A principal aim of science is to offer explanations for all that is happening in the world. But what does one mean by the term explanation? To clarify the notion, let us consider the following situations:

A very small child in front of a turned on TV will be totally indifferent to it. If a little older, she may be watching it happily, and the question may not even arise in her mind as to how this is possible: people talking, cars moving, music playing, etc. all on a screen in a box. Such wonderment does not bother even some adults. At this stage there can be no science, since a need for explanation has not been felt.

At a more advanced stage, the child may begin to wonder and ask someone about the matter. If an adult were to say that there are live people and things in the box who show up every time we turn the TV on, the child might simply say, "Oh!," and be quite satisfied. As far as she is concerned, the matter has been explained.

Next consider the fact that an object that is hurled into the air always falls back. This was once explained thus: Just as a child who goes away from home eventually returns, objects moving away from earth's surface return to the ground which is their home.

Finally, consider the boiling of water when sufficiently heated. To explain this, we may be told that the effect of heat on any substance is to change its state from solid to liquid, and from liquid to gas. This explanation may also be satisfactory to many.

A mature person will regard the first example of explaining TV as ridiculous, the second as unscientific, and the one about water as partly acceptable. In all instances, whether or not the person seeking the explanation is satisfied in what matters. If so satisfied, as far as that person is concerned, an explanation has been found. Explanations are satisfactory or not, rather than right or wrong. On final analysis, explanation is creating the impression that one understands what gives rise to an observed fact or event.

The question that now arises is: How can one be sure that the impression of having understood a phenomenon is no more than an illusion? Let us go back to the adult's answer to the child concerning the TV. We may not find that explanation satisfactory at all, but the child does. This is because of two different and interrelated factors. First, the child's mind is as yet not developed enough to recognize the impossibility, not to say the absurdity, of the explanation. This is due to the fact that she is not sufficiently familiar with the world. Thus, two conditions are necessary in giving or evaluating an explanation: intellectual maturity, and familiarity with the complexity of the world.

Explanations often involve cause-effect connections. But when we trace the cause of a phenomenon, we may inquire into the cause of that cause, and so on and on. In the scientific search, such quests lead to fundamental laws and principles. All scientific explanations are based on the discovery or formulation of laws, principles, and invariances in terms of which occurrences in the phenomenal world may be understood.

However, in this framework, one often needs to assume the existence of entities and processes that are not directly perceptible. Such assumptions are implicit or explicit in the realm of scientific explanations, and are part of scientific theories. Scientific explanations invariably involve abstract concepts, logical connections, and invisible things. This is not surprising, because explanation is the uncovering of order and logical consistency through the mind's eye. The mind manipulates, not things and stuff, but ideas and relations, concepts and consistencies.

V.V. Raman

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Published   2003.03.31