Yesterday Horace wrote with an interesting set of questions.
Engineers typically are concerned with how, people generally with what.
Why may or may not be relevant.
Arguably concern about causality is a human condition and may be either an asset or liability.
So anyway, I really enjoyed this recently: Feynman on Why
Perhaps you might want to post something on this. Are scientists motivated by “Why” but prefer not to answer the question?
Horace is a keen observer and deep thinker, so it's reasonable to take a crack at it. I'll only address why. Causality is interesting in it's own right. I've written bits and piece but, it makes sense to eventually put together something a bit more formal. An early part of his note has an implied question on the framework of stories. While that's core to how I see the world - I maintain to how all of us see the world, I'll pass on it for now and just take on how and why questions.
First watch the brief Feynman piece Horace mentions.
He's in an interview situation answering off the cuff. A slightly deeper view might say how questions are addressable and why questions never lead to a conclusion. Scientists are fascinated by how something works, but sometimes you're playing with ideas and asking why leads you into areas where you can ask how. That's the common answer, but I don't think it's right. Here's my take on it.
We live in a Laplacian universe where one instance follows the next according to physics, but there are facts that don't appear to have anything to explain them. We just can't say there's a reason something happens because of the deep physics underlying it. There seem to be contradictions.
Definitions. What do you mean by reason? First off you have to recognize there are different kinds of facts. Things that happen at specific times .. like an open can of tomato paste sitting on the carpet (half of the contents were on the carpet and there were little footprints indicating some sort of celebratory dance occurred), and things that are specific features of the universe .. the conservation of momentum, a four dimensional space-time with three space dimensions and one of time, the conservation of energy, and so on...
The first category have a reason .. a cause. Here we can invoke physics and the prior configuration of the universe. This is satisfying and works well if you're dealing with very simple things .. elementary particle interactions, nuclear decay, etc. When we start talking about more complex things it isn't particularly satisfying to say "because physics."
As we move on the path from atoms to sociology (physics → chemistry → biochemistry → biology → neurology → sociology/anthropology ) the increasing levels of complexity allow new features to emerge. We simply don't have the information and context to look at the appreciation of a Bach cello suite and go back to the laws of Nature. We might deduce some of what is going on -enough to build models that predict , but it's mostly in the context of neurology and sociology.
We have to accept why questions may or may not have an answer. They don't exist by themselves. You need to consider the context. For example Spinor, one of my ferrets, is fascinated by pull tabs. He'll grab a can half his weight and drag it all over the place. It must be terribly exciting as he's completely pilo-errected and will fight for possession. Our house has objects regularly appearing where they shouldn't. They tend to weigh less than a kilogram and tend to have pull tabs. If it was a flower pot and was near the window I'd suspect Y?-Y?, a small female ferret who likes to dig out flowers and push over the empty pots.
If you're playfully curious you're asking a lot of why questions. They can be unconstrained and unexpectedly rich letting your mind soar, sometimes leading to interesting territory. Maybe there's an answer, maybe not. You need to know how far to go and generally they're the stuff of play. How is a more direct path. You're not guaranteed to find an answer, but it is usually bounded and that's a good thing as time and money are finite.
Of course how questions don't always pay off. In fact, at least in physics, individual attempts to probe deeply usually fail. But failure has a different meaning than what the dictionary says and we celebrate as something was learned. It is important to know when and why to stop. Very few people have sorted out that skill.
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