menotyou

What makes you think there's an answer to WHY? Or that there is a "true nature of things"?

"When you have 6 protons in an atom you always get a predictable set of properties. It's not random...there has to be a reason. Cause and effect dictates that given an effect (an objects properties), there must be a cause."

Are you a believer in Intelligent Design, perchance?

I mean, I guess ultimately the question is whether you a. believe in a prime mover, and b. believe that it is possible for us to know that for sure.

But still, it seems to me that WHY questions are generally either different ways of getting at HOW questions - "Why does this thing work the way it does? Because of the following features it has" - or are totally unanswerable.

I mean, to go with what you're saying above, here's an example - why does a barbie have blond hair? You can answer this in several ways:

a. Because she was made that way (the God answer)
(but why was she made that way? because of the whimsical desires of her maker. but why did the maker have whimsical desires? - the ad infinitum follow up)
b. Because she is the appearance of the Form of Barbie on our Earth. (Plato answer)
c. Because at the time of her original creation, blond hair was a cultural symbol of sexiness, (insert anthropological sort of explanation here) - this is an example, I think, of a kind of how answer to a why question, in that it gives you more facts about something, particularly its function and/or point of origin, or to really boil it down, a more elaborate description of the object, to answer your why question.

But if you're just driving at some general kind of existential angst, like OMG the world is so beautiful and complex and amazing but has all these crazy patterns whyyyyyy?
Then yeah, I'm gonna posit that the only answer that can fully cover it is God, or something along those lines.

Oh, I guess there's another approach, which would be the Heidegger route, which goes something like "Indeed, why IS the question, the question of BEING, which philosophers have been ignoring for ages and which man is the only creature who asks, meaning that he has a priviledged relationship to BEING". You might dig it. Check out his Letter on Humanism for a brief intro to the stuff, if you're not familiar with it already.

That's how I felt when my little sister had her kid.

And thank you for the site! The studying shall commence!

it's just a joint training exercise in the French and Dutch Anitillies islands in the Carribean. mostly just an international game running around "bang! yur dead! I got you!"
"nuh-uh! noyewdint!"

it'll be mostly fun.

Ya grifter, you.

I'm going to Vegas in August....I hope I am as fortunate as you.

HOOKERS!

Rainer Maria is teh suck, dude.

^ -wowzers.

Just eat your apple and shut up!

Simple Pattern Recognition - without historical data there can be no pattern recognition.

Pfffffff. Who cares.

So I was thinking of rounding up all those fucking illegal aliens and putting them into what I'll call "Shitty" camps. They could dig really big holes and take special showers.

Meh, I think the test counts for a lot less than people think - your statement of purpose and letters of recommendation are ultimately a lot more meaningful, I think. What kinds of programs are you applying to?
And how'd it go?

the general test right? Thats a bitch ... I did it a few months back

edited to replace I with a (in thats a bitch)

[Edited on Apr 09, 2006 11:12AM]

Canada is not a nuclear state. They could be if they wanted to, but they don't want to. They used to have some bombs on loan from us courtesy of some NATO pact, but they gave them back.

And no, I have never encountered a helpful cop.

the second bit about canada made me laugh.

um can't think of a cop having helped me out

Poetry.

i had to get the answer off someone else but then im retarded like that

Daniel Dennett would disagree...

There's a good book summarizing these kinds of debates, Searle's The Mystery of Consciousness, or something along those lines. It's a good read.

Yeah, it's really on consciousness, and trying to understand how it works, what it is, etc. There are some, like Dennett, who say that it's like a side-effect generated by biological processes, and if we just knew enough about brain chemicals, we'd see how it worked. Basically, that the idea of a mind/brain split if an illusion. There are others who disagree. It's a good introduction to several different views on it, and an enjoyable book.