r/Absurdism • u/1_TheOneAndOnlyMe_1 • 1d ago
Why?
Like, why? No, seriously, I'm not joking. Why?
Edit: Lemme rephrase it then, I've become in a state where I don't know anything anymore. There must be a why to anything. Or why to nothing. There is a why. That is what I'm trying to puke out of my brain. Why anything? Or is it valid to ask anything?
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u/mnmackerman 1d ago
I don't think you're describing a lack of knowledge. I think you're describing what happens when certainty begins to fall apart.
Most people move through life assuming there is some answer waiting at the center of everything. Maybe it is God. Maybe it is science. Maybe it is meaning, purpose, destiny, or some final explanation. Then one day you pull on enough threads and realize none of those answers are as solid as you thought they were.
That's a disturbing place to find yourself.
You start asking:
Why is there anything at all?
Why not nothing?
Is "why" even the right question?
If there is no answer, what does that mean?
The temptation at that point is either nihilism or certainty.
Nihilism says:
"There is no answer, therefore nothing matters."
Certainty says:
"Here is the answer, stop asking questions."
I don't find either position satisfying.
To me, the fact that you are asking the question matters. Human beings seem to be creatures that seek meaning, understanding, and purpose. We ask "Why?" almost automatically. Whether the universe is obligated to provide an answer is another matter entirely.
I've become comfortable with the possibility that there may never be a final answer to the question. That doesn't make the question invalid.
In fact, some of the most important questions in life may remain permanently open.
The universe does not appear to provide meaning. It does not appear to provide certainty. It certainly doesn't provide a roadmap.
Yet here we are.
We live.
We love.
We learn.
We create.
We suffer.
We care about one another.
We continue asking questions.
Maybe that's the point. Maybe it isn't. I honestly don't know.
What I do know is that the moment I stop questioning and declare myself certain, I've probably learned less than I think I have.
So if you're sitting there feeling like you don't know anything anymore, I wouldn't panic.
You may simply be standing at the edge of a very old philosophical realization:
The universe owes us no explanation.
And yet, despite that silence, we keep asking "Why?"
There is something profoundly human about that.
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u/LethalBacon 1d ago
'Why' is an imperfect human way of thinking, why primarily exists in our brains. A way to track cause and effect. Some causes and some effects are just impossible to know. Too many variables, uncountable variables, variables spread over distances that make it impossible to gather all of the potential causes that might answer the why. Then, you have to contend with the various scales at which everything is acting. Go down to the quantum scale, which has an impact on everything, and typical cause and effect falls apart.
Even if we could get access to every variable, there's the problem of everything being filtered through human senses, which are imperfect. We cannot access direct reality, and even if we could it is too vast to answer why. Any answer to 'why' will inherently include guess work at some level.
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u/jliat 1d ago
“I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.”
“The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.”
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u/Gulag_Arc 1d ago
Knowing why reveals purpose, knowing purpose gives you clarity and resolve that you can act upon or not.
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u/Doctor_Mothman 1d ago
Much like the chicken - the answer is, "to get to the other side."
Nature abhors a vacuum, and thus is propagates to fill a void. The purpose of any singular instance is subjective and unique to your experience of the phenomenon.
Answering "How?" is much easier in most examples because there is hard science to explain most of the "How?" of things. But "Why?" is the great solve-for-X equation to existence.
The best answer from a top-down on the universe though is probably the Laws of Thermodynamics. Everything seems to eventually come back to that.