Why? Progressing towards Wisdom

As mentioned in my last post, the "why" of any particular thing is not as clear as the "how." But alas, the questioning of existence is what philosophy is built upon.  A "scientist" can find the "how" and get to know the facts, but a philosopher can search for a lifetime and die in his ignorance.

Sometimes, though, scientists can make logical assumptions and come up with the most probable reason for a phenomenon.  It has been assumed that people have taste receptors for "sweetness" for the collection of sugars to get the energy their body needs to operate.  Likewise, it is assumed we have "salty" taste buds to detect the sodium needed for a proper electrolyte balance in our blood.  "Bitter" and "sour" tastes can be assumed to tell our ancient ancestors whether food was ripened or rotten.  These are not things we can "know" with certainty, but they do make sense to most of us.

The old "survival of the fittest" dogma perpetuates the assumptions upon which much of modern science is based.  This can be applied to plants that are usually "bitter" to the taste.  They contain chemicals that are fatal to insects--and often to larger lifeforms.  Any attempt to eat the leaves or fruit is unpleasant to those foraging for food.  If the warning from the taste is ignored, the offender might even die, assuring that other of the species sought for food will not be so assaulted.

Cause and affect often works out in such a way that the reason becomes apparent retrospectively.  This is where "knowledge" leads to wisdom.  The more we know, the better we are able to discern the reason things happen.  Once we discern the correlations, we can avoid mistakes that may alter our lives so as to provide a better quality of life.  Among scientists, experimentation is based on making assumptions and then testing cause and effect to verify them.

We may never know the ultimate reason behind the way things are, but the more we try to find out, the more discerning we can become.  As we become smarter, it is hoped that we can become wiser.  However, there are no guarantees.

So What Do I Know?

I don't know as much as I wish I did.

Probability can only get you close to Reason.

I can never know enough; and I doubt anyone can.

To Start With ...

Everything has a cause.  This is not the same as saying everything has a reason, though, in the strictest sense, that is also true.  It is not often easy to determine the "why," but he "how" is pretty much clear if one digs deep enough.

That brings me into "controversy" for two blogs in a row!  Let's be honest: controversy gets more viewers.  But that does not deter me from stating unequivocally that there are some things that are true anyway, no matter if other people don't think so.

Professional scientists spend a lot of time researching "cause and effect" to determine ways to prevent certain things from happening by addressing the cause.  In medicine, this means testing to find the malady behind the symptoms.  Once the cause is found, the symptoms can be treated with confidence.  In many cases, the cause can be eliminated or repaired, thus curing the patient.

Other times, though, the search for a cause leads to unwanted conclusions.  That is the predicament of secular science when it comes to "origins." Not wanting to be persuaded by the argument that there must be a "First Cause," which philosophers of old called "God," they choose what seems to me to be illogical: chance.   That is, they believe that all that exists came by some sort of cosmic accident.

The old "constant state" theory had proven too unreasonable, giving rise to modern "creation myths" about everything coming about from a spontaneous eruption of what some even call "nothing" or "nothingness."  The later is a state of nonexistence.  What caused it to happen?  Happenstance is the only thing they can come up with. "It just happened."

Again, I don't have the intelligence--or imagination--of such cerebral giants as Stephen Hawkins, or even Richard Dawkins, so I have to depend upon ancient wisdom that cannot be measured in intellect.  To me, the truth is what we all know instinctively--someone, or something, caused things to come to pass.  To me, the first words of Genesis state it simply: B'reshi bara.  In the Hebrew, the action comes before the actor.  One then reads the next word to determine who was acting.

Literally, "At first, He created."  Who did this? The word describing the Actor in this case is Elohim. That word comes from the root for "Strength." He who we call "God" had to be powerful enough for the task.  In literal "words in stone" the Fourth Commandment confirms that the One who did this was the One Who Is.  The One powerful enough to create the universe was, and  is in a "constant state."  The Creator is that First Cause to which all things are the "effect."

So What Do I Know?

I know there was a "First" Cause.

That First Cause was powerful far beyond comprehension.

Where I came from

Trying to stay neutral on controversial subjects is hard when the "other side" insists on denying basic logic and reason.  It is not hard to see that every living thing comes from other living things.  And not just any living thing.  Each living thing comes from a genetic combination from its parents.  Period.  There can be no exception.

Microbes come from microbes of the very same kind of microbe. Every.Single.Time.  Occasionally, there will have been a unexpected change in the genetic material passed on from the parent organism or organisms, but the change never changes, let's say, a virus into a bacterium.  It is the same way all the way up the "food chain" to humans.  Most of the time, though, the changes are predictable if you know enough about the parents.

The key is in a hierarchy among the genes.  Some are dominant and some are waiting to join up with genes that are like them before they make their appearance in the next generation.  These genes are the "recessive" ones.  For example, I have blue eyes though my dad had brown eyes.  My mom has a mix of pigment that showed her dad's blue eyes (giving her "hazel" eyes). Three of the six of their children had blue eyes, demonstrating that our father had recessive genes for making blue eyes (from one of his parents).

I am an amateur genealogist, and I like to try to trace who came before me in the "chain of life."  No matter how far back in history I might go, I find humans.  There was never a time when a non-human mated with a human to make a human.  It is even more strange to consider how two non-human creatures could produce a human.

Starting with myself, I need only go back 20 generations of unique individuals to reach 2,048,576 ancestors.  Though I have some ancestors in parts of Europe, it is no consequence that the estimated population of the primary country of origin (England) in 1417 was somewhere around two million.  It is just the way it is.  It makes sense.  Everyone knows this kind of thing must be true.

But yet, those who hold PhD's in big universities teach that the chain goes back into the "deep" past to allow the rules to have changed along the way.  They say that all living things, including plants, had a common ancestor that very gradually made the rules up as generations piled up over the years.  They say some of the virus-type things produced fungi and bacteria which eventually produced parallel lines of algea and insect-like things.  From these family lines, they say, came every plant and animal that has ever been.

If they are honest, they use qualifiers like "evidently," "probably" and the like.  They step out on a limb and declare that these things "must have" happened.  Who am I to question them?  Perhaps I just have not seen enough evidence.  Surely there are billions of transitional fossils to prove that the rules have changed over the years.  Well, aren't there?

So What Do I Know?

Biological lifeforms all come from parents. There is no known exception.

Natural laws of propagation assure that the next generation will pass traits on to the next.