It has been said here already but I will say it again, there is no why. Why is a human thing, perhaps an animal thing, at least it is connected to conscious thought. When it rains you do not ask why you can only research how. This is a difficult lesson, we live in a human culture and so feel comfort in being able to ask why people do things as well as how. Not having the why attribute for the physical universe feels cold and inhuman, but the universe is inhuman, even if it’s difficult that is the deal.
Wait, is the big “Why,” with a capital W, just us personifying nature? We’re such social animals that we need to personify everything. People looking for a WHY are ultimately just expecting nature to act like a human being! We’ve evolved as social animals. We need to be used to thinking of actions having causes. Nothing just happens in a social community. If your food stores are suddenly and unexpectedly low, someone stole them. Oh, that nice tool/weapon? You got it from your brother-in-law. You owe him. We have evolved in environments where we need to keep social scores and disperse responsibilities. It’s in our literal, social, and cultural DNA to attribute actions in our environment to people.
But then we also end up applying that to nature. It’s pareidolia at a cultural level. And so we ask Why, with a capital W. Some might make fun of the ancients for personifying forces of nature and raisin them up as Gods. But we’re no different. We do the same damn thing. We’ve just replaced the Gods with “Why.”
It has been said here already but I will say it again, there is no why. Why is a human thing, perhaps an animal thing, at least it is connected to conscious thought. When it rains you do not ask why you can only research how. This is a difficult lesson, we live in a human culture and so feel comfort in being able to ask why people do things as well as how. Not having the why attribute for the physical universe feels cold and inhuman, but the universe is inhuman, even if it’s difficult that is the deal.
Wait, is the big “Why,” with a capital W, just us personifying nature? We’re such social animals that we need to personify everything. People looking for a WHY are ultimately just expecting nature to act like a human being! We’ve evolved as social animals. We need to be used to thinking of actions having causes. Nothing just happens in a social community. If your food stores are suddenly and unexpectedly low, someone stole them. Oh, that nice tool/weapon? You got it from your brother-in-law. You owe him. We have evolved in environments where we need to keep social scores and disperse responsibilities. It’s in our literal, social, and cultural DNA to attribute actions in our environment to people.
But then we also end up applying that to nature. It’s pareidolia at a cultural level. And so we ask Why, with a capital W. Some might make fun of the ancients for personifying forces of nature and raisin them up as Gods. But we’re no different. We do the same damn thing. We’ve just replaced the Gods with “Why.”