6 ms·

A proof (visual or otherwise) shows "how" some statement is true, as in how it is built by the preceding truths. But I always wanted to know "why" something is

by zkmon 11mo ago

A proof (visual or otherwise) shows "how" some statement is true, as in how it is built by the preceding truths. But I always wanted to know "why" something is true. For example, a biological cell grows and division happens. I could find tons of literature which talks about "how" this happens, but not "why" this happens. What's the motivation or goal? And why that goal is pursued? What is the force behind seeking of that goal?

Sharlin 11mo ago
Cells that didn't grow were outcompeted. Cells that didn't replicate were outcompeted.
- tenthirtyam 11mo ago
  This seems the most concise and precise answer to the question of "why". At some stage, somehow, self replicating molecules appeared in the primordial soup*. Everything since then has just been improvements (or maybe complete overhauls) to that process. *How (or why) this step occurred is another intriguing topic.
IsTom 11mo ago
> What's the motivation or goal? And why that goal is pursued? What is the force behind seeking of that goal? There's no force and there's no goal. These things happen because every moment is a direct consequence of the previous one.
- lo_zamoyski 11mo ago
  > there's no goal Try talking about biological operations without invoking “function”. Claiming it’s “convenient” to do so doesn’t cut it: convenient for what? Why do acorns become oak trees? They must be causally ordered toward that end. That’s telos. Even efficient causality presupposes telos. Why does striking a match against a matchbox consistently produce fire? Because the match has a causal ordering toward that end. Otherwise, you could not explain why fire consistently results as opposed to random things like a flock of seagulls or a BMW 7 Series…or nothing at all. Telos is not necessarily a matter of some external purpose or Paley-style watchmaker. That’s mechanistic metaphysics appealing to a watchmaker to explain a purpose things would - under that metaphysics - inherently lack. It is a matter of causal order and directedness.
  - yetihehe 11mo ago
    Universal goal of life: make more life.
  - ryandamm 11mo ago
    This is a good, succinct unpacking of the metaphysical stakes. Nonetheless I am curious for the world where striking a match results in a shower of seagulls.
  - IsTom 11mo ago
    > Try talking about biological operations without invoking “function”. If you had a strong vendetta against mistaking map for territory, you could very well talk in terms of past survival and statistics. It's just not necessary for regular biological talk. It becomes relevant only when you start going to the boundaries. > Why does striking a match against a matchbox consistently produce fire? Because you wouldn't call these objects a "match" and a "matchbox" otherwise.
euroderf 11mo ago
You can't anthropomorphise a cell, just like you can't anthropomorphise a lawnmower, or a Larry Ellison. It's just an entity harnessing an entropy gradient.
__MatrixMan__ 11mo ago
I've been thinking about cancer. Maybe systems of replicators are prone to overdoing it by nature. The idea was that any universes compatible with life will also have spontaneous cancers because that's just what those universes do. And then I learned the theory that many cancers are caused by undiscovered DNA-based viruses which tamper with the cell cycle to activate the replicative machinery that they need to make copies of their genome (HPV does this, and several others too). So then it was a switch: not an immutable feature of the universe, but caused by an agent. But it's starting to look like viruses emerged independently more times than expected, so maybe it is more like "the universe just does that," and viruses are just cancers with a space program. Back to where I started. I suppose some would see these loops as unproductive. "First principles" people. Descartes, etc. But I think that unresolvable why's like this are what understanding is made of.
- CGMthrowaway 11mo ago
  > unresolvable why's like this are what understanding is made of Certainly the deeper into the why chain one can get personally, the greater understanding one has.
MDCore 11mo ago
I think this Veritasium video might speak to your questions: https://youtu.be/XX7PdJIGiCw?si=5lwB3rsFNKuXyMfA https://youtu.be/XX7PdJIGiCw?si=5lwB3rsFNKuXyMfA
dcminter 11mo ago
This is a category error. A cell is not a thing that has a goal. To imagine it has one is pure anthropomorphism. The religious may have other views of course.
- zkmon 11mo ago
  Then, who or what has the goal that is driving the cell division?
  - Nevermark 11mo ago
    What is the goal of a rock falling off a ledge? Just because things interact doesn't mean there was a goal end state. But, life is different. Life that survives better, out competes life that doesn't survive as well. So biology becomes incredibly fine tuned for one goal: survival. Not survival of the individual, although that is part of it. But survival of the thing that makes the choices of how to survive. I.e. our genes. They evolve to enhance their own survival. Which is why we care about our family more than others. Genes for caring about family have an advantage over genes that don't. Because many of our genes will also be in our other family members. So from that perspective, each of our cells cares about doing its part to help ensure our genes survive. So it cares about itself surviving, but it also cares enough (when working properly) to sacrifice itself when it is too damaged. Because the cell doesn't last forever no matter what, but the individual it is in can pass on its genes if it sacrifices for that individual.
    - dcminter 11mo ago
      > So biology becomes incredibly fine tuned for one goal: survival Again, this is a category error. It works well as a metaphor, but evolution has no goal. Evolution is a description of a simple fact of the universe: things that are good at making copies of themselves become more prevalent. Hence things that become better at making copies of themselves prevail more than ones that don't.
      - Nevermark 11mo ago
edgineer 11mo ago
On the topic of biology specifically, you might like The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. He argues/explains how evolutionary forces become dominant, with much more focus on the why. Why it has come to be that living things grow, multiply, and over time changed in ways that out-succeeded the prior ones, down to the level of DNA--and that these driving forces are manifested by individual genes.
bncndn0956 11mo ago
When I was 10 years old, I asked my maternal grandfather, "why does anything exist at all?" My grandpa explained it in layman terms which even I could understand. He said, "If nothing should exist because it is simpler state to be in for everything, a sort of Primordial Law. Then what is the mechanism by which this law is enforced. Who or what is ensuring that Law is implemented everywhere for eternity. If we assume that such a mechanism must exist, then we have just proved that something must exist."
- bncndn0956 11mo ago
  Here's a video lecture of Graham Priest Graham Priest - "Everything and Nothing" (Robert Curtius Lecture of Excellence) https://youtu.be/66enDcUQUK0?si=nAZjkauxg75lvuZm https://youtu.be/66enDcUQUK0?si=nAZjkauxg75lvuZm
- Tyrannosaur 11mo ago
  basically: "life, uh, finds a way"
- epiccoleman 11mo ago
  This is interesting, it reminds me of the chain of logic from this article: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/ https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/ > In a reality containing nothing, there are no things as such — at least no material things. But in such a nothing, there is an abstract thing: zero. > Zero reflects the number of material things to count. But how many abstract things are there to count? There is at least one. The one number that exists to define the number of material things is zero. > But if we have one number and it is one thing to count, now another number exists: one. We then have zero and one together as the only numbers. But now we have two numbers. Now two exists… Your grandfather's explanation seems to echo this in terms appropriate for a 10-year-old - there is something inherently unstable about nothingness.
  - bncndn0956 11mo ago
    Null set as 0 and then successor method of defining new numbers. But your way of putting it is like these successor function could be considered as edges of graphs or references or signposts Imagine a number system with 3 distinct types of Null Sets and they meet at number P after applying successor function for 10, 42, 135 times respectively.

by zkmon 11mo ago

Sharlin 11mo ago

Cells that didn't grow were outcompeted. Cells that didn't replicate were outcompeted.

tenthirtyam 11mo ago
This seems the most concise and precise answer to the question of "why". At some stage, somehow, self replicating molecules appeared in the primordial soup*. Everything since then has just been improvements (or maybe complete overhauls) to that process. *How (or why) this step occurred is another intriguing topic.

IsTom 11mo ago

> What's the motivation or goal? And why that goal is pursued? What is the force behind seeking of that goal? There's no force and there's no goal. These things happen because every moment is a direct consequence of the previous one.

lo_zamoyski 11mo ago
> there's no goal Try talking about biological operations without invoking “function”. Claiming it’s “convenient” to do so doesn’t cut it: convenient for what? Why do acorns become oak trees? They must be causally ordered toward that end. That’s telos. Even efficient causality presupposes telos. Why does striking a match against a matchbox consistently produce fire? Because the match has a causal ordering toward that end. Otherwise, you could not explain why fire consistently results as opposed to random things like a flock of seagulls or a BMW 7 Series…or nothing at all. Telos is not necessarily a matter of some external purpose or Paley-style watchmaker. That’s mechanistic metaphysics appealing to a watchmaker to explain a purpose things would - under that metaphysics - inherently lack. It is a matter of causal order and directedness.
- yetihehe 11mo ago
  Universal goal of life: make more life.
- ryandamm 11mo ago
  This is a good, succinct unpacking of the metaphysical stakes. Nonetheless I am curious for the world where striking a match results in a shower of seagulls.
- IsTom 11mo ago
  > Try talking about biological operations without invoking “function”. If you had a strong vendetta against mistaking map for territory, you could very well talk in terms of past survival and statistics. It's just not necessary for regular biological talk. It becomes relevant only when you start going to the boundaries. > Why does striking a match against a matchbox consistently produce fire? Because you wouldn't call these objects a "match" and a "matchbox" otherwise.

euroderf 11mo ago

You can't anthropomorphise a cell, just like you can't anthropomorphise a lawnmower, or a Larry Ellison. It's just an entity harnessing an entropy gradient.

__MatrixMan__ 11mo ago

I've been thinking about cancer. Maybe systems of replicators are prone to overdoing it by nature. The idea was that any universes compatible with life will also have spontaneous cancers because that's just what those universes do. And then I learned the theory that many cancers are caused by undiscovered DNA-based viruses which tamper with the cell cycle to activate the replicative machinery that they need to make copies of their genome (HPV does this, and several others too). So then it was a switch: not an immutable feature of the universe, but caused by an agent. But it's starting to look like viruses emerged independently more times than expected, so maybe it is more like "the universe just does that," and viruses are just cancers with a space program. Back to where I started. I suppose some would see these loops as unproductive. "First principles" people. Descartes, etc. But I think that unresolvable why's like this are what understanding is made of.

CGMthrowaway 11mo ago
> unresolvable why's like this are what understanding is made of Certainly the deeper into the why chain one can get personally, the greater understanding one has.

MDCore 11mo ago

I think this Veritasium video might speak to your questions: https://youtu.be/XX7PdJIGiCw?si=5lwB3rsFNKuXyMfA https://youtu.be/XX7PdJIGiCw?si=5lwB3rsFNKuXyMfA

dcminter 11mo ago

This is a category error. A cell is not a thing that has a goal. To imagine it has one is pure anthropomorphism. The religious may have other views of course.

zkmon 11mo ago
Then, who or what has the goal that is driving the cell division?
- Nevermark 11mo ago
  What is the goal of a rock falling off a ledge? Just because things interact doesn't mean there was a goal end state. But, life is different. Life that survives better, out competes life that doesn't survive as well. So biology becomes incredibly fine tuned for one goal: survival. Not survival of the individual, although that is part of it. But survival of the thing that makes the choices of how to survive. I.e. our genes. They evolve to enhance their own survival. Which is why we care about our family more than others. Genes for caring about family have an advantage over genes that don't. Because many of our genes will also be in our other family members. So from that perspective, each of our cells cares about doing its part to help ensure our genes survive. So it cares about itself surviving, but it also cares enough (when working properly) to sacrifice itself when it is too damaged. Because the cell doesn't last forever no matter what, but the individual it is in can pass on its genes if it sacrifices for that individual.
  - dcminter 11mo ago
    > So biology becomes incredibly fine tuned for one goal: survival Again, this is a category error. It works well as a metaphor, but evolution has no goal. Evolution is a description of a simple fact of the universe: things that are good at making copies of themselves become more prevalent. Hence things that become better at making copies of themselves prevail more than ones that don't.
    - Nevermark 11mo ago

edgineer 11mo ago

On the topic of biology specifically, you might like The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. He argues/explains how evolutionary forces become dominant, with much more focus on the why. Why it has come to be that living things grow, multiply, and over time changed in ways that out-succeeded the prior ones, down to the level of DNA--and that these driving forces are manifested by individual genes.

bncndn0956 11mo ago

When I was 10 years old, I asked my maternal grandfather, "why does anything exist at all?" My grandpa explained it in layman terms which even I could understand. He said, "If nothing should exist because it is simpler state to be in for everything, a sort of Primordial Law. Then what is the mechanism by which this law is enforced. Who or what is ensuring that Law is implemented everywhere for eternity. If we assume that such a mechanism must exist, then we have just proved that something must exist."

bncndn0956 11mo ago
Here's a video lecture of Graham Priest Graham Priest - "Everything and Nothing" (Robert Curtius Lecture of Excellence) https://youtu.be/66enDcUQUK0?si=nAZjkauxg75lvuZm https://youtu.be/66enDcUQUK0?si=nAZjkauxg75lvuZm
Tyrannosaur 11mo ago
basically: "life, uh, finds a way"
epiccoleman 11mo ago
This is interesting, it reminds me of the chain of logic from this article: https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/ https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/ > In a reality containing nothing, there are no things as such — at least no material things. But in such a nothing, there is an abstract thing: zero. > Zero reflects the number of material things to count. But how many abstract things are there to count? There is at least one. The one number that exists to define the number of material things is zero. > But if we have one number and it is one thing to count, now another number exists: one. We then have zero and one together as the only numbers. But now we have two numbers. Now two exists… Your grandfather's explanation seems to echo this in terms appropriate for a 10-year-old - there is something inherently unstable about nothingness.
- bncndn0956 11mo ago
  Null set as 0 and then successor method of defining new numbers. But your way of putting it is like these successor function could be considered as edges of graphs or references or signposts Imagine a number system with 3 distinct types of Null Sets and they meet at number P after applying successor function for 10, 42, 135 times respectively.