[lit-ideas] Why The Compressor Shorted To Ground
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:32:20 EST
Eric Yost quotes from D. McEvoy's negativistic Popperianism:
>>No claim we make as to the truth is ever _demonstrably >>certain_
I disagree -- not with Eric's quoting, but with McEvoy's statement.
>No claim we make as to the truth is ever _demonstrably >certain_.
You may feel I'm overreacting at my thinking I've insulted Geary, but I'm
not.
Actually, as usual, his is a good example. He wrote that it can be tiring to
explain _why_ a compressor shorts to ground. This would presuppose he _can_
explain why. His original words were:
>I haven't the foggiest what the hell [Palma and Speranza] >are talking
about.
And he'll admit it -- yet, in a more Christian mood, he says,
>It gets tedious trying to tell a customer why his >compressor shorted to
ground when he doesn't know what a >compressor is or does or what shorted
means.
His is the very example given by Reichenbach of a _scientific explanation_
as Donal and Popper will agree.
It's deductive, mechanical explanation of the best possible sort.
It explains a phenomenon ('the compressor shorted to ground') by providing,
not the _reasons_, but the very _cause_. In symbols:
[Cause 1: The compressor had property Phi]
[Cause 2: Circumstancial:
Plus Ceteris-Paribus Caveat]
NATURAL LAW:
For any compressor, if compressor has
property Phi, then, under circumstances C,
the compressor will short to ground]
----------------------------------------
Ergo: the compressor did short to ground.
"As I told you it would under the circumstances"
"But can you explain _why_?"
"Yes. The compressor shorted to ground _because_ the compressor [fill in
with relevant property Phi'] to
which you add the circumstance [fill in circumstance C],
and due to the CAUSAL connection of C and Phi',
the compressor shorted to ground."
"But surely that's not a physical necessity, Geary".
"Physical necessity? You mean "Truth"? [Geary says he knows about Truth].
"Yes"
"Well, dunno"
------ INTERLUDE ALLA MCEVOY:
"No, you dunno, and you're bound not to know, because it's all guesswork.
Surely we can conceive a parallel universe where ALL the circumstances are
EXACTLY as you describe them, including the compressor having this and that
property, and YET, the compressor NOT shorting to ground."
----
And I would agree.
It is certainly conceivable that Geary's mechanistic explanation fails.
Indeed, it not us providing for the
possibility of _failing_, we wouldn't count the explanation
-- if that is what it is -- as 'empirical'.
"But what about the clause about "for every compressor..."", Geary may ask.
"Well, that's surely also probabilistic. If you want to make it _not_
probabilistic, then you're entering the linguistic-turn philosophy and making
the
claim definitional and vacuous."
Reichenbach's famous example here is "All ravens are black, and I can
explain that".
When it comes down to _explaining_ *why* all ravens are black, it turns out
to Reichenbach:
(i) making it 'tautological' and 'analytic' that all ravens are black.
(ii) making it vacuous. So, supposing this bird is brought to Reichenbach,
which has all the properties of the raven EXCEPT it being black, Reichenbach
could
(iii) inntroduce the class of 'albino ravens' -- exception that proves the
rule, or
(iv) dismissing the alleged non-black raven as a raven.
-------------------------
The dream that we can _explain_ nature (or why compressors short to ground)
is Thales of Mileto's dream (or Thales's of Mileto, if you prefer).
And it is a dream _worth_ dreaming.
J. L. Speranza
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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