What? How?

Science is equipped only to answer the "what" and "how" questions related to the understanding of the nature of reality. It does not usually answer, or even try to answer, the "why" question. Here's why.

I recently read a nice conversation between a physics student and his professor that perfectly illustrates why science doesn't concern itself with the "why" question, and it goes something like this:

Student: "I'm going to write a dissertation on 'Why is the sky blue?'"

Professor: "That's the wrong question."

Student: "How can a question be wrong? I thought only answers can be wrong."

Professor: "Your job is to create new knowledge with science, and science isn't equipped to answer 'Why?' questions."

Student: "But isn't that exactly what science does? Explaining things as in A causes B causes C and that's why we have C?"

Professor: "No. Science does investigate causal chains like A -> B -> C, but that's not answering a 'Why?' question. It answers a 'How?' question. The title of your dissertation should be restated as 'How is the sky blue?' so we can create a model of light diffraction and we could show how the atmosphere splits sunlight into different wavelengths going in different directions, and we could then say, 'The sky isn't always blue, but can be blue, red, orange, green, grey and black through these mechanisms.'"

I'm paraphrasing from an article I read, I believe on Medium, but this is the gist of it. In debates between atheists and theists it's often the "Why?" question people get stuck on, and there's a specific reason for that; to ask "Why" presupposes purpose, and purpose presupposes a conscious agent. I can ask "Why does this shuffle exist?" because it's made to dig holes in the ground, that's the purpose its creator had in mind. But there's no such answer to the question "Why do oceans exist?" or "Why does the universe exist?"

Another example related to this I like a lot, is the conversation between the Merovingian and Morpheus in "The Matrix Reloaded" which goes like this:

Merovingian: "There is only one constant, one universality, the only real truth: causality. Action, reaction. Cause and effect."

Morpheus: "Everything begins with choice."

Merovingian: "No. Wrong. Choice is an illusion created between those with power and those without."

Again: "choice" presupposes a conscious agent. And I also like the little sneer at the end there, because it's true on so many levels. As Humans we can't help but assigning agency to every aspect of our life, it's how we've evolved. Early humans who imagined a conscious agent behind the rustle in the bush survived better than those who didn't. Things don't keep moving without someone or something pushing it, so when we saw objects in the sky in perpetual motion we imagined a conscious agent behind it all. That's how we initially created many Gods, one for wind, one for water, one for plants, one for animals and so on.

So what's the meaning of it all? We want there to be a meaning to it all, if not to it all, at least to our own existence. Well, "meaning" also only exists in the mind of a conscious agent, as far as we know at least. And that conscious agent is YOU. The "meaning" of your life is whatever you give it. Ultimately this meaning is found in the way we relate to and behave towards each other and the rest of the world and the universe. In my mind it's kind of demeaning and disempowering to rely on some other unseen and unproven entity to provide that meaning for us, or morality and ethics for that matter. If something is only "good" or "evil" because some God tells us it is so, then we're able to do a lot of good, but also a lot of bad things. If God says to kill all the firstborns, it must be good then. "Good" or "evil" is a value judgement we make for ourselves, they exist in our minds and not, as far as we know, in the universe.

Anyhow, that's it for this Sunday. Like God Almighty I'm going to take the rest of the Day of ;-)

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