Perhaps this not-overly-mathematical philosopher is missing something. But if I were to seek a “complete explanation” of something (the logical possibility of which I doubt, just because it appears that we can always ask for more explanatory context), then I would require of the explanation of the “stick adjusters”, for instance, some explanation of where they came from, at least. That is, the set they comprise might be “self-explanatory”, in some technical (Pickwickian?) sense, but without an explanation for the existence of that overall set we appear to have a gaping hole in any normal sense of a “complete explanation”.
Thanks. The existence of the stick-adjusters is explained by the laws. You can always ask : what explain the laws of course ? But this is a further problem for alledged fundationalist (theistic) complete explanations as well. I deal with this issue in the last sections of a forthcoming paper in Dialectica where I call "supercopplete" an explanation in which the laws themselves do not call for an explanation.
Perhaps this not-overly-mathematical philosopher is missing something. But if I were to seek a “complete explanation” of something (the logical possibility of which I doubt, just because it appears that we can always ask for more explanatory context), then I would require of the explanation of the “stick adjusters”, for instance, some explanation of where they came from, at least. That is, the set they comprise might be “self-explanatory”, in some technical (Pickwickian?) sense, but without an explanation for the existence of that overall set we appear to have a gaping hole in any normal sense of a “complete explanation”.
Thanks. The existence of the stick-adjusters is explained by the laws. You can always ask : what explain the laws of course ? But this is a further problem for alledged fundationalist (theistic) complete explanations as well. I deal with this issue in the last sections of a forthcoming paper in Dialectica where I call "supercopplete" an explanation in which the laws themselves do not call for an explanation.