The "Why" Questions

[Gonnagle]

Dear Jeremyp,

The WHY question, according to Prof Hawking we are to busy with the HOW question.

And it is okay to ask WHY, some atheists on here think it smacks of God, but no, you can ask WHY.

For instance.

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/alike/alike.htm

WHY


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/identical-twins-genes-are-not-identical/

WHY

Godidit, how he did it! I will leave to science.

Gonnagle.

[BeRational]

Prof Hawkins?

Hawking or Dawkins?

[Gonnagle]

Dear Berational,

Sorry my bad!

I may be coming down with a case of Vlad, got Dawkins on the brain, yes of course Prof Hawking

Gonnagle.

[Leonard James]

Dear Jeremyp,

The WHY question, according to Prof Hawkins we are to busy with the HOW question.

And it is okay to ask WHY, some atheists on here think it smacks of God, but no, you can ask WHY.

For instance.

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/alike/alike.htm

WHY


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/identical-twins-genes-are-not-identical/

WHY

Godidit, how he did it! I will leave to science.

Gonnagle.

Curiouser and curiouser! The more we learn the less we realise we know!

However, Gonners, that's no reason to introduce your friend "God" into the equation. Just accept that we will have to wait until we find out why these things happen.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Leonard,

However, Gonners, that's no reason to introduce your friend "God" into the equation.

Well that's my point, you don't have to bring God into the equation to ask why.

Gonnagle.

[Leonard James]

Dear Leonard,

However, Gonners, that's no reason to introduce your friend "God" into the equation.

Well that's my point, you don't have to bring God into the equation to ask why.

Gonnagle.

OIC. Sorry, I thought you were saying 'goddidit' seriously. 

[Gonnagle]

Dear Leonard,

Seriously!! Goddidoit, but you don't have to belief to ask the question why.

Gonnagle.

[Leonard James]

Dear Leonard,

Seriously!! Goddidoit, but you don't have to belief to ask the question why.

Gonnagle.

Which god is that, then? I hope you are not referring to the Christian "God" ... the one they say is all love, and yet who created the prey/predator system. 

[Dicky Underpants]

Dear Berational,

Sorry my bad!

I may be coming down with a case of Vlad, got Dawkins on the brain, yes of course Prof Hawking

Gonnagle.

Funny, I've just mentioned someone else who made that slip. It was dear freeminer, of blessed memory 

[Shaker]

You've a different definition of blessed to mine, Dicky 

[Dicky Underpants]

You've a different definition of blessed to mine, Dicky 

It's a common euphemism for the other b-word. Tellyer what - if we all used it, it might make a certain someone happier. But we'd still have our deliberate spelling mistakes and inadvertent typos to look out for....

[Gonnagle]

Dear Leonard,

I would be happy if you shut up about God and just asked "WHY"

Gonnagle.

[Leonard James]

Dear Leonard,

I would be happy if you shut up about God and just asked "WHY"

Gonnagle.

And I would be happy if you didn't bring "God" into the discussion in the form of goddidit. 

As for asking "why", I don't see the point in asking pointless questions about something that isn't there.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Leonard,

See!! you are at it again.

Try these.

Gravity, air, electricity, evolution, why I prefer cotton socks and not cotton rich socks

WHY

Gonnagle.

[Outrider]

Gravity, air, electricity, evolution

In what way does 'why' make sense? Why presumes an intention, a pre-determined purpose for which these properties were somehow intended, yet we have no evidence that there is either an intended purpose to anything we perceive in reality, nor anything to conceive of that purpose in the first place.

why I prefer cotton socks and not cotton rich socks

I don't disagree, but only you can answer that for you, grasshopper

O.

[Leonard James]

Dear Leonard,

See!! you are at it again.

Try these.

Gravity, air, electricity, evolution ...

WHY

Gonnagle.

  I can't improve on outrider's answer.  Science has discovered more or less HOW they work, but why they do so is just an unanswerable question.

Except to you and many of your ilk, of course ... you just bung that "personage" in as an answer. 

[Gonnagle]

Dear Outrider and Leonard,

Fair enough chaps, it could well be me not thinking it through, but I don't see the intention bit or the pre determined, just the why!

Gonnagle.

[Shaker]

In what way does 'why' make sense? Why presumes an intention, a pre-determined purpose for which these properties were somehow intended, yet we have no evidence that there is either an intended purpose to anything we perceive in reality, nor anything to conceive of that purpose in the first place.

Couldn't have put it better myself - the last time I tried I went off at a tangent about screwdrivers and clarinets 

[Leonard James]

Dear Outrider and Leonard,

Fair enough chaps, it could well be me not thinking it through, but I don't see the intention bit or the pre determined, just the why!

Gonnagle.

Well Gonners, it just come down to the eternal question "Why is there something instead of nothing?" When we can answer that, we may be a little nearer the truth of it all.

[Jack Knave]

Dear Leonard,

See!! you are at it again.

Try these.

Gravity, air, electricity, evolution ...

WHY

Gonnagle.

  I can't improve on outrider's answer.  Science has discovered more or less HOW they work, but why they do so is just an unanswerable question.

Except to you and many of your ilk, of course ... you just bung that "personage" in as an answer. 

But why do we have this desire and need to know the impossible answers about life?

[Leonard James]

But why do we have this desire and need to know the impossible answers about life?

This is my take on it.

We are an instinctively inquisitive species. We are not born knowing what is good/bad to eat, we have to learn it from our parents and culture. Knowledge of what is edible/poisonous can only have come from being inquisitive and experimenting in the distant past.

As we discovered more and more things about ourselves and the environment, it was only natural that curiosity about everything took over.

Unfortunately, many of our forbears who couldn't find out the real answers to natural phenomena were prompted to invent answers in the form of spirits and gods.

[torridon]

Dear Leonard,

See!! you are at it again.

Try these.

Gravity, air, electricity, evolution ...

WHY

Gonnagle.

  I can't improve on outrider's answer.  Science has discovered more or less HOW they work, but why they do so is just an unanswerable question.

Except to you and many of your ilk, of course ... you just bung that "personage" in as an answer. 

But why do we have this desire and need to know the impossible answers about life?

We ask why because we have prospered as a species by asking questions and struggling, with some success, to understand the seemingly incomprehensible; it's in our phenotype just as curling up is in a hedgehog's.  The popular answer, 'someone' must have done it, is also in our phenotype, it's cognitive bias.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Dear Berational,

Sorry my bad!

I may be coming down with a case of Vlad, got Dawkins on the brain, yes of course Prof Hawking

Gonnagle.

I'm sure Dawkins' friend the neuroscientist Sam Harris would agree there is a Dawkins' centre in the brain.....probably shaped like a Haribo jelly bear.

Though what the Dawkins' centre is for is anybody's guess.

[Nearly Sane]

Dear Berational,

Sorry my bad!

I may be coming down with a case of Vlad, got Dawkins on the brain, yes of course Prof Hawking

Gonnagle.

I'm sure Dawkins' friend the neuroscientist Sam Harris would agree there is a Dawkins' centre in the brain.....probably shaped like a Haribo jelly bear.

Though what the Dawkins' centre is for is anybody's guess.

You tell us, it certainly seems as if you have one in your brain, given the number of mentions you make of him.

[Outrider]

Dear Outrider and Leonard,

Fair enough chaps, it could well be me not thinking it through, but I don't see the intention bit or the pre determined, just the why!

Gonnagle.

Why requires someone to have had an intent, otherwise you've just got how. Why do things fall, when you know the answer, actually becomes 'how do things fall', because it's gravity acting upon mass. There is no 'why', because why suggests someone has decided that it should be so.

We don't have any proof that someone hasn't, don't get me wrong, but in all of the things we've actually found answers for it turns out that no-one's decided, it's simply the mechanics of nature.

We have no reason to presume someone is making these decisions in the background.

O.