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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Ancient Thought in Modern Physics' and 'Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World'

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3 ideas

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism

17093	Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms [Salmon]
	Full Idea: Causal processes, causal interactions, and causal laws provide the mechanisms by which the world works; to understand why certain things happen, we need to see how they are produced by these mechanisms.
	From: Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]), quoted by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 7
	A reaction: I don't think I've ever found a better quotation on explanation. That strikes me as correct, and (basically) there is nothing more to be said. I'm not sure about the 'laws'. This is later Wesley Salmon.

17492	Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan on Salmon]
	Full Idea: While Salmon's mechanisms are processes involving interactions, the interactions are not necessarily regular, and they do not involve the operation of systems.
	From: comment on Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]) by Stuart Glennan - Mechanisms 'hierarchical'
	A reaction: This is why modern mechanistic philosophy only began in 2000, despite Wesley Salmon's championing of the roughly mechanistic approach.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction

6552	You can only explain the qualities of large objects using entities which lack those qualities [Heisenberg]
	Full Idea: It is impossible to explain the manifest qualities of ordinary middle-sized objects except by tracing these back to the behaviour of entities which themselves no longer possess these qualities.
	From: Werner Heisenberg (Ancient Thought in Modern Physics [1937], p.119), quoted by William Lycan - Consciousness 8.10
	A reaction: Compare the similar wonderful remark by Lucretius (Idea 5713). If we accept this as a general principle for all of nature (including us) - and I do - then it is silly to complain that consciousness isn't found in basic physics.