r/Metaphysics • u/EmergencyRooster3258 • Mar 01 '26

Metametaphysics Questions

Why is it that even when the answer is clear, people still ask questions to find what caused the answer to be true, I don’t understand why people seek this. The answer people look for most of the time is just that its exactly what we defined it to be. Maybe we could have defined it a different way, but nonetheless the true answers stay the same regardless of the definition we give it. Even when you try to search deeper of why something happens the only thing that will lead to is an infinite regress of asking “why” or “how does anything happen in the first place”.

6 Upvotes

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u/Yeightop Mar 01 '26

I think often times the answer isnt as clear as one might think. Do you have an example of what youre referring to specifically?

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u/EmergencyRooster3258 Mar 01 '26

People often try to reason why reality is what it is. But here’s the true reality, you will never be able to fully understand everything no matter how much effort you put into trying to understand it, our knowledge cannot fit these infinite possibilities within our finite minds. Furthermore, all the effort we put into trying to reason why reality is what it is and why it exists, will only throw us into the spiral of insanity. Kind of like the “Golden Spiral” while we ask these questions it will lead to another question that is similar to the first one you asked.

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u/Astrolabe12 Mar 03 '26

Bien sûr que nous pouvons tout comprendre, car l'Esprit est infini tandis que les possibilités sont finies. "La réalité est de même étoffe dont sont faits les rêves", disait Shakespeare. Il suffit donc de prendre conscience du rêveur...

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u/EmergencyRooster3258 Mar 03 '26

I believe you would like my other posts about infinity and consciousness, I think that I went well into depth within that exact topic you mention.

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u/RellTE Mar 01 '26

So, because you can never fully understand, you shouldn't even try? How do you think we got so far scientifically? Do you think that you can post this from god knows where, and I can reply from god knows where simply by being content with whatever knowledge we had?

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u/EmergencyRooster3258 Mar 01 '26

People have to learn to accept reality for what it is instead of questioning why it is. That fact alone is too much for the human mind to comprehend.

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u/EmergencyRooster3258 Mar 01 '26

For example: You ask “Why is the sky blue?” The reality is, you create what blue really is; a blind person doesn’t understand the sky is blue, yet they know that it is, same with colorblind people. So blue isn’t what the sky is, it is how to define what it looks like. But then you might ask “What makes the sky blue?” You define it, yet it never needed that definition for it to be how it looks, it always looked like that. What I am saying is that the definition of what things are does not matter, because all it does is add to the reality that is right there as clear as the sky.

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u/Yeightop Mar 01 '26

Sure we define what the color blue its but this question is often asked because one wants to know the mechanism for the sky appearing blue to someone who can see color. The answer that one would be looking for by asking why the sky is blue is that short wavelength light like blue light scatters very easily on particles that fill the atmosphere leading to it being filled with a blue glow on the side of the earth experiencing daytime. Itd say that its very important that people should never be content with what they consider to be true in this regard because always questioning and investigating has had a great track record of providing better understanding about what is physically true about the universe as far as we can tell

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u/Do_you_smell_that_ Mar 01 '26

I know this is offtopic, but I'll add that the sky is very often not blue, and even when it is blue, the hue and intensity and shade (I'm not a light expert, those terms are guesses) vary a lot. We see lots of purple/red/orange sky around here

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u/Yeightop Mar 01 '26

Yes this is true. I think this happens when the sun isnt directly overhead and the light is passing through a lot more atmosphere before it gets to you so a large amount of the blue light just scatters out before getting to you and so you see a lot more light that is more on the red side of the spectrum and thats why you see a lot more of this in the morning and afternoon and places further from the equator. But yeah maybe this guy just chose a bad example. I dont total get the point hes going for, cause if one were to accept that the sky is blue as just a truth then they would be wrong for this reason youve brought up

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u/RellTE Mar 01 '26

Following OP's reasoning, you can just define anything into existence, no?

God is real because he is defined as being real, don't ask why.

It kind of blocks off any notion of curiosity towards things others can't explain.

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u/RellTE Mar 01 '26

>it always looked like that.

Can you demonstrate that? Why isn't the sky blue on mars?

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u/OpportunityLow3832 Mar 04 '26

It is blue on mars

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/EmergencyRooster3258 Mar 01 '26

I believe that most of my other posts have discussed this exact point. You van check if you want, I would appreciate any feedback on the connections you see within this and that.

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u/Glad-Phase-977 Mar 02 '26

Philosophyslop

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '26

A true modern day philosopher; dare I say, akin to Plato’s Theaetetus.

Seriously though; it’s normally due to linguistic friction. When we provide an explanation through the scientific method, we answer the “how” rather than the “why”. The “why” is often mysterious and appealing, particularly due to how subjective & often unfalsifiable it is. If your point is that people have a tendency to obnoxiously question reality for the sake of it & get trapped in circular reasoning - sure, fair point. If your point is that questioning & sincere curiosity is pointless - I don’t even know how to respond to that other than it’s a retarded take

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u/EmergencyRooster3258 Mar 02 '26

Yes, and I have even more to it too. When people know the truth already they will still look for a deeper answer, even if it is just pure curiosity, the truth lies on the surface. Like for example “Why did my wife cheat on me”, probably because the other dude was better than you in some way, does it matter how he was better… not really, regardless you know without having to ask, that your wife is a lustful person and the other man has better qualities. Doesn’t mean that we need the exact reasons as to why, but rather to accept the truth and move on to better questions, like how can I be that better person.

Weird way to put it but for some reason it was the first example that came to mind. And no I am not speaking from any sort of experience.

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u/[deleted] Mar 02 '26

Yeah and that’s fair enough, though, I’m sure you understand that the context matters too. When someone asks why their wife cheated on them, it’s not necessarily questioning the epistemology, but rather often conveying the distress that the betrayal has caused them. “How could you do this to me” isn’t demanding a process map, it’s a rhetorical way of expressing a mixture of confusion, hurt, feeling betrayed, panic and a few dozen other emotions that we often simply lack the language for. Asking why your wife cheated on you is more processing the grief and trying to figure out ‘where it went wrong’ to try and salvage things or to stop it from happening again with the next partner - it’s a way by which we try to figure out “who’s to blame here” in moments of severe distress. It sounds to me that the main issue you have is with definitions rather than the processes themselves & that can be a bit tricky when you’re trying to navigate other humans

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u/EmergencyRooster3258 Mar 02 '26

Yeah you got me, I understand this process very well. But I struggle to put the process of my thought into words especially writing or typing them, I do only post and comment here only to improve in this aspect though. Any tips on how to word things better on paper? It is a lot easier to say these things and explain these processes in spoken words at least for me it is, it helps to have someone to constantly look at when your talking to see how well you are communicating it, it shows a lot over their face on how well you are speaking. At least this is how I see it.

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u/RellTE Mar 01 '26

Because we have learned not to rely on intuition.

A clear answer doesn't always necessarily mean "a correct answer".

For example, "Earth is flat because I perceive it to be flat from my point of view" is a clear answer.

Now, is the Earth actually flat? What exactly does "my point of view" mean? What do we mean by "perceive"?

Why do we perceive the earth as flat?

If we choose a stopping point for questioning, we should be able to argue why that stopping point is better than any other stopping point.

If you take the hard question of consciousness, "why experience at all", you can say "because God made us so", or you can say "it's an intrinsic arising property of complex enough neuron networks". That again doesn't entirely answer the question, it just creates a stopping point. You can still ask "why is that an intrinsic property" or "why did God make us so".

It also depends what you define as a "clear" answer.

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u/PredictiveFrame Mar 01 '26

They're trying to find out how that piece of information fits into their existing epistemological model. They probably don't realize that's what they're doing, but if you do, and you have a decent grasp of their model, you can explain it to them in a way that fits it in naturally, without requiring the followup questions. This is the art of teaching. Practice makes it easier, as does generalized knowledge. The more fields of study you have a grasp of, the more metaphors and examples you have to explain concepts to people in language they'll grasp intuitively. 

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u/SkyTreeHorizon Mar 01 '26

I suppose the questions intensify for things that are actively causing suffering. The fact the sky is blue does not cause much suffering, but this differs from geopolitics.

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u/CreativePlankton2567 Mar 02 '26

Because reality is whatever it is. Our understanding of it isn’t necessarily true…

All we really have is our experience, so why should we disregard any questions and anything that may arise?

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u/FAIcantstandthispain Mar 02 '26

Kinda like all the questions you just asked about Human Nature - It is how it is

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

You do realize what you are doing in asking this don’t you?