Re: The value of "Why?" questions.

[Judith Rosen <***>]

In my experience, "Why?" questions lead to knowledge and understanding-- perhaps more than any other kind of question can generate in its answers. This may be due to having the good fortune to have been raised by Robert Rosen, who was inordinately talented in dealing with "Why?" questions, I have to admit.

 

As to the criticism that such questions lead to an infinite regress: All questions will do so if the one asking the question learns nothing from the answers. These generally are not children, in my experience, but grown hidebound adults with hidden agendas or closed minds. Most children ask questions out of genuine curiosity and a desire to learn. In my view, "Why?" questions have far more range than any other type.

 

I am similarly struck by the use of a phrase such as, "an illusory or unsatisfying model". After claiming that all talk of causality is unscientific and metaphorical?

 

I am finding it very difficult to see what Howard Pattee and my father ever had in common! Clearly, there is nothing left of it, whatever it was.

 

Judith Rosen

  
> Howard Pattee wrote: "I am only pointing out that many philosophers, scientists (and
> children) have learned that asking “why?” questions about nature may be
> only a pattern of speech leading inherently to an infinite regress and
> therefore an illusory or unsatisfying model."
>
> John K. wrote: Likewise it is a statement I can agree with, but it is misleading
> because it gives the impression that asking why? is unproductive
> generally. It is not. Your quite correct assertion that why questions
> become irrelevent at some limit does not pertain to their usefulness
> before that limit and in some fields more than others. In fact I would
> guess (without having to collect the statistics) that there is more
> science for which why questions are important than otherwise, the later
> pertaining primarily to deep physical models that presume (incorrectly I
> maintain) to be "real." In other words, I am saying it is the ultimate
> extrapolation of the idea of causality to ideas of absolute reality, and
> the corresponding extension why questions to the limits of knowability,
> where the concept breaks down. That is quite a different matter than the
> demonstrable incorrectness of the ether hypothesis within the
> pre-established mechanistic view of the universe, in which it could be
> disproven.
>
> How am I doing?
>
> Cheers,
> John