'Why?' A man-made question with a never-ending answer.

[Elim Garak]

There is a simple "why" ending answer - "why not"

[May90]

Obligatory video

Ah, I was too late... Was going to link this video too.

[Uurdz]

Long-story short, I'm doing research for a project on the question 'Why?'. And would love to hear people's opinions, thoughts, theories on a simple yet complex question we use everyday.
In a way its a man-made question by the Human Conscious mind with a never-ending answer.

Louis C.K. did a bit about his child consistently asking 'Why' till the point where it turns abstract like how any 'Why' question would inevitable end up. Michio Kaku or Neil Degrass Tyson has brought this up before as well.

The 'Hamlet Monkey Theorem' is also in a way related to this as the idea is that you could have an infinite amount of chimps typing gibberish on keyboards and one of them would eventually end up writing Shakepeare's Hamlet word for word, or even the bible.



So I guess my question is, what exactly is 'Why?' Why does Why exist? Is there an ultimate, final answer to it?

Why is the definitive question, the defining sound we've used to explain a desire for knowledge and understanding. It's less about the word 'why' because the underlying question is always the same in whichever language you use.

Asking Why 'why' exists is the same as asking about the origins and purpose of man.

[Eroginous]

Long-story short, I'm doing research for a project on the question 'Why?'. And would love to hear people's opinions, thoughts, theories on a simple yet complex question we use everyday.
In a way its a man-made question by the Human Conscious mind with a never-ending answer.

Louis C.K. did a bit about his child consistently asking 'Why' till the point where it turns abstract like how any 'Why' question would inevitable end up. Michio Kaku or Neil Degrass Tyson has brought this up before as well.

The 'Hamlet Monkey Theorem' is also in a way related to this as the idea is that you could have an infinite amount of chimps typing gibberish on keyboards and one of them would eventually end up writing Shakepeare's Hamlet word for word, or even the bible.



So I guess my question is, what exactly is 'Why?' Why does Why exist? Is there an ultimate, final answer to it?

The thing about the monkey is incorrect. You can't just have infinite of something going on and just happen to get things just the way you want. That's the problem with the concept of infinity. It doesn't translate well when you stop talking about numbers. Infinite chimps are still chimps. Chimps don't possess the mental faculties required to form thoughts or sentences. The idea that you could get a specific arrangement of words that replicate something like the Bible or Shakespere is laughable and easily disprovable when you consider that it's words that have meaning, not the letters by themselves. If you had infinite monkeys with type writers, they would come up with a lot of very interesting coincidences where sometimes a word jumps out from a jumble of letters, but until a monkey can understand the meaning of words, they cannot possibly put enough of them together (even unintentionally) to recreate anything more than part of a sentence. Infinite monkeys would produce infinite works of gibberish. Now, if you took infinite people capable of understanding and typing the same language, you would eventually get something really close in concept to shakespear or the bible. But not identical. You also have to consider the sheer complexity of the works in question and the fact that one was written by a romantic genius and the other was written by potentially hundreds of nobodies and cobbled together in happenstance fashion.

As far as your question goes, 'why' is not the right question to ask. 'Why' implies agency. It requires a 'someone' to ask it and another 'someone' to ask it of. The answer to 'why' is that there isn't always a reason for something. In fact, unless someone intentionally does something, then the thing essentially has no reason to happen in the first place.

A much better question is always 'how.' You can get somewhere with 'how.'

[Kellhound]

Why is the key to knowledge and understanding. It is the drive we use to learn.

[schwarzkopf]

Asking Why is a stupid question - there is no Why ... there is only How.

Why did the apple fall to the ground? That infers gravity has sentience and thus can make decisions, it doesn't.

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Why is the key to knowledge and understanding. It is the drive we use to learn.

You are thinking of 'how'

[Deleted]

Even if everything can be explained (which it most likely can't in reality) i'm still not convinced why is a infinite question. The universe is finite after all (most likely a least in age).

[Kellhound]

Asking Why is a stupid question - there is no Why ... there is only How.

Why did the apple fall to the ground? That infers gravity has sentience and thus can make decisions, it doesn't.

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You are thinking of 'how'

How comes after why, without why we never seek how. How is the knowledge.

[Bollocks]

The thing about the monkey is incorrect. You can't just have infinite of something going on and just happen to get things just the way you want. That's the problem with the concept of infinity. It doesn't translate well when you stop talking about numbers. Infinite chimps are still chimps. Chimps don't possess the mental faculties required to form thoughts or sentences. The idea that you could get a specific arrangement of words that replicate something like the Bible or Shakespere is laughable and easily disprovable when you consider that it's words that have meaning, not the letters by themselves. If you had infinite monkeys with type writers, they would come up with a lot of very interesting coincidences where sometimes a word jumps out from a jumble of letters, but until a monkey can understand the meaning of words, they cannot possibly put enough of them together (even unintentionally) to recreate anything more than part of a sentence. Infinite monkeys would produce infinite works of gibberish. Now, if you took infinite people capable of understanding and typing the same language, you would eventually get something really close in concept to shakespear or the bible. But not identical. You also have to consider the sheer complexity of the works in question and the fact that one was written by a romantic genius and the other was written by potentially hundreds of nobodies and cobbled together in happenstance fashion.

As far as your question goes, 'why' is not the right question to ask. 'Why' implies agency. It requires a 'someone' to ask it and another 'someone' to ask it of. The answer to 'why' is that there isn't always a reason for something. In fact, unless someone intentionally does something, then the thing essentially has no reason to happen in the first place.

A much better question is always 'how.' You can get somewhere with 'how.'

No, if there are infinite amount of chimps typing giberish there is a chance that one of them will gather enough letters to make coherent senteces and even write entire books that make sense. Infinity number is key, because if I type any combination of characters I'm bound to make coherent words at some time, and gather enough of those coherent words to make a sentence and so on.

[Deleted]

Asking Why is a stupid question - there is no Why ... there is only How.

Why did the apple fall to the ground? That infers gravity has sentience and thus can make decisions, it doesn't.

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You are thinking of 'how'

gravity is not involved in explaining how. objects accelerate in the direction of the net force applied to them.
gravity is involved in explaining why. a force called gravity exerts a constant pull on things, which is why they fall down and not up.

i dunno that could also be a 2 step explanationg. how/why/where/, they all seem pretty darn interchangeably to me.

[Forogil]

Long-story short, I'm doing research for a project on the question 'Why?'. And would love to hear people's opinions, thoughts, theories on a simple yet complex question we use everyday.
In a way its a man-made question by the Human Conscious mind with a never-ending answer.

That's one way of doing it, but another is to stop earlier, since that leads to solutions:
such as the "5 Whys" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys

[bloodmoth13]

the only answer i have to this question is:

Why indeed

[spinner981]

The thing about the monkey is incorrect. You can't just have infinite of something going on and just happen to get things just the way you want. That's the problem with the concept of infinity. It doesn't translate well when you stop talking about numbers. Infinite chimps are still chimps. Chimps don't possess the mental faculties required to form thoughts or sentences. The idea that you could get a specific arrangement of words that replicate something like the Bible or Shakespere is laughable and easily disprovable when you consider that it's words that have meaning, not the letters by themselves. If you had infinite monkeys with type writers, they would come up with a lot of very interesting coincidences where sometimes a word jumps out from a jumble of letters, but until a monkey can understand the meaning of words, they cannot possibly put enough of them together (even unintentionally) to recreate anything more than part of a sentence. Infinite monkeys would produce infinite works of gibberish. Now, if you took infinite people capable of understanding and typing the same language, you would eventually get something really close in concept to shakespear or the bible. But not identical. You also have to consider the sheer complexity of the works in question and the fact that one was written by a romantic genius and the other was written by potentially hundreds of nobodies and cobbled together in happenstance fashion.

As far as your question goes, 'why' is not the right question to ask. 'Why' implies agency. It requires a 'someone' to ask it and another 'someone' to ask it of. The answer to 'why' is that there isn't always a reason for something. In fact, unless someone intentionally does something, then the thing essentially has no reason to happen in the first place.

A much better question is always 'how.' You can get somewhere with 'how.'

The monkey theorem is actually correct. The problem is that, well, it's about monkeys. Monkeys aren't random number generators and cannot tap random keys. That said, given infinite monkeys, they will always be a monkey (in fact, an infinite number of monkeys) who hits a certain key first, and also an infinite amount who hits another certain key right after. The number of monkeys who type "adwunjvnksgerfhauirbhauinshemruannbdsfsgnwgre" will be the same number of monkeys who type "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" because that is just infinity works. If there is a chance, no matter how minuscule, given infinity it will happen an infinite number of times.

Asking Why is a stupid question - there is no Why ... there is only How.

Why did the apple fall to the ground? That infers gravity has sentience and thus can make decisions, it doesn't.

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You are thinking of 'how'

So, do people not have sentience and thus the inability to make decisions as well? If not, then doesn't 'why' still exist?

Even if everything can be explained (which it most likely can't in reality) i'm still not convinced why is a infinite question. The universe is finite after all (most likely a least in age).

The only other solution would effectively be turtles all the way down; an infinite number of explanations each requiring its own explanation. As I said earlier in the thread, you would eventually have to arrive at the conclusion of something along the lines of "Because that is just how it is" once you question the origin of the existential constant that enables all existence to 'exist', that which has no cause itself, the unmoved mover of existence basically.

[Deleted]

The only other solution would effectively be turtles all the way down; an infinite number of explanations each requiring its own explanation. As I said earlier in the thread, you would eventually have to arrive at the conclusion of something along the lines of "Because that is just how it is" once you question the origin of the existential constant that enables all existence to 'exist', that which has no cause itself, the unmoved mover of existence basically.

Dunno some things are pretty simple to me.

Why is a rectangle a rectangle?
Because it has four orthogonal angles.

Why does it have to have orthogonal/equal angles?
Because otherwise it wouldn't be a rectangle.

Why does it have 4 angles?
Because otherwise it wouldn't be a rectangle.

Why does it have to be in a 2d plane?
Because otherwise it wouldn't be a rectangle.

[schwarzkopf]

How comes after why, without why we never seek how. How is the knowledge.

Why is a meaningless question in science, in philosophy it is a side question.

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how/why/where/, they all seem pretty darn interchangeably to me.

Why infers there is a reason ... and in terms of the universe, there is no reason - it just is.

[Detheavn]

So I guess my question is, what exactly is 'Why?' Why does Why exist? Is there an ultimate, final answer to it?

Why not?
I guess.

[Independent voter]

The "why" loop doesn't have an answer.

There's built in programming in the brain that will eventually stop this unending loop so that you get bored and stop wasting time. Some people don't have this built in dampening mechanism and they suffer greatly for it. Conspiracy theorists lack this protection.

Things that have no answers, no connections that can be made have also been used as story telling devices. A listener or reader will struggle to find explanations and make connections and when they can't the story sticks with them.

[Forogil]

Dunno some things are pretty simple to me.

Why is a rectangle a rectangle?
Because it has four orthogonal angles.

Why does it have to have orthogonal/equal angles?
Because otherwise it wouldn't be a rectangle.

Now you are switching between two different definitions, and you are missing something very important.

Why do the equal angles have to be orthogonal? Because of the parallel axiom of Euclidean geometry.

[Deleted]

So you could ask why.

[Kellhound]

Why is a meaningless question in science, in philosophy it is a side question.

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Why infers there is a reason ... and in terms of the universe, there is no reason - it just is.

Without why, there is no reason to find out how. If something doesnt happen for a reason, there is no how to discover.