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menotyou

Sirius...the dog star.

Member Since 2004

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Monday May 15, 2006

May 15, 2006
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I love physics. I really do. I can't get enough of it...but it is not equipped to answer the really important questions. Physics is great at telling us "what" happened, but very rarely can it tell us WHY. Yes...we understand that adding one proton to a Carbon atom gives us Nitrogen...but WHY? Carbon and Nitrogen have totally different characteristics. WHY does one androgynous proton change an atoms properties so drastically?? One tiny seemingly insignificant proton turns coal into a non-combustible gas. Why?

Why does an increase in mass and density generate a stronger gravitational field? We know that it does...but WHY?

Without physics we wouldn't have any of the technological marvels that make this such an exciting time to be alive. I love physics, but can they ever have a genuine understanding of the universe without knowing the true nature of things?
imagoldfish:
What makes you think there's an answer to WHY? Or that there is a "true nature of things"?
May 16, 2006
imagoldfish:
"When you have 6 protons in an atom you always get a predictable set of properties. It's not random...there has to be a reason. Cause and effect dictates that given an effect (an objects properties), there must be a cause."

Are you a believer in Intelligent Design, perchance?

I mean, I guess ultimately the question is whether you a. believe in a prime mover, and b. believe that it is possible for us to know that for sure.

But still, it seems to me that WHY questions are generally either different ways of getting at HOW questions - "Why does this thing work the way it does? Because of the following features it has" - or are totally unanswerable.

I mean, to go with what you're saying above, here's an example - why does a barbie have blond hair? You can answer this in several ways:

a. Because she was made that way (the God answer)
(but why was she made that way? because of the whimsical desires of her maker. but why did the maker have whimsical desires? - the ad infinitum follow up)
b. Because she is the appearance of the Form of Barbie on our Earth. (Plato answer)
c. Because at the time of her original creation, blond hair was a cultural symbol of sexiness, (insert anthropological sort of explanation here) - this is an example, I think, of a kind of how answer to a why question, in that it gives you more facts about something, particularly its function and/or point of origin, or to really boil it down, a more elaborate description of the object, to answer your why question.

But if you're just driving at some general kind of existential angst, like OMG the world is so beautiful and complex and amazing but has all these crazy patterns whyyyyyy?
Then yeah, I'm gonna posit that the only answer that can fully cover it is God, or something along those lines.

Oh, I guess there's another approach, which would be the Heidegger route, which goes something like "Indeed, why IS the question, the question of BEING, which philosophers have been ignoring for ages and which man is the only creature who asks, meaning that he has a priviledged relationship to BEING". You might dig it. Check out his Letter on Humanism for a brief intro to the stuff, if you're not familiar with it already.
May 16, 2006

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