Why Why?

[Alan V]

People do things for purposes and reasons because they have the mental wherewithal to do so.  The universe itself has no such ability.

Then people shouldn't be asking 'why' from the universe or to explain existence. That's for philosophy and then there is rarely (if ever) 'this is the absolute answer'. Just positions and opinions which address some angst.

That made me think of a funny scene of a philosopher screaming up at the stars, "WHY?!"

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

If anything, it's the antithesis of "why"

Yeah, the old joke of the one word philosophy class test, "Why?" And the student who passed by answering simply "Why not?". But I don't believe in brute facts which seems like a tacit assumption of even the self beclowning "we just lack belief" atheists.

The perfect response to anyone who asks "Why me?"

[Ferrocyanide]

“How” answers questions like “by what method?” “to what degree?” “in what condition?” and many more. Whereas, “why” answers questions like “for what purpose or reason?”: http://www.differencebetween.net/languag...w-and-why/

Did this help? If yes, please tell us how and why.

That might be what the dudes at differencebetween.net say
but it seems to me that “how” questions are only directed at other humans.

For example, in my previous example, there were these 2 questions which lead to the same answer
How is the hardness of aluminium X?
Why is the hardness of aluminium X?

But which question would you ask? I’m guessing you choose #2.
People seem to tend to ask the “Why” question when it comes to nature (a brainless thing).
I think it was Richard Dawkins that said that people mean to ask the “How” version when they are using the “Why” version in these cases.

The examples they are giving at that site, things that a human does:
How is a cake baked?
Why is a cake baked?

How should one address the queen?
Why should one address the queen?

^^^^^In this cases, since it is about humans (a thing with a brain), the How and Why question have different answers.

Then you have questions that are about nature (a brainless thing):
Why did it get so cold today?
Why is the sky blue?
Why is it raining so much today?
Why is Mars red?

^^^^^I think that is the way that the english language (and others) is. People use “Why” in such cases.

Did this help? If yes, please tell us how and why.

Hold on. We have to discuss these things.

[brewer]

That might be what the dudes at differencebetween.net say
but it seems to me that “how” questions are only directed at other humans.

For example, in my previous example, there were these 2 questions which lead to the same answer
How is the hardness of aluminium X? (this is nonsense)
Why is What makes the hardness of aluminium X?

But which question would you ask? I’m guessing you choose #2.
People seem to tend to ask the “Why” question when it comes to nature (a brainless thing).
I think it was Richard Dawkins that said that people mean to ask the “How” version when they are using the “Why” version in these cases.

The examples they are giving at that site, things that a human does:
How is a cake baked?
Why is a cake baked?

How should one address the queen?
Why should one address the queen?

^^^^^In this cases, since it is about humans (a thing with a brain), the How and Why question have different answers.

Then you have questions that are about nature (a brainless thing):
Why did What made it get so cold today?
Why is What makes the sky blue?
Why is What is making it raining so much today?
Why is What makes Mars red?

^^^^^I think that is the way that the english language (and others) is. People use “Why” in such cases.

Did this help? If yes, please tell us how and why.

Hold on. We have to discuss these things.

see above

[Ferrocyanide]

see above

Roger.

[Ferrocyanide]

Why is it so important for human beings (some more than others) to find an answer to the question of why we exist? 

I can see all the usual responses:

• My life doesn't have meaning otherwise
  
• I won't feel fulfilled without having a purpose
  
• I need to know what happens when I die
  

Theists fill the void with the concept of an omnipotent being that magically has all the answers.... apart from it doesn't.

To the best of my knowledge, Christianity does not provide a reason for our existence, other than saying God created us but his purpose is so unknowable and obscure that we shouldn't ask.

How is this any better than saying "I don't know"? Ie. instead elevating all provided answers to the important questions to vague "we cannot guess the will of God" bullshit.

The main criticism Theists have of science is that it can't / doesn't attempt to answer the ultimate question of "why" teleologically, which is correct. However nothing in religion answers anything either other than supposedly giving an answer to "How" we came to be. 

Coming back to my original question - why is it so hard for most people to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity, that they would rather clutch at any explanation (no matter how vague, unfulfilling and unlikely under even modest logical scrutiny) than be truly comfortable with simply not knowing? Is this just plain and simple human nature?

1. I think it is because we are emotional machines. All animals are emotional machines.
2. An important emotion is fear (fear of pain, fear of disease, fear of a predator, fear of death).
3. I don’t know if every animal recognizes that they will die but I think that they all have fear of pain, fear of predator.
4. Humans are brainier than the rest of the animal kingdom and so, they have developed language, abstract though.
5. The combination of 1 to 4 leads to humans inventing a solution to the problem of death: the soul
6. Stories about gods, angels, demons and what they do in their free time is irrelevant. The important component among all cultures, all religions is the soul.
A god that doesn’t offer even a slight possibility of eternal life is a useless god. (Well, there are certain gods in african culture and you can make deals with them, so they have some kind of use.).
Which religion claims that when you die, you become worm food and that is all?

My life doesn't have meaning otherwise
I won't feel fulfilled without having a purpose
I need to know what happens when I die

Those 3 lines have to do with death.
When someone asks “What meaning does life have according to atheism”, what they really mean is “If you are just going to live 60 to 100 y and die and you become worm food, than life has no point.”
Remember Pascal’s Wager? He created that table, it’s basic game theory. Remember what value he gave if you are a non-believer and you are correct?

The theist is not interested in purpose. He is interested in not dying.

A hammer has a purpose. An intelligent being created a hammer so that he can push nails into wood.
A watch has a purpose. An intelligent being created the watch on order to synchronize events, etc.
A VCR has purpose. It records your favorite shows.

Purpose means job or function.

What’s the purpose of a human according to judaism?
Is it the human’s job to say “What a great god!”? What’s the point of that?
That’s the kind of thing that a king might want to hear or a narcissist would like to hear.

The main criticism Theists have of science is that it can't /doesn't attempt to answer the ultimate question of "why" teleologically, which is correct. However nothing in religion answers anything either other than supposedly giving an answer to "How" we came to be.

If they are not satisfied with the goals of science, then they can shop elsewhere.
Science’s goal is to satisfy our curiosity, to learn how things work, to collect data, to understand nature.
It isn’t to make anyone comfortable, it isn’t for making some product, it isn’t for saving lives.

SUMMARY:
It has to do with psychology/emotions/fear/end of life.

[slartibartfast]

That might be what the dudes at differencebetween.net say
but it seems to me that “how” questions are only directed at other humans.

For example, in my previous example, there were these 2 questions which lead to the same answer
How is the hardness of aluminium X? (this is nonsense)
Why is What makes the hardness of aluminium X?

But which question would you ask? I’m guessing you choose #2.
People seem to tend to ask the “Why” question when it comes to nature (a brainless thing).
I think it was Richard Dawkins that said that people mean to ask the “How” version when they are using the “Why” version in these cases.

The examples they are giving at that site, things that a human does:
How is a cake baked?
Why is a cake baked?

How should one address the queen?
Why should one address the queen?

^^^^^In this cases, since it is about humans (a thing with a brain), the How and Why question have different answers.

Then you have questions that are about nature (a brainless thing):
Why did What made it get so cold today?
Why is What makes the sky blue?
Why is What is making it raining so much today?
Why is What makes Mars red?

^^^^^I think that is the way that the english language (and others) is. People use “Why” in such cases.



Hold on. We have to discuss these things.

see above

Thing for me is you stop after asking What. You can keep asking Why.

Your example:
Q: What makes the sky blue?
A: Blue light is scattered more than red light and the sky appears blue during the day.
End of enquiry.

Q: Why is the sky blue?
A: Blue light is scattered more than red light and the sky appears blue during the day.
Q: Why?
A: As white light passes through our atmosphere, tiny air molecules cause it to 'scatter'. The scattering caused by these tiny air molecules (known as Rayleigh scattering) increases as the wavelength of light decreases.Violet and blue light have the shortest wavelengths and red light has the longest.
Q: Why do violet and blue light have the shortest wavelengths?
A: Our eyes are capable of discerning bands of differences in wavelengths as colors. The names of colors are kind of arbitrary.
Q: Why do humans have this ability?
A: It gave us an evolutionary competitive advantage in low contrast situations, by improving our cognitive ability and allowed us better identification of safe and not so safe things
Etc... you get the idea...

[Ferrocyanide]

Thing for me is you stop after asking What. You can keep asking Why.

Your example:
Q: What makes the sky blue?
A: Blue light is scattered more than red light and the sky appears blue during the day.
End of enquiry.

Q: Why is the sky blue?
A: Blue light is scattered more than red light and the sky appears blue during the day.
Q: Why?
A: As white light passes through our atmosphere, tiny air molecules cause it to 'scatter'. The scattering caused by these tiny air molecules (known as Rayleigh scattering) increases as the wavelength of light decreases.Violet and blue light have the shortest wavelengths and red light has the longest.
Q: Why do violet and blue light have the shortest wavelengths?
A: Our eyes are capable of discerning bands of differences in wavelengths as colors. The names of colors are kind of arbitrary.
Q: Why do humans have this ability?
A: It gave us an evolutionary competitive advantage in low contrast situations, by improving our cognitive ability and allowed us better identification of safe and not so safe things
Etc... you get the idea...

Yes, the “Why” type of questions create a cascade.
It leads to maximum information extraction and then at some point, the human can no longer answer.


This question can be interpreted in 2 different ways:
Q: Why do violet and blue light have the shortest wavelengths?

Color interpretation is one thing. That is done by the human brain.
But why a certain photon has wavelength X, well, it is what it is.
You can perhaps explain the source of the light (the Sun).

Another thing that I wanted to mention is that a god is not going to know everything, even if jews qualify their god as omniscient.
If you ask him why he exists, or how he exists, he would not know.

Existence is simply existence. There is no reason behind it. I don’t think there is a process that turns nothing into something.

[The Grand Nudger]

I suppose we could expect broad agreement between atheists on the question of why why and it's relationship to myths about gods. Gods, though, are a tiny sliver of all answers to that question. There's something other than a person not believing in gods going on if no possible answer to the question is entertained as valid, though, I think.

Nothing to something is a bit vague and unrepresentative. There are all sorts of processes that can turn disorder into order, though. Life, broadly, is one of them. We're a strong agent to that effect, specifically. I would expect any living creature capable of wondering about why to incorporate some comment on their own mortality, but if escaping death were the entire answer to why I have a why..I'd feel as dissatisfied as you might, Ferry, with the notion that the whole of why was to praise someone else. I think that alot of people would. It certainly wouldn't explain ideations about purpose which surround us giving up our own lives to it's ends.

I'm not sure if we're maintaining a consistent sense of terms when we insist that there's no reason behind our existence, and specifically when we chase that with comments about process and something from nothing. Using that as a springboard to declare why why void. There are all sorts of reasons for our existence, and all sorts of attendant processes related to that. Is there some specific reason that these things are incapable of providing valid insight into human purpose? When people insist that science or the natural world can't provide such purpose..is that a true statement or something born out of the history of attempting to avoid conflict with answers to purpose which arise from the divine? Isn't it possible that those divine answers to why are, themselves, misapprehensions of some natural and at least conceptually scientific fact?

Let's argue counterfactually about a thing. It's not really the point of life to praise a god - but if it were..that would be a purpose. A purpose we're individually dissatisfied with. Is it not possible, similarly, for there to be a valid natural teleology that disappoints common human misapprehensions and demands of purpose? Wouldn't science be a tool for describing that natural teleology? Wouldn't that natural teleology reduce to natural facts about human beings and their relationships to everything around them? If it does, wouldn't that provide a more accurate account of the focus of religious ideation?

Why do you wake up every day and do what you do? Why do you put in the effort, why do you sacrifice? Why do you risk? Are there things more important in your life and to your life than your life? It's not gods, but it's something..and how does it escape the criticism offered of divine purpose, or, indeed, the insistence that there is no purpose at all? Does that apply to you, to whatever it is that compels you? Is that a non thing? Say a person told you, to your face..... that there is no why to any of what you do or are in mere reality. Is that something you'd accept as a true statement? Think of the thing(s) that you are the most invested in, that you feel the closest to. It could be big or small, it doesn't matter, just that you derive a sense of purpose and meaning that informs you on how to live your life (or give up your life) from it. Can you argue against your own statements with respect to that thing, or are you forced to concede that your thing is no more or less false than the belief that the why is to worship a god?

[slartibartfast]

"Why do you wake up every day and do what you do?  Why do you put in the effort, why do you sacrifice?  Why do you risk?  Are there things more important in your life and to your life than your life? "

Sure. Not just do I need to eat, my wife and children are dependent on me to provide. But talking in terms of "providing" is far too simple.

I guess looking at this a bit like Maslow's needs - yes there are drivers at multiple levels, ranging from pure existence to higher ones becoming more selfish. But there is also an angle for most people which is purely about giving, empathy, wanting to improve things in general for themselves as well as other people that is not just about self. 

The answer in my mind is each person derives their own why. I'm sure Donald Trump's reason for getting up in the morning is very different to yours or mine.