explanation - TOWARDS LIFE-KNOWLEDGE

Table of Contents

What is the difference between mechanism and explanation in meaning, context and purpose?
In integral conscious developmental studies on the stages, states, lines, types and quadrant aspects, how is this distinction between mechanism and explanation useful?
How can this dual approach be applied using the life-protecting and life-enhancing constraints of life-value onto-axiology principles to guide individual and collective consciousness developments?
Can your give some specific examples to illustrate with real implementation where relevant and available?
Can you suggest possible titles for a blog article that reflects this understanding?
Can you create an image without text reflecting this understanding?

This article addresses the following problems: What is a mechanism, how can it be discovered, and what is the role of the knowledge of mechanisms in scientific explanation and technological control? The proposed answers are these. A mechanism is one of the processes in a concrete system that makes it what it is — for example, metabolism in cells, interneuronal connections in brains, work in factories and offices, research in laboratories, and litigation in courts of law. Because mechanisms are largely or totally imperceptible, they must be conjectured. Once hypothesized they help explain, because a deep scientific explanation is an answer to a question of the form, “How does it work, that is, what makes it tick — what are its mechanisms?” Thus, by contrast with the subsumption of particulars under a generalization, an explanation proper consists in unveiling some lawful mechanism, as when political stability is explained by either coercion, public opinion manipulation, or democratic participation. Finding mechanisms satisfies not only the yearning for understanding, but also the need for control.

Keywords: explanation; function; mechanism; process; system; systemism