Text 71, 77 rader
Skriven 2004-09-15 21:58:00 av A.C.H. (1:278/230)
Ärende: Re: the why question
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paulw@mmail.ath.cx (Paul) wrote in message
news:<chpsl7$n80$1@darwin.ediacara.org>...
> Hi
> 
> How far are we from being able to answer the why question?

Humans ask why-questions. Presumed answers to why questions, involving
some meaning/purpose/value in the future (relative to the question
under consideration) are subjective; purposes/meanings/values don't
hang out there in the real world, they only exists in sofar they are
projected into the world by brains, particularly human brains.

Therefore physical/chemical/biological phenomena, which are supposed
to exist apart from human subjectivity, should not be explained with
teleological causes.

On the other hand, if why-questions can be shown to be
relevant/unavoidable, science would have a problem.

The answers to the questions you're posing should and can be answered
with usual causal relations, working from the past, not from the
future.



> We know inanimate salts tends to form crystals in order to minimize
> energy from our physics course. 

A ball reduces energy by rolling downhill. Does it roll downhill with
some purpose of preserving energy. i think not.
The proper causal relation explaining crystal formation would be
something like:
a particular flow of energy causes crystal formation. 

> But this is very far from being able to
> explain why viruses, bacteria, trees, animals tend to reproduing
> themselves-- 

Reproduction is a (or the) basic condition for life. Without
reproduction there would be no life to begin with.
The real causal relationships would be:
physical/chemical conditions caused reproduction which (via natural
selection) caused life. It happened, it has no purpose.

and not to mention why the necessity of evolving
> themselves? What is the physical compelling reason to do that for?

Differential survival of variating, replicating entities causes
evolution.
There is no reason, for that, it just happens.

> Where to start looking for the why?

In your own mind.


(Evolutionary biology is of course rife with why-questions and answers
("What good are eyes?"/"Eyes are for seeing."), but only in relation
to natural selection/adaptation.

All adaptive, apparently teleological, explanations can be
unproblematically translated as follows:

An eye is for seeing

means: 

Eyes caused those variations which had them to survive & reproduce.)
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