased degrees of belief. Unfortunately, belief is not proof. Science cannot offer proof of its theories as its proof would be theoretical requiring further assumptions and, hence, such proof would be circular and invalid.

It is possible, however, to prove a scientific theory false by simply displaying evidence which goes directly against its predicted result.

It is important to realise that science cannot tell one why. The reason for this is stated in the entry. Sciences thories are only made to predict outcome from situational data. This then will tell one how, but not why.

Matt

> "Science is unable ever to prove a theory to be true"

Nobody, anywhere, can ever prove anything to be true beyond ALL doubt. Science is not unusual in this. It is ridiculous to claim that Science cannot provide answers to 'why' questions because it cannot do so beyond ALL doubt - you might as well say that looking out of the window cannot answer the question of whether the sun is shining, because it will not do so beyond ALL doubt.

post 3> "It is important to realise that science cannot tell one why. The reason for this is stated in the entry."

entry> "There is a simple reason for science's inability to answer why questions, and that is that science assumes causality as its most fundamental premise."

I think my previous post addressed this claim that science assumes causality. I don't think it does. Why do you think it does?

We meet again,

From the study of science it emerges that the most basic premise of causality is assumed in all scientific matters. Science as we know it is the science of causal explanation. To say that science does not assume causality is nonsense. This is reason that scientists temporarily wet their pants when Einstein produced Special Relativity Theory. After some calculations, however, it transpired that the order of any two events cannot be reversed by transposing into different frames of reference. Thus, causality was safe. If causality is not maintained, scientific explanation is meaningless. Temporal order is the most important feature of science experiments not other scalar measurements which form the conclusions.

Science cannot provide any answers to why questions, only how questions. Science is not concerned with why, only how. This was commented on by the great Einstein and others such as Boyle.

Matt

Hmm.
Certainly it is a standard theory of science that an event cannot precede its cause(s). And, as you noted, special relativity initially threatened to overturn that standard theory, hence minor panic.

But I still wouldn't grant it *fundamental* status. After all, scientists investigate the theoretical possibility of time travel. There have been scientific experiments on whether prayer works, and whether it works retrospectively (initial results indicate it can, but they have yet to be confirmed, and personally I'm skeptical). If you can investigate causality scientifically, can causality really be so fundamental?

I would instead say that causality is one of the basic meta-theories of science, but these theories are certainly not inviolable. I would include it along with Occam's Razor, the theory that our place in the universe is in no way special, and so on. They are old and fundamental theories, to be sure, but I don't see why they are assumptions.

> "From the study of science it emerges that the most basic premise of causality is assumed in all scientific matters."

How does it emerge?

> "Science is not concerned with why, only how. This was commented on by the great Einstein and others such as Boyle."

I believe (though I cannot prove) that they were talking about 'why' in the sense of 'what is the purpose of...' and 'what is the justification of...' not in the sense of 'what causes...'.

I completely agree that science does not (cannot?) answer questions about the purpose of things, nor really about the justification of things. But it seems to me that answering questions about the causes of things is pretty fundamental. What causes gases to expand? What causes the sun to emit light? What causes an apple to fall? What causes magnets to attract each other?

-Martin

I am aware of these experiments into the retroactive effect of prayer. That, however, is irrelevant. These are not investigations into causality - they are looking for patterns between prayer and recovery. If a pattern is discovered, it will be assumed that prayer caused the recovery. If not, it will be assumed that there is no causal relation between the prayer and the recovery. Hence, they have already assumed before they began that certain events have causal relations to other events. They have assumed causality. To try to prove or disprove causality scientifically is logically impossible, as causality must be assumed to do any experiment. Even retrospectively, there is no investigation into causality here.

From the argument I have given, it emerges that science assumes causality.

Matt

What about events where current science is that there is no cause, such as the Big Bang and various quantum events?

For science and philosophy the Universe simply IS a self-consistent set of rules (causality). All explanation is in terms of these rules. It is logically IMPOSSIBLE within the rules that constitute explanation to explain why the rules exist. So, no explanation for the big bang, then.
On quantum "indeterminacy" the jury is still out. There are certainly rules - some things are definitely NOT allowed. (See Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle), but the universe can be as deterministic as you please and it still won't be fully predictable. (Halting Problem, Three body problem, Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, etc.)So determinism is not empirically testable.
As to the whys of the human condition - they only make sense WITHIN the context of that condition. And as we have already seen such self referential questions Logically lack final answers.
Sage

> "So, no explanation for the big bang, then."

No, there IS an explanation for the big bang. What there isn't is a final explanation that removes the need for any other explanations, as you seem to desire.

> "The universe can be as deterministic as you please and it still won't be fully predictable... So determinism is not empirically testable."

Well it's not provable. A seemingly deterministic universe might be non-deterministic at unobservably small scales. And a seemingly non-deterministic universe might actually be using a pseudo-random number generator, and hence be deterministic. But you can have deterministic or non-deterministic theories, and gather empirical evidence for or against them in the normal way. So it's no less testable than anything else.

Oh, you might be interested in this related thread: F48874?thread=187410

1) So there's an explanation for the big bang? I'd like to hear it.
2) Like I seem to desire.......huh? That such a desire is pointless is the very nub of my gist!
3) Non deterministic at small scales.. It IS unpredictable at small scales.... but there is no way of showing whether this is due to indeterminacy or not.
4)In a genuinely non deterministic theory there would be no logical consequences of the theory. (Although this point is only valid if logic is deterministic. Otherwise it's just unintelligible.)

And I'll follow up your suggested further reading.
Thanks
Sage

1) It was a random quantum fluctuation OR It was created from a black hole in another universe OR anything that is possible is necessary
Or any of the other theories for the cause of the big bang.

2) OK

3) "It IS unpredictable at small scales" - it is *currently* unpredictable *by us*. Scientists seem to think it is genuinely unpredictable, due to indeterminacy, but of course that's not provable.

4) "In a genuinely non deterministic theory there would be no logical consequences of the theory" - You're correct to pick up on a language point: I talk about non-deterministic theories when I mean theories that involve both deterministic and non-deterministic elements. I hope that clears up any misunderstanding.

-Martin

Hold on. Possibility cannot be coupled with necessity. Otherwise necessity would be changable which is analytically false.