Eye2theLongRun

Here is the first list of planks or building blocks for the discussion of explanations and explanatory models. It is likely incomplete but that is not fatal:

1. All explanations (and models – a term I subsume within “explanation”) are stories;
2. Concepts such as “reality”, “actual”, “real”, “truth”, “true”, “fact” or “exists” are of no relevance as generic undefined concepts;
3. All stories are provisional and are expected to change, be updated, altered and added to (or subtracted from);
4. The measure of a “good story” versus a “bad story” is whether or not and to what extent it fulfils its purpose;
5. The correspondence of a story to anything else – most noticeably to “objective reality” is irrelevant, likely unmeasurable and often unhelpful; and,
6. A purpose is a specified intent of some kind and may have a short or long life, may be broad or narrow and may be familiar or unfamiliar and much else.

Given that some sort of beginning is required, this will start things moving.

Some other points will be set out to amplify the above. These will also be incomplete, but their purpose is to lend some flesh to the bare bones laid out above.