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Re: Explaining explain



On Sun, 25 Jan 1998 09:51:47 Bob Sciamanda <trebor@velocity.net> wrote:

... In all of this the criterion is not "truth", but usefulness for
describing/explaining reality in human terms (ie.; ultimately God and/or
other accepted notions/processes). This includes both empirical and
conceptual usefulness. Note that the usefulness criterion is not
fundamentally disturbed by the assertion that the axioms are "unexplained".

Yes, but the "truth" is a precondition of usefulness in science. How do we
distinguish which reasonable conclusions are true and which are false?
In the lab, you would probably say. Predictions based on the caloric theory
(sorry for this skeleton but I can not think of a better example right now)
are confirmed in the laboratory. Therefore it is a true and useful theory.
It does explain one domain of reality in human terms. You observe, you
invent concepts (temperature, specific and latant heat) and you use these
concepts to make good predictions. What else do you want?

Generality, you would say. One more-general theory is better than two or
three theories whose domains are more restrictive. Ultimately, you want
one theory of everything. I would like it too. But not at the price of
excessive complexity. Something that is too difficult to learn, and too
difficult to teach, may not be a desirable substitute for several less
complex theories. There was an article about the beauty of simplicity
(of computer software) in the New York Times last week. C++ may be more
powerful but I prefer True Basic and Fortran. These languages allow me
to think in the way I naturally think. They are more useful to me.

Ludwik Kowalski