so the question is "why"

[ollagram88]

i'm always amazed at how much science has accomplished in understanding our universe.

the one thing that i never could get an answer to, however, is WHY - why does does this universe exist? (or universes, depending on what you fancy).

i'm looking at the big picture here. one might ask, why are we here? well, billions of years of moving particles, evolution, ideal conditions, and the constants that make life possible tell us how we got here, and by that alone, the question of why can be considered irrelevant.

i'm not interested in the how, however, and it doesn't even have to concern life (because as science would like to tell us, we're pretty insignificant). i'm not asking how the universe functions. i don't care that it's possible for non-carbon based lifeforms to exist provided our universe was fine-tuned differently.

i'm asking WHY. why we have physical laws. why there exists matter. why the big bang(s) had to occur. why all that is, is?

is science just not there yet? if so, what can we guess based on our current knowledge? what does science and philosophy have to say about this? i don't want to insert God if God is not necessary to answer this question.

[C-Nub]

You're fairly accurate when you say that science isn't there yet.

The question of why, without regard to 'purpose' is more one of cause, and the cause of our Universe's existance that which defines its nature and 'settings' for lack of a better term is as of yet unknown or at the very least very poorly understood.

Our big limitation here is the range nature of our telescopes, and what we can see. Astronomy, because of the limitations of light and the distances involved, can see back in time to very nearly the birth of our universe. Unfortunately, the 'how' of the Universe's birth prevents us from seeing past a few million years of age, at least with conventional telescopes. The matter / energy of the Universe was, up until that point, too densly compacted for light to escape, and as such, the expanding universe was a 'dark' one in the strictest sense of the word. Dark and very, very hot.

As for why the universe is the way it is, with matter and energy existing in harmony and balance, with just the right amount of energy behaving in just the right way, there's a few theories. The best of which, and by best I mean "most mathmatically feasible" is that we are one of many staggered dimensions of incrimentally different physical laws, which is to say that on either side of us, in extra-dimensional space that is literally right on top of ours but impercievable to us are universes that may or may not be functioning at all.

[Goat]

i'm always amazed at how much science has accomplished in understanding our universe.

the one thing that i never could get an answer to, however, is WHY - why does does this universe exist? (or universes, depending on what you fancy).

i'm looking at the big picture here. one might ask, why are we here? well, billions of years of moving particles, evolution, ideal conditions, and the constants that make life possible tell us how we got here, and by that alone, the question of why can be considered irrelevant.

i'm not interested in the how, however, and it doesn't even have to concern life (because as science would like to tell us, we're pretty insignificant). i'm not asking how the universe functions. i don't care that it's possible for non-carbon based lifeforms to exist provided our universe was fine-tuned differently.

i'm asking WHY. why we have physical laws. why there exists matter. why the big bang(s) had to occur. why all that is, is?

is science just not there yet? if so, what can we guess based on our current knowledge? what does science and philosophy have to say about this? i don't want to insert God if God is not necessary to answer this question.

I don't think science is here to say 'why' but rather 'what' and 'how'.

[ollagram88]

The question of why, without regard to 'purpose' is more one of cause, and the cause of our Universe's existance that which defines its nature and 'settings' for lack of a better term is as of yet unknown or at the very least very poorly understood.

do we have any leads or are we completely in the dark? if science could make an educated guess, why is (are) the universe(s) here?

As for why the universe is the way it is, with matter and energy existing in harmony and balance, with just the right amount of energy behaving in just the right way, there's a few theories. The best of which, and by best I mean "most mathmatically feasible" is that we are one of many staggered dimensions of incrimentally different physical laws, which is to say that on either side of us, in extra-dimensional space that is literally right on top of ours but impercievable to us are universes that may or may not be functioning at all.

unfortunately this actually answers the scientific "how" instead of the greater question of "why."

I don't think science is here to say 'why' but rather 'what' and 'how'.

then it puzzles me how we could ever answer the "why" question. if not science, then how do we answer the question? what about philosophical insights?

if science cannot answer the question, then science cannot be the answer in describing our world.

the closest answer i can think of is science answering HOW we got all this matter, laws, etc. unfortunately, i think the "why" question is still left unanswered.

[Assent]

then it puzzles me how we could ever answer the "why" question. if not science, then how do we answer the question? what about philosophical insights?

if science cannot answer the question, then science cannot be the answer in [strike]describing[/strike] explaining our world.

the closest answer i can think of is science answering HOW we got all this matter, laws, etc. unfortunately, i think the "why" question is still left unanswered.

fixed. Science does a damn fine job of describing the universe, thank you.

I suppose short of some sort of undeniable global denouement from the lips of the Big Man himself, the question of why cannot be answered except on a person-by-person basis. You simply have to find your own answer for yourself, and not rely upon any outside force to provide one for you.

[ollagram88]

I suppose short of some sort of undeniable global denouement from the lips of the Big Man himself, the question of why cannot be answered except on a person-by-person basis. You simply have to find your own answer for yourself, and not rely upon any outside force to provide one for you.

hm you don't think science can provide any insights?

the person-by-person basis answer doesn't seem sufficient because the question is about the natural world, the universe we live in. if we can find a scientific answer explaining the universe(s), then surely it should be able to explain why all that there is... is.

otherwise, you might as well say it's God, or even the flying spaghetti monster, or perhaps we're in the Matrix.

[Undertow]

It occurs to me that there comes a point at which there can be no explanation for some things and you just have to accept that they are. How far back you want to dig is a matter of opinion. Me, I'm comfortable digging back as far as I know.

Think of the scenarios:

God was the start of everything. Why? He just was.

There was no start to everything and it has been cycling endlessly for all time. Why? It just has been.

There is no such thing as "beginning" or "end" except as a shallow construct of our minds. Why? It just is.

etc...

I could question each and not feel content with either answer. In fact I'd say that's exactly what I do. I question and don't feel content going on faith or believeing just because an option is there. What I do feel content with, believe it or not, is not knowing. Wonder is more beautiful than belief.

So as for "the" answer to why everything is. Don't sweat it too much, I'd say. It would seem it's impossible to come by objectively.

[Assent]

hm you don't think science can provide any insights?

the person-by-person basis answer doesn't seem sufficient because the question is about the natural world, the universe we live in. if we can find a scientific answer explaining the universe(s), then surely it should be able to explain why all that there is... is.

otherwise, you might as well say it's God, or even the flying spaghetti monster, or perhaps we're in the Matrix.

Good luck, friend. You'll need it for this one.

[byofrcs]

i'm always amazed at how much science has accomplished in understanding our universe.

the one thing that i never could get an answer to, however, is WHY - why does does this universe exist? (or universes, depending on what you fancy).

i'm looking at the big picture here. one might ask, why are we here? well, billions of years of moving particles, evolution, ideal conditions, and the constants that make life possible tell us how we got here, and by that alone, the question of why can be considered irrelevant.

i'm not interested in the how, however, and it doesn't even have to concern life (because as science would like to tell us, we're pretty insignificant). i'm not asking how the universe functions. i don't care that it's possible for non-carbon based lifeforms to exist provided our universe was fine-tuned differently.

i'm asking WHY. why we have physical laws. why there exists matter. why the big bang(s) had to occur. why all that is, is?

is science just not there yet? if so, what can we guess based on our current knowledge? what does science and philosophy have to say about this? i don't want to insert God if God is not necessary to answer this question.

Why ? (probably) because it is inevitable.

An analogy. If I see a stone fall from a rockface then it falls. Why ? We do not know. You may say "gravity" and write down ut+1/2at^2 or something similar but that is just part of how. To understand why, we would need to know what makes up gravity and what makes that stone unique and right now, humans have only a few ideas on what is gravity.

But our lack of knowledge on the cause of gravity - the "why of gravity" (which sounds like a book title (please cite me)) - doesn't stop us from describing what happens to something if it falls. When the circumstances are right it was inevitable that the stone falls.

The right circumstances do not mean an intelligent cause. With my stone why did it become detached from the rockface ?. By human hand or by catastrophe. By hand then it is predictable but otherwise it wasn't predictable. But it has happened so given the right circumstances it will happen, just that we do not know the exact time for one stone to fall.

Another analogy; we hear a click on a radiation detector. We can describe it as say a alpha particle (e.g. we've pulled apart an old smoke detector) but we cannot explain why this alpha particle decided just then to fly off as an atom of 241 Am reduces to 237Np. I'm thus arguing it is inevitable that given a certain atom that the alpha particle will tunnel out of the atom in its own time.

Why this one atom ? That is a catastrophe. It isn't predictable for that one atom only statistically for many atoms.

So many things happen but are not predictable except as a averages of a set. If we reduce the set to one then we say it happened by "chance". Asking "why" for one object either assumes an importance of that one object or we leave it to "chance". An importance is if the object was selected in some way. As it isn't clear that this universe was selected in any way it is illogical to ask why just as it makes no sense to ask why for just one alpha particle or one falling stone.

The question "why" is thus a loaded question as it fails to establish if the object is one or many. We can never clearly know if there are many universes or just one. Therefore we can never answer "why" until we know it is one or many.

In the meantime, as with the alpha particle or falling stone, we can safely say that it was inevitable given the circumstances. The very existence of the alpha particle, the stone falling or the Universe makes this inevitability true irrespective of our observing this.

Therefore I conjecture that it was inevitable that the universe forms.

Asking why is thus premature and we can thus reduce asking why to first investigating the causal circumstances of the universe - the how - as it is not logical to ask why without knowing that first.

[Undertow]

Edit: accidently quoted instead of edited. Please delete this if possible.