Yesterday I let Banno say that it's "moot" whether his cycle of explanations give complete explanations to the elements of the cycle.

...and I merely pointed out that a moot explanation isn't an explanation.

That's true, but of course there's really nothing moot about it:

Yesterday, I told why Banno's cycle of explanations amounts to saying:

"A, because A."

Forgive me, but that sounds brute. :)

In fact, it's pretty much what "brute" means.

Michael Ossipoff

Yep, it is. The Doctor gave me a sensible prescription, hence I conclude that she can be trusted. Can I explain why I trust the doctor? She gave me the right medicine. — Banno

Just because I believe the medicine will cure me, and that in turn leads me to trust the doctor, that does not then mean that the prescription she gave me was sensible or the medicine was right. This is what I mean when I say that your standard is permissive. If knowledge were somehow included then I could see notions of sensibility or rightness possibly entering into view, but as it is one can believe Y out of desire, and believe said desire will be satisfied by believing X, therefore they will believe X in order to get Y.

Is it? What counts as evidence here? Or can we make up any old shit? — Banno

Well, we certainly can make up any old shit, though that's no reason to do so. ;) And it's certainly less of a reason to listen to it.

I'd hazard that your evidence supports my view more than it does yours, though.

"A statement that makes something comprehensible by describing the relevant structure or operation or circumstances" sounds a lot closer to knowledge than the operation of one belief leading to another.

"thought" sounds like belief. But "thought that makes something comprehensible" is closer to knowledge than mere belief.

"the act of explaining; making something plain or intelligible" isn't quite knowledge, but it does relate to depth. The deeper we know some topic or question the more plain and intelligible it becomes.


And the synonyms seem to indicate, to me at least, that what's at hand, at least, is not merely one belief leading to another, but rather we have accounts, stories, answers, causes, commentary, definition, descriptions, evidence... a variety of possible ways of looking at explanation. These aren't things I would deny. I'd just say that in order to capture them you'd need to expand your notion of explanation a bit.

Though I can understand not wanting to step into having an account of knowledge, since it seems a bit astray, if related. So maybe there's some way of capturing all that without reference to knowledge. But I think there needs to be more, at least. Hopefully this goes some way as to show why I think that.

With regard to the question "What is an explanation", let me briefly re-cap how this discussion started, and then suggest an answer to that question, in keeping with the initial purpose of the discussion:

When we began discussing explanations, we were talking about physical explanations. Will physicists continue with open-ended discovery, where each explanation that they find needs more explanation, which, when found, will raise more questions with things to be explained?

Or will they find a brute-fact?

I'd suggested a 3rd possibility. They; might find a state of affairs that is self-explanatory or inevitable.

That would avoid the need for an infinite chain of explanation, without a brute-fact. It wouldn't be a brute-fact, because its inevitability or self-evident-ness would be its complete explanation.

So, what is an explanation, in the context of physics?

Well, wouldn't it be that set B (of observations and theories consistent with those observations) explains set A (of observations, successful theories and accepted evident facts), if B implies A, or if A is a subset of B?

That sounds like what would count as an explanation in physics.

Michael Ossipoff