(September 9, 2011 at 5:13 pm)StatCrux Wrote:(September 9, 2011 at 4:42 pm)Rhythm Wrote: I've said this in another one of Freds threads (hell, might have been this one). It may be that faeries make cars move, but combustion is an explanation that addresses why engines operate, and even if there were no fairies, we have no reason to assume that combustion would not work. Now, if someone was arguing for fairies over combustion, how would you treat that argument?
I'm beginning to understand Freds frustration now, the combustion engine is an entirely different proposition, we understand how it functions and it generates motion. Human beings do not simply exist and function, we have our existance
You can stop right there with "have our existence" and the difference becomes crystal clear. An engine exists, but it doesn't have it's existence. It just exists. We exist, but we are also aware of that existence, and the explanations of the how of that do not touch the why at all.
When you ask how an engine does something or why and engine does something, it's essentially the same question and the answer can be discovered by objective means. You don't have ask the engine why it's doing something or how it's feeling to find out what's wrong with it.
When the why and the how of something are the same, like a combustion engine, the objective pov is good as gold, the right tool for the right job, built to last, never wear out.
But when the why and the how of something are not the same, objective science alone is insufficient because it can't get at the data simply by observing.
It has to ask for it.
As soon as you have to ask an object to provide you with data you've left objective airspace and entered inter-subjective territory.
