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From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: Re: Rosen on reason, etc.
Message-ID: <381@psivax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Apr-85 20:06:14 EST
Article-I.D.: psivax.381
Posted: Tue Apr  2 20:06:14 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Apr-85 08:02:45 EST
References: <1074@decwrl.UUCP> <5266@utzoo.UUCP> <720@pyuxd.UUCP> <5303@utzoo.UUCP> <749@pyuxd.UUCP> <5332@utzoo.UUCP> <721@mhuxt.UUCP>
Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley friesen)
Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA
Lines: 37
Xref: watmath net.philosophy:1594 net.religion:6483
Summary: 

In article <721@mhuxt.UUCP> js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) writes:
>> What I am assuming is that there are certain things which
>> are not knowable. Why does the world exist? Why is Plank's constant
>> *this* value and not *that* one? Why aren't there more stars? Why is
>> there a force of gravity anyway? These are all examples of questions
>> whose answers (ignoring direct revelation from God, say) are not knowable.
>> There may be no reason for any of these. There may *be* a reason for all
>> of these. But, whatever the answer is, it seems clear that we won't
>> ever know it.
>> Laura Creighton
>
>     Just how do you decide if a given thing is unknowable?  If you
>didn't know that it came out of a solution to Maxwell's equations, would
>you see "Why is the speed of light *this* value and not *that* one?" as
>another 'unknowable' question?  How do you know that further advances
>in science won't answer questions which you now consider unknowable?

	Part of the problem here is that two *different* meanings
of the question "why" are being used.  The form used by scientists
essentially asks "what set of circumstances caused/causes this?".
The philosophical question is harder to paraphrase, at least without
using the word "why", since it is questioning the inner meaning of
the Universe.
	So the speed of light is "determined" by Maxwells equations,
this is only the "scientific" why. It only moves the problem back step.
Why are the parameters of Maxwell's equations what they are and not
something else?  Why do they take te form they do and not some other?
In short you have *not* answered the *real* question being asked.
It is *this* sort of why question that Laura is claiming is
unanswerable, at least from the perspective of science. And she
is right, because science has outlawed such questions.
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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