My issue is that this implies that understanding is an all or nothing proposition. IMO, it’s foolish to argue that modern science has no more understanding of the natural world than a chimpanzee does.
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No one is claiming that we don’t know more than Chimpanzees, just that fundamentally we are never going to know why we/everything exists, because that any explanation would itself need explaining
Everything exists because of the Big Bang, which ultimately led to the formation of atoms, molecules, stars, planets, galaxies, and etc. And we exist because of evolution.
These are a pretty significant parts of the answers.
No one is arguing that we haven’t made massive strides in being able to describe our physical environment in elegant mathematics, but just that it doesn’t get you any closer to explaining away the mystery of existence
Nonsense. As I’ve said, we’ve done far more than just describe it. And knowing, for example, that we are the product of evolution, and understanding many of the mechanisms of evolution and our family tree, absolutely gets us closer to explaining “the mystery of existence”.
Can’t you see that these gaps will never cease to exist? We could never reach the point of, “ah we have now explained away every possible scientific question” even with perfect scientists and infinite time
Because there *is*. And before you ask why there is, let me just note that non-existence is merely conceivable (thus possible/real only as a concept), which, nevertheless, elucidates why asking why there is, is a moot and inconsequential question.
That's not what I meant. If there ever was not, there never would be (and I'm not talking about existence "of" but existence "as such"). That's by definition pretty much an explanation of *why* & it also highlights why the question is basically moot. But I agree that we may never know some *hows*.
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Everything exists because of the Big Bang, which ultimately led to the formation of atoms, molecules, stars, planets, galaxies, and etc. And we exist because of evolution.
These are a pretty significant parts of the answers.
We also don’t yet know how life first originated on earth, but steady progress is being made in that field as well
But as I’ve noted, gaps in our knowledge don’t lessen the significance of everything we DO know
https://ian-wardell.blogspot.com/2015/02/do-scientific-explanations-actually.html